October 22, 2010

Greetings from our Marriott hotel in Grand Forks. We’ve ordered a pizza to be delivered to the lobby and we’re all just hanging out and chatting about the show tonight. As mentioned earlier, this was our furthest-north-gig in our short history. We’re further north than the most northern point in Maine. Interesting. We found the University of North Dakota kids to be AWESOME. We played on a stage they call the “Loading Dock,” with the house sound provided, and a modest lighting rig for Fred to run. They also had a fog machine that smelled like… a fog machine. If you’ve never worked with one of those things, they basically envelope you in a cloud of ‘hot-electrical-wire + dust’ smell. Yummy. Anyway, we had a decent number of kids show up for our first time ever playing there, signed some CD’s and posters, and made some new fans for sure. Our Facebook fan count is already up by a half dozen or so tonight after the show. Yes, we’re only at 255 fans, but dammit we’re proud of each and every new person that we earn. So there.

It was a long day today… so I’ll let the photos (and their captions) tell the rest of the story… catch up with you in the morning from the road back to Nebraska. We’ve got about 9 hours on the road tomorrow, and an early evening show, so we’ll be up early. Hope this pizza comes soon.

Packing up to hit the road from our hotel in Sioux Falls, SD

Leaving the hotel in Sioux Falls, SD
(had to get the Quality Inn sign, as Russ was once employed by them. awesome.)

sometimes on the road, there’s no time (nor need) to pull one’s pants up.

Beers driving the first shift on I-29 northbound to North Dakota

another farmhouse.

it is FLAT up here. crazy flat.

FLAT.

FLAT – with occasional stands of trees.

we arrive at our Marriott in Grand Forks – aka “Jetson’s Home.”

holy Jetsons.

the cool hallway texture.

lobby.

enough pictures of the lobby. let’s go.

elevator paparazzi.

our room for the night.

winky water wankle.

dammit. missed the “miss grand forks” pageant by one day.

fred at dinner. we went to a really nice place (one night each tour, we splurge).

FrAnton comes alive at dinner.

bread. butter.

water. shakers. wood finish.

breakin’ bread at sanders.

Russ’ french onion soup. yumalicious.

din din.

flying frog above our table.

Russ’ prime rib and mashed potatoes (and what are those colorful things? oh. veggies.)

Jay’s classic upper-midwest Walleye dinner.

fred digs the chowdah.

eat.

setting up on stage at the Loading Dock – UND.

fred ponders the setlist.

Wow, what a great night we had last night here in Sioux Falls. Too many stories/anecdotes to share here in a short road journal post, but I’ll cover some of the highlights.

We rolled into Sioux Falls around 4pm, checked into our hotel, and headed straight to the FedEx office, so I could pick up my bag of gear (piano power cables, pedal, tuner pedals, etc.). An important bag, to say the least – and it was sitting at FedEx as scheduled, Good times.

Fred picked up a bad cold somewhere along the trip, so he stayed at the hotel for the night. We were bummed not to have him (especially with the way the night turned out), but he’s feeling better this morning, so it was a good thing that he rested. We headed to the venue, Latitude44, and found it to have a really, really great vibe. Our friends from the road, Jason Spooner and Ryan Montbleau Band, played it a few weeks ago, so we figured it was probably a good spot.

While we were setting up, I chatted with the owner, Cindy, about the Montbleau/Spooner show. As it turns out, her daughter went to Bates College in Maine (Jason Spooner is from Maine), and I told her that Anton had gone there. She flipped and called Anton over, and they had a nice long convo about Lewiston (Maine), Bates, etc. Not a conversation he expected to have in the middle of South Dakota.

After soundcheck, we walked up the street to grab some dinner at a Mexican place. Jay, Beers, and Anton headed over there first, and ended up missing the place, walking a couple of blocks too far. They realized they were lost, and saw a girl walking by herself up the street toward them. Jay asked her if she was a local, and if she knew where Jacky’s Mexican restaurant was. They got to talking and she told them that she was “heading to a show.” Anton said, “At Latitude 44? We’re playing there tonight.” She stopped and said, “wait – you’re not SOUNDRABBIT, are you?! No way.” Haha. I wish I had been there to see the guys’ faces. So as it turns out, she was given a copy of our album, This Room Becomes A Crowd, two years ago by a friend from Colorado Springs. She’s been listening to it since, and was shocked to hear that we were playing up the street from her house in Sioux Falls. Better yet, she’s friends with the guys from Harriet Tweed, who helped us set this show up (we played with them in Madison, Wisconsin six weeks ago and Sioux Falls is their hometown, and we played this show with them). Small, small world.

