Day 29: New York, New York
Welcome
Yesterday we played the final show of our 2024 Summer North American tour.
I woke up in a bed, an experience which felt strange and peaceful. There was natural light being diffused by the blinds and the steady murmur of the air conditioner to provide the levels of white noise my unconscious body had become accustomed to. Outside the door of our apartment, it was business as usual for New York City as people thumped up and down the stairs, a percussive accompaniment to the wailing of power tools from somewhere next door.
Tristan and I headed out to join the fray, the busy thoroughfare that calls itself Knickerbocker Avenue providing a route for our walk to the breakfast spot I had been recommended. It was as fine a day as you could expect this city to provide, sunny and cloudless, warm and fresh, and with enough breeze to cool the body that is undertaking mild exercise. The streets were alive in Bushwick with vendors of fruit and sellers of small bags vying for position on the footpaths while the regular tasks of construction and maintenance continued their work in the background, equipped with jumpsuits and safety vests.
After a thirty-minute walk that took us through a satisfyingly grimy commercial district we arrived at Win Son, the Taiwanese-American bakery that had come to my attention from the fingers of a New York breakfast expert that I am lucky enough to have on my speed dial. Luke Pyenson is the co-author of Taste in Music, a soon to be released book of tour food stories that Tristan and myself were thrilled to be able to contribute to, and when he points me in a direction I don’t ask questions, I just go there. We were lucky enough to score a kerbside table at this desirable eatery which was experiencing a considerable patronage at this late hour of the morning, only a couple of laptop workers and the rest of the place filled with serious eaters of breakfast.
I ordered a BEC on a scallion pancake, which took the form of heritage bacon, Havarti cheese, eggs, and something called ginger deluxe, all sealed into a crispy wrap. It was a delightful hour that we spent in this northwest corner of Bushwick, experiencing a new format of egg delivery and enjoying the regular appearances of the cherry red engines of the 35th fire battalion lumbering past on their way to callouts.
Everyone was awake and well rested when Tristan and I returned from our excursion. At 1:30 a black van pulled up outside the apartment and we headed downstairs to begin the journey into the venue, grateful for the patience and skill of our driver whose confidence while barging through the impatient pedestrians of midtown was impressive and at times scary.
We disembarked outside Sony Hall and descended several flights of old marble stairs to get our first look at this venue, a music space housed in a 1930s nightclub. A glittering dome ceiling feels like the centrepiece of this grand old space, while vaulted alcoves complement the main statement and hang over a some very spacious booths running along each wall. The stage seems to have been extended past the original proscenium and retains a very dignified curtain to decorate this arch, as well as incorporating more modern elements like giant spikey lights. In the wings you will find the usual features for a theatre of this age, nooks for storage, and a crystal-covered alcove with a marble bathtub, an amenity that we certainly would have made use of had we not arrived with ourselves in such a thorough state of cleanliness.
Gabe had been on the scene for a while already and things were well underway. Our cases were on stage and waiting to be unpacked, and we began our work promptly and eagerly so that we might enjoy a long and relaxing soundcheck. We deployed the venue’s flagship piece of technology, an eighteen-point power board with surge protection and four USB slots. The device was placed roughly in between us all and was able to provide power for every single electrically-powered piece of gear on stage, a perfect solution for eliminating those frustrating grounding issues and hums that present themselves when there are multiple power circuits interacting with your audio gear.
We began making noise, waking up our instruments and checking their vital signs, all of which seemed healthy, especially those of Tristan’s new cymbal which had made its way straight onto the number one cymbal stand. The stage was very good to play on, and after only a short time we were comfortably dialled in and feeling ready to do a show. There was one more thing to do however and this task related to a message we had received a couple of nights before while playing in New Jersey. The message had been delivered on a handwritten sign and took the form of a question: “can I play guitar in Not Getting Excited on Tuesday?”. The sign had been held by an eleven-year-old boy named Chuck wearing a bootleg copy of Gabe’s iconic guitar-solo hat, and Chuck was now here at soundcheck, wearing said hat, and ready to rehearse his role in the evening’s show. Liz handed over the guitar and he began, confident and skillful in his playing, strumming the opening notes of the song at the perfect tempo like he was a full-time member of the band. It was so seamless that we left it at that; a single run through and things were ready.
