Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Back in the Bus

Well, our time at home was loverly. For a short while, Dave and I got to pretend we were both stay at home parents. Our days were spent playing with the baby, getting chores done, napping with the baby, swimming, walking around the neighborhood with the baby, having friends over to see the baby and falling asleep with the baby. Good times. Great times.

And now we're on our way to Florida to play two gigs. The band will turn around and head home, but Dave, Lisel and I will stay in Florida and camp on the beach for a couple of days. It's spring break, so we're not quite sure to expect.We'll be hunkering down in the more cost effective campgrounds of a state park. Sounds tranquil, until you consider that other bargain hunting population..broke ass students. We could find ourselves surrounded by a bunch of wild college age horndogs, looking to push the limits of their newfound adult bodies through the use and abuse of mass quantities of alcohol, nicotene and other more tightly controlled substances. I just hoe that if they do decide to infiltrate our campground that they won't play their music too loud, and they'll keep they're wet t-shirt contests to themselves.

Dude, do I sound old, or what.

Dave, on the other hand, swears he packed his beer bong in case those youngsters need a lesson in partying down...which really doesn't make him sound younger or hipper than me.

From Florida, we'll make our way up to Chicago, where we'll pick up my folks and proceed to tour around the Midwest.

And that's how we'll spend our next two and a half weeks.

Now, today Dave and I didn't just pack up the bus and hit the road. Oh no. First, we played a gig. Because we're kind of nuts. And also because we couldn't totally miss put on the extravaganza that is South by Southwest.

For those of you who don't know, South by Southwest is a huge music/film/interactive (internety) festival that is held in Austin every March. Billions of people, most of them clad entirely in black, descend upon our fair city for a week long shmoozy boozy party. Millions of bands from every corner of the earth playing every genre of music imaginable drive their beat up vans to our town. Every local business that can throw together some semblance of a stage and sound system together does, and hosts 60 bands over the course of a weekend. It's awesome, inspiring, and always exhausting.

And this year, we're going to miss is.

Except at 3:30pm today.

At 3:30pm today, I got the Firebrands (my pre-Wheel band) to together to play 45 minutes of rock and/or roll. For 45 glorious minutes we kicked out the jams just like we used to when we played every Friday at the Carousel Lounge. It was rad!!!

Now, I had my doubts about playing a show right before we took off for a two and a half week tour. But I forgot the power of playing music you love, with people you love, for people you love. A gauranteed tonic for the soul.

Now to Florida! And beyond!


-- Post From My iPhone

2 comments:

Bruce James said...

Nursing moms ought to do really well in wet t-shirt competitions.

So, what did you used to do during Spring Break?

Carole said...

I laughed my ass off when reading this post. (esp the part about Dave's beer bong and him not sounding any hipper than you.)
I too have camped at both ends of the spectrum - first when I was the one up late making all the noise and now much later in life as the one who prays they don't set up camp next to me!