Archive Sunday #32

SD: The day after we played The National in Richmond, we drove up to Baltimore to play this cool little venue called Ottobar. I remember the stage was pretty high for the room with our shins level with the faces of the audience. The green rooms were also super weird. One had a claw-foot tub right in the middle, and the other had a toilet placed on a small stage with a mirror directly in front of it. The Lemon Twigs kicked off the night switching off taking the lead on songs to warm up the crowd before we took the stage. It was an awesome night, and the venue is definitely on my list to come back to.

We had a much needed day off to head up New York for the next show. I think I opted to catch a cheap bus that morning straight into NYC to see some friends. The others found a super cheap hotel in Atlantic city, so they took the extra day to explore the empty casinos and boardwalk. We met back up the next day to load into the Bowery Ballroom. I remember Andrew and I drove around Chinatown and the East Village for almost an hour looking for a spot to park the van. But eventually we finally found some street parking even though it took us probably another 15 minutes to walk back to the venue. 

This must have been our first full-band show we played with Lucy Dacus. I first checked out her stuff back when I lived in Richmond when my roommate told me about helping her film a rooftop performance for one of her early videos. She had now just been recently signed to Matador and we met her and the band in the greenroom before the show. They were all super nice and we instantly hit it off. The show itself was super fun, and I remember the crowd was really into both acts. After the show Oscar Isaac wandered into the greenroom to meet everyone and he was super appreciative for everyone's contribution to such a great night. Once we finished up at the merch table, we grabbed some late night slices at Artichoke pizza and settled in for the night.

We had a double show the next night due to the first one being sold out fairly quickly. It's always a relief to be able to leave everything set up for the next night and have a bunch of time to explore that would normally be spent loading in/out and driving to the next city. But honestly I can't even remember what we did with the extra few hours other than sleep in and get some great food in the city.

The next day we made the somewhat short drive up to Boston to play the Sinclair. After load-in we took a few extra minutes at sound-check to work out a cover of Exit Music by Radiohead that we figured we might throw into the set that night. Then we all grabbed food together at the attached restaurant out on the patio. The show went over well, and people definitely seemed to enjoy the cover thrown in.

The following day we crossed the border into Canada. I always love that serene drive through the rocky highways in Vermont. We tend to find a comfy diner on the way to grab some good breakfast food before we hit the line for the border because sometimes it can take awhile. Up in Montreal we were booked to play Bar Le Ritz again. It's always a fun spot for us and I distinctly remember quite a few crowd surfers during Connect the Dots.

We stayed in Canada as we headed west towards Toronto. There we played at this venue called the Mod Club. It was definitely more suited to dj nights and electronic acts, but it was cool to play such a wide-open room especially once it filled up. Thankfully we had the next day off with not much of a drive because we had a bit of a mishap. We had stopped at this Indian buffet on our way out of town and we (well probably Andrew) locked the keys in the van, so it took us a few hours to get a locksmith out to pop the locks.

Once we were back stateside, we drove into Detroit to play the newly-opened El Club. It was a cool bar/venue with a pretty great patio area that had its own taco truck. We had both Stef Chura and Lucy Dacus open which made for a pretty sweet line-up. The room turned out to be super packed and the crowd loved the mix of styles. The venue also gave us these sweet flashlights for being one of the first acts to pass through, and I still have mine laying around.

Our last show for this little run was at the University of Illinois in the city of Champaign. We didn't really know what to expect because it was our first time playing anywhere near here, but it turned out to be a big festival called Pygmalion that was spread out over a bunch of nights at venues all around the university. For this night we played in this huge seated auditorium sandwiched between Lacy Dacus and Frightened Rabbit. It was a little weird playing to a seated crowd, but it turned out to be a great night of exploring the school. 

WT: At some point we stopped by Atlantic City, but none of us remember when - probably before or after New York. Not as cool as Monopoly made it out to be. Very odd that we'd meet two Star Wars actors separately in one week, but I guess anything can happen when you've got a hit indie record. I'd met Lucy previously in Virginia, where we co-headlined at the WCWMFest at my old college. Did that get posted here?

The picture of Andrew swinging chains around in a store was posted on my Instagram with the caption "Security Code C", because that's what we heard coming over the store intercom a minute after he started doing that. Locked out of the car, and almost banned from the dollar store.

We were so show-crazy this year that we'd totally forgotten our Champagne show until a week or so beforehand. We had to change hotel and flight plans at the last minute. Worked out ok though. My dad went to UI!