Go Fighting Scots. (Buffalo, New York)

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…