It took us fifteen hours to get to Park City. We arrived at our designated mall at three o’clock yesterday which gave us plenty of time to explore “Redstone Village” (a mall by any other name). The last time we were in Park City we played this same club (a skuzzy little hole located on the second floor of a concrete box) located off the highway in to town, in the middle of empty scrubby fields. At the time, I noticed, yonder, on the horizon, a whole lot of new construction, so I went for a walk. I discovered a fully functioning, outside-mall (designed to look like an early 20th century main street of a small town), complete with operating fountains and muzak piped through the streets, but no people (kind of like the opening scene of The Andromeda Strain but with no bodies). Fast forward three years and we are back at the same mall which is now a bustling center of activity (consumption) and all of those empty fields have been filled with housing developments (and parking spaces for the mall). Welcome to some urban planners (developers) vision of the perfectly planned community…terrifying.
It was a very strange gig tonight. Too much time spent wandering around the mall left us kind of dopey. So let’s just say it was a dopey show. Horrible club, poorly promoted, a small gaggle of geese in attendance as well as a handful of people who made the effort to come out and listen (we appreciate your effort and apologize for the shitty venue, we’ll try and find something more suitable next time through the area).
436 miles
Not too long a drive last night, but no one got any sleep. Bus drivers should be made to ride as passengers for a week before they are allowed to get behind the wheel. They will soon learn that an easy hand on the wheel and a light foot on the pedals make all the difference between sleep and no sleep. It’s a little bit disconcerting when you are lying in your little cubicle and having to constantly brace yourself against the wall so that you don’t get flung out of your bunk and it’s not very conducive for sleeping.
Fort Collins is most famous for being the home to Pube Fest. It is a very nice little town, with its late 19th century downtown core, intact and extremely vibrant. On a very steamy Monday afternoon the streets were bustling. Somebody has done something right in this town…a refreshing change. The gig tonight was booked for a 10:30 start time, which is usually the time that we are getting off stage. Somebody made a mistake somewhere along the line. Another stinky, hot club. The late start time, the intense heat, and the altitude didn’t help the show. A very game audience and we started out strong, but we slowly fizzled as the night went on. Margo came very close to fainting at one point, which would have been a first.
635 miles
We arrived in town just in time to load in and do soundcheck. While they set up I did a bit of exploring and walked down to the famous falls. Very cool, very dry. They must be quite spectacular during the spring run-off. Unbelievably hot and humid in this part of the world today. I also got a chance to quickly walk the main drag. This is a very cool little town. No global franchises in sight. I didn’t even see a Starbucks (which is pretty hard to do these days) although there may have been one lurking. But a lot of very interestingly designed restaurants, bars and retail spaces mixed in amongst the mid 19th century buildings. There is some money being spent here. A nice balance of old and new, which is hard to find these days…
A reprieve from the stinky clubs: tonight, a beautiful little theater. Unfortunately this gig was booked at the last minute so we didn’t get a lot of opportunity to promote it, as a result, it was a less than stellar turnout, but what they lacked in numbers they made up for in intensity. We had a pretty good night. We are all battling exhaustion and burnout so there were a few lapses here and there, but over-all a pretty good show. We hope to get back here more often (this was our first ever gig in South Dakota) it looks like an interesting place to explore.
749 miles
Another very long drive, but it’s all flat and it’s all connected by interstates, so it was an easy drive…and relatively conducive to sleeping.
A new venue for us tonight…stuck at the end of some mall…must be Indianapolis. It was actually a fairly decent venue with good dressing rooms, pretty good production and the folks working there were very friendly and helpful. It’s the last show of a very tough leg, so we rocked out a bit and took some strange turns into a couple of odd orbits or tried to, in our sleepless, brain-numbed state. We have never had very large audiences in Indianapolis but they have always been very good audiences, tonight they helped us through.
Time to pack up and head for…..
557 miles
…home…..a few days off. A one-off, fly-in to DC for a gig with Chris Isaks at Wolftrap and then the rest of the summer is off. We start up again, for real, in October…we hope to see you all out there…stay safe over the rest of the summer.