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Archive Sunday #78

Added 2024-12-22 17:00:10 +0000 UTC

About a week or so after getting back to the Pacific Northwest, we started getting ready for our local Seattle show. It was our first time playing at the historic Paramount Theatre downtown, but we had all attended a bunch of shows there previously. I think my dog-sitter for the day fell through, so we ended up taking Beau with us to help out at merch. He was mostly a good boy chilling in his backpack, but I remember him barking at our booking agent in the green room haha. It was such a fun show and always amazing seeing all the support from the local fan-base.

It turns out Will was experiencing some gnarly long-covid symptoms because after the show he let us know he wasn't sure if he could continue down the coast. We were hopeful it wouldn't persist for the entire west coast leg, so Emily, Ethan, Degnan, and I started taking the van down the usual route with the idea that Will and Andrew could take a flight to meet us when ready. I think we spent the first night in Eugene, OR because I remember we bought Andrew a shirt from one of his favorite pizza spots.

We felt bad letting down everyone who had bought tickets for the canceled shows, so we decided to organize some pop-up shows along the tour route for anyone who wanted to come out. The first one was in Sacramento at a coffee shop patio not too far from the Aces of Spades venue we were originally set to play. We cleared it with the coffee shop first, and they seemed happy for the extra business after their morning rush. Ethan and Degnan performed a short set each with their acoustic guitars mostly of Toy Bastard and Naked Days tunes. Then we just hung out and signed some merch while chatting with everyone that came out. It was actually a really great time, and helped break up the monotony of the long drives.

The next day we headed down south towards San Francisco. We looked at some more spots for another pop-up event, and eventually a friend of a friend hooked us up with a backyard in Berkeley. We had some time to kill beforehand, so we grabbed some burritos nearby and browsed Amoeba Music and a local bookstore. Even more people came out to the pop-up this time, and Andrew joined into the fun by remotely judging art from the arts and crafts table. It was set up almost perfectly with some tiered bricks for seating for the acoustic set, and it turned out to be a fantastic way to spend an afternoon.

Luckily at his point Will was feeling a bit better, so they flew down to meet us in San Diego. I remember we stayed at this retro looking motel, and we kinda took over the parking lot in the nice weather when John got his haircut while Ethan chowed down on some ice cream sandwiches. I must have been jealous because I walked down to a nearby strip mall to get my haircut too, but the place I found pretty much exclusively did fades. They did a pretty good job though.

The following day we loaded into the House of Blues down there excited to get back to playing full scale shows again. It was nice to have the gang back all together, and we played probably the best show we ever have in San Diego. Afterwards, we topped it off with some excellent Mexican food. It was kinda cool headed down the coast without the daily grind of keeping to a tight schedule, but I definitely felt super grateful when the crew was all together again. Thanks to everyone who came out and contributed to making the pop-up shows a success!