Burgers and Sandwiches
Hello, friends! Rob here.
How many times does something have to happen before you can call it a tradition? Two or three? If it's two, then guess what? The Revivalists have officially established a new band tradition! Every year, while touring in the midwestern United States during that strange part of the year where outside feels like a refrigerator, something bad happens to our tour vehicle.
The Second Annual Cold-Time Revivalists Van Disaster was, like the first, the result of a kamikaze attack on our vehicle, our persons, and indeed our very way of life. The primary difference being that this year the perpetrator was not a deer, but a man. He was driving a car, by the way. If a guy jumped out in front of our van on the interstate in the middle of the night, I probably wouldn't be writing about it on the internet. Anywho, everyone's okay, our gear is all fine, and the other guy was mostly cool about everything. The only casualty was our trailer:
(Photo credit: George Gekas)
Be at peace, Trailer III. I'm sure you're in a better place, where all hills slope gently downward and tongue weight never exceeds recommended maximum load. On the bright side, in christening our new trailer, we finally found a name for the Sprinter we've been driving since the First Annual Cold-Time Revivalists Van Disaster. We now drive around in a vehicle named Vanny Glover and haul our gear in a trailer called Tow Pesci.
We're idiots.
Anyway, we're on tour and it's cold. I know I kind of keep coming back to the cold thing, but it's because when we left New Orleans, honest to goodness it was shorts weather. Winters in New Orleans are pretty tame. While the region's extreme humidity has a way of turning relatively mild temperatures into a strangely piercing cold, the whole affair is mercifully short-lived and often punctuated by random 70-degree days in the middle of January. With each successive year I find myself less and less emotionally prepared for whatever true cold I'll inevitably have to taste during our winter tours. I no longer have the capacity required to understand temperatures below roughly 50 degrees Fahrenheit. It's like trying to imagine a color I've never seen before. When it freezes outside, my nervous systems shorts out altogether. If I'm lucky I can stagger into a coffeehouse or something and collect myself before my knees buckle and I'm just twitching on the sidewalk as spittle slowly accumulates in the corners of my mouth.
But it hasn't been cold inside these red-hot rock 'n roll music venues where we are playing music! No siree! The crowds have been on fire, the jams have been scorching, the venue food, when available, has been appropriately warm! Truly we are living our dreams.
Tonight we're in Cleveland, "warming up” (heh) for a reprise of last year's show at Beachland Ballroom with our dear old friends The Burning River Ramblers. Like the 2015 edition, last year's Cleveland show took place only a few days after we sustained severe vehicular damage in Illinois. Funny how the world turns. We've got a nice little six-night run, and then it'll be holiday break time. I hope to see you (yes, you!) at a show, and if I don't then I hope it's because you're doing something else that you enjoy!
