Archive Sunday #77

   The next day after our short residency at Brooklyn Steel, we made our way west across New Jersey towards Philadelphia. It was difficult to get back in the swing of things, but luckily it wasn't a super long drive before the much busier day. After setting up our gear on stage, I remember going out in search of a couple smoothies for the merch crew while they were busy setting up the stand before doors. I eventually found a food truck that had some good options and after delivering them to merch, Andrew and I played a round of pool in this lounge they had by the green room while John checked the PA. Thankfully Andrew had enough supplies left over to continue the "Art with Andrew" segment before Bartees Strange opened up the night with some great music. By the way I just heard that Bartees is set to release some new music this February, so I can't wait to hear what's next.

   We definitely saw a few familiar faces that came out to the Brooklyn show, and it turned out to be a really fun show. Whenever Bartees was available, we would invite him up during our set to play a guitar solo for Can't Cool Me Down. And I distinctly remember him coming out for this one. That must have put us over the expected set time because I remember finishing out the night with Stop Smoking instead of the longer Deadlines. But perhaps Will just wanted to switch it up a bit haha. It ended up being a great night, but afterwards when we were all packing up you could tell everyone was getting pretty wiped from the constant grind.

  It was an early morning the next day, mostly to give us a bit of a buffer for the typical i95 traffic down to D.C. We had heard awesome things about the new venue down there called Anthem that is owned by the 9:30 Club folks, so we were excited to check it out for ourselves. I remember rolling down with John and the merch crew, so I could get a start on setting up the stage shortly before the other guys got there. I kinda didn't know this venue would be so huge when I walked in, but their production manager even had a dedicated scooter to make the back-and-forth trips from front-of-house to the stage haha.

  I remember this time during the soundcheck Will's voice was pretty shot, but it was pretty common while on tour for it to get strained every so often from overuse. He let us know in advance he might switch up the set more than usual to accommodate the new range. And I definitely remember sitting down with Andrew in the green room and going over High to Death together because it had been a couple years haha. All our tests came back negative before the doors opened for the show, and we opened our set off with Hollywood in probably our first time ever. The crowd was fantastic and they were totally along for the ride when it came to switching things up for some more intimate tunes. All and all it turned out to be a really great show, even though it ended up considerably different from all the previous shows on that tour.

  The following day was a scheduled day off, so we got to sleep in a bit before we were planning on hitting the road. But I remember waking up to some terrible news once I checked my phone. We had gotten in the habit of testing before we met up for the day, so I guess Will had woken up first and swabbed to check his status. Turns out it came up positive this morning, and I never forget the deflating feeling realizing the next week of touring was pretty much a wash. The rest of the crew and band took a bunch of tests to see how many of us needed to set up camp and isolate at the hotel, and thankfully I was in the clear. Then we made plans for Will to extend his stay in the same hotel room outside of D.C. for the next week or so (and made sure to follow the current CDC guidelines). Emily and I offered to drive the van all the way back to Seattle where we were planning on picking back up with the west coast portion in late April.

  It was a disappointing end to the run, because after all the preparation and extra attention to ensure we were being as safe as possible we still ended up having to cancel a bunch of shows. But sometimes you just have to roll with the punches. Emily and I tried to take our minds off things by hitting up our favorite pizza joints along the long western drives. We ran into some crazy wind storms a bit later in North Dakota that were blowing over semi trucks on the highway. But we took our time and made it through alright. In the end we were hopeful that we at least had a few more good shows ahead of us out on the west coast.