CHICAGO ~ BLOOMINGTON ~ MARYLAND
with a short digression into the Colorado Leg as well....
Chicago OCT 3 2008 – We flew in from Portland to Chicago on Friday where we met the boys & the bus. The bus had a spendover in Denver & Nathan, Dan & Taylor drove it out to Chicago a few days before from Denver.
A few weeks before we had done a Colorado/ New Mexico 12 day tour of which I blogged NOT. I slacked. My camera is busted, so my inspiration of photo posting & blogging had left me....I'll see if I can scramble some pathetic photos from my iPhone...
COLORADO TOUR was: 9/12-9/22
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse puppets @ Tour de Fat
BOULDER - 9/5
Early rise to get to Fort Collins by the 9 am soundcheck...
Fort Collins - 9/6
Tires of Fire Choir!
7,000 FANS!!!!
Denver – Tour De Fat,
Pueblo – Obama Rally - Obama campaigne was happy to have us play for the 15,000 in attendance as they filed into the arena. WOO HOO!!!
This is a picture of me with the next President of the USA (he's waving in the background)!!!!
Gunnison
Crested Butte
Taos
A picture of some cool furniture at a store in Taos...my spirit animal...THE TIGER!
Santa Fe – Santa Fe Brewing company
Durango – TDF, Abbey Theatre
High altitude fun was had in Colorado, although it was probably the smallest combination of M4 to ever take the show to the road. We still rocked it & even had the opportunity to introduce Taylor on electric guitar for a few songs.
BACK TO CHICAGO>>>>
I digress...back to Chicago...se played the Cobra Lounge again, where we played last year, & once again were treated real well. Tallboy’s bass drum did not make it out on the plane though, so the EE (Environmental Encroachment) were kind enough to bring us a bass drum for him to play. Although, it wasn’t quite up to Tallboy’s standards & a lot BIGGER than his other drum. It had a more boomy bassend feel than we are used to, but better than no bass end at all...thanks EE for the loan! I think we arrived at the venue generally too early in the day & people started hitting the drinky drinky pretty hard, so by the time our midnight set rolled around, there were a few perty sauced individuals that made for a cantankerous & bafflingly wonky set. Although, everyone in the audience was probably at least as smashed, so they loved it. Yours truly, sober as I am for the last 3 weeks, can tell when we are not at our best & playing the drunken slide. There was some issue with the feedback loop on stage & the bass & bass drum creating some kind of ambient hum which made the on stage sound almost unbearable. Folks in the crowd said it sounded fine, but man, being on the stage was a little like playing inside a burn barrel.
John picked up a sweet bass guitar that day from an amazing music store the Chicago Music Exchange & they gave us 40 t-shirts! Today everyone is wearing theirs, we look like a walking advertisement. Smart Marketing! They were kind enough to let him test out the bass for the duration of the tour, & if he doesn’t like it by the time we come back through Chicago, he can bring it back. Pretty sweet deal. It sounds so much better than the other bass which has been through a fair amount of abuse over the years.
A lot of m4thers headed up to the jam space on the 4th floor of the Cobra complex after the show that night ( 2 am or so) for a jam session that lasted until the sun came up.
Next morning we packed up & headed out for Bloomington Indiana…but not before we had to detour to the Chicago O’Hare to pick up the missing drums. The detour put us behind schedule a bit & would wind up missing our earliest downbeat on the LOTUS fest schedule….
Bloomington – LOTUS fest
It seems we were scheduled to play @ 5:45 for a parade, then again @ 8:30 parade, then again @ 10:30 on the main stage. The myriad of minds maintaining the minutae of musical mayhem that is the M4 touring schedule couldn't do anything about making that 5:45 slot. We had to go to the airport that morning & get the Drums…We high tailed it as fast as we could with "the Breathalizer" at the wheel, once we had procured the drums, but Chicago to Bloomington is about a 7 hour drive as the tour bus flies, so many of us did our makeup & costuming on the bus while we were driving once we got close to Bloomington (which is always entertaining & interesting & you get to know your band mates better than you ever thought you would kind of experience...you also get makeup in unintended places whenever you hit a bump or turn a corner....).
Once there, we put the drums together, put the stilts on, tuned the horns, hauled the merch & rigged the bass & headed over to the parade route in downtown Bloomington.
A swarm of avid LOTUS FEST go-ers followed us as we meandered to the starting route down Kirkland Ave. People were excited to see us, that was exciting! Some people were clapping & cheering & we weren’t even playing music! We were just walking down the street in our regalia. Now that is a good gig.
When the parade started, the scene was epic. The street was absolutely packed for about 10 blocks & we made our way through the crowd playing our most energetic & rippin’ marching tunes.
There were some near audience casualties from the riot style cramped space in the street, but we were able to carve out an area big enough for us to spread out a few times. I actually had to tell one woman “I really don’t want to hit you” because she was literally shoulder to shoulder with me & swinging my sticks & I think I hit her a few times, but I didn’t mean too!!! Sorry if I did! Gotta give the drummers some space! Tallboy definitely whacked a few people because he swings out about 2 .5 feet on either side of the drum, but I guess that is part of the thrill of marching along with the marching band….ITS DANGEROUS PEOPLE!!!
After the parade set we let the whole crowd know we’d be playing again @ 10:30 on the main stage.
We had a short break between & headed over to the tent/ampitheater space for our Saturday night headlining set.
Last year we had to “parade plug” the audience of the previous band to get people to stay for our show & because no one knew who we were. It worked & we kept the entire crowd & played a ROCKING SET complete with tallboy surfing the crowd while playing his bass drum for the finale.
This year, our reputation exceeded our wildest dreams & no “plug” was needed. When we marched in & took the stage, the crowd filled in the huge tent area on its own. I don’t know, 1000-1500 people? Hard to say. A big crowd to say the least & everyone was cheering to deafening proportions by the end of the set. I always get a little shy feeling when that happens. Oh what a feelin’, though. That’s what it is all about. I haven’t heard that big crowd roar since the anniversary show & it is a welcome addition to the beginning of this east coast tour. THANK YOU BLOOMINGTON!!! WE LOVE YOU & we will come back as long as you want us to!!!!!
Take a gander for yourself!!!!! This is great video/audio of our tune Tongue N Groove by Luke Solmon...or "TNG" as we call it:
http://www.loqu.com/lotus-festival-bloomington-2008/videos/somebmxer-63585LOTUS even put us up in hotel rooms! The beds were so comfortable! & they kept the bar, the pool & the hot tub open into the wee hours of the morning for us. We didn’t’ get back the hotel until 1:30 or 2 am so, that was nice of them. Some kids went to the after party & were out all night until the sun came up. I was of the mindset that if I have a hotel room, I’m gonna USE IT!!!! Shower, bed, clean sheets, YUMMY YUMMY!
Next day we up at the crack, & DRIVE ALL DAY to Maryland & Topher's mom's house, stay the night, get up & drive to NYC for our show @ the Knitting Factory!!!
