If I had to choose a city to have a day off in, Durham would not be very high on my list. It may be a nice place to live and I have no doubt that there is a lot to do in the area if you have a car or some means of transportation and I’m sure that the quality of life is just fine, but if you are staying in a downtown hotel and limited to wandering around the “downtown core” then ones options are a little limited and Durham leaves a lot to be desired. There is certainly a lot of construction going on. They are tearing up all of the streets and creating these beautiful inter-locked bricked pedestrian-ways, planting saplings and building parkettes. It is very ambitious and will be very attractive when it is finished, but the problem is that there doesn’t seem to be anyone around, there doesn’t seem to be any pedestrians to enjoy this ambitious urban renewal scheme. Perhaps it’s a case of “if we build it they will come”. In any case, there is an excellent used bookstore and a handful of good restaurants in the renewed “Tobacco District”…that’s really all that I need.

The gig tonight was at the Carolina Theater, which is a beautiful place. I’m surprised that we have never played it in the past. The bartender at the hotel declared it as a place where “up-and-coming” bands or where bands that have “been-there-and-done-that” play. I guess we fall in to one of those categories. We had a very good show tonight and we, once again, had an excellent audience. Shame on us for allowing six years to pass before  returning to these parts.