Archive Sunday #67

   In February we had a half day or so of studio time booked that coincided with some of the last bit of filming for the Tidal documentary. The Dos Rios film crew came by for the morning and got some footage of us recording Stop Lying to Me which has since been reworked a bunch, but it's interesting to go back and see where it was at the time. No idea what happened to those recordings, but parts of them ended up on the Tidal doc.

  A week or two later we headed out for another tour this time starting in Boston. Our show was at Royale on the night of Valentines Day. I remember we made some special merch for the holiday show, but it took us a bit to unpack everything before soundcheck. I remember noticing the Blue Men Group were performing at the theater next door while we were loading in, and it finally dawned on me that they had several groups around the country rather than just one haha. The show was super fun and we got some stale gas station snacks to celebrate.

  The next day we drove to the pretty small town of North Adams, Massachusetts not knowing what to expect. We had heard they had this great art museum that lured a bunch of people in from surrounding areas, but we were preparing ourselves to play a more intimate show while driving in. We got there and drove through this sprawling complex of retired brick factory buildings and loaded in fast so we could explore. We checked out a bunch of exhibits and the production team even scheduled us for a special viewing of the James Turrell light piece in a dedicated room they had. It was definitely my favorite part and kinda makes me want to check out the bunker he's building at Roden Crater. I remember this was when we started playing this intro synth sequence I came up with for Can't Cool Me Down to start the show. I still love how the controlled randomness of the euclidian sequence ended up different every time and gave us a variable amount of time to walk out and start the show, plus Gianni made it even better by adding some longer underlying notes to spice it up. There were actually a lot of people who made the trip out to see us, and I don't know if the hour or so taking in all the art gave us an extra bit of inspiration, but this show definitely stood out as a great one.

  We got up early the next day for an exciting opportunity to support Interpol at Madison Square Garden in New York. Traffic's usually pretty bad getting into Manhattan so we did the best we could to leave a nice buffer for getting in. It helped but probably should have been longer, because I remember jumping out of the van a couple blocks from MSG to grab Andrew and John a couple hot-dogs and met back up with them about 15 feet farther down the road with their food haha. We made it to the loading dock just a few minutes late and were greeted by their friendly union crew who were contractually required to move everything to the stage for us. As soon as they explained the process and put our gear on the forklift, a bell rang for lunch so it just sat up there for the next hour until we met back up with them later. It's sometimes a bit awkward coming into a venue with a union crew, mostly because we're so used to having to move everything ourselves. But yeah, it just takes you by surprise when someone yells at you for carrying your guitar or something down the hall haha.

  This was our first big arena gig, so I remember meeting up with Henry's parents plus my parents who made the trip out to catch the show. We didn't have time for anything but a quick chat, but it was great seeing them so excited. We had a quick soundcheck after Interpol, and it was one of those times I was glad we switched to in-ears because getting the mix for everyone's monitors would have taken the whole time. Snail Mail was booked to open the show and I remember Andrew and I got the chance to chat with Alex and Ray for a couple minutes beforehand. They had an even shorter set time, though I think we gave them a portion of our changeover so they could at least get into the swing of things. We went on a few minutes later, and it was one of those shows that seemed to go by so fast that everything felt like a blur. It was a great experience though, and I remember being surprised with how many people in the crowd seemed familiar with our stuff.

  It was a struggle to wake up the next morning at our hotel in New Jersey, but things quickly got worse when I noticed a weird line of bumps along my hip. It must have happened a couple nights before because they take a while to show up. But yeah, I was familiar with signs of bedbugs from when I lived in New York so I kinda knew right away I must have picked them up at a hotel. It seemed like a nightmare occurrence to happen on tour, but thankfully we were heading south from there and they die off in extreme heat. I told everyone what to watch out for and put all my stuff in garbage bags for the trip down to Baltimore. Once we got to the Ram's Head, I washed everything I had including my bag in the washing machine multiple times. The show was probably a bit off for me personally, but I think it went over pretty well. Luckily the bug bites didn't spread to anyone else over the next few days, so I think the relentless washing of everything I owned did the trick haha.

  Next up, we had a show in Richmond where I grew up. We were booked to play the National again that will always be a venue close to my heart due to the countless shows I went to there growing up. I always remember the broken hot tub in the green room that I'm pretty sure was never actually functional. I think I ended up doing laundry again because I was so paranoid, but once I checked the weather forecast for the next few days I felt better that any little stragglers wouldn't survive in the parked van baking in the sun.