ZERO TO SIXTY BELOW IN 6 SECONDS: A THREE PART TOUR JOURNAL FROM THE FEBRUARY HORRISONANCE EXPERIMENT
Posted February 14, 2007
All in all, we seem to being doing it backwards touring the blistering South in the middle of August, followed by the Artic cold-front prone Midwest in the dead of winter. This is our second headlining tour in our nearly six-year band history, and like the one before it, it is an experiment in sociology and mass communication, as well as an open-ended inquiry into our influence on various population centers in North America. This is also the first tour Ive taken my vintage Yamaha CP70 electric grand piano on the road and I know if it were a person, itd be crying enormous tears right now. After seeing the wear and tear on it after just a week of shows, Im trying hard not to shed a tear myself.
Day One: Louisville, KY (natively pronounced Loah-vul): The last time we played the Louisville area was sometime around four or five years ago at the old Brycchouse with The White Octave and The Juliana Theory, except The White Octave missed the show on account of them breaking up. Unfortunately, the show was far away from the artsy Bardstown Road district and rather in an outlying suburb called Fairdale. Experiment Notes: The number of attendees at a given concert is conversely proportional to the venues distance from the city proper.
Day Two: Columbus, OH (official civic past time: The Pub Crawl): The Columbus show at the Basement was a modest (although I prefer to use the term cultish) turnout. The fans that are showing up to these shows are rabid ones, the ones we like to keep. They would follow us despite blowing snow and brutal cold fronts. These are the people that revel in the flecks of our sweat and clouds of confetti. Experiment Notes: Keep these fans.
Day Three: Altoona, PA (official state food: sandwich from Sheetz): We soldiered on to Altoona and found ourselves in a church basement in front of a crowd of dancing beautiful people. The love radiated off all our foreheads like a fever. Experiment Notes: Moms sometimes make the best promoters.
Day Four: Cleveland, OH (official civic disposition: like the weather - cold): The Superbowl was also today, encouraging yet another modest turnout. It didnt go unrecognized by us, however, that the people who were there, by the fact of their attendance, placed us a higher priority than the worlds biggest football game. Go Colts, by the way. The end of the night found me vomiting into a trash can, courtesy of the nasty bite of Black Velvet. We live and we learn, dont we? Experiment Notes: Keep eye on bar tab.
Dav Five: Warren, MI (civic motto: Not quite Detroit): The venue came complete with a three-foot baby alligator in a fish tank. Finally, someone actually reads our hospitality rider! Im kidding, of course, but I hope this thing never gets flushed down a toilet, because I can only imagine all the mayhem it might cause in the streets of Detroit. Actually, come to think of it, Detroit probably seen a lot worse. Experiment Notes: See Louisville Notes.
Day Six: East Lansing, MI (school motto: Theres a west Lansing?): An hour and a half down the highway we came to Michigan State University, playing the largest room of the tour thus far, in front of the largest crowd of the tour thus far. But despite being a relatively large crowd, the large room made it look like my grandmother in a bathing suit, which is to say, modest. A well-stocked dressing room awaited us, simply bursting with healthy snacks from our rider and all the bottled water we could drink. Carpeted concert halls always tend to make me a bit nervous. Experiment Notes: Touch metal object to de-electrify before touching lips to microphone.
Next week: Part 2 of the Experiment
