Got foiled again today by bloody timezones. What I don’t understand is that a GPS unit, which, well the very point of a GPS machine is that it knows exactly where you are at any given time… yet, it won’t automatically update when you cross timezones, so you just kinda have to keep checking the clocks everytime you stop. (I wasn’t organised enough to have it sorted in advance). We had to get to Chicago by 5pm to load in today, so when we realised that we wouldn’t have enough time for any stops today we just had to have our breakfast in the carpark of the supermarket where we bought our milk.
We were really looking forward to the show tonight, especially after a distinctly average show in Des Moine. We’d heard from quite a few people that Monday nights at the Empty Bottle go off. It’s kinda like the old Tuesday nights at Indigo in Wellington, where good bands played for free every week and it becomes a local institution, and tonight was an even better line-up then normal with Her Space Holiday, who have released like 4-5 really good albums and Lymbyc System, who are simply awesome, playing with Over the Atlantic.
Totally awesome show tonight. The venue was pretty chocka by the time they went on and packed almost to capacity by the end of the set. I realised I had been totally forgetting to actually get any live shots of the band, so took a few tonight. It had been over a week since we’d been in a big city, so it was awesome to play a great show in an awesome city.
Lymbyc system blew me away. Their recordings don’t really do their live show justice, but their recordings are still sweet, so check them out fo’ sho.
PIC – The Empty Bottle’s resident cat
We managed to continue our sweet run of finding great accom and met Melanie who is totally awesome, used to do tour management for bands like The Album Leaf and currently manages Second City which is basically the coolest comedy joint in Chicago. She takes us out for some taco’s after the show, Ash orders Beef Brain Tacos.
Parking and traffic in Chicago are a total nightmare, many had warned me, but, gees. Once we’d dropped off our gear I had to circle the block for at least 30 minutes trying to find a parking spot. I even got pulled over by the cops because they thought I was casing out houses. I can’t believe I’ve been pulled over now three times since being in the US, though this time was the scariest. I freaked out because we’d emptied all our gear into Melanies house before I went looking for a park, including my wallet and bag! Was so classic! The cop asks me for my license and I tell him I’ve not got it, he shakes his head and sighs and prepares to start giving me grief when I suddenly remember that I’d been id’d by the venue a few hours previous and I’d pulled my license out and stuck it in my back pocket, thankfully tonight, my being useless and not remembering to put it back in my wallet saved my ass bigtime. After some explanations of my Canadian number plate and why I was here…they let me off…and I then found a park straight away!