Far Away in Rock Star Land

Hello, friends!  Rob here.

I write to you from the rear lounge of an honest-to-goodness tour bus humming its way up the interstate here in golden California. I'm pretty sure I discussed the goldenness of California when we first came out here several years ago (driving the now-deceased Vandalf the Gold and touring sans Michael Girardot, if that gives you a sense of how many more days are behind us), but I swear, the sunlight on the west coast is different. Sun doesn't shine here; it glows. It gives the whole state a different color palette. Hills and buildings don't just reflect light waves, they do all sorts of verby things like bathing and shimmering and radiating.

It's lovely.

So anyway, this bus here. It sure is nice. It's much bigger than most of the other vehicles we have used to get to shows, although it is the same size as a different bus we have been on before, and it is significantly smaller than the intercontinental airplane that took us to India that one time. It also has different rooms, which is nice, because in a van, when somebody farts, you just have to sit there in the fart zone until the smell gets sucked out the window. But on a bus, you can just get up and walk away from the fart!

This is quality stuff here, folks.

We've mostly upped our transportation game so we can keep pace with Umphrey's without wearing and tearing ourselves. I don't think it's necessarily a permanent upgrade just yet, but it's nice to know that we're at a point where we can occasionally make a bus work if things like routing or kamikaze deer necessitate it. In the past, we just would have had to tough it out.

Speaking of Umphrey's, DUDE DUDE DUDE WE'RE ON TOUR WITH UMPHREY'S MCGEE RIGHT NOW HOLY MACKEREL! For those of you not keeping your fingers on the pulse of the prog rock jam band scene (perhaps your fingers were already busy doing other things, like making peace signs at police officers in riot gear or counting to see if this entry contains more instances of the word "gold” or "fart.” It's okay if they were), Umphrey's McGee is what happens when some really nice dudes get together to play some really mean music. They're a great band and a stellar collection of musicians and individuals, and I'm really looking forward to the rest of this run with them.