April 24, 2009

Fun gig at Edinboro this evening, while dedicated students walked ’round and ’round  in laps around a track in front of us to raise money for the American Cancer Society. We donated our time + $200 from the SoundRabbit Backstage Community (you!), so thanks for your support! We opened the set with ‘Life During Wartime,’ which was a first (it’s usually a set closer or late/mid set). We also played ‘Marula Binge’ for the first time on the tour. ‘View From Way Up Here’ is becoming one of the strongest songs in the set… Anton is absolutely killing it in the middle jam 6/8 part. Solid again today.

load-in at Edinboro

loading out at Edinboro

fred. tables. trailer.

We’re driving east on I-90 right now, somewhere between Buffalo and Syracuse, New York, where we plan to spend the night. That will leave us about a 2.5 hour drive tomorrow to load in at 1:30pm EST at St Lawrence University. There’s a pretty nasty lightning storm happening up ahead of us, and it’s pitch black dark right now, so it’s quite a cool display for us. The whole sky is lighting up about every minute or so. First non-clear weather we’ve seen on this trip.

We’ve been cruising at around 70-80mph the whole way across the country… but the lovely state of New York has a 55 mile per hour speed limit, statewide. How ridiculous. I feel like I’ve been transported back in time about 15 years (maybe more). They also have tolls… frequently… with slow-moving people handing out tickets. I wonder if New Yorkers visit Colorado and think that they’ve been transported to 2084, with our machine-delivered toll tickets and 75mph speed limits.

Anton’s got a super nice camera, and he’s sitting in the bench row in front of me right now, going through his pics from the tour so far… the pics look incredible. He’s going to throw them on a thumb drive for me to upload here to the Road Journal. It will supplement the pics you’ve seen so far… a different angle on things.

Fred’s playing DJ right now in the passenger seat (Jason’s driving, Beers is sleeping in the way back bench row)… we’re listening to a combination of NPR “All Songs Considered” podcasts and other stuff (The Cure is playing right now).

Had a big dinner at McDonald’s tonight. We don’t typically stop there… but it was our only non-sit-down-fancy option at the pulloff. The German food earlier was definitely the culinary highlight for today (no offense, McFlurry!).

Another fun fact: we’ve heard The Fray played at 3 out of 4 establishments on this trip. They were being played at the venue in Columbus last night before our set… at the restaurant where we got sandwiches in Columbus… at a packed bar/club that we walked by in Columbus… at the German Restaurant when we were eating (before he put our CD on)… and at McDonald’s in Buffalo. No comment.

Going to sign off and give my eyes a rest for a bit… I’ll get Anton’s photos up here as soon as possible, maybe tonight from the hotel room (though if there’s a pool at the hotel, we’re all planning on taking a dip for much of the evening).

Hasta for now…

Had a great pit stop at the Rock ‘n Roll Hall Of Fame. They’ve got some great museum items there, some of my favorites being

• the original notebook paper with the handwritten lyrics to “In My Life” by John Lennon
• the actual tape machine used by the Beatles to record the “seargent peppers” album
• original crayon drawings made by Jimi Hendrix when he was a little kid
• harmonicas and schnazzy suits from Stevie Wonder’s closet
• the acoustic guitar played by Eric Clapton in the “Unplugged” session
• the actual jacket and ‘wolf’ mask worn by Michael Jackson in the “Thriller” video

And the best part? We were at the counter paying for our tickets when we first got there, and the total came to $122 (plus parking)… we were in the process of paying, and the woman asked what we were doing in Cleveland. I told her we were on tour, and she said, “well then it’s free for you to get in! you just need to give us a copy of your latest album.” So I ran to the van and got a copy of TTA, and she took it, saying that their policy is to let bands in for free so long as they give a copy of a legitimately produced album… and the Hall of Fame keeps that album in their archive in case the band is ever inducted… the museum can then say that they have an “original early work,” etc. Awesome.

