After a day of rest and relaxation chez Zaletel (Austin, a member of the awesome Euforquestra invited us into his parents' home and we were wonderfully taken care of!) and a movie we woke and continued driving through the cornfields to the beautiful venue, Off Broadway in St Louis. We played again with Public Property, and were invited home by some newey-befreiended fellow UVM alumni. Lawrence, KS the next day, and then an epic drive to Denver and the beginning of our Colorado circuit.
Denver: Maria, Darby and Dan invented the "party bed".
Breckenridge: We camped out by the wildflowers and the amazing Lake Dillon.
Dave finally took the facial hair plunge and allowed Craig to craft him a sweet fumanchu.
Steamboat: We got lead by a savvy osha-growing local up to an awesome creek/ waterfall and (some of us) dunked repeatedly in the frigid water.
Somehow the dishwasher of the band condo got filled with suds and Alex, Ian and I put them to good use.
On our way to Crested Butte we got SERIOUSLY misguided by google maps. The pass they wanted us to go through turned out to be no more than a treacherous MOUNTAIN BIKE TRAIL! The local guy that was (thankfully) there at the end of the road said he'd mountain biked it recently but it was still crusted with snow and he had to walk his bike for a good portion of it. How did Google think we were going to get over it with our van and trailer?? Oh, right: Google doesn't think. So we had a high-altitude pee and a whistle and then headed back down with our hearts wounded. The next few hours, despite the disgustingly gorgeous scenery, were dark ones for Rubblebucket. A stop in Carbondale for beer and popsicles helped, but it still took 3 solid hours of curvy bumpy moon-lit mountain driving to get to Crested Butte...
So thank goodness that our time in crested butte was UNREAL! Alex's buddy Kruger let us stay in his beautiful trailer (AKA home of the lost boys) and helped us put on possibly the best show of the tour, at the Eldo. We had a day to assimilate: went for a dip in Long Lake, thrift shopped, met people from the local radio station, and paraded around during the intermission of a big outdoor concert that was going in town. People caught on and the Eldo was packed come 10:00pm. It was so wonderful to play for such an energetic crowd, and I think none of us will forget that night. Especially not Maria, who's beloved saxophone, Bari White, took tumble number one of the tour :(
Ian and Kruger hanging in the Butte:
Boulder: as always, a wonderful town to visit. Adam's aunt and uncle took us in. We had a rockin' time at the B-Side (Mike Gordon came and sat in!) and then the next night at a house party for some old/new friends and other local crazies.
Montana: Driving all night is never fun (unless it is but this time it wasn't) And that's what we had to do to get to the Big Sky Music and Art Festival in time after our post-Phish very-late-night Carnival show in Golden. When we landed in Big Sky we were all a little delirious. We had just enough time to shower and then truck ourselves over to the festival. The stage had a view of giant mountains, sagebrush hills, and sky- the most beautiful view from stage I've ever had! We started to play, and a couple of songs in something amazing happened: three impeccably-dressed ROBOTS came dancing over from the parking lot. It was our friends Kiernan and Rachel from Boston who had just moved out to Montana. I knew they were planning on attending, AS ROBOTS, but for me the whole scene was so unreal, and I couldn't stop myself from laughing. And laughing and laughing- uncontrollably! I was supposed to be singing but this delirium swooped me up and wouldn't let me go. Oooh. Then at the end of the evening Bari White (Maria's sax) took tumble #2 and it was very sad and laughter turned into tears. It is always so hard to see harm come to one of our instruments, our life sources, or best object-friends.
And then we drove home..........
Love, Kalmia
No comments:
Post a Comment