Jacksonville FLA

Animals: Great Egrets

Quotes: “It’s not called lyrics and roll.”

SIARPC: Edith Pilaf

The drive to Jacksonville was uneventful excepting I’ve never seen so many cops pulling people over on any other stretch of highway. I found myself feeling kind of angry the whole time we were in South Carolina, and I realized that I’m still pissed about that whole Fort Sumter thing. Has South Carolina ever been on the right side of history?

It’s a bit of a hike, around 7 hours, so we went straight to the club upon arrival. The club was this super cool place that would do very well transplanted to Cinncinati, but in this case was right downtown surrounded by tall, darkened buildings and an aura of emptiness missing only Ennio Morricone and tumbleweeds to be complete. When I say emptiness I mean I went for a walk and saw two people in the first 15 minutes and then another two on the way back. I’m sure it’s bustling during the day, it felt like the business not entertainment district. Still, there was a badass burrito place a block away and the club was doing decent business for a Tuesday night.

We’ve never played Florida before and that is the tale of this leg of the tour. New markets for a band like ours means smaller crowds at the shows than in places we’ve been hitting regularly, or at least have significant airplay. In this case though, even with the lowered expectations of a Tuesday night in a new region, a full half of the crowd (we asked) had driven from other cities for the only chance to see us within loogie distance. My corner of the stage was so fucking hot I drank mine, Chuck's, and part of Lisa’s water. They were in the narrow and well-defined golden stream of the air conditioner so it was OK. It was our first show without an encore but everyone seemed OK with that, band and audience alike. Everyone in the band had seemed to hit the weariness wall. On the drive to the hotel the van was silent. That never happens. Thank God Chuck still had the Whoopee cushion I had gotten him in that city where I got him the whoopee cushion because after a few minutes of silence a rip roaring fart sound was healing indeed.

Tomorrow is a drive day.