LOUISVILLE aka LOOAHVULL

Last night was Louisville, Kentucky, also known as the home of fried chicken, bourbon, and baseball bats. We arrived at around 4:00, after a healthy 7 hour drive which began at 8am in beautiful Chicago. The venue was an art gallery/church/hip venue, with a great hard-wood floor stage and a wide, couch-filled room, perfect for hanging loose and watching some music. I think the place even had a children's day care center, which became evident during dinner as we heard the piercing cries of a baby down the hall. We had a proper spread of catered food, a nice bottle of wine, some bass ale, and a fair amount of peace and quiet. The venue also offered to record the show, which is sometimes fun and sometimes a bit painful. I'll put up the link once it's on the net.

By the time Tim Fite started his set, there was a solid 80-100 people in the audience, all of them fascinated with his set. I had a spot of loneliness before playing, a feeling that inevitably accompanies tour fatigue and a lack of proper sleep. To battle this, I called my mom, I called my lady, and I called my good friend Rishi to chat for a bit. This is a short tour, but it still means time away from the life I'm used to living. I miss my friends when I'm out here. I miss sleeping in the same bed every night. I miss my other bands, too.

We played very well in Louisville. The place was pretty packed, and since the stage was no more than a foot high, the people in the front were about 4 feet away, smiliing and listening intently. The tough thing about last night's show was that the floor was extremely slick, a fact which nearly put me on my ass on a hanful of occassions. I couldn't wait to play the tune "freak out", because I planned on running around and sliding to and fro like an ice skater. It was pretty fun. After the show, we packed up quickly and headed back to the hotel, which happened to be the same hotel we had stayed in on our stop here with the Decemberists. Brian and I ordered a pizza and debriefed until about 2.

Luckily, we had a late van call in the morning, which meant a healthy and welcomed dose of sleeping in. I hadn't done any of the driving from Chicago to Louisville, so I volunteered my driving services as we left the city. Even with our GPS unit, Gertrude, I had a lot of trouble actually getting out of the city. I was rockin and rollin once we got on the highway, though, and ended up pushing on through all the way to Columbus. The Columbus gig is on the campus of the famous Ohio State University, in the Wexner center for performing arts. The venue is absolutely gorgeous, with perfect sound, professional stagehands, and an overall super vibe. The stage has a great feng shui to it, and our sound check was probably one of the better checks we've had over the past year. I guess this venue benefits greatly from the funding enjoyed by such a large university, and it really shows.

Tonight's set is later than usual, as we go on around 10:15. This means we have had a lot of time to kill. It's now 8:25, and for the past 2 hours my activities have included a vigorous bit of roller-chair nascar, some night frisbee, and a shave. I even visited a music store down the street and bought myself a little black mandolin for the super-duper low price of $69.95, marked down from $134. WHAT A DEAL, NO? If only deals like that were possible in NY, I would be a much happier person (and i would have way more toys to play with.) It's a beautiful little instrument, and it will give me a nice little project for the Winter time. Tomorrow we head to Pittsburgh for a show at the Andy Warhol museum. Pittsburgh is more or less home turf for B-dub, seeing as he grew up an hour and a half away in Clarksburg, West Virginia. This is good news, because the entire Wolfe pack will be in full effect.

Tonight marks the half-way point of our "11 fingered-tailor" tour, a fact which is bittersweet for me. The fact that after tonight we will have 6 shows left is strange, because that feels simultaneously like an eternity and nothing at all. Saturday will be our hometown show in NYC, at the Blender Theatre at Grammercy. I couldn't be more excited for that show, because it will mark the first time since Nov 5 of last year that the full MBD lineup will be playing together. It will be something to behold, and I'd love to see some friends there. Until next time, I'm signing off.