Hayden’s Blog

Bet your bottom dollar that you’ll lose the blues in Chicago

If you're new, you should subscribe to my RSS feed so you can see when I've updated. CHOICE!

Well it’s been a week since my last post, but it feels like hardly anything has happened (which is why I haven’t felt compelled to write). We’re in the long-haul part of the tour now where we’re playing a show every night for about 2 weeks and driving 5 or so hours a day. It’s a really strange feeling not being able to remember where you’ve been or what you’ve done for the last week. I’m in a repetitive cycle of play a show, drink, go to sleep late, get woken early, drive for hours, eat, play show…
The whole reason I’m keeping this blog is so I can keep track, but it seems that isn’t really working.

Anyway, I’ll do my best to remember the highlights. We’ve covered 3000kms since my last post. Bringing you through all the places we’ve been in words would just get boring, so here’s a map…

The show in Austin, Texas was pretty good. Had an interesting hentai mural of the flintstones on the wall. Small crowd though (being a Tuesday night).

Denton, TX the next day. Played a really big venue called Haileys. Harry’s birthday. His girlfriend had organised for us to bring over “Happy Birthday Harry” t shirts to distribute to the crowd without Harry finding out. Worked really well. A good DJ played after us so we stayed and danced for a wee while.

Into Oklahoma the next day. Played a show in a small bar in Norman called Opolis. Saw a homecoming parade coming into town. Very American – cheerleaders and jocks etc. Played frisbee in the beating heat. Ummmmm, yea.

The next day we drove to Kansas City, Missouri. Played a place called the Record Bar. We had to wait ages to load in because there was a kids show on in the afternoon with a band called the Doo-Dads. Was kind of depressing. They had songs about cleaning your teeth, using the potty and spelling, and they all wore wrap around sunglasses.

On to Omaha, Nebraska. A brand new venue called Slowdown. Amazingly well thought out place, with awesome sound gear and a great dressing room with washer and dryer. Probably the best show of the tour so far. Really receptive crowd. Raymond from our support band Ferraby Lionheart joined us for soundcheck to learn up some pedal steel to play on a few songs. It sounded so great that we invited him up to play that night. Stephen and John both had birthdays the next day, so we celebrated a bit on the stroke of midnight.

We drove the width of Iowa the next day to get to a recording session at an amazing studio in Red Rocks, Illinois. We had to record 3 songs live to tape. The best thing was they provided a whole lot of vintage gear for us to use, which meant a) we didn’t have to unpack the van, and b) we were using awesome old gear. I got to play a ’75 Rickenbacher. The recordings sounded really great, and will be available on the studio’s website in a couple weeks at daytrotter.com.

We knocked off some of the drive to Minneapolis that night and got as far as Waterloo, Iowa. It was John and Stephen’s birthday, so we played some rather noisy drinking games on the way in the van. I got myself a cellphone at a Wall Mart on the way (where we got all our booze). John streaked through a flood-lit service station to celebrate his 21 years. Went to bed nice and late at a surprisingly good motel.

Next day, on to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Played a bar called the 400 club. Pouring rain. Getting much colder now. Got down to 14 degrees at one stage, which is a pretty nice change from the 40 degree heat we faced in the south.

Madison, Wisconsin next day. Great crowd. They wouldn’t let us stop playing.

Now we’re in Chicago, Illinois. Got a day to explore the city before we play tonight at Schubas. We’ve done a hundred presales, so should be a good night.

Annnnd that’s it. Sorry about the lack of drama and excitement. Until next time.