Being on tour is a unique experience. You live in a crappy van where taking a nap, talking on the phone and stretching your legs out between the piles of banjos and spilled Cheerio boxes are all colossal feats of mental fortitude. When you tell that friendly someone at the Bucks General Store gas station that you are in a band and out on tour, their parting words are invariably 'Well, have a great road trip,' and it's all you can do to keep from going a little nuts: 'Do you think I'm the kind of person who rides around the country in an air conditioningless tin can for 10 hours a day just for fun?!' But you smile and say thank you and roll on out.

Those are the predictable moments. What makes touring memorable are the constant collisions with the unexpected. Last night's show in Omaha is a perfect example.

As was noted in a previous post, we'll be meeting up with Ben Kweller tonight in Denver and then spending the rest of our tour opening for him. However, it seemed a little much to drive all the way to Colorado without breaking up the 2000 mile commute with shows in friendly towns along the way. We got some help setting up gigs in St Louis and Omaha, but because our booking process started a little late we lined ourselves up for some venues we had never heard of. St Louis was a ton of fun but more or less predictable -- the room was a standard rock club, we were playing with our friends The Feed, and several thousand Erkers showed up (we are actually not sure that there is anyone in the St Louis metropolitan area who is not related to our mandolin player). The Omaha gig, however, had a couple tricks up its sleeve.

After the long drive to Nebraska we made our way to the venue by following our friend Nick D, whose family was gracious enough to feed us and put us up in royal fashion even though, as they pointed out, we weren't Italian (John Hull quickly corrected this misstatement by performing a monologue worthy of Roberto Benigni and defending his mother's heritage -- the land of wine and olive oil should be proud). As we lurched into the parking lot we we scanned the facades before us in search of the club. We eventually spotted it wedged next to the shimmering neon signs of Buffalo Co: Wings, Pizza, Subs, EZ$ Check Cashing, and Korea King; it was labeled with a red-lit sign bearing the word 'Saloon' in the middle of a strip mall.

Now there are some pretty goofy club locations in New York, but there are no strip malls so this type of hopping hood was a bit new to us. However, being seasoned warriors of the road we proceeded to load our gear into the venue. It was a nice room with a big stage and at first glance seemed to be like many other rooms we have played. On second look, however, we noticed that not all was what we were accustomed to. Behind part of the stage there was a television set built into the wall displaying what we can only assume were old yule log videos. Over on the other side of the room there was another TV which shifted back and forth between ads and words of wisdom such as 'If you are dating a homeless girl you can drop her off anywhere,' and 'The toughest thing about having AIDS is convincing your parents that you're Haitian.' While we letting these details sort themselves out in our noggins we were approached by the leader of the first band of the night who wanted to know who our bassist was. It turned out that their own bassist had the flu and they were on the prowl for a stand-in for their set, scheduled to begin in 10 minutes. Walt chatted with the band for a moment and then accepted the role of honorary-band-member-for-a-night.

The evening went well for all the bands. Walt tore it up with the first group, the crowd was great, and the sound was good. It was, however, a fine reminder that we are a long way from home.

We'll fill all of you fine friends in on more details from the road tomorrow.

-- JSS