Terror and Devotion: Kim Longacre’s 1984 Tour Diary

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In the Fall of 1984, the Reivers embarked on their first tour. The band was young, all in their early 20’s, and this was the first concert tour most of them had ever done.  Playing in a series of clubs from Texas up through the Eastern U.S., it was a life changing experience for them in many ways.  It was the beginning of a six year recording and touring odyssey that would leave the band and their fans with fond memories and some great music.

Kim Longacre recently found a diary/journal she kept during that early tour, and she’s snapped photos of the pages to share them with us here on the website.  Here’s what Kim has to say, looking back now:

Let me introduce you to the twenty-three year old version of myself. I haven’t seen her in a LONG time. I didn’t know her very well back then so it is pretty fun to read her diary for the first time in 30 years. I had forgotten what it felt like to not know what being on the road would do to me.

It isn’t as though I don’t remember touring – I do. I remember Zeitgeist’s first tour, especially. Traveling across the country in the brown station wagon- we called it The Stay-wag, which was kind of prophetic, as it preferred staying to going. I tell stories about it to my children when they face a roadblock; I have examples of hardship and ingenuity that include stories about sleeping on the side of the road or on stranger’s floors, traveling for weeks with one change of clothes, getting a flat tire and having a radiator blow-up before reaching Georgetown (a town just North of Austin)…When I told Rob, the creator of this website, about finding this diary, I think I described that tour as one of terror and devotion. I can only hope when my children step off the edge of the familiar, they’re linked arm and arm with people they wouldn’t dream of letting go.

Reading this diary- which I admit, made me wince many times for that naive child’s robust admiration of everything – it did remind me that I’d never seen kudzu before; you could hide a body in Mississippi – no problem.

[Diary starts on Day 2, because as Kim says, she must have been meaning to come back to Day 1 and write something at the time, but never got around to it.  The same goes for the last entry seeming to end abruptly.]

Start reading here
Diary – First Page