woke up back stage but still in the bus.
it was one of those sticky hampered hammer hot days beginning to broil outside. having the mothership there hovering helped to duck in now and again and bask in the refreshing human refrigerator.

the festival today is the hideout’s block party, but now a few thousand people show up. we will be here all day long. our set went on early, about 1:45. we did very well even though the usual demon clowns of sonic entangle were there a jostling our wires and muck-a-luck.

the slap back mic would not work so i bailed on it. started the set with the piano completely unaware that the electronic device was transforming all my keys a whole step up.

when i switched to guitar, it was well out of tune with anders, but the sun was so bright, the tuner indicator light was unreadable. i had to grab the mic vegas style and squat down with guitar strapped and shadow the device with my one free hand while continuing to sing and not miss a beat. hmmm, looked like i was in tune. turns out anders’ plastic guitar was warping out in the sun bake.

then my guitar strap broke and i continued strapless.
no wait. that was the night before.

but the vibe was all good and we have been getting better adapting to our own sound forming.

the crowd was delighted and so were we. this meant we had the rest of the day there off to enjoy and drink it in.
sally timms and jon langford, janet bean and andrew bird, even the folks from our old label thrill jockey clustered and we all sat around yammering while taking in the rest of the day sprawling around us.

neko ended the event that day deliciously and we drove off to split from the tour for a couple days then. headed to our airport hotel. dove into a fitted sleep and awoke to our flight to new york city.