Greetings from Lincoln (Nebraska).
Greetings from the Countryside Suites hotel in East Lincoln. Aside from our hotel room smelling strongly of cologne (Drakkar Noir?), it’s otherwise quite nice. Non-smoking, two queen beds, a flat screen tv, fridge, and a couch/sitting area where I’m sitting here updating the Road Journal. No complaints, and no asbestos warnings (see earlier Road Journal post, last tour). Oh, and there’s a King Kong Burger next door, with lots of gorilla statues of various sizes along the parking lot. Good “RBT” photo opp in the morning.
Lincoln has a great little downtown. The city has 250,000 people, and we spent the evening in the Haymarket district, where we had dinner, walked around, and then (Anton and I) played our duo acoustic set. We had dinner at The Oven, an Indian restaurant across from the music venue, and it was unbelievably good. Between the five of us, we enjoyed the full range of low-spice to “damn hot,” along with some tasty salads, soups, nan (bread), and a bottle of cab wine. The entire neighborhood smells of good food – mainly of BBQ wafting from some restaurant that we weren’t able to find.
Oh, and there’s some weird photo shoot thing going on in Lincoln today/tonight. We saw at least 4-5 different “scenes” being shot by a photographer around the downtown area, some of which appeared to be for softcore pr0n mags or something. Really strange. We drove by a factory building and there was a girl posing on the “porch” of the building with a photographer, then we walked by another girl standing in a fountain a few blocks away with a photographer shooting, and yet another girl standing in an alley in a shiny red dress with a photographer shooting away. Weird. No one seemed interested in photographing us, though.
Anywho – after dinner we headed to Crescent Moon Coffee House for the gig. Really cool little room in the lower (basement) level of a building in the middle of the Haymarket area. Big heavy arched metal doors opened to reveal the ‘cavern’ style room, with big wooden beams, a low ceiling, and tables scattered throughout the room. There’s a small (6″ high) stage area with some spotlights, and overall a nice little vibe in there. The reporter who interviewed us last week for the Journal Star showed up with some friends, and we met a local musician who was really interested in our stuff, which was cool. Other than those folks, it was a to-be-expected quiet night. Jay, Beers, and Fred hung out playing chess and reading while Anton and I made noise with our geetars. The owner of the place asked if we’d be able to come back and play a Saturday night sometime, when the place is hopping. We’ll see… nice to be invited back for sure.
Here’s how the setlist panned out:
Story Of…
From The World I Have Known
Years Ago
Heat
Message In A Bottle
Obey
Nightlite Jesus
Marula Binge
IIKOYN
Park
Machine
Turn My Egg
Hazel
View From Way Up Here
Don
Blame
List
ZED
Emil
Relief
Eoghan, Late Saturday
The girl from the Journal Star suggested we head to the Starlight after the show, saying that it’s one of her favorite bars in town. We packed up the van and walked over to the place, and found it to be exactly as she described (and exactly what we needed) – mellow, cool place that felt like someone’s basement, circa 1967. The whole place is decked out in authentic 60’s furnishings, with wood paneled walls, 60’s light sconces on the walls, 60’s rolling chairs around card tables, and Frank Sinatra on the radio. Awesome. They’re known for their martini’s (including a “s’mores” flavored one), so a couple of the guys tried ’em out. It was super nice to be in a bar at 11pm with no dance/house/4-on-the-floor music blaring. It literally felt like hanging out in a friend’s parents’ basement or something. Everyone was super nice, and we stayed for an hour, talking about the plans for the new album, our upcoming NACA conference in Connecticut, etc.
When we wrapped up there, we drove back to the Interstate and headed East about 10 minutes, to the hotel where we are, here for the night. We listened to the new album recordings in the van on the way, and we’re all continuing to be very excited about the material. Woot. We’ll hit the road to Sioux Falls around noon tomorrow, should take us about 4 hours. We don’t load in at the venue until 6pm, so it should be a relaxing day.
Okay, here are a bunch of photos from Lincoln. More blabber tomorrow from the road:
Lincoln’s Holy Site: “Go Big Red”
The Weird Photo Shoot at the Factory (blue shirt = photographer, blonde = model, red shirt = lookout?)
Fred & Anton, Haymarket neighborhood, Lincoln
The Trusty Red Van – downtown Lincoln
Lincoln
Lincoln
Lincoln
Our venue for the night
waiting for the bus.
Beers and his little chocolatey drink
Anton brings the beet back.
we’d probably love her.
pretty.
the fountain before the girl jumped into it for her photo shoot.
loitering.
fred. head.
lincoln.
buddy bench.
crescent moon cavern.
the nan. yum.
crescent moon. cases.
Russ & Anton
Russ & Anton (2)
Jay & Fred at Starlight (note blue/green chair on the right. vintage.)
that’s a dirty margarita.
hotel home.
indoor pool!
One of our neighbors for the night.