Another yogurt, banana and glass of OJ are staring at me. It's 8:30AM and Matty just pulled the van around front. Six guitars, two banjos, a mandolin, several bags of gear and clothes and all five of us somehow fit pretty well in my labored '96 Plymouth. Lloyd is at the wheel. Dan as his navigator. Matty, Oakes and I settle into the back bench for the trip to Cleveland. The three of us in the back are sad to be leaving Pittsburgh, we had such an unexpected good time in that city. But we're all equally excited to play again tonight in Cleveland.
Thanks to the glories of modern technology, Oakes whips out his portable DVD player (that's what she said) and the three of us nuzzle up to a few episodes of season 2 of The Office. Before we know it, there is a gigantic billboard of Lebron James in his grandest Jesus pose. We waved hello to Jacob's Field (actually, it has a new name now and none of us knew when that happened) and lo and behold, Lloyd has driven us to the hotel. We were staying at The Renaissance in downtown Cleveland.
We were all stunned with the magnitude of the place. For instance, this is what we walked into...
Sure was a long way from sleeping on some guys floor that you met at the show. With your head in a pizza box and bong water spilled at your feet.
We loaded in, checked in and took a scant few minutes to gather our thoughts before we were downstairs having dinner at Sans Souci in the Hotel.
I had an excellent tortilla soup for starters and a grilled swordfish salad with fresh arugula, chopped red onion, yellow pepper and roasted grape tomatoes. So good. Lloyd, Dan and Matty wanted to catch a little downtime after lunch and before load out so Oakes and I decided to peruse the mall that was connected to the hotel. We had a moment of thinking that we might be able to squeeze in a movie, but we were just barely too late to go to anything that would get us to the lobby on time. So we settled for this photo booth.
Yup. The original plan was for me to leave this on Lloyd's music stand before the encore. But I forgot. So I handed it to a random fan that was waiting in line for an autograph and asked him to ask Lloyd to sign it. Best part is, Lloyd actually signed it. Brian's got that copy.
I snagged a gag gift for Jen in a sports store (I had the goal of getting her some random souvenirs in every city that we were in). And it was back to the hotel to crap out for an hour. Speaking of crap, look at how big our bathroom was.
Another load out about an hour later and we were on our way to the gig. We were playing at The Winchester. It was only a few miles from our hotel. No more than a 15 minute drive. We arrived at 5PM. We were instantly greeted by Rebbecca. She was the multi-tasker of the night. Bartender, host, server. She was incredibly nice and went well out of her way to make sure we had everything we needed. The owner of the club was equally as welcoming. Jim, I think? Shit, I hate forgetting people's names. But I do it all the time. Anyway, their club was really nice too.
The dressing room was a little small, but it had a great collection of posters. For some reason, I just love this photo.
I really like the blue wall, for starters. And there's just something about the juxtaposition of the giant Chicago poster, Lloyd and an iphone. Sounds like the start of a joke. Lloyd Cole, an iphone and a giant Chicago poster walk into a bar. That's what she said.
Can suits rock? Matty thinks so. And I agree.
We had a great night playing. The crowd was receptive and warm and the people that we met after the show couldn't have been nicer. The only thing that ruined the night was the opening act. A self proclaimed "master of metal on mandolin". He called himself Pegasus Vending. I took this photo of him during his take on Shadows Fall's "Crushing Belial".
What a douche.
But in all seriousness, if you want to relive some of the night there are some videos from Dan (who came all the way up from Florida with his wife for the show!) that you can watch by clicking here! There's even a sneak peak at a song from our forthcoming record on there. Thanks for everything Dan! Send Dan a nice message if you watch some of the clips, cause he's a heck of a nice guy.
We ended the night listening to the Louvin Brothers and various other country acts on the XM Bob Dylan radio show. Just the five of us and Jim and Rebbecca. Such nice folks. But alas, it was back to the hotel where I nearly ruptured Oakes' spleen by making him laugh. I wish I could share the joke, but I don't really think I should. Maybe if you really want to know...
Off to Detroit tomorrow.
Stay tuned.