After the Hall of Fame, we hit the road and stopped for some authentic German food (peppered chicken sauce poured over mashed potatoes with soft fluffy white bread and butter… mmm) at a little cafe in Willoughby, Ohio… about 20 miles outside of Cleveland. The proprietor, John, came over and sat down with us for our entire lunch, talking about his home country (Germany), about living in Salt Lake City and how he loves Colorado, and about how he wants us to come back sometime and play a show in the parking lot of his cafe. We gave him a CD at the end of lunch and he put it on the house music system, and it was still playing when we walked out the door to the car. Great guy, great food, great break from the road.

We’re now driving in Pennsylvania. We should be at Edinboro University in about 15 minutes, in time to load in, soundcheck, and play the show right on time. We’re going to drive another 2-3 hours tonight after the gig, to knock off some of the distance to upstate New York where we play with Keller Williams tomorrow night.

Here are some photos from today from Fred’s camera:

outside the hotel – spring has sprung

gas station office

outside the hotel this morning – blue skies

outside the hotel

draining the cooler (old ice water = mold = bad times)

leprechaun house

leprechaun

anton the photog at the rock ‘n roll hall of fame

r ‘n r hall of fame

cleveland indians’ home, lake erie, big boat

cleveland downtown

cruising

george harrison eyeball

the ramones

neil young artwork

anton + fred @ r ‘n r hall of fame

anton ready for his induction

glass

glass

glass

boss

I also just added a couple of photos to the post-Columbus-show entry below… the 2:45am one.

Catch y’all with another update after the show…

Greetings from Cleveland (Rocks!) Ohio on the shores of Lake Erie (which we’re staring at right now). We’re coming in to the city right now on Hwy 71. Absolutely gorgeous sunny day, nice breeze blowing through the van, and we all had a good night’s sleep last night in Columbus. Felt good to wake up at 9:30am. Fred and I (Russ) have to share a bed in the hotel rooms because we’ve known eachother longest (going on 16 years now)… touring with 5 people is a big jump from touring with 4. A whole new comfort level.

So… we’re heading to the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland to walk around for an hour or so before heading on to Pennsylvania and Edinboro University. Should be about a 2 hour drive to Edinboro from Cleveland, so all in all an easy day.

More updates later, my computer battery is about to konk out on me… I’ve got pics to post from yesterday and today, so check back latah… hasta.

Had a great show in Columbus tonight, though a bit short because we ran super late getting here. We were supposed to play from 9 to 11pm, but we didn’t even arrive until 9pm, so it ended up being about an hour long show. Fred will post the setlist to the forums here in the van on the way to Pennsylvania later.

We got prime parking next to the venue again, though we had to move a port-o-potty to get it. Fred and I were bracing it and keeping it vertical while Anton bumped it forward with the van, foot by foot (eventually moving it about 25 feet). That could have been a very nasty update to the Backstage (photos included)… but luckily we kept it vertical and got our prime placement for the van.

The venue staff really dug the set and asked us to come back in the fall, so we’ll probably make that happen. We grabbed some sandwiches downtown and took a walk for a few blocks, checking out the OSU campus and High Street (the main drag). After grabbing the bite, we headed over here to the hotel, a lovely Best Western near the airport in Columbus.

I’m going to sign off and catch some zzz’s, as I’m the last one to go to sleep as usual and I’m literally dizzy from the long day… but no form of ‘dizzy’ I’d rather be… doing our jobs as musicians – driving, carrying stuff, playing music, carrying stuff out, driving… rinse and repeat.

We’re going to hit up the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland on our way to Pennsylvania. Beers has been there, but no one else, so it should be fun. Pictures will be posted here for sure…

Oh, and we were run off the road earlier (after the post below) by a semi truck while trying to merge onto the freeway. Jason luckily kept us all alive… but we literally went off the freeway and bounced the trailer tires through mud puddles and dirt off the shoulder of the highway… then made our way back onto the concrete. We didn’t have an “Almost Famous” moment… no one confessed any transgressions (not aloud, anyway).

Hasta for now… bed.