When we checked in to our hotel yesterday evening after a 17 hour bus ride, there was a young woman in the corridor talking on her cell. She was obviously sparing, whoever she was sharing her room with, the pain of the conversation. She was sobbing, truly sobbing, completely able to make plans to fly back to Virginia tomorrow morning, but unable to control the paroxysms of grief that were heaving from her body…..and I thought that I had a bad day…..it all comes down to perspective.
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Margo and I had a busy day. In the morning we went to see our friends at The Mountain where we played a couple of songs and talked a bit about the new album (which was officially released today). In the afternoon we went to a local Seattle TV station KOMO. We were suppose to play a song and do a brief interview but when we got there we were told that our two minute thirty second song was too long and could we perhaps just play a verse and a chorus to “get a taste of the song” (apparently there was some breaking news, a house fire, that cut in to our segment)….I politely declined and Margo answered a few vacuous questions on camera. All that was missing was an appearance by Ron Burgundy.
The gig tonight was at Benaroya Hall, home of the Seattle Symphony: a rather magnificent place. It is always a treat to play venues like this, after all, symphony halls are about as good as it gets when it comes to concert venues. But it was an oddly unsatisfying show tonight. I think we played very well and it was a huge audience and they were very in-tune with the show, but sometimes a venue like this can be a little too nice, a little too formal, which makes it difficult (for both band and audience) to connect. It’s in venues of this size that the show really misses not having a LD (lighting director) to focus attention and to work with the music to set a mood. I’m not saying it was a bad night…just unsatisfying.