Follow One Man in the Band

Life on the road for a one-man band means packing up your instruments and merchandise and dragging it across the country to the next engagement. You are your own tour manager, roadie, technician.

Touring is the only practical way to promote yourself as a one-man band. Who wants to pour money into PR to promote yourself as the latest one-hit wonder? Better to get on the road and find your audience directly. And the best thing about being a one-man band is that this is a viable prospect. One train ticket is all you need and you won't end up having arguments about the smell of the drummer's socks.

This financial imperative to tour gives a peculiar rhythm to the life of a one-man band: long periods of boredom interspersed by the brief, intense highs of perfomance. Perhaps this is a metaphor for life in general... stretches of banality interrupted by orgasmic euphoria that makes it all worthwhile.

The pictures in this gallery were taken by Adam Clitheroe during and after the shooting of One Man in the Band, capturing the essence of music making at its most heartfelt, raw and extreme.