Last night was wonderful. We played the Victoria Station Cafe, which, if we’d been going with our usual strategies, we’d probably never have discovered. But we were taking a “long-cut” through Connecticut last time we were up here, and happened to go into the Cafe seeking food, and happened to fall in Love with the ambience, and happened to ask the owner if he did Live music. Nope, but he’d Love to have some… whatever. Booked a Thursday night on a whim, way out of our way… I mean, everything about it spoke like this was going to be a dead night in a little town where no-one has heard of us.
But these are the shows that are good for my soul. Maybe the money is all to be made in bars and in “listening clubs” where people stare intently and the owner’s counting heads and cursing us for not having brought 50 more people even though THEY forgot to post us on the website, or bumped us to a Tuesday at the last second, or… whatever else my pet peeves are. Maybe the money is to be made there because those places are being run by cut-throat businessmen who know how to make a buck. We take the scrapings and the leavings…
But these coffeehouse shows, and the ones that go so wonderfully, with such wonderful people and wonderful SPACES and wonderful nights. I broke two strings, fucked up lyrics, my battery died and I discovered that I’d mislabelled all my E strings as D strings – but despite all that, it was still one of the best gigs we’ve played in a long time. It just felt so good on the drive home… it’s like eating just the right amount at Thanksgiving or something… all the comfort foods filling your belly just right.
Oh, yeah – so in the bathroom of Peaberry’s Cafe in Simsbury, CT, they have these hand dryer units that actually have an arrow directing you to “feel the power”, and indeed you do… and indeed, it’s monstrous. Like, you put your hands under the air and this fucker fires up like a God damn jet turbine
It’s a good night when: halfway through the show a 4 year-old named Harry asks you to play some James Taylor… and when later in the night, after breaking a string, that same 4 year-old comes over to watch you change the string, and then when you stupidly string it with the wrong guage and launch your string peg across the room, it’s really nice to have a four year-old who’s willing to chase it under tables.
Highlights included – a guy named Chris who had run out to come back with a burned CD of a guitarist I reminded him of. This CD of ________ (I’ll check the name later) was the PERFECT music for the drive home. – a guy named John who helped us find a shortcut back to where we were staying the night… – a couple of people who sat in the back the whole night and who lit up my Life by being friendly to an exhausted post-gig rob… (oh, and Heather compared one of them to Fiona Apple, which I think is unfair because no-one that young and potentially even illegal should be compared favourably – and accurately – to someone that hot) – and Jessie, who was the first person to talk to us that night, and who’s enthusiasm for music let us know that the night was going to be something special.
It was a long drive back to bed through small towns and forests, listening to acoustic guitar and the wind.
