We got into Lexington and went to a record store called CD Central. Yep Roc wants me to go to record stores in each town we play in to connect with them about future music releases. So I shared my info and talked to them for a bit and we browsed the shelves. Its a very cool shop with tons of records, tapes and CDs. We all bought some good stuff and were on our ways to The Burl.
We loaded in our minimal gear, since we are backlining Pokey Lafarge's drum set and guitar amp, and then we sound checked. The room sounded great, we got yummy food and drink at a cidery around the corner and then popped into the green room, which was actually a separate building from the venue. The greenroom was also going to double as our sleeping quarters that evening. There we were united with the whole Pokey Lafarge band, and they were wonderfully friendly and welcoming to us. You never really know how the greenroom hangs will go when you're opening for a bigger band, so it was nice to learn that these would all be friends for this tour. We also already kinda know Andrew & Addie, since they live in Camden, so it was really fun to get to know each other a bit more before the show. Andrew is Pokey LaFarge, and Addie is Addie Hamilton, who has her own project but now sings backup/dances in Pokey LaFarge. They recently got married in Rockport harbor, and both are beautiful and seem to be from a different era, perhaps the 1940s..
We went on at exactly 8:00 and played for 30 minutes. The show was sold out, with a capacity for 300, and I'd say we had the attention of about two thirds of the place. The other third was seemingly drunk out of their minds, smoking cigs out on the patio, and/or slightly heckling us. Specifically we had one lady probably in her 80s who was dressed to the nines, and said "thank you" when I said we had one more song. As in, thank you for getting off the stage.. We then proceeded to play "What Can I Do" which is a song I wrote all about haters, so it was fun to make direct eye contact with her for some of the lyrics. Other than her, everyone seemed to be quite enthralled with our sounds, despite missing our very important guitar player Dan Kelly! Matt Gaydar once again killed it on the bass and harmonies and Dave held it down as always on the drums. We sold lots of merch and many people came up to us to give us compliments and hear more about what we were up to. Someone even apologized for the lady's behavior and said she didn't even know her but was embarrassed to be standing next to her.
Pokey Lafarge and his band put on quite the honky tonk rock n roll show, with Addie coming out about halfway through the show to add that special spark of hers. She danced and sang and hyped the whole crowd with her angelic presence. We couldn't see the show too well from where we were all the way in the back, but we pushed our way forward for a few songs. We couldn't leave the merch table for too long at a time though, because there were lots of mingling people near it and we didn't want to miss any customers. We also loved our merch table buddy, who has his own musical project, Buck the Taxidermist. He was hired to sell Pokey's merch for the eve and we had a pleasant time chatting with him.
It was fun to watch the crowd from the back, because unlike a lot of concerts I've been to, there wasn't any sort of theme to this crowd. It seems Pokey LaFarge draws all types of listeners. There were college age festival ferries, old couples with walkers, stumbling drunks, red faced truck drivers, hippy folk, tattooed hipsters, tattooed not hipsters, librarians, cat lovers (met someone who owns 24 cats), dog lovers and more! It was a funny scene with a lot of real nice folks.
After the show we all hung in the green room and ate chicken wings, and mostly watched Danielle (the TM for Pokey Band) attempt to wrangle the band to get them to leave asap. They had an hour and forty five minute drive to their hotel, and she was also the driver. They eventually left us in this huge green room all to ourselves. Dave and Matt played pool and we all went to bed around 1am.
This morning we got coffee and headed on our way! Dave and Matt watched Love Island in the car while I drove and listened to Jesse Kivel and Samia in my headphones. We are almost to Pittsburgh and we are so excited to see Tim, Jess, Misa and Elisabeth!!!
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