SoundRabbit

Anton here.  We played last night up in Manchester, NH, at St. Anselm College in the campus Pub.  Other than driving the wrong way down a one way street once we got onto campus (we didn’t get pulled over), we got there without any problems at all.  A couple of the highlights from the evening include the interesting “drinking” policy for musicians playing at the Pub, and being approached by 3 robed monks in the middle of our set to compliment us and to let us know how much they enjoyed our music.  The students that were hanging out had a great time, and told us some hilarious stories after we were done loading out.  They manage  to have a good time up there just fine, it sounds like.  And the setlist:

Park
Story Of…
List
Around The Bend
Marula
Heat
Nightlite Buddha*
Hazel
Don
Eoghan
The View From Way Up Here
Pobrecito
Obey ->
Life During Wartime
Egg

* The monks were already in the room at this point, and a fan at the show was shaking her head “no” when she realized we were about to play Nightlite Jesus, so we changed the words on the fly to make it a bit less controversial at this venue.  It was a good laugh for sure!

St. Anselm’s Finest.

Post-Show Libations

Anton here.  The last few days have been great out here in the Northeast.  Last night we played in Manhattan, NY, in the heart of Hells Kitchen.  We hit some pretty serious traffic getting there on I-95 as we approached the George Washington Bridge, but managed to get there on time despite the delays. Loading in our equipment was interesting to say the least…we had to keep at least 1 person at the van, and in the club at all times to be sure our equiment was safe at all times, and there was a VERY steep flight of stairs to climb into the club, so we didn’t set any speed records.

After getting the sound figured out for the funky/small space, Tanner Walle and his band played a great set of original tunes to get the crowded room warmed up.  The room was pretty small, so it felt great with the number of people we had in there.  Here is the setlist:

Heat
Zed
Story Of…
Around the Bend
Nightlite Jesus
IIOKYN
Marula
Hazel
Eoghan
The View From Way Up Here
Park
Obey ->
Life During Wartime
Turn My Egg

After the set, we found a diner around the corner and enjoyed some classic New York eats (and PIE!). Here are some pics:

Tanner Walle opening

Score of the first annual SoundRabbit whiffle whammy tourney… Jason/Beers 11… Russ/Fred (crew) 9. That’s right, Jay and Beers killed us with a late-inning pop fly that I tried to catch behind my back for style points. Ghost runner scored and we were done. I hate losing, but at least we went down in style. Showering and heading to New York City in an hour or so…

Tuesday, April 22nd – 3:25am Boston, MA time
About to hit the rack… enjoyed the Middle East set tonight, though I (russ) had some major problems with my monitor setup, so I wasn’t able to use our usual “in ear” system. The result was not hearing myself half the night, and playing with different ‘hearing’ than the other guys… so it was strange. Just listened to the recording that we got of the night, and the lack of monitors is pretty clear on a few of the tunes. Good lord. There are a couple of notes on Relief that are sung literally in a completely different key. Ouch. Oh, well… some day we’ll be able to afford our own sound person, and we’ll love every minute of it. Overall, though… decent show. Here’s the setlist:

View From Way Up Here
Eoghan, Late Saturday
Don
Story Of…
Heat
Relief
Around The Bend
List
ZED
Marula Binge
Obey –>
Life During Wartime
Hazel
Nightlite Jesus
Park
Turn My Egg

In a few hours, we’re getting up and meeting outside for a 2-on-2 whiffle ball game. This Inn we’re staying at is AMAZING. Here are some pics from the property… and we’ve got it to ourselves (literally):

Hello from Massachusetts. We’re driving down the Mass Pike (I-90) right now, heading for the Inn that will be staying at tonight. Dropping our bags off and continuing on to Boston to load in at the Middle East. Had a great show in Rochester, NY last night… here’s how the setlist broke down:

Park
Story Of
Heat
Don
List
Hazel
Marula Binge
Eoghan, Late Saturday
Nightlite Jesus
Obey –>
Life During Wartime
Turn My Egg

Sold a bunch of merch, made some new friends, got invited back to play again, so all was swell. Stayed the night at Anton”s dad’s place last night in western Massachusetts, got to see his brother’s Nascar race car with the “RBT” and “SoundRabbit.com” stickers on it… got some good photos of us all trying to climb in and out of it. Never realized how tight those things are… and how race car drivers scramble out of a car on fire. Crazy.

Tonight’s show should be a blast… we’re hearing from a lot of people who are coming out and bringing a lot of people each, so with any luck we might have a surprisingly full room for Monday. The venue is 200 capacity, so it will be great to have it relatively full. The weather today in MA is absolutely perfect… 70 degrees and sunny, we’re driving with all of the windows down and enjoying the humidity. I’ll load up some photos in a second… I’ve got the World’s Largest Truckstop, Rochester, and western MA to load up. More later…

Anton here…Everyone has been taking turns “sleeping” in shifts back on the benches.  Right now Jason and Chris are trying to catch some rest, Russ is driving, and I’m riding shotgun and writing this.   We have caught a few glimpses of Lake Erie off to the northwest – looks calm out on the water from here at least.  We just have a short stretch of PA to drive through before hitting NY state, but it is really starting to feel like the east coast at this point.  We were joking about stopping by Niagara Falls for a quick visit, but probably don’t have time to spare.

Well, I (Russ) just got home from our first live show in 5 months, and our first show playing the new songs live. Thanks SO much to all of our friends from the Backstage here who made it out to the Fox Theatre for the gig. We had a lot of fun, managed to make our way through the new material without any trainwrecks, and all in all got great feedback from the audience we met in the lobby after the set. Here’s what the setlist looked like:

Diminished Returns
I’ll Race Ya
Story Of…
Eoghan, Late Saturday (with special guest Kailin Yong on violin)
Hazel
From The World I Have Known
Machine
Obey –>
Life During Wartime (Talking Heads)
View From Way Up Here
Don
Turn My Egg

We originally had “Lift” in the setlist between Don and Egg, but we scratched it on the spot, as our set started later than scheduled. We’ll look forward to playing that at our next show in a few weeks. It felt really, really good to be back on stage, especially at a venue like the Fox. Thanks to all of you Backstage Members for helping us support a great cause tonight, too. The RATNA Prison Initiative people were all great, and though we had a contract with them to be paid for tonight, we told them at the end of the night to keep the money. The work they’re doing is exceptionally unique and anything we can do to support them is exactly what the Backstage is all about. Time to sign off and grab some zzz’s… nice to be updating the Road Journal again! Thanks for reading.