Commence Road Journal 2009.

Well, we’re not technically on the ‘road’ yet, but we’re preparing to leave in two days, so I figured I’d fire up the Road Journal again to get it warmed up for some updates over the next two weeks all over the US of A.

I discovered that the Road Journal module here on the Backstage website has a character limit (doh!), and that it begins deleting content when the character limit is reached (BIGGER doh!)… so we actually lost the Road Journal entries from our Southwest tour last March (Tempe Music Festival, Arizona, New Mexico, etc.).

As a result, I’ve archived the 2008 Road Journal stuff to the SoundRabbit server… you can click here to check it out ongoing. We’ll start the 2009 Road Journal entries here on the Backstage and then move them whenever we need to, as the character limit is approached.

Can’t wait to hit the road and get woodshedding on the new material from Tree Trunk Airplanes. We’ve had a few shows here in Colorado to try them out, and they’re coming along… but tour always has a way of really getting us to dial in the arrangements and chops.

Our buddy Fred is flying in tonight to Colorado, and he’ll be helping us on the tour with merchandise, lighting, sound, carrying lots of stuff, photo/video coverage, etc. We’ll be very glad to have another set of hands/ears/eyes at the shows (and another driver!).

We’ve got the van and trailer tuned up, the gear is being audited and counted to make sure that all cables, stands, instruments, etc. are in order, and I’m currently emptying all of my memory sticks for my cameras (and finding stuff to post here on the Backstage from prior tours in the process).

The route is shaping up as follows… leave Colorado on Wednesday morning the 22nd, driving 10 hours to Des Moines, Iowa for a show that night at Java Joe’s. Leave the next morning (Thurs, 04/22) for a 6 hour drive to Madison, Wisconsin for a show that night at Alchemy Cafe (though as of this minute, it hasn’t been finally confirmed yet; gotta love the DIY booking process). We’ll stay outside of Milwaukee on Thurs night and on Friday morning, drive 9 hours to Edinboro, PA for a show at the University there. We’ll stay somewhere in western PA that night and then drive up to the Canadian border of New York for a show with Keller Williams on Saturday night. Sunday we’re planning to go to Montreal/Quebec, if Anton’s passport gets renewed in time! Monday we head to Burlington, Vermont for a show at Nectar’s. We’ll stay in Burlington that night and then drive down to Boston on Tuesday morning to hang out at the farm (see prior Road Journal entries for pics of our whiffle ball tournaments there). Tuesday night is our show in Waltham, MA, and then Wednesday morning we drive 10 hours down I-95 to Charlottesville, Virginia for our show at Bel Rio. Thursday morning we drive 12 hours to Memphis, Tennessee, and then another 8 hours the next morning to Yellow Springs, Ohio to play at Peach’s. They put us up in a lovely little house near Peach’s (stayed there last year), which is very nice and comfortable and makes for a well-rested band to drive the 8 hours to Kansas City, Missouri the next morning. One more show that night (Sat) at the Canoe Club, and then it’s homeward bound to Denver on Sunday the 3rd. All in all around 8,000 miles logged in 11 days… fun times.

Catch y’all on Wednesday as we pull out of town…