Editors Note: We enjoyed the tour diaries J. Tom Hnatow wrote for us as part of These United States’ last tour, so we asked him if he wouldn’t mind doing it again as the band embark on their first ever intercontinental tour of the UK and Europe. He graciously agreed. Look for his dispatches from the road abroad over the next few weeks.

Checking my pockets every ten seconds for passport, work permit, wallet, boarding pass through check in –- taking off/putting on shoes, sounds echoing off the vaulted ceiling, under harsh fluorescent lights. Holding our instruments close.

And then, emerging into another world, into the plane and the dark. The runway lights stretch out forever. Then…the engines roar, the houses and cars shrink into the night, the nose of the Airbus points west, and we are 40,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean.

The plot outline: Three of us — Jesse, me, Mark. Starting and ending in London, a three week tour through Europe – a week in the UK, a week on the mainland, then a final jaunt around the UK. For this tour, These United States will be a trio — Jesse on acoustic and electric guitar, me on those same guitars, banjo, and lap steel, and Mark on bass and bass case (we’re putting a mic in the case and having him stomp on it for percussive effects). This is a joint tour. Mark will be playing solo sets under his folksy nom de guerre Vandaveer, and I’ll be accompanying him. Jesse, clearly the smart one, will be the only one with a whole set off.

The ocean stretches out blackly underneath us and the stars are joined by the ‘no smoking’ lights reflected in the plane’s windows. I take one last look at the UK work permit — occupation “musician” — and head off to sleep.

Photo by Kyle Gustafson