Day 14: St Louis, MO
Welcome
Yesterday we transitioned into a headline tour and played a show in St Louis, Missouri.
Our day began earlier than we would have liked. Blue Paradise was still injured from the tyre incident and would have to put in for repairs for several days. There was a replacement bus waiting for us in St Louis so when we pulled into the venue at 9am we all grouchily rose from our bunks and began the task of moving our possessions across. Ten days of accumulated snacks, fruit, and drinks were bagged up and trundled into our new home, a vehicle which possesses profoundly less cupboard space than we have grown used to, and Jonathan took it upon himself to remedy this shortcoming with a thorough systemisation of the larder.
What Placid Thunder lacks in storage it makes up for with style. Hardwood floors, Persian rugs, brushed steel wall sconces, and a catastrophic amount of veneer are some of the comforts that we now enjoy in our new bus lounge. The exterior paint finish is a somewhat turbulent colour, a mysterious shade that lies somewhere in between royal gold and whale grey but with daring decals that run along the side of the bus like ribbons tangling in the wind. The entertainment fit out is state of the art – a flatscreen tv in the lounge with a speaker system and an XBOX 360. Where we really begin to pull away from the competition is with the individual entertainment systems which are fitted to the top of every bunk. A personal media player with a DVD system and a four-inch fold down colour screen means you never have to go to sleep bored.
There were three hours to destroy before we could get into the venue and while some members of The Beths stayed onboard to enjoy the comfortable couches of Placid Thunder Tristan and I headed out to search for food and breakfast. We found suitable fare at Blueprint Coffee, only a pair of blocks away, and settled down to enjoy some overnight oats topped with granola and banana.
On our way back to the venue we stopped to look at all the pavement stars and then found an excellent vintage store where I spent all my per diems on four Hawaiian shirts and a New England shirt, completely beating Tristan who only bought one shirt and is still severely ill equipped for tropical conditions.
With the afternoon heat at its peak we dropped the back of the trailer and with the help of some venue hands, we rolled everything inside and onto a powerfully air-conditioned stage. The venue was a 750 capacity, a modern room with plenty of acoustic treatment and a good PA. Accessibility was good with wheelchair ramps and elevated seating around the edges, and a good amount of tiered standing room for those of us with shorter legs and necks. Every person we met at this venue was warm and generous and eager to help in any way they could.
Our setup was quickly accomplished, and we moved into a soundcheck that was stress free and gave us plenty of time to rehearse a few rusty songs. The lighting technician was enthusiastic and decided to give Bird a special treat, unzipping their belly and inserting a special light to illuminate the skin from the inside. Bird was alive, bird was luminous, bird was a rainbow.
Princess Chelsea rolled in at some point during the afternoon, a gleaming white Mercedes Benz Sprinter (name unknown) full of Aucklanders and the thick New Zealand accents they brought with them. It was bloody good to hear. This seven-piece band are good friends of ours from back home, and it is a rare treat to play internationally alongside another band from New Zealand. To start our tour off on a good note they brought a gift with them and presented it to Tristan, a beautiful cicada, petrified with a spell and now preserved for eternity.
The room had filled up with a vibrant mix of people when Princess Chelsea began their set at 8pm. They played brilliantly – a dynamic and explosive performance, intriguing and theatrical, and impossible to look away from.
This was our first full-length set in a while, and we were all looking forward to stretching things out. Plenty of time for banter, plenty of time for deep cuts, and plenty of time to enjoy playing songs live with your friends. It was an extremely fun stint on stage and St Louis lavished us with applause, polite heckling