In the bowels of the theatre, we found our dressing room and we inhabited this comfortable if slightly cramped space for the next few hours as we waited for our audience to arrive. At some point my hunger for natural light led me back to street level and I emerged from the venue into a twilight that was cascading off the reflective surfaces of every skyscraper it could touch. The neon signs of Broadway’s theatres were shining now, bright splashes of colour that complemented the changing sky which had arrived at a magnificent azure blue.
It was barely a stone’s throw to Times Square so I headed in that direction to see what all the fuss was about. This divisive culturally significant landmark was in exceptional form, awash with tourists and hawkers, and sporting a cacophony of dazzling LED screens that seemed to set the air alight with their brilliance. It was a sensory overload, and an impressive demonstration of this technology, the incredible resolution and vivid colour on these giant displays providing an immersive experience to for those wishing to consume some of the world’s most expensive advertisements. I consumed them all simultaneously, Coca ‘cola, Netflix, Tag Heur, and the rest, inhaling as much of this commercial energy as I could stomach before heading back to prepare for the show.
MOTION SICKNESS WARNING!
We all made our way upstairs to watch as Princess Chelsea began their set, the damaged guitar somehow miraculously restored under the surgeon’s knife, and sounding as potent as ever blasting out of a very expensive PA system. Chelsea and her Dream Warriors were impressive and charming, full of energy and fire, and they didn’t hold anything back from this room of New Yorkers who were quickly and decisively won over, showing their appreciation warmly to the New Zealanders. Great songwriting and seven fantastic personalities have created this wonderful music experience that we were fortunate enough to witness for many nights in a row, and for a final time we enjoyed their greatness, and applauded them loudly.
Twenty minutes had elapsed from the hour of nine when The Beths took to the stage of Sony Hall to perform their final North American show of the Expert In A Dying Field album cycle. From up on stage the room looked magical, every detail beautifully lit, and a sea of heads, eight hundred strong, stretching all the way back to the bar. You always want the final show of your tour to be a special one and sometimes your dreams come true, and sometimes everything just feels difficult. The sound on stage last night was difficult and we had a tough gig, assaulted by the rumble of the subwoofers and the unsettling feeling of rogue bass frequencies. This is not to say it wasn’t an enjoyable time for us – it’s hard not to enjoy yourself when you are in front of an audience that is doing its job correctly. Musically it was challenging, though, and we had to work hard to play well. Perhaps that was the magical part of the evening - the personal growth we experienced. Chuck certainly didn’t seem to have a problem when he came up to do his song, as he flawlessly performed to what I can only assume is his largest ever crowd.
Photographer Julie Hubschman took some great snaps of our set on her point and shoot and I’m thrilled to share some of them with you here. Check out her instagram for more brilliant photography.
There was a brief celebration after we came off stage. Several bottles of prosecco were discharged, and we toasted the tour with our friends from the Princess Chelsea band. Normally this is the moment of sadness and goodbyes, but we will probably run into those guys in Auckland next week, so we were able to say a different form of goodbye.
The final business of the night was packing and organising our equipment, half of which was getting shipped back to LA and half of which would be coming home with us. These are the types of mundane tasks which shape an evening, and our evening ended with the shape of a cuboid, taping up merch boxes and attaching shipping labels for their return to the supplier. I’m perfectly happy to end this season of breakfast and travel updates on this incredible anticlimax but for those of you who would like something a little more exciting I’ve got a new video from Tristan to share, and it’s a ripper.
Thanks to Liz, Jon, Tristan, Gabe, and Annie, and Mr Bus for a wonderful tour, and thanks to all the folks who came out to support us, buying tickets and merch, the things that keep the bus wheels rolling.
I’ll be back in a couple of weeks to write up our short tour of Aotearoa, so make sure you set breakfast and travel updates to your homepage so you don’t miss a beat.
Ka kite anō au i a koutou
Ben