We met up with Dan and Maria at Red Scroll Records in Wallingford, CT (a bit north of Hamden) and we were happily reunited in a large warehouse full of every record you could imagine. Dan was very excited and ended up spending $130 on new records! I think he has been on North Haven for too long... I got Sadurn's album 'Radiator', because they're friends of mine and I love the record. We drove to a Thai food spot and stood around the parking lot in the cold shooting the shit until we got our food and drove to the venue.
The Space Ballroom is located in Hamden, CT in a large industrial parking lot. We had a nice sound check with the full band, and ran through as many songs as we could fit (this was the first time we were playing most of these songs in this band arrangement). I was a bit bummed because I was losing my voice and could not hit most of my high notes :( So we had to curate the set list in a way to avoid a lot of my favorites. The lower notes seem to be totally fine, luckily.
Big fancy greenrooms, and I did lots of salt water gargling. Everything felt quite chaotic before the show, and my potential future manager, Sue, was in the audience, so I was feeling a bit nervous and underprepared. We went on at 7:59, because the place was packed and we wanted to get in as much playing as possible ! This ended up being the chattiest crowd we had, but there was a nice solid audience that was attentive and supportive. I was having a hard time singing my best, but at some point I decided to just have fun with it and forget about hitting all the notes and it was a nice time. My stage banter was also not totally on, but alas.
I was happy to see my friend Julia's sweet mama at the merch table after - Mimi! She is also a singer and performer, and I was glad she made it to the show. I had a nice meeting with Sue while Maria, Dan, Dave and Matt charmed the fans at the merch table, and we sealed the deal it seems!
Pokey's band was very on that night. Super fun crowd.
At the merch table after, Dan was asked to sign a t-shirt, which is nothing out of the ordinary on this tour, but the catch was that she only wanted Dan to sign, no one else ! It seems she had a crush on him awww.
We ended up driving two hours towards Fall River, MA to Warren, RI, where a friend Avi Jacob said we could stay in his family's "River House". We were so pleasantly surprised when we pulled up at 1am to a quaint home at the end of a dead end road along the Bristol Narrows. We all slept so well that night, late into the morning.
Today (after my very productive and exciting label meeting this morning) we drove to a diner and ate mediocre food and had bad service, and then drove to a sick record store in Warren called In Your Ear Records. This spot is super fun with tons of records and a CD collection, and a pleasant array of vines and plants growing throughout. There is a bar in a the room over, and a new, decent sized venue upstairs. Chris, the owner, took me up to see it and explained that it was being premiered to the public that very evening (tonight!) with a sold out performance of A Christmas Carol. Everyone who worked at the record shop/bar/performance venue was super friendly, and they seemed intrigued about the upcoming record. I told them Yep Roc would be reaching out soon! I got The Jr. Staples Singers first album, and everyone else got lots of goodies as well.
We had a lovely afternoon lounging around the house and watching the sun set on the water. We are so thankful for this beautiful spot to sleep for two nights. We got ready and now we are at The Narrows. Wish us luck!
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