Archive Sunday #55

   After a short break we grabbed another flight, but thankfully this time it was much closer to home. So we were initially booked to play the renowned Austin City Limits Festival, but because it's spread out over two weekends much like Coachella we scheduled a short run around the area to fill in the gap. Around that time it was kinda tough partly because we were competing for the same type of venues with a bunch of bands at the festival in the same boat. Especially considering our fanbase in most Texas cities wasn't as solidified as the more established acts. So we opted to join The Black Angels on a support run as they played several venues around their home state.

   We arrived the night before in Austin a bit delayed due to a medical emergency on our flight that gave us an unexpected layover in Boise (everyone turned out ok.) I remember it was such a huge contrast in accommodations between the nice hotel the festival booked for us, and the air bnb without AC we booked previously for SXSW the year before. We grabbed a quick breakfast the next morning in the lobby before catching an uber down to the festival. It was one of those times where we had to get dropped off pretty far from our stage, so we grabbed our gear and trekked what seemed like another mile into the park. We finally made it after awhile although we got pretty sweaty in the meantime. We played shortly after a quick line-check and I remember our slotted time was surprisingly longer than we normally would get that early in the afternoon. Around this time we decided to do a Neil Young & Crazy Horse cover called Powderfinger partly because it was a good opportunity to let Ethan take the reins and showcase his vocals for a bit. Turns out it went over really well, so we kept it around.

   We stuck around for a bit, and I remember catching some of Benjamin Booker's set afterwards. But after a while the day started to wear on us, so we cleared out to grab some food and cool off. Later that night, Andrew and I went to an arcade nearby to meet up with our manager Mike. It was a cool spot freshly decorated for Halloween and reminded me of some spots from my childhood. Andrew totally crushed it at the Guitar Hero game they had and got a ton of tickets. Meanwhile I just got beat by a bunch of kids over at the Mario Kart driving games. The next day we were tasked with finding something to do with an unusual break in the schedule before the next show. Andrew found an escape room close by and said he had some friends that were super into them. Luckily they had an opening that afternoon, so we all signed up.

  I think most of us were pretty skeptical at first, but once we started working on the puzzles it all started to click. The room we played was called Gold Rush and consisted of several rooms that took a lot of teamwork and thinking outside the box to progressively unlock. I remember there was one part where we had to shoot a pellet gun, and closer to the end we had to crawl through a mine shaft. We completed everything and found the gold with just seconds to spare! It totally won us over and kind of sparked our obsession with finding more escape rooms to try while we had any kind of break on tour. Little did we know at the time, this one we tried was one of the most highly-rated escape rooms around. So most of the ones we tried afterwards didn't live up to the hype haha.

  The following day we made the drive to Dallas in the van we rented. We stopped along the way for some Mexican food before pulling up to the venue called The House of Blues Dallas. We introduced ourselves to the Black Angels before our soundcheck and they were pretty cool dudes. It was especially neat checking out their setup on stage that included multiple vintage tape echos like an old Binson Echorec. I remember the venue had this tiered balcony that gave it a super vertical feel from the stage. I think we had about a 35 minute set before Andrew and I went out to the lobby to sell merch and chat with some fans. It was always tough trying to explain why we couldn't play longer to people that asked cause it wasn't our call, but at least it was encouraging that at least they wanted more.

  The day after we played in Houston at another House of Blues. It was one of those days when things didn't go to schedule despite our best efforts. I just remember waiting around as we watched our allotted soundcheck dwindle down to just a few minutes to set up and even then the headliner's vj was adjusting projectors aimed directly at eye-level haha. But that's the deal with being support, sometimes the main act's problems become yours and you just have to roll with the punches. It was a good learning experience though, and we especially made sure going forward that we gave any openers for our future shows their full soundcheck. For these shows we often ended with Beat Monster Thing and extended the end jam into chaos. So we did this thing where we would just leave things feeding back and start packing up as a way to fully utilize the 35 min set time and transition right to getting our stuff out of the way as quickly as possible for the pretty intensive changeover. But yeah, some people took it the wrong way and thought we were packing things up in protest or something. In reality it just made more sense than ending a song, saying "thanks!", then leaving the stage for a minute and coming straight back out to pack up and move everything. I guess in some peoples' mind a roadie or stagehand should have taken care of everything for us, but that's not how we roll haha.

  Our last show in this support run was in San Antonio. We had never played there before so we were happy to get the chance to check out a bit of the city and play a beautiful venue. We played at a place called the Aztec Theater that was somehow even more kitschy than the House of Blues, but had a unique charm often absent from venues. The main room was designed like an Aztec amphitheater with the ceiling painted like the night's sky and stucco walls molded in the shape of stone columns. The lobby was even more ornate with replicas of ancient artifacts and a giant chandelier. We walked around a bit after our soundcheck and visited the Alamo a few blocks away. I had visited as a kid and knew what to expect, but the other guys walked around for about 15 minutes before Andrew said he was thoroughly unimpressed and wanted to leave. I don't know what he expected, but I guess it was hyped up all his life and he didn't realize there wasn't too much there to see haha. It was a fun show though, and I remember meeting some cool people at the merch table afterwards.

  We got back to Austin the next day to play a venue show at the Mohawk with White Reaper and Los Coast. It was set up by the festival to showcase some of the under-card acts before the next weekend started. I remember this outdoor venue from our time walking around SXSW and was excited to try it out with its huge deck-like patio. It was nice to break out from the set we crafted a few days earlier to fit our predetermined slot and add stuff like Cute Thing and America to spice things up a little . I think the change helped, cause I remember the show that night was especially fun and the crowd was really enthusiastic. Plus we had the chance to check out White Reaper's set afterwards who put on a great show. The next day, we made our way back to ACL but this time it was a lot easier now that we had our rental van that we could drive right up behind the stage haha. The show was even better the second time, and it was a great way to conclude another successful run!