Tour Diary – Annapolis, MD and Sellersville, PA (March 10 and 11, 2013)
Annapolis, MD – (March 10, 2013) This morning I was woken up by a marching band. It was doing what it does best, marching and playing, leading the parade past our bus. This was Annapolis’s first attempt at a St Patrick Day Parade so I don’t feel it would be right to comment on it….but they did miss the date by a week. I wonder if the decline in funding for music education in the schools systems around North America can be linked to the overall decline in the availability of high-school marching bands to celebrate holidays up and down our main streets. Someone should get a grant and study that equation…you could create a whole career out of it.
This little town is becoming a regular oasis for us when we come through the area and the Rams Head is at the center of that oasis. This is another of those weird rooms that doesn’t look like it should work, but it does, we always have interesting shows here. Part of the reason is that this is a very comfortable and easy town to spend a day. We’ve been here so many times that we all have our favourite, book store, record shop, ice cream parlour or café that we like to check in on. The days are relaxed and so are the shows. This one was no exception.
Sellersville, PA – (March 11, 2013) This is one of the strangest little burghs that we have ever played. It’s a mere crossroads of a place that, I think, is tucked away in the hilly south eastern corner of the state….not too far from the little Shangri-La of a town, Jim Thorpe, PA., which we discovered last summer. The place is over-flowing with ghosts and perhaps a ghoul or two. Zombies roaming the streets would fit right in. We loved it. The more we dig in to this State in search of venues, the more we discover these very odd and refreshingly original little towns. Sellersville is perched on a very steep hillside, so we spent the whole day walking up or downhill. Even our bus sat all day on an incline. It gave the day an interesting perspective.
We ate dinner at the 250 year old George Washington Inn (guess who stayed there overnight?) and the waitress told us all about the buildings ghosts. It was an excellent meal. And it was an excellent gig. This was our tenth show in eleven nights and we all chose to take this show by the throat and throttle it in our own special ways. The audience was up to the task of providing us with the energy, which we so desperately needed, and we dug in. An excellent show heading in to a much needed day off.
