After breakfast, I went for a walk down Apache, the street our hotel is on, to burn off some of the nervous energy I'd worked up over the last little bit.
We all went out for lunch together at a slick hipster joint called "Pita Jungle." The band seemed to think it was a lot like the Jupiter Hotel in Portland. Never having been, I can't really confirm or deny their suspicions, but it didn't remind me very much of the Doug Fir, which is the rock venue attached to the Jupiter. It was definitely a hipster joint, complete with douchy guy wearing a cut-off baseball cap. Zubin, the bass player, and I both had the falafel, which paled in comparison to La Villa, but was plenty passable.
Tonight’s gig held a number of challenges for me. For starters, the venue was small, with an oddly sized PA. There was way more power than the room needed yet not enough channels to accommodate the band. I ended up going extremely minimal, but could only find 6 working microphone cables. Luckily I’m carrying soldering tools, so I just remade the cable.
And this is what the band was doing while I was messing around with solder and stuff:
Once I had enough mic cables and we started our line check, I discovered that the console had an annoying, if not show-stopping, problem: the “solo” function, which allows me to hear the individual channels in my headphones, was inoperable. What's more, the other symptoms of the desk lead me to believe that there's something seriously wrong with the console.
As I attempted line check, I noticed something really interesting about the mixing console at this club. See if you can spot what’s wrong with this picture:
Soundcheck went fairly quickly after I had rung out the wedges and gotten all of my lines to work. I was worried about the way the PA was pointing (sorry I didn't really get pictures, I was hungry), so I repointed it a little bit, trying to predict where the audience would be.
After soundcheck, we wandered around a little bit and found a really cool bohemian bike shop. Check it out:
We ended up at a place called Carly's. On the outside, Carly's seems to be the diviest dive bar ever. Dark paint over the windows, wood door with a little square window, beer signs in the parts of the windows that aren't painted over. The interior, on the other hand, is bright and cheery like a Portland brewpub. The service was polite, funny and dealt with our inability to decide quite well. Joe, guitar/vox/poofyhair, and I had the caprese panini (mine with prosciutto) and were both impressed. I would compare it favorably to the Happy Monkey Coffee Café in Beaverton. We also had a hummus plate that was quite nice. The hummus was thick and creamy, with a nice tinge of garlic and the flatbread, though definitely storebought, was nicely warmed and tender.
The show ended up sounding quite good and the audience seemed into it. The band did a good job of engaging with the crowd and making people feel like part of the fun. I dig on inclusiveness.
I took a bunch of notes on effects and songs and stuff. My writing is practically illegible, but I like the colors and composition of this picture.
After the gig, we went to Filiberto’s, a taco stand a mile or so down Apache from our hotel. Lotje, our Tour Manager, and I went there last night for late lunch and were pleasantly surprised by the food, so we convinced the band to go back tonight. So far, I've had the carne asada and carnitas burritos and I've got to say that they're doing something really right here. Besides the meat, which is quite tasty, the burritos have only onions, peppers, guacamole and cheese. The food at Filiberto's reminds me a lot of the old Burrito Loco in North Portland.
Tomorrow we’ve got a 6 hour drive to San Diego ahead of us, so I’d better get some sleep. Take ‘er easy.
