April 15, 2012

It’s a really nice feeling to play out-of-state rooms several times. It gets to feeling like home when you pull up in the alley to load in, you open the door to the back hallway by the storage rooms, and it smells the same as every other time you’ve been there… you know the room, the kind of sound to expect, the way the floors creak, some of the staff, etc. Nectar’s in Burlington, Vermont feels that way for us. So does The Frequency in Madison, Wisconsin and Peach’s in Yellow Springs, Ohio and Doane College in Nebraska, where we’ll be tomorrow night, and Boston College, and pretty much any place in Charlottesville, Virginia. Touring East from Denver, Des Moines is the first major city stop – or in this case, on the way back, the last – 10 hours from home. Thus, we’ve played here on pretty much every tour, and it feels like an extension of our living room. We pulled into the back alley by Vaudeville Mews and Java Joe’s and were greeted by the familiar and awesome graffiti birds on the back wall. Grabbed some pizza across the street as usual and played a 90-minute, laid back set. We had familiar faces in front of us, as well as new ones – and all seemed to take note of Anton’s ode to Super Mario Brothers during Turn My Egg. Win.

 

We’re at the hotel now and will be up early to say ‘Bon Voyage’ to Freddie Boy at the airport. We splurged and stayed at a Hampton Inn to get a nice big hot breakfast in the morning. The waffle maker is the cat’s meow. The fact that they have a rollaway cot for Fred makes this the first tour in SoundRabbit’s history where Fred and Russ didn’t have to share a queen bed. We’re movin’ on up. More from the road tomorrow, a short 3-hour drive to Doane College for our 4th show there in 2 years. Last time they had s’mores for us…

 

For those of you who’ve been following the band for the last 4 years, you’ll know that the highlight of any of our tours is the required stop at Iowa80 – “The World’s Largest Truckstop.” Located in Walcott, Iowa on the north side of the interstate, it’s hard to miss. We were smart enough to stop here on our first tours back in the day, and it’s become a staple of every trip down I-80 since. The pictures don’t do it justice, but we did our best in the 4 hours we allotted ourselves to stay there.

Shopaholics beware. This place has more treasures than QVC. You best leave your wallet in the truck if you hope to have any gas money to get out of Iowa.

 

There are several areas of the store with t-shirts, including two stands of trademark-testing Christian t’s, and an entire section of incredible power animals.

 

Just under 3 hours to Des Moines from here. It’s our last day of driving (and our last evening gig) with Fred. We’ll take him to the Des Moines airport in the morning to fly back to Boston, and we’ll continue on to Nebraska for the last show of the tour. It’s a bittersweet day, but at least he got to the Truckstop before his journey ended. More from Des Moines…

What a lucky break we had tonight. Per the earlier Journal post, our friends from Colorado, Oakhurst, are on tour this week and helped us fill tonight with a last-minute gig in Kenosha. We rolled up to the venue well before dinner time and had a chance to walk around the harbor. It felt like we’d been teleported to the New England coast or something. The venue is located adjacent to the harbor, and all of the locals were already warming the room up for us before we’d even loaded in. Great vibe, awesome staff, welcoming people, nice stage, and a nice hot meal. Can’t ask for more than that on the road.

 

We drove back down to North Chicago to stay with friends at their house, and the forecasted weather has set in. Crazy lightning and thunder, a deluge of rain, and a nice touch of wind to boot. With any luck it will blow over by the time we hit the road in the morning for Des Moines. Good night for now.