Hayden’s Blog

The East Side

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Wow, it’s been so long since I’ve written that this is either going to be a massive post, or just severely summarised, or both. We’ve now finished our US tour proper and are heading back to New York to spend 2 weeks exploring, playing a few more shows in the CMJ music festival, and filming a music video (and having my 21st!). Then it’s off to Europe!

Since last time, we’ve travelled right down the East coast to ‘The South’, which is one of my favourite parts of America. But I’ll get to that later. First let me take you through our journey down the coast.

The Boston show was pretty good. We were playing upstairs from the Magnolia Electric Company but still managed to draw a decent sized crowd.

The next day we finally made it to New York. It was such a relief finally getting there after being so bored driving through the middle of America. Manhattan is a really crazy part of the city. There isn’t a square metre or spare room on the island. It’s so packed in that it feels like the whole place should be sinking into the river.
We played a show at a place called the Mercury Lounge on the lower east side. Really great turn out, around 200 people. Played a good show. We stayed in an awesome warehouse-turned-apartment in Brooklyn with some friends of the band. It definitely felt like a real New York experience.

Off over (or in this case under) the river to New Jersey the next day. Quite cool cause the state line is in the middle of the river, and they’ve marked on the tunnel exactly where it is. Coming out on the other side I instantly felt more relaxed. New York is so incredibly busy and noisy that it just consumes you. New Jersey definitely felt slower and easier to handle, but still with a great view of the Manhattan skyline. The venue was just down the road from a beautiful park right on the Hudson river, so I went for a walk while the sun was setting and the rest of the band was setting up their gear…

I got a good chance to try out some of the functions on my new camera like the self timer…

And the panorama stitcher…

(Click the photo to see the full size)

Back at the venue we got an excellent dinner given to us, and I even noticed the Brunettes album in the jukebox. The show went well as usual. Not much more to say other than we went back and stayed in the Brooklyn apartment.

Next day on to Philadelphia, PA. Arrived really early for soundcheck (the drive from New York is really short) so had lots of time to check out the neighbourhood, try the local delicacies (philly cheese steak) and look in a small custom guitar store (that had a guitar in the shape of Africa!?).
The room we were playing was really amazing. It had 2 levels of audience, with a really high stage, so it almost felt like you were playing in a theatre. Unfortunately this didn’t really make up for the incredibly bad show we played. The audience gave absolutely nothing, and stood against the back wall the whole night. We also got put with a really misplaced support act called The Cobbs, who played really bad, loud rock n roll. It’s actually been amazing that nearly all of the local supports on the tour have been totally out of place.

Washington DC next. We’d been told the venue we were playing was in a slightly rough part of town, but when we got there it was fine. Not much worse than any of the places we’ve been. We were playing the Rock n Roll Hotel, who were amazingly hospitable, with an amazing backstage area. We finally had a decent support band called the Fairline Parkway, and they were so nice we ended up staying the night with them. They said their place was a 5 minute drive, but we ended up following them for 20 minutes and crossing over into Virginia before we got there. We didn’t mind though because we got to tick off a whole lot of landmarks on the way – the Washington Monument, the White House, Congress, the Pentagon (all be it very quickly, driving past in the middle of the night).
The guy we stayed with (Elmer) works for NASA, and has been to Antarctica. We spent a wee while obsessing over his job before finally going to bed. I had to sleep in the van because I was so allergic to his cat.

We woke in the morning with a whole day off to visit the Smithsonian museums. But after spending ages picking up the other half of the band and trying to find a park, we were left with 2 hours to do an express tour of the thousands of square metres of history. It actually ended up being the best way to see the place. It was so incredibly crowded that being there any longer would have driven me crazy.

The Smithsonian is basically a massive long strip of park lined with museums, that runs from the Washington Monument (big spiky phallus thing) to the Capitol building. You could spend a month there and still be finding new things. Me and a couple of the guys chose to go for the Museum of Natural History first. Looking at the map we chose dinosaurs and the Hope Diamond as our places to visit. The dinosaurs were pretty amazing, the diamond was overrated.

Next we walked across the park to the Air and Space Museum. This time we chose to take a bit more time to enjoy the exhibits and the many many photo ops.

After the museum we had to make our way back to the van, so we walked via the sculpture garden and fountains.

The next show was in a small town called Chapel Hill in North Carolina. It had a really great small southern town feel to it, with organic markets and performers playing in shady parks under big oak trees. The gig went well. Jonathan found a dancing cage on the side of the room and decided he’d spend the whole show in there, separate from the band. It ended up working really well, especially for me because I got to be up the front of the stage, and not behind Jonathan for once. The owner was a really great guy and kept the bar open for us after the show (and kept our free tab going) even though he wasn’t making any money.

On to Atlanta, Georgia next. We stayed with a good friend of the band who had a hot tub and a great little house. Played at a place called The Earl, someone yelled out “play Freebird”.

Next we played Athens, Georgia. A university town with a Dunedin feel to it, but with way more money. Good sized crowd. Yummy pitas for dinner and breakfast.

On to Nashville, Tennessee. The supposed ‘music city’ turned out to be a complete hole. It reminded me of Hamilton. We walked along the street and there was a band played really bad country music in every single bar. There had to be about 50 bands playing on the one street. The gig was as crap as the city. Very forgettable.

Our last gig of the US tour proper was in another small southern town called Hattiesburg in Mississippi. It was a long drive, so we arrived quite late for soundcheck. The venue was an amazing place. Great outdoor area with tables and chairs. We were playing inside on the ground (there was no stage). Pretty minimal PA. We started loading in, half think about how awesome the place was, and half wondering how many people would turn up to see us play, especially considering the band has never played in the state of Mississippi before.

Brad, the guy who runs the place, cooked us some awesome Jambalaya with fish (a southern dish) and said we could stay in the apartment above the bar, which he said was there purely for bands to stay in. The night was getting better and better, and then we went down stairs and saw how many people were there. The place was absolutely packed! Everyone was dancing around. We felt like we’d been invited to play someone’s party or something. But no, this was just what people are like in Hattiesburg. They come out and have a good time, even if they’ve never heard of the band before. The room was so packed that I was in the crowd when we were playing. It felt like playing a house party. People kept apologising for walking in front of me. It was such a great experience.

It was our touring support band’s last show with us, so we had a bit of a ceremony upstairs in our apartment. We gave them each little presents to say thanks for being such great guys to tour with.

Straight after the show we were invited to the so called afterparty, which ended up being really great. On the way there I kept wondering whether it’d just be a few people sitting around having some beers, but when we arrived it was a raging party with people dancing and playing drinking games. I joined in on a game the Americans called thumper that I used to play in highschool. Really great night.

The next day we woke and ate at an organic café slash grocery store right next to the venue. Amazing food, and we got to pay for it with a couple of CDs and tshirts.

We drove back to Atlanta and stayed at the place with the hot tub. Had hot dogs for dinner.

Next day we drove to Chapel Hill. Let some fireworks off in the park next to the place we were staying.
And that brings us to today! We’re currently somewhere between Baltimore and New York. Tomorrow we’ll finally get to New York! I’m putting my computer in to get fixed, so the next time I write I may be in Europe, but hopefully sooner.