Mick & I are amazed by Kevin’s spaciness much of the time. He’s away with the fairies for a vast percentage of the day. I’m not entirely guiltless in that regard, but Kev’s off the charts. The Universe however is on Kevin’s side, not mine.
On the morning we left Pittsburgh, Kevin couldn’t find his hat anywhere. He gave up on it (without a word), and we went to the 24 hour diner next door to our grimy Days Inn to grab some breakfast before the journey to Easton. It’s a large diner, and we’ve been three or four times before, since we’ve been in Pittsburgh for three days. The waitress shows us to the same seat as Kevin and I sat in the morning before. He looks down, and there’s his hat, from the previous day. He’s so jammy, it’s ludicrous. The chances of being placed at exactly the same table as before in a place this big, just an hour before we left Pittsburgh… I don’t know.
So off to Vienna. We’re staying with Kev’s cousin there, so we’re all looking forward to a nice sleep after the show. That may seem like a crazy thing to be saying before a show, but when your routine is not routine, you find solace in the strangest of places.
The Jammin’ Java show works out well. A good turnout and really good sound for us, so we’re all pleased. My tuning on the final song has been good lately, so I’m on a roll. (It’s in a strange guitar tuning – which is hell on the strings… realistically I should have two or three or guitars onstage with me, to reduce the messing with tunings… but it’s too difficult to travel like that right now.) Sean, our soundman, is an absolute saint, because he borrows a keyboard stand for Kev (he’s mislaid his!) before the show. Venturing out into the wild D.C./Virginia/Baltimore rush-hour traffic is not for the faint hearted. The venue has just one real flaw… the percentage they take is extremely high. Huge thanks to Paula & the family again for the hospitality! Amazing as ever.
We’re almost in Easton, MD before Kevin remembers that we need to replace the keyboard stand. The closest keyboard-related music stores are 20 or 30 miles back across the colossal Chesapeake Bay Bridge, in DC which is now in rush-hour mode. We’re losing the plot. Kev’s calm as a cucumber. Cool as one too. There’s one hope at this stage, a music store… which on closer inspection of the internet ad, is actually a second hand music store… so we think – no chance! But we must be nearby, so we should at least check it out… and no sooner have we uttered those words, but we see the place. It’s a little tumbledown shack, off the road,… and it contains nothing that we could possibly use except for, miraculously, a fairly new keyboard stand. We suspect that it wasn’t even for sale, but the owners figured that some business is better than no business, so they sold it to us. (If you’re ever in the area, check out Rabbit Hill Music. They have some pretty amazing original vinyl for sale : Revolver, Dark Side of the Moon, etc.) Kev’s jamminess knows no bounds.
For some reason, we expected a dry crowd at the NightCat in Easton, not in temperament, but non-alcoholic… which can be a worry sometimes because people are harder to warm up when they’ve still got all their inhibitions in check! The NightCat’s a coffee-shop by day, so we just assumed they wouldn’t serve alcohol. But we got that one very wrong. The vibe was lively and fun… yes, indeed. A good night had by all.
I have definitely acquired a chai latte addiction too… I’m drinking it everywhere we go. It’s far from chai lattes I was reared! But it’s like a big hot mug of Christmas. Impossible to resist.