(Credits: Far Out / Spotify)
Sun 21 September 2025 17:30, UK
Going on tour is tough, but it’s not really something you can fully grasp unless you’ve done it yourself. The wide-open road, the measly food options, the 3am border control stops, the sleepless nights, the endless booze feasts. It takes a certain kind of person to get through all of that with a smile on their face, and Steely Dan weren’t quite up for the challenge.
When I interview most bands, they’ll gush about the pull of performing live, hearing their songs sung back to them, the endless joy of feeling their music touch other lives that trail off into the night, after the curtains fall, to take that joy onwards. Those with a penchant for the hyperbolic claim it’s like a religious experience; most just look wistful, eyes caught on some far-off memory of an unrepeatable, indescribable feeling.
It takes one sentence on my end, a slight nudge, for the facade to come tumbling now. No, they say in unison, touring isn’t all it’s made up to be. It’s exhausting. We argue all the time. The nights are long and the days longer. You don’t really get to know a place; you are cursed instead to meander along the highways and call it sightseeing.
Steely Dan’s first tour, in late 1972, didn’t get off on the right foot. It was an event forced by their label, ABC Records. In support of their album, Can’t Buy a Thrill, the pair went on to perform in opening slots for more established acts. However, they described themselves as disorganised and not well-rehearsed; we’ll have to take their word for it, as no audio footage from the 1972 and 1973 tours has ever been found.
To be fair to them, Steely Dan knew this life wasn’t for them pretty quickly. In 1981, they announced a hiatus, but they hadn’t performed since 1976. The decision was informed by other things than the formidable spectre of the road, such as the recent overdose death of Walter Becker’s girlfriend, and their punishing recording sessions for Gaucho.
Inevitably, they returned to the road in 1993. From August to October, they played huge venues across America, such as Madison Square Garden in New York and The Spectrum in Philadelphia. They barrelled through an eclectic mix of solo projects and classic Steely Dan fan-favourites. Fans were overjoyed, critics more so, as it received glowing positive reviews from those watching excitedly.
For those on stage, it was a different story. In 1993, the Los Angeles Times plucked up the courage to ask Becker just how the tour was going, he replied in a voice dripping with disdain: “Well, not too good. It turns out that show business isn’t really in my blood anyway, and I’m looking forward to getting back to working on my car.”
Tinkering beneath the bonnet of a greasy beast was a better pastime than six weeks on the road, Becker insisted. However, my own experience of automobiles is limited to a short stint as a receptionist for a Vauxhall dealership that was quickly running to the ground, which says it all, really. Even Steely Dan know their own limits. Now pass me that wrench.
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