Day 23: Nashville, TN
Welcome
Yesterday we bid farewell to our friend Tennis Ball, and played a show in Music City.
I kicked off my morning with a walk to Red Bicycle Coffee & Crêpes, the second-closest coffee shop from where the bus was parked. I ordered a Field of Greens crepe with spinach, mushroom, onion, tomato, mozzarella, and basil aioli.
When I returned to the bus there was a new bus. And it wasn’t Golden Sparkle Face. As it turned out the repairs were still underway so Rob and Goldo would have to meet us in Texas. Our luxurious replacement bus, Tennis Ball, had another tour booked and was heading off for a clean and a massage in preparation.
Big Bird is the name of this new bus, although I wanted to call it Straight Banana. Now that I think of it I never asked Rob if he has a name for Golden Sparkle Face, so perhaps I’ll ask him when they return. Our temporary driver Deano apologised profusely about this new bus. It wasn’t anywhere as luxurious or decoratively cohesive as Tennis Ball, or his own purple bus which apparently has some tasteful interior purple trim that really binds the different design elements together.
Straight Banana has a lot going for it though. Here are some of the features you can enjoy if you rent this bus for your tour:
Extra large microwave
Coffee maker
Table Lights
Plush carpet
Notice board
Contemporary feel
Mirrored ceiling
Remote control holders
Analogue clock with octagonal frame
Galley mirrors
So that was it. We transferred all of our gear into the banana, the trailer was unhitched and swapped over, and Tennis Ball drove off into the distance. I have included an audio file you could listen to while you view one or both these gifs of the event.
Here is a mini-feature from alleged documentarian Tristan Deck. When we are parked outside a venue we can often get ‘shore power’ to run the electrical systems on our bus. Here you can see Deano in action getting the shore power hooked up to Straight Banana.
Our venue was the Brooklyn Bowl. Not the one in Brooklyn obviously, nor the one in Philly, nor the one in Vegas. This was the Nashville Brooklyn bowl, part of this small chain of Live Nation venues that offers the experience of tenpin bowling while you watch live music.
It was a very nice room. Sun streamed into the space through a series of coloured glass window panels while we loaded our equipment and set the stage. A tiered mezzanine wraps around the edge of the room and offers sight lines from above the stage. There is a circular lighting truss from which hung four mirror balls as well as an array of articulated spotlights. The other half of the building is taken up by bowling lanes; two stories with ten lanes on each.
Our load-in and soundcheck were scheduled early for a change so Tristan and I went for a late afternoon run afterwards. We followed a trail that took us along the Cumberland River and afforded us a splendid view of the Nashville Skyline. On our return journey we passed the Tennessee State Library & Archives. Beautifully displayed on aluminum-composite panels all along the front of this building are a selection of Tennessee’s state symbols. Ranging from the state fruit, to the state commercial fish, all the way to the state mineral, these symbols are all designated by the Tennessee General Assembly and all have a strong case to back up their designation.
The state beverage for example is milk. It was designated the official state beverage of Tennessee by Public Chapter 31 of the Acts of the 106th General Assembly in 2009. The act stated that milk is an essential component to building strong muscles and bones in children, as well as mending injured muscles and bones in adults. Other benefits cited include milk’s role in building strong and healthy teeth, hair, skin, and nails.
If you have a pair of VR goggles it would pay to don them now and explore the wonderful details inside this panorama.
Mia, our merch manager and photographer is an avid bowler and took to the lanes as soon as she was done loading. She played eight rounds and then stopped because her arm was too sore. Her best score of the day was 146 and in recognition of those hard earned bowling points I have awarded Mia 146 boints. Gabe and I played a joint round and scored 118, so we each receive 59 boints.
There was someone however, who didn’t stop bowling all night and that included throughout our entire set even when we were performing our most delicate song You Are a Beam of Light. This highly skilled sportsman executed a powerful delivery during the first verse of the song and it hurtled down the lane, crashing through all ten pins for a strike. Earlier in the day we had fantasised about this moment happening and it was too perfect to be true. You don’t often get to see Liz lose her composure during a performance but all of us burst out laughing.
A view from Gabe’s workstation. The mirror balls are all lit up.
Overall it was a really great show. This was our thirteenth consecutive night of performing so by this point we were very warmed up and everything was fully dialed in. We were also feeling a bit crazy and our banter segments went on for a lot longer than usual. The lighting looked supremely good, thanks to an expensive lighting rig and a diligent lighting operator who studied the setlist beforehand.
Afterwards we got to chat to some very friendly fans who stuck around while we packed down. I would like to thank Elias Breaux who made us these excellent Lego figures; a fine representation of the band.
We closed out the evening aboard our long and straight banana, watching The Hunger Games and enjoying the plush carpet of the bus lounge. I was reluctantly forced to award myself 6000 boints for doing an ice run to fill up the drinks bin.