After dinner, we headed back to the venue to catch Harriet Tweed’s set. It was their first time playing acoustically, so they weren’t sure how it would turn out (they’re usually a heavier punk/rock/funk band). They sounded fantastic, with a totally different take on their songs. The room filled in with people, and we all enjoyed chilling out and watching their show. We took the stage shortly thereafter and were beyond warmly received by the fine people of Sioux Falls. We started off with “View,” and had an explosion of applause at the end of Anton’s solo in the middle jam. Nice to play for a room full of people who are excited to hear new music. We got a great singalong going for “Nightlite,” and played for about an hour and a half. Here’s how the setlist panned out:

View From Way Up Here
From The World I Have Known
Story Of…
Park
Emil
Heat
IIOKYN
Nightlite Jesus
Don
Marula Binge
Lift
ZED
Turn My Egg
Obey –>
Life During Wartime

After the show, we signed CD’s and posters for people, visited with locals (and even a guy from Boulder who was just visiting), packed up and then headed over to Harriet Tweed’s studio space, a few blocks away. It’s in an old office building, a former Attorney’s office. Pretty funny. There are still labels on the doors (“Office of Joe Schmoe, Attorney at Law”) and the upstairs has the feel of a 70’s-style office – but it’s now filled with music gear, beer cans, and musicians hanging out with their friends. Definitely one of those “only on tour” moments, where we were all thinking, “man – I never thought I’d be in a former-Attorney’s-office-turned-band-hangout in Sioux Falls, South Dakota at 2:00am on a Thursday night.” Hehe. They showed us all of their gear, played us some of their new album cuts, and we met the band in the studio next door, a jamband that occasionally gets down to the Denver area. Another great networking connection, and really nice guys.

We stayed at the studio until almost 3am, and then cruised back to our hotel to grab some zzz’s. We’ll definitely make our way back through Sioux Falls (and play at Latitude) again, possibly as early as March when we’re en route to Minneapolis for our scheduled gig and NACA events.

So now we’re packing up in the hotel room here and we’re hitting the road to Grand Forks. It’s about 5 hours directly north from here. We’ll have time to check in to our hotel around 5pm, grab dinner, and load in at the venue on the campus of Univ of North Dakota at 7pm for our 9pm show. Nice, easy schedule. And nice driving weather again today, with blue skies and temps in the 60’s. Woot.

More later from the road or Grand Forks…

Greetings from the van. Pleasant drive today, no news to report, but wanted to check in with y’all. We’re about 20 minutes from Grand Forks (our destination). We stopped in Fargo for gas, but other than that, it’s been a straight drive north up I-29 from Sioux Falls, with zero traffic, blue skies, and flat (FLAT!) land as far as we can see. It actually looks exactly like the northern Netherlands around here (I went there a couple of years ago), minus the canals. Can’t imagine what it would be like to live up here in the winter – pretty bleak and absolutely nothing to do. It’s pretty in its own way – stands of trees like islands in the middle of a sea of rich, dark brown soil and golden, dry corn stalks.

Spoke with the University kids earlier and our hotel’s been upgraded to a Marriott, which is nice. Generally good breakfasts in the morning and nicer rooms. Woot. These college shows are fantastic, because we get a solid 4-figure guarantee for a 1.5 hour show (check in hand when we leave), along with hotel rooms and dinner – and we don’t have to promote or worry about draw; it’s their job to promote the event, run it well, and get kids out. We show up, rock the room, and everything else is taken care of. Pretty nice. Someday we’ll have 10-night shows with 90% college dates and a handful of club shows… for now, we use the college shows as anchors and book club shows around them.

Alright, going to sign off, as the internet around here is spotty at best. We found out that we’re getting a special tour of the UND Hockey Arena when we get there. It’s their pride and joy and is reputed to be nicer than a lot of NHL arena. Should be fun.

Just passed a sign: “Winnepeg (Canada) – 152 miles.” Wish I’d brought a coat.