April 26, 2008

Just pulled up and parked in front of the Bull & Bear, our gig for the night. It’s a rainy, cool night here… raining cats and dogs, but it’s somewhat refreshing for us. We haven’t seen rain since we passed through this part of the country Eastbound last week. Might hurt the walk-in crowd a bit tonight, but we’ll have fun regardless of how full the room may be. Going to grab some dinner here and load in… catch you after the show. I think I’m driving the late night (2am-7am) shift, so we may not have an update until I’m back in the backseat of the van.

Howdy from the van. We’re cruising westbound on I-90, headed for Syracuse, NY. Just drove by Anton’s dad’s place, and we’re fairly close to the New York border.

We’ll play at the Bull & Bear pub tonight in downtown Syracuse, and we hope to be pulling out of town by 2am so we can make good time to Des Moines.

This morning I woke up and watched candlepin bowling for an hour or so. It rules. I’ve talked for a while about opening a candlepin bowling alley in Colorado, as a side thing. I think it would be pretty popular. Totally different approach to bowling:

I’ve spent this morning and the last hour or so adding photos to the Road Journal here, so scroll down and go back through the older posts to see them now with photos added. I should have the last of the pics up there over the next 30-40 minutes. It’s been an awesome tour, met a ton of great people, played some great rooms, and enjoying the changing scenery. It’s amazing to just be able to “take in” life on these trips… observing people doing their usual routine in the concrete jungle of New York City or by the ocean in Portland, Maine or in the plains of Nebraska. It’s a really small world (and an even smaller country), and jumping into their lives for a couple of hours, giving them something new to hear… before heading on to the next new group of people in a different place. The road thing isn’t for everyone, but man – I, for one, LOVE it (this is Russ, by the way). We’re here in the 9th day of driving in this big red van and I’m not remotely sick of it. I’ll write the rest of those thoughts in my blog and keep this thing band-focused.  🙂   We’ll give another update from Syracuse when we get there… the scenery right now is gorgeous and I’d like to stop staring at the computer screen for a bit. We’re just passing through the Berkshires and rolling woods of western MA/eastern NY… beautiful colors and a nice 70-degree breeze blowing through the open windows of the van.

Had a great show in Portland, just about to hit the rack for the night here in Massachusetts. We’ve got a long day ahead of us in Syracuse, ending in Des Moines 48 hour from now, so we’re getting a good night’s sleep tonight.The owners of North Star Music Cafe where we played tonight are unreal… we’re already booking our return trip for October ’08, to play this stage again. We even had people dancing the tango to our music, which was a first. Here are those same people in action on YouTube… a Portland tango group with some showdates outside the state on occasion. Now we’re back at the Inn in Massachusetts, catching one last night of good zzz’s before a long weekend of driving and gigging across the midwest. Looks like the weather is going to be crap for our drive, too… severe t-storms in upstate New York and the midwest as we make our way across. Fun times. Hopefully we’ll be able to make it to Des Moines in time for our gig at Java Joe’s on Sunday night. Time to snooze here… more later today!