LALALA - Lodge Room

Louisa here : We arrived in LA on Thursday October 5th, to Matt Gaillet's friend's house (Nick Jones) that Matt was cat sitting for. This house happened to have a pool and a hot tub! So we all said our excited hellos, drank some wine and ordered Thaiwanese food from a spot called JOY. Elisabeth and I went to pick it up, and as I was sitting in the van waiting for her to come back with the food, a big white van pulled up next to me. I assumed I was getting robbed by the frantic movement I saw out of the corner of my eye, but I was very happy to see that it was only Ben Burns from Darlingside, waving frantically at me from the van passenger seat. I rolled down the window and said "what the heck are you guys doing here" - they were ALSO going to Joy. Of course, out of the 5,000 restaurants in LA they would pick the same one as us. Anna Feagles and her friend Izzy came over for some food and some hot tub soaking, and then Matt's other friend Joey and his girl came over. Joey and I have a funny small world connection in Maine through a musician I play with sometimes named Jesse Kivel who used to live in LA but now lives in Owl's Head, ME. Joey recorded Jesse's whole album! Funny how it all works. The hot tub, pool and food were amazing and we all went to bed soon after.

The next day was a lovely loping day around the beautiful east side of LA. Matt and Elisabeth had to work, so we dropped our gear off at Matt's quaint home in Echo Park, and then I showed Dan, Maria and Dave Matt's old stomping grounds in Virgil Village. We ate papusas from my fave spot in town - a small el Salvadorian restaurant around the corner from Matt's old apartment. Dave Dan and Maria were all impressed by how good it was and also impressed by how accurate my description of the spot is. "Its the yummiest cheapest food that comes out quickly, while across the street, there is the longest line at all times at this overpriced, instagram famous bagel spot, and you sit and make fun of all the people waiting in line on their phones for burnt bagels while you drink fresh squeezed orange juice and enjoy the tastiest food in LA". We then took a trip to the Professional Drum Shop so Dave could buy new cases for his drum-set. He got a great deal for a whole set that is locally made and you can't get online. Then we went to a music shop Dan wanted to visit called Old Style, and I was surprised to walk in and see that the guy working there was a friend named Thomas. We had a fun time playing some cool guitars and chatting with Thomas, and then we went to a sweet vintage pop up where some of us spent too much money. Elisabeth met up with us here and we got coffee. It was getting VERY hot, so we had to just sit down to collect ourselves and see what the next plan of action was. We ended up wandering around Echo Park, and I showed them Cookbook, where I used to work. Ran into an old co-worker and caught up, and ate yummy pickles and fruit. We drank wine at a wine bar and then had a lil hike through Elysian Park to see the best views of LA and reminisce on my time there during the 2020 lock-down.

We met up with Matt (very tired from a big photo shoot) and drove over to Highland Park for a hang with Darlingside and other friends at a spot called The Hermosillo. The food was delicious and the company spectacular. The fam all went out for our LAST NIGHT of tour, and drank lots of wine all over Echo Park.

Dan and Maria slept in a tent on the deck, Elisabeth on the couch and Dave and I on the floor. It was all quite cozy, but I awoke early the next morning. We were all pretty useless most of the day, having stayed out late and partying and waking up early, so we tried to do some fun LA stuff but were so beat in the heat, we ended up back at Matt's just chilling before our final show. Matt did manage to snap this sweet photo of us at a construction sight, and we ate delicious papusas, and saw went up to the obseratory. So we did kinda a lot for not doing much.

We got to Lodge Room in Highland Park at 4, and had a lovely afternoon eating sushi rolls, drinking over priced coffee and hanging in the beautiful greenroom of the venue. Before the show, we had a toast to our successful tour, and all said one thing we had done that day that no one knew about, and generally debriefed about how awesome the past few weeks had been. We proceeded to play possibly our best show ever. The crowd seemed to be enraptured, and we had so much fun on stage. The sound was incredible, and the room reverberant. Such dreamy lights and a full room of beautiful people - I felt so lucky to be on that stage playing my songs to mostly strangers. It seemed some of the front row had looked us up before the show because they knew the two released songs, and were requesting them from the start of the set. Some good old friends were there - Joshin! and Francesca :) Lots of people bought shirts, and it appears we brought the perfect amount of merch, because we have barely anything left. Darlingside sounded majestic, and we had a nice and silly goodbye with them - lots of pictures that I do not yet have but will be asking Don for soon enough.

Dan went with Maria and her brother for the evening to Orange County, Elisabeth left from Matt's early the next morning to catch a flight, and Dave and I stuck around one more day to set up the van for road tripping just the two of us.

Saturday evening, Dave and I played a cute casual duo house show in the arts district with an old friend - Raph! Matt and I went on tour in Alaska with Raph years ago. Molly Pardon (who plays bass with Darlingside and sings harmonies but also has her own solo project that is very cool) came to the show and played a few of her songs. It was such a treat to hear her. She sings one brief solo with Darlingside every show, and other than that I just hear her majestic voice shining through in the harmonious mix. Dave and I left early the next morning! Now we are in Arizona, heading to the Grand Canyon, making our way back to Maine. And that is the end of tour everyone. Thank you for reading!!