The Chapel then bye bye Bay!

Last night we played at a cool venue in San Francisco's Mission District called The Chapel. 

Beforehand, we had a chance to walk around the vibrant streets and grab more (fully loaded and fully filling) tacos! We walked briefly up to Dolores Park and got a beautiful view of San Francisco and the Bay!

Louisa and San Francisco

The rest of the band had driven into SF from Berkeley in the van. But I was staying with my college friend Fiona in Oakland, so I got to partake in one of my favorite activities - taking new transit systems! I added a mobile Clipper card to my Apple Wallet, grabbed the AC Transit bus 62 from Bella Vista to the BART station, then took a blue line BART train through a tunnel under the San Fransisco Bay, so deep that my ears popped. (I just researched it and found that the tube reaches a depth of 135 feet below the surface.)

We had a nice long soundcheck, and hung out drinking the house wine in our beautiful green room, bantering and warming up with each other and Darlingside. A few minutes before the show, I was hanging out with Fiona in the balcony and I saw a tall, light haired man walk in that looked strikingly like my cousin Robbie, and then I realized, it WAS Robbie, and his partner Sydney! By the time the show started, our cousin Cady and her partner, Mike, had also arrived - what an awesome surprise! Other friends in the audience included our host Emily, my friend Mai from college, and Banjo Sam, an old friend of ours from the epic Maine summer of 2015, as well as Dave and Dan's old friend Justin from Bucksport. 

Cousins!

The show itself was good, but not spectacular. I was told afterwards that the levels on the voices were really low for the first couple songs, but that it got better as the set went on (I was also able to hear myself better as it went on). We started right at 8, and it looked like the first floor of the room was only about half full. But by the time the set was done, the deceptively large venue was pretty full. Overall, it was a cool space to play in, and I felt like the crowd was into it, especially for the second half of the set, even if they weren't as audibly responsive as our Northwest crowds. They were bopping along, and some people clearly recognized Red Neck Yaught Club! We sold a handful T-shirts and I finally got the Darlingside shirt I'd been eyeing, trading with Harris for one of ours.

Darlingside sounded great, thanks in large part to their great sound person, Kimberly, whom I believe we have mentioned previously. Their stage banter was particularly on point, and Auyen's band introductions were especially hilarious and creative tonight. 

I stayed at the burrow along with the band, and in the morning Dan, Maria and I got some excellent and affordable empanadas right down the street. 

Now, we are on the way to LA, quickly progressing down the very barren and dry Route 5. We passed some under-construction suburban developments surrounded by parched, golden hills, where they had already built the streets and the lampposts, but no houses. In the distance we could see a couple cookie-cutter houses under construction. We all agreed that this was one possibility for what hell might look like. 

Oh fun update- Darlingside's van just passed us on the highway!