en route to Philly. (Washington, D.C.)

Hello from the road. We’re plodding our way through I-95 traffic, northbound going through D.C. en route to Philly. This is by far the worst freeway in the country to travel on tour, from our experience. Maybe the roads around L.A. would give it a run for its money, but of the places we tour regularly (Colorado, the Southwest, and eastward)… this is the worst. Anyway… time to ignore the East Coast city hassles and focus on the tour…

Anton, Beers, and I (Russ) flew in from Denver to Richmond, Virginia, to meet Jason and Fred who were waiting for us at the airport. Fred flew in from Boston earlier in the afternoon. Anton and Beers and I nearly missed our connecting flight in Chicago when the flight attendant told us that our connecting flight was in the “C” concourse, about a 1/4 mile away from where our first leg came in. We had a 20 minute layover (due to our Denver flight being late with snow), so we ran our asses off, carrying gear and guitars and bags, to the “C” concourse only to find out that the connecting flight was actually leaving from B18, the gate next to the gate we arrived at. Woo-hoo. We ran all the way back to the B concourse and were the last people to board the airplane for Richmond. Aside from that little hiccup, the trip was great. We always have funny conversations with the TSA security people at the airports, as they “oooh” and “awww” at our “rock band” lifestyle. Given how much gear we have that they need to check (imagine going through airport security with bags of wires, metal boxes with buttons and switches, etc.)… they’re generally really nice to us. They asked where we were playing this week, what we “do after shows,” what it’s like playing for people in different cities, etc. They even asked if we’d take our guitars out and play them something, but we didn’t have time. There’s a new gig idea – booking airport security lines. Captive [shoeless] audiences.

plane

that’s not nice, chris beers.

flying over virginia

anton and fred at richmond

jay is thrilled to see us. beers is sleepy.

our gear made it!

Last night in Charlottesville was great. Full room, really cool people, club owner telling us that if we’re ever back in town (which we will be), to call him because he’ll have us any time we want to play. We played an hour long set, and we provided our P.A. for the other bands to use, so we ended up hanging out until 2:30am downtown. We had some lobster bisque at Miller’s, the bar that Dave Matthews once bartended at, and where he met his future bandmates… damn good lobster bisque. We walked the downtown mall, visited the Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar [the first place we played last year in C’ville] for some dessert and hookah, and stopped back in at The Box to listen to the other bands using our P.A. There was a honky tonk band from Vermont that was damn good (and honky), a female singer songwriter, and a punk band at the end. All nice folks and good shows.

Here’s our set panned out:

Emil
Diminished Returns
View From way Up Here
From The World I Have Known
Flume*
Story Of…
Obey –>
Life During Wartime**

* Bon Iver cover
** Talking Heads cover

walking the mall, downtown charlottesville, va

packing the trailer

honky tonk from vermont

wall.

beers at tea bazaar

hookah at tea bazaar

hookah at tea bazaar

anton at tea bazaar

We spent the night listening to crickets in the woods surrounding the farmhouse that we stayed at, which made for a really good night’s sleep. The weather has been gorgeous, so we had the windows open with a nice cool (slightly humid) 50’s temperature breeze. This morning we woke up and walked outside to enjoy the fresh country air and woods. Anton practiced his electric guitar (unplugged) outside, we packed up the trailer, and hit the road.

i found anton outside practicing this morning

he saw my camera. poser.

beers sees my camera. poser.

And now here we are on I-95 heading to our show at the Raven Lounge in Philly. We just crossed the Potomac River, where we could see the D.C. National Monument and downtown off to our left. We’re heading through Baltimore here shortly, and then it’s on to the Philly metro area. We’re still working on confirming Saturday night’s show in D.C. Classic case of impossible promoters to reach… but hopefully it comes through. It would be cool to play D.C. for the first time.

Hasta for now, more later from Philly (or from the house in New Jersey where we’re staying tonight).