Sunday, June 7, 2009

Bowery Ballroom


Back on the road means back on the blog. Being the responsible and forward thinking young gentlemen that I am, I forgot to bring my camera out with me on our first date in NYC.

We were slotted to play Saturday night at Bowery Ballroom with our new tour friends in Blind Pilot(very much looking forward to getting to know these guys). With shows on the west coast all the way up to just weeks ago, we literally had to jump in the van and make a bee-line across the country straight to the Ballroom. This meant driving.......a ton of driving. Ryan, Matt, Taylor, Kelcey, Amanda and I all become very comfortable with Mrs. Pandora on the iphone and quickly learned the pros of caffeine.

The trip was planned out to precision. We arrived in the city a day early to ensure a good night's rest. It was raining quite hard outside upon arrival and after soaking in enough of the dampened streets I found myself alongside two proper UK gents in the local pub. We talked about music and soon after the rest of the band wondered in, we talked about pints and 3-4 shots of Jameson. It was now around 4:30pm w/dinner plans at 6pm and we were all as wet as the sidewalks outside. Lets just say we are still learning. All of us met with some great people who spoiled us at dinner and things went very well. Rule of thumb that I learned: you can't experiment with oysters without immediately chasing it with vodka. We exited the restaurant and proceeded to immediately receive not one, but two tickets from the NYPD. In our swirled state of mind, Kelcey and I thought it was more than ok to drink open beers outside on the streets. When Doughnut Joe asked me what was in the bag I told him it was Welches Grape Soda. With about 5 hours of sleep and 40hours of straight driving we were ready for our first show. These are not normal things for us.

The Bowery Ballroom is a wonderful venue. I stood on stage wondering how the hell they own this much real estate in one of the most expensive places to live in the world. The building was quite massive and must of been very old. Its experience and wisdom was shown quite brightly through its beautiful sounding walls and reverberations. I think all of us were very pleased with the set and the surroundings. Thank you to everyone in that room that took a chance on our little band. A great night all around.

Andy
Local Natives

1 comment:

dukeofnyc said...

Fantastic show, I am a new fan of not so local-local natives. have a great tour.