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What an AWESOME night at The Chat… the place was packed with great people ready to celebrate the capture of the bombing suspect, and surprised to find live music at their favorite drinking hole… here’s the setlist Fred made:

We’re now settling in for the night at the bed and breakfast. Tomorrow morning we’ll relax here for a bit before heading West for a day off from playing (travel day). Hope to get to Cleveland for the night, half way to Des Moines. More later…

Welp – we decided we really wanted to play a show after 10 hours of driving from Virginia, so we started going through Google and asking friends who live in the Boston area, to try and find an alternate venue tonight. We called a whole bunch of places, most of whom had stuff booked already, but we just confirmed that we can load in all of our sound gear and play at a dive bar in Wayland, about a half hour outside of the hotel. It’s called The Dudley Chateau (“The Chat”) and it’s supposed to be a pretty cool little place, and there will be a bunch of people coming out who had planned on seeing us at Johnny D’s, so we’ll see how it goes… and it sounds like the cops have caught the Marathon bomber guy in Watertown, which will be a big relief for everyone here. More later…

Well, our show tonight in Boston is officially cancelled – just got the word from the promoter. The police have the whole city shut down and they evidently have no idea where the 2nd Marathon bomber is, but he’s somewhere around the city, and the venue we were to play tonight is right smack in the middle of it all. Pretty crazy to follow all of this from the van. We have friends texting us, telling us, “since you guys are driving, keep an eye out for a Honda Civic with this license plate #…” etc.

Really bummed that the show is cancelled – we had sold out of our presale tickets and expected a really great crowd tonight, but obviously in light of everything going on, it’s not a huge deal – we just want this guy caught before he hurts anyone else.

We’re going to head to the bed and breakfast we’re staying at tonight and relax for the night, then we drive tomorrow and Sunday to get to our show in Des Moines on Sunday night.

Bummed to miss all of you in Boston. We’ll be refunding the presale tickets ASAP over the next couple of days. We’re donating $500 to the Richard Family Fund, the family of the 8 year old boy killed on Monday in the bombing.

More later…

Double entendre in the subject of this post… we are, indeed, bound for Boston… but the city of Boston is also bound.  We’re seeing on the news that virtually the entire city is on “lockdown,” with all businesses closed, all public transportation halted, and all residents told to stay in their homes with doors locked, etc. Evidently there was a massive firefight overnight between the Boston PD and the Marathon bombing suspects, in Watertown (oddly enough, where Fred works as a bartender when not touring with us), and one suspect was killed while the other is currently on the loose somewhere in the city. Holy cr@p.

We sent an email to the local promoter for our show tonight, asking if he’s planning on cancelling the show or keeping it on, or whatever. We’re about 4.5 hours out at this point and haven’t heard a word. We’re going to keep heading toward the city and we’ll have to see what happens. Our show is in Somerville, which is right in the middle of the manhunt. I think we’re all assuming at this point that the show will be cancelled, but we have to keep driving in that direction until we hear otherwise. We’re streaming Boston news channels on the iPads in the van here to keep track of everything, and we’re hoping for the sake of the citizens of Boston that they catch this b@stard soon before anyone else gets hurt.

Back to Virginia for a moment…

We had a fantastic couple of shows at The Box, sorry we didn’t post an update earlier, but we had late nights and early mornings and tons of time hanging with Jason and seeing the sights; not as much time updating the Backstage website. The first night at The Box on Wednesday was fun, with a good crowd coming out to check out the show, lots of new peeps hearing us for the first time, etc. We loaded in around 8:30pm and then went over and caught half of the Founding Fathers’ set at The Southern, before coming back to The Box to play. There were some C’Ville fans in the crowd singing along and requesting our original tunes, which is always a trip for us. We love it.  It was awesome to see Jason and to have him there for the show, to check out how the band sounds with Mario (he approved). Falco and Pandolfi and Michael showed up about halfway through the set and rocked out in the crowd through the end of the night, and then asked if we’d be down for having them (Falco and Pandolfi) sit in for our 2nd night. We were stoked and made plans for it. Yesterday we relaxed out at a friend’s farm where we spent the night, and we also got to see Jason again for a little while. Cruised into downtown C’Ville for dinner at Eppie’s on the downtown mall and relaxed in the beautiful weather (70’s, light breeze, sunny, perfect!). We then headed to the venue and set up the Merch table, placed Backstage cards on all of the tables, tuned up, and got ready to jam. Anton and I (Russ) stopped by The Artist Farm office (management company for The Stringdusters) and hung out with Michael and ‘Dusters fiddle player Jeremy for a little while, then strolled over to The Box. There were a lot of people there earlier than the first night, and we heard buzz amongst the crowd along the lines of, “…I heard this band is sick…”, etc. Good to hear. We played the set and had Falco and Pandolfi join us for “Sister, Brother,” “Marula Binge,” “Nightlite Jesus,” and “Turn My Egg,” which was very fun. They head on tour with their band to North Carolina today for a weekend of shows in the Southeast, and we knew we had the long drive to Boston, so we all called it somewhat early last night and all agreed that we’ll see eachother in the fall.

