iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Sean | Drowned in Sound

Drowned in Sound @index.www.drownedinsound.org.ap.brid.gy · 27/09/2026

Emma Wilkes asks - if one of the biggest popstars in the world is struggling, what must it be like for everyone else?

Burnout is not brat: Charli xcx’s struggles with touring are just the tip of the iceberg

Being a 365 touring girl is not the way Charli xcx wants to live her life. Upon confirming the dates for the UK and US legs of the tour supporting her new album _Music, Fashion, Film_ , fans in the comments lined up to express – with differing levels of politeness – the disappointment they felt that she wasn’t playing nearer for them. In the UK and Europe, she’s only playing six shows next January, in Dublin, Glasgow, Manchester, London, Paris and Amsterdam. Interestingly, for that run, she’s never on stage two nights in a row. “I know there’s a lot of frustration in the comments about the fact that I am not doing lots of dates. I am really sorry if you feel disappointed but I have to honor my truth as an artist: touring is really emotionally and physically hard for me,” Charli admitted in the Instagram comments later. “I am not looking for sympathy and I have a huge amount of respect for artists who can handle it at an intense, lengthy and high octane level, but I am just not one of those human beings and I never have been,” she continued. “I’m sorry if you feel I am letting you down; I really am. Perhaps one day I will be built for the kind of touring you expect from me but right now I am not. If you’re coming to a show I hope you have fun and enjoy it, and I will try my best to stay in a healthy and positive mindset and enjoy it too.” She’s not been the only one to speak up about the toll touring can take either. Harry Styles cited that preserving his wellbeing was a factor in him pivoting towards residency shows for his Together, Together touring cycle: “I think there's something in this that allows me to stay in my life while I'm doing it,” he reasoned, “and therefore allows me to take care of myself better, which I think makes me better at doing the thing.” He also wanted to make life easier for his touring crew, who now had families back home. The transparency, of course, is admirable. It’s crucial, even, especially if the general public has only a fuzzy perception of exactly what the life of a touring artist looks like, which can mean that misinformation and parasocial hysteria creeps in. There’s no one universal picture, but it goes without saying that the 22-23 hours of the day when an artist isn’t performing aren’t exactly all cushy. At the same time, the conversation is being led of late by the biggest touring artists in the world. While their emotional and physical difficulties are, of course, extremely real, they make these points from a place of privilege. They’ll be sleeping in hotel rooms instead of vans or floors, they’ll have a greater level of comfort and artists of that level may also be able to bring their partners or families with them. To some extent, they can buy back some bandwidth, if finances are less of a problem and it means they can space out shows some more. Not every artist can play residencies like Styles, or like Ariana Grande, who also recently played a residency at The O2, and the other drawback is they shift the costs from artist to fan, given they have to travel further (and rack up greater emissions) and potentially find overnight accommodation. Charli’s perspective does, however, represent a tip-of-the-iceberg situation. If she’s struggling at the astronomical level she’s at, then what about the artists further down the pecking order? What about the crew members, managers, merch sellers and other members of a touring party who will feel these struggles just as acutely? Travelling is draining, it’s harder to stay healthy – and flying is also particularly taxing for the voice – and the conditions are far from luxurious. “At this small level, it’s a blessing when you find a decent meal,” explains Linda Battilani of Halflives. “I get genuinely excited knowing there’s catering or a decent buyout sum to get something proper to eat without spending our own money, or just having a clean and warm shower. It means accepting living as if you literally are a homeless person sometimes, because you’d do everything just to play your shows. It has happened more than once that we’d come back from a 3-week tour where more than one of us lost a few kilograms. of the time, it’s hard to even break even, and it’s very easy to end a tour in the red.” Music might be loud, it doesn’t mean your head will go quiet. Life rolls on in the background, and I’ve seen musicians in various capacities discuss the strangeness of processing everything from bereavement to their own recent suicide attempt while still having to tour. It becomes even more testing during festival season, with hours-long drives and border checks separating shows, with limited time to set up and play. For some artists, all of that is compounded by the added complications that can come with disability, chronic illness, neurodivergence or all of the above. “As a late-diagnosed autistic person with the dynamic duo of depression and anxiety under their belt, a lot of my struggles with touring are intrinsically linked with said conditions,” explains Conjurer’s Dani Nightingale, who spoke to us last year around the release of the band’s album Unself. “Things like a diminished social battery, the stress of travel, the overwhelm of a gig environment, the pressure of performing, and the unique situation of unpredictability being the only predictable thing about tour can all contribute to unpleasant and damaging occurrences such as meltdowns or shutdowns. “That said, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that most people would struggle with these things, regardless of neurotype,” they continue. “Even if you’re nomadic, falling asleep in one country and waking up in a completely different one can throw you for a loop when it happens day after day. Even if you love the hustle and bustle of it all, it’s not the holiday that a lot of people think it is; it’s essentially another job, commonly underpaid or unpaid, for longer than usual hours and often in suboptimal conditions.” For a small-to-medium touring artist, the demands are even more relentless. There have been times I’ve seen certain bands’ touring schedules and wondered how they’d survive it. Worse still, thanks to soaring costs, merch cuts and everything in between, these tours are money sinks. On a recent episode of music business podcast The Money Trench, booking agent Alex Bruford estimated that a tour to audiences of even 1,000-2,000 a night could make a loss of £30,000. As with any profession, the less you earn, the harder you work. “It’s so hard physically, financially and mentally. Less shows means better performances so I get why she’s doing it,” says Nina Saedi, frontwoman of prog-doom band Lowen. “If there was more support for musicians and the arts by the government and we had a more European model in places like the UK and America for smaller artists then the live scene would be so different - and a lot more profitable for everyone involved.” Fortunately, a couple of major artists have stepped in to help. Olivia Rodrigo is known for providing free therapy to her whole touring party, while Radiohead’s Philip Selway is supporting a new project called the Pay It Forward Fund, set up by Tamsin Embleton and the Music Industry Therapist Collective, to provide mental health support for musicians and crews on smaller tours. “You’re expected to get your head down and get on with it, but it can mean times when you’re not necessarily looking after yourself physically and you can feel very isolated,” Selway wrote in The Guardian last week. “There’s an emotional and geographical displacement in moving from place to place and living on top of each other. There’s the sound check, the gig, meeting people afterwards, anxiety that some people guiding you may not have your best interests at heart. You can feel really vulnerable, and there’s no way of getting off that roundabout until you get home. It’s difficult to talk about because nobody wants to rock the boat, and other people might be going through the same thing, so you don’t want to burden them.” These initiatives, of course, can be invaluable, especially in an industry where almost a third of those involved in it report experiencing poor mental wellbeing, which is especially acute for those at the start of their careers). Chiefly, however, this is a systemic problem. With the current precarity and poor financial return of the music industry, this is a system where we all lose, whether on stage, backstage or watching the stage. Talk might be valuable, but it cannot resurface the foundations of an industry that has been broken for a long, long time. It’s the love of the game that keeps artists piling into their van time after time. “Being in a band like ours and doing it on a pot noodle sized budget is unglamorous – there’s nothing rock ‘n’ roll about ‘rock ‘n’ roll’,” says Matt Sutton of industrial band Tayne. “It can feel like a grind for sure when you’ve got such small fees coming in to barely pay the logistics of it all. You really have to love it to do it, which I absolutely do. It’s one of the craziest adventures I’ve ever experienced.” “Much has been said about performing live being like a drug, an unbeatable high, and it’s absolutely true in all the best and worst ways,” Nightingale adds. “It’s a rush like no other but it comes at a cost, sometimes against our better judgement and at the expense of our health. The balancing act of following your dreams, going out on the road for weeks or months on end, trying to break through and make ends meet, all while keeping on top of your commitments and relationships back home is a damn tricky one that can have devastating consequences. People succumbing to addiction, having partners leave them, burning out, falling out of love with something you’ve spent your whole life chasing, and the financial issues that can come with all of that is enough to put any sane person off this lifestyle. Yet we risk it all anyway.” Some of this might be part of the territory, but the resounding feeling must be that there has to be a better way for people to do what they love. Enjoy this? Please consider upgrading to support our independent journalism Learn more

023