#7 Richmond

A looooong ass day.

We drove away from Philadelphia and right into snow. Not too bad but it did have the potential to get worse. We called Evan and arranged a rendezvous w/ Young Widows at a Cracker Barrel.
The meal was less-than-mediocre and the service was comically bad. Girl did not give a FUCK and made no bones about it. It was fascinating, really.
The Widows got on the road pretty quickly. I was in the van with Corey when a large tour bus pulls in. I made a joke that was something like "I wonder what kind of rock'n'roll cheese-dick this is?" and watched as the door opened in the distance. All we could see were some characters dressed rather goofily; like a cross between clowns and bikers. I saw Neal walking down the length of the building and said "We'll get the Neal assessment on this- the 'Neal down-low'..."
As they passed each other I saw him laugh. Dom followed and did the same. They returned to the van and said that it was Rob Zombie and crew. Heh. Weird weird weird.

We got on the road and snow got worse and worse. There were accidents all along the way. I drove as Corey was feeling the post-trauma of the last Phantom tour in the northwest.
It was an exhausting drive but we made it to Richmond. We followed the directions to the club that was curiously situated between a BW3's and a few strip clubs. Corey went in to check on parking only to find that the show had been MOVED. Jesus.

We followed the promoter to the new location which was/is an olf firehouse. We loaded in but, unlike every other show of the tour, we were not to be the opener. The opening band began to play and I looked at the merch table as I sat up. They had a lot of bible pamphlets. Odd.
Sure enough- they were all about the Jeebus. As we sat upstairs with the Russian Circles guys, a long pause came rather soon in their set. We all looked at each other and said "Are they done???".....no. They had stopped to talk about how, if you're ever sad and lonely, you can talk to the creator. Wow. They did this again except, during the second attempt at testimonial, they told the crowd that there would be an ambient part of the next song and that was an open invitation to pray. Fascinating.

We played and it was WEIRD. The P.A. is not that snuff and our lack of soundcheck was certainly a hindrance on the usual set. I could see blown speakers on the stage. Yikes. I was tripping over unused mic stands and kept hearing a constant feedback. I asked "What the fuck is that sound???" but I never found the answer.
The crowd was, again, surprisingly cool with it all. I felt like a lame-ass though. Oh well.

The "backstage area" is the upstairs part of the former firehouse. The original poles are still here but floored over where half-drunken, 30+ year-olds are not able to fulfill childhood, subtly homoerotic fantasies of sliding down the old firestation pole. Probably a good thing it is floored over.
Between this structure's former inhabitants being firemen and the current guests being musicians and artists...one could not imagine the variety of STD's that have passed through those doors.

I want to try and talk the other guys into watching a movie at the motel room. After seeing Rob Zombie today, I am tempted to push "Human Experiments" on them. After all, it stars the amazing and underrated character actor Geoffrey Lewis.