he weather is sunshiny and down-right peachy as we pass the giant peach in Gaffney, South Carolina. We’ve left Ben behind and his kind smile is lingering as we drive to Tryon. ZZ Top is on the radio and spirits and speeds are high as we pass offers for free tastes of peach salsa. I think of peaches as a Georgia thing, but apparently South Carolina is trying to edge in on that action.
Last night we played at the George Washington Bookstore Tavern – arguably our favourite venue in North Carolina – and were horrified to find out that the owner’s selling the place. He’s doing it for the right reasons, I suppose: he’s simply tired… getting out before he hates it. He’s Loved the place for the past five years and is ready to do something else. We’ve met a lot of really cool people through the open mic there, and we’re really sad to hear of it’s demise – but maybe the new owner will be half as cool as Lane, which is still pretty damned cool.
A couple of weeks after we’d set up last night’s show I ran across a reference to some band called West Mary being on the calendar for GW on the same night as us and I was PISSED. I hate it when venues double book, and though the explanation is pretty good and everything generally works out, it’s like finding out your date for the night has someone else scheduled too.
In any case, Heather realized that West Mary was our friend Ben Henry’s band – and we decided to simply share the night with them.
Best decision ever.
It was one of those nights where I’m almost ANGRY that we couldn’t just teleport more of an audience in. I mean, we had a small crowd, but a lot of our favourite people would’ve been BLOWN AWAY by the night. GW’s sound system, first off, is always awesome and we had a particularly good sound man last night. We played really, really well – Ben and I had spent some time the night before setting up my guitar and it felt really good for the first time in a couple of days – despite a broken string we really put on a kick ass show… and then watching Ben and Ben (of West Mary, not the Ben we were staying with or my friend Katy’s husband, Ben… I KNOW!!!) rock out – they were passionate and fierce and angry and in Love with what they were doing. It was one HELL of a show.
I’m angry we didn’t video tape the whole thing. There’ve been a couple of moments like that over the past couple of days.
On a side note, we just passed a BEAUTIFUL bright yellow Dodge Charger.
After the gig we sat around on stage and just jammed for about an hour. Ben looked like he was in … look…
Ben 1 – Ben Lawless who we stayed with.
Ben 2 – Ben Henry who sings and plays guitar for West Mary
Ben 3 – Ben Lawry who sings and plays bass and mandolin for West Mary
Ben 4 – Katy’s husband…
Okay? Okay…
In any case, Ben 1 looked like he was in heaven. I ripped off two fingernails on Ben 3’s bass, and Ben 2 is just a bad ass. I am in LOVE with this Trip.
