Flashback to:
August 5
Mercury Cafe in Denver was a very cool place. Great food, great atmosphere, awesomely decorated, kind of like Tea Bazaar in Cville but 6 times the size. They had a really nice big stage upstairs and a smaller stage downstairs that we played on. When we showed up the place was packed with people having dinner but by the time we went on at 10pm everybody had left. So we played to 3 people plus the staff, who were very nice. Apparently there was something going on that night, some activist speaking somewhere or something that all the people who normally hang out and come to shows there were at. That's what someone told us, at least. We would definitely like to play there again though, I think the staff liked us and would try to get their friends out next time. We've been selling CDs and t-shirts most places also, so that's helping.
We spent a day hanging out in Boulder, CO. Seemed like a really cool town. Reminded me of Asheville or a bigger cville. Very hippy-dippy. There's a little coffee shop there called the Laughing Goat that has music. Mostly singer/songwriter stuff but it could be something for us to hit up next time we pass through.
We played a mini-show in our friend's living room in Salt Lake City. She invited some friends over, it was fun.
Mississippi Pizza in Portland went pretty well. The sound was good, and John Heart Jackie (Peter and Jenny) sounded beautiful and were super nice. Christian from Le Loup was there. He missed our set but was really nice and bought a t-shirt anyway. We had some friends that came out to see us and some other people that were there seemed to really dig it. The one weird thing about it was that there were a fair amount of people there just out of thier kickball or softball league games and they were there to drink and talk and seemed a little put-off by the live music that was preventing them from hearing each other. They weren't rude, they just didn't want to hear music. Anyway, it was a good place for a first show in Portland, but I don't think I would want to play there again if we came back through town.
+++++++
July 29
The Slowdown in Omaha was great! The two other bands we played with were excellent and the venue is really, really nice. Like, fancy nice. Great sound system and all the people who worked there were really friendly. The soundguy, Aaron, was fantastic. Turnout was ok for a Tuesday night - I think there were like 25 people there. Looked a little empty for a room that can probably hold 300, but they left tables and chairs set up so it was spread out. They let us play in the middle in between the two local acts even though we were billed as the headliner, so that worked out good for us.
It seems like turnout here can be hit-or miss. They said Dirty Projectors played there a little while ago to a room of 15 people!
The venue is on this little block that apparently is entirely owned by Saddle Creek records and consists of a coffee/sandwhich shop, an Urban Outfitters, an American Apparel and in independent film theater. There's not much else in the immediate area but Omaha's downtown pedestrian mall, "The Old Market" is only a 5 minute drive away and had some good eats, art galleries and a pretty cool record shop called Homers. We passed out some handbills around there but were not able to busk because it started raining. :(
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