2012 Fall East Coast Tour Blog #3 (Day 12)
Driving Stats:
Miles Driven - 1528
Average Speed - 49 mph
Miles Per Gallon - 44.3
Total Driving Time - 31 hours, 30 minutes (1 day, 7 hours, 30 minutes)
The second week of the tour has almost come to a close. It's gone by very quickly. Aside from the excellence of the shows (having bad shows almost certainly makes a tour seem to drag at points), I had the good fortune of being able to spend the past week with my wife and our 7 1/2 month-old, Keenan.
All three of us were driving to Pittsburgh on Wednesday, October 3rd. I reached the Burgh first, as I had a shorter distance to drive, as well as a show to perform at. There is an open mic in the neighborhood of Brookline (in the South Hills of Pittsburgh) that is one of the best-supported open mics that I have witnessed. They have a featured performer kick off the night with a 30-minute set most weeks. I have had the pleasure of opening the night three times now, I believe. It's always a great experience playing for the audience there. It's a good mix of people on the schedule to perform and people who come just to listen. I managed to sell 5 discs, including a couple to a member of a band that used to tour with and open for the likes of Sonic Youth and Archers of Loaf. Anywho, Cannon Coffee's got a good thing going.
I got to my parents' place around 9:30 pm, and my wife and son arrived a couple of hours later. I don't remember too much about Thursday's events, prior to the show at Carnegie Mellon University; I think we hung out with my parents for some family time. I unfortunately had to drive into Pittsburgh at rush hour, so a 15-mile drive took about 75 minutes. But I planned accordingly, and got there with plenty of time to grab dinner and get everything set up for the show at 8. While the tech-savvy students of CMU don't tend to buy CDs, the shows there have nevertheless gone well. This one started out a little ominously, however. After my first few songs, no one clapped, and the audience seemed a bit disengaged. But I noticed a student come into the room who was obviously paying attention, and after the next song, he made a point to clap. And when he did, most of the rest of the people in the room followed. I am thankful that he arrived. That's usually all it takes to not only get most of the audience to applaud (it's a horribly anticlimactic end to a song when no one claps), but people also started to be interested in the show. It's strange how that one moment was a very clear turning point in the show. More people arrived, including some people from previous years' shows, and people sat in the front row as well. It turned out to be another great CMU show, thanks in part to the anonymous brave clapping student.
I grabbed a pint of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia ice cream, got a chance to chat and hang out with some of the student activities people, and called it a night. I got a signed poster from the Student Activities folks, too, which is a first!
On Friday, I had another coffeehouse show. This coffeehouse is a great little place that is actually a house, too; the owners live upstairs. The weekend shows here usually go really well. But this venue is in a small town with a college, and on this particular evening, two college-related events were going on, including a concert. So........ attendance wasn't the best. I played a little bit of a shorter show than I may have otherwise, in the interest of preserving my vocal health. The people there were very receptive, though, and it was still a decent night.
I think we're going to call this a blog entry here. I've got a baby in my lap, and we're about to hit the road.
Miles Driven - 1528
Average Speed - 49 mph
Miles Per Gallon - 44.3
Total Driving Time - 31 hours, 30 minutes (1 day, 7 hours, 30 minutes)
The second week of the tour has almost come to a close. It's gone by very quickly. Aside from the excellence of the shows (having bad shows almost certainly makes a tour seem to drag at points), I had the good fortune of being able to spend the past week with my wife and our 7 1/2 month-old, Keenan.
All three of us were driving to Pittsburgh on Wednesday, October 3rd. I reached the Burgh first, as I had a shorter distance to drive, as well as a show to perform at. There is an open mic in the neighborhood of Brookline (in the South Hills of Pittsburgh) that is one of the best-supported open mics that I have witnessed. They have a featured performer kick off the night with a 30-minute set most weeks. I have had the pleasure of opening the night three times now, I believe. It's always a great experience playing for the audience there. It's a good mix of people on the schedule to perform and people who come just to listen. I managed to sell 5 discs, including a couple to a member of a band that used to tour with and open for the likes of Sonic Youth and Archers of Loaf. Anywho, Cannon Coffee's got a good thing going.
I got to my parents' place around 9:30 pm, and my wife and son arrived a couple of hours later. I don't remember too much about Thursday's events, prior to the show at Carnegie Mellon University; I think we hung out with my parents for some family time. I unfortunately had to drive into Pittsburgh at rush hour, so a 15-mile drive took about 75 minutes. But I planned accordingly, and got there with plenty of time to grab dinner and get everything set up for the show at 8. While the tech-savvy students of CMU don't tend to buy CDs, the shows there have nevertheless gone well. This one started out a little ominously, however. After my first few songs, no one clapped, and the audience seemed a bit disengaged. But I noticed a student come into the room who was obviously paying attention, and after the next song, he made a point to clap. And when he did, most of the rest of the people in the room followed. I am thankful that he arrived. That's usually all it takes to not only get most of the audience to applaud (it's a horribly anticlimactic end to a song when no one claps), but people also started to be interested in the show. It's strange how that one moment was a very clear turning point in the show. More people arrived, including some people from previous years' shows, and people sat in the front row as well. It turned out to be another great CMU show, thanks in part to the anonymous brave clapping student.
I grabbed a pint of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia ice cream, got a chance to chat and hang out with some of the student activities people, and called it a night. I got a signed poster from the Student Activities folks, too, which is a first!
On Friday, I had another coffeehouse show. This coffeehouse is a great little place that is actually a house, too; the owners live upstairs. The weekend shows here usually go really well. But this venue is in a small town with a college, and on this particular evening, two college-related events were going on, including a concert. So........ attendance wasn't the best. I played a little bit of a shorter show than I may have otherwise, in the interest of preserving my vocal health. The people there were very receptive, though, and it was still a decent night.
I think we're going to call this a blog entry here. I've got a baby in my lap, and we're about to hit the road.
posted by Jeff Miller at 1:00 PM
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