Here are some photos from Virginia:

More from Boston after we find out what’s going on tonight…

Hello from our hotel in Somerset, New Jersey. We had a great time in New York City tonight, playing at the Bowery Electric Map Room, a funky and tiny (large walk in closet) venue near the East Village.

The day started with a beautiful drive down from Burlington (VT), retracing our scenic route along the shores of Lake George, across some flats with beautiful scenes of farms and mountain views on both sides (the Green Mountains on our left, the Adirondacks on our right).

We managed to get into the city without much trouble/traffic, and with plenty of time to walk around and relax a bit. I (Russ) walked and met a friend for coffee, while the guys chilled on a coffee shop patio on Bowery Street across from the venue. Our parking luck kicked in again, with the van parked directly in front of the venue’s front door.

The guys went and grabbed some pizza before the show (I opted to fast for a late-night scarfing) and then we loaded in. The room was literally the size of a large walk-in closet, with the stage about 12’x5′. We were virtually on top of eachother, but we tend to play really well in those situations, when we can hear everything really well and it’s all about the ‘energy bubble,’ not show production/lights/big sound. We really dial in our stage volume and focus on delivering a great sound and interaction. There was a good crowd of people there, both people who knew our music and plenty who were being introduced to it. We played a quick 50-minute set, and a longtime good friend of mine, Tanner Walle, played before us, while our other good friend’s band, Black River Quartet, played immediately after us. Made for a great family-style vibe in there. Oh, and there was a huge “Hello Charlie!” chorus during Turn My Egg at the end of our set. That was awesome.

After the show we loaded out and then started to walk to find some food. It was almost 3am, but it’s New York – there’s plenty going on and plenty of options for good food. I ran over and asked some kids hanging outside a bar where they’d recommend, and they suggested a Ukranian diner on 2nd Ave and 9th street called Veselka. We walked the few blocks to get there and MAN was it worth it. Holy Pierogies. That’s their specialty… we each ordered different types of pierogies, from summer sausage to potato to spinach and cheese… served with sides of caramelized onions, apple sauce, and sour cream. They were unreal. We then cruised to the glass case of desserts and picked up some peanut butter chocolate pie, and I picked up an arugala pastry for breakfast tomorrow morning. Mmmmm.

We drove about an hour to get to the hotel here. The original hotel we’d booked had a nice big suite with two bedrooms and a huge common area with pullout couch, but the hotel called us and said that they’d overbooked and would need to send us to a new place… so here we are, at the new place. It’s the Radisson Bridgewater in Somerset and it’s actually super nice. We got a couple of rooms, so Beers and Mario are in the other one, and Fred, Anton, and I are sharing this one as usual.

The news from the Boston Marathon is pretty unreal – no leads or suspects yet, an 8 year old boy among the dead, 100+ injured, and the photos are graphic and extremely sad. We had a couple of friends who were planning to come to our show tonight in NYC who texted us that they were at the finish line when all of that happened; they weren’t hurt, but they saw everything and helped victims, etc. and were too emotionally and physically spent to get out to the show tonight. Unbelievable. We’ll continue to track the news as much as we can online in the van while driving. We head to Charlottesville, Virginia tomorrow for a two-night stand at The Box, so we’ll have to wait and see what’s happening in Boston by the time we get there on Friday.

We’re on our way South to New York City from Burlington (Vermont).

Had a fun show last night at Club Metronome, though it was a pretty slow night. Mondays are tough nights to get people out anyway, and to top it off, on the first floor of the club (Nectar’s), it was “Metal Night,” so any foot traffic who might dig our stuff had work their way through super loud metal bands first, to get upstairs to our show. Oh, well – we got into our “energy bubble” and did our thing and entertained the folks who made it out. We had people come from as far away as Albany, New York, which was really cool to see.

Here’s how the setlist panned out:

And the famed “Nectars” neon sign…

And our great parking luck right in front of the venue once again…

Well, we’re in Burlington and the guys are all seated at a table here at a restaurant that looks and smells fantastic – Farmhouse. I’m catching up on a few things online before I join them, one of which is trying to figure out what happened at the Boston Marathon today. We had a gorgeous drive along Lake George in upstate New York today en route to Vermont… exceptionally beautiful scenery with deep pine forests, big rock outcroppings, and the massive lake… teeming with tourists during the summer, but wonderfully empty for us today. We stopped for gas at one point and I got a text from a friend during a few minutes of cell phone coverage, with the message, “two explosions at Boston Marathon finish line. Lots of casualties.” My heart jumped into my throat.

I (Russ) grew up in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, in a little house about an 8-minute walk from the Marathon starting line. “Marathon Monday” was the biggest day of the year for the town, as our 10,000 population grew to 100,000 with thousands of runners and tourists streaming in for pre-race celebrations and then the starting of the marathon itself. Back in 2007 when SoundRabbit first formed as a trio (before Anton joined), we played the pre-race events in Hopkinton. I also know a ton of friends and family who run the race and/or go down to the finish line in Boston to cheer other friends/family the last hundred yards to the finish. The Boston Marathon has a handful of elite runners, but it’s by and large a community event with moms, dads, cousins, friends running it. The timing of the explosions was particularly odd, as it appears it was like 4-5 hours after the starting gun, meaning that the elite (high profile) runners have been finished for a couple of hours and it’s now the common folks – you, me, our friends, our uncles and aunts – trying to finish personal best times in the 4-6 hour range. The finish line had to be full of little kids, families, and friends innocently scanning the crowd of runners for friends/family to cheer on. Some of the initial photos I’m seeing online are heart-wrenching. We’re supposed to play in New York City tomorrow night and in Boston on Friday, so at this point we have no idea if the cities will be on lockdown, etc.

I’m going to go join the guys for dinner and try to have a good show tonight, but my heart is incredibly heavy. More later from the hotel or maybe the road to NYC tomorrow… thanks as always for your time.

Hi, All. On our way to Burlington, Vermont from upstate New York. Had a fun night last night playing at Boulder Coffee Co. Tiny place, but we rocked it and got to hang with some fine folks after the show.

We got a bit of a late start from Ohio and cut it super close, loading in about 5 minutes before we were supposed to play, so it was a scramble, but with Fred’s help we got up and running by 8:15pm. Saw some familiar faces from the last time we played Rochester (5 years ago!), nice to see people singing along to our original songs – that’s the magic that makes the long drives worth it. After the gig we went with some friends from the area to a bar up the street (the Dragonfly – highly recommended if you’re visiting) and enjoyed some late night wings, nachos, etc. We stayed at a nice hotel in downtown Rochester and planned on finally catching up on our sleep by sleeping in until 9am or so. Instead, we were jarred out of bed (Fred levitated) by a blaring siren at 7am and an automated voice saying sternly, “There is an emergency. Proceed out of the building using the stairs. Do not use any elevators. There is an emergency. Proceed out…” over and over. We were on the 8th floor, so we scrambled to get dressed and shoes on… and were about to go out the door when the voice suddenly stopped and was replaced with, “Attention – the emergency is concluded. You may return to your rooms.” Great. Heads barely hit the pillow and it was time to get up and roll again.

Backing up to a highlight from yesterday afternoon… en route out of Ohio we stopped at one of our favorite regular tour eateries, Cafe Europa, in Willoughby (outside Cleveland). John, the owner, welcomed us as he always does, pulling up a chair at our table and sitting to visit for a while. He’s from Germany and has a thick accent, so we have to pay attention to keep up, and we never know where the conversation will go. Always entertaining. Now to the important stuff: the food. John makes everything from scratch, homemade, authentic German and Eastern European goodies. I (Russ) had the goulash with perfectly-cooked beef and homemade toasted bread with butter. Mario had wienerschnitzel, and Anton and Fred had German sausage with potatoes and greens. For dessert we had German chocolate cake, German black forrest cake, Apple strudel, and tiramisu. He also gave the guys “the best beer from Germany,” and an orange juice for me. It was a fantastic lunch, as always.

We play tonight at Club Metronome in Burlington. We’ll be getting to town in time to have a nice relaxing dinner and then load in with plenty of time before we play. Nice schedule and so far pretty nice driving weather. More from Burlington later…