Another two days off . This time we spent it in DC even though we didn’t have a gig this time through, but two days in Baltimore just wasn’t too inviting a prospect….no offence to all you Baltimorians.
So we arrived in DC just in time for the first heat wave of the season. It hit 102 degrees on Tuesday. It’s a bit of a science experiment walking around in that heat. You can actually feel your skin trying to deal with the assault, trying to wick off the heat. Very weird. I moved slowly and tried to make sure that I wasn’t outside for too long. I visited the relatively new Native American Museum (a very cool building) and the Phillips Collection, which is one of my favourite museums, located off of Dupont Circle. The great thing about the Phillips is that it has a very focused collection so you don’t feel overwhelmed. It is also, usually, pretty empty. It’s worth it to simply experience the Rothko Room.
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The Baltimore gig was at The Ram’s Head Live. It’s a relatively new sister club to the Ram’s Head that we occasionally play in Annapolis. It’s quite a good rock club, beautifully maintained, excellent production, great sightlines. The only problem is that it was a bit cavernous for us. We had a small but mighty crowd tonight.
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We spent today in the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens in Richmond. A little bit of paradise in the Old South. It’s a beautifully sculpted piece of land and about as nice an outdoor venue as one could hope for. We had an excellent turnout on a perfect Summer Solstice evening. The only problem was that there wasn’t nearly enough PA to cover the size of the grounds or crowd. As a result, Chris, who was doing front of house sound, was harassed all night long to turn it up. He tried his best but that played havoc with our stage sound, so we had a bit of a battle all night long. But it was summer solstice, which brought out the pagan in us all…I don’t know what that means, but we had fun and, it seemed, so did the audience.
Time to venture north once again, across the Badlands that is I-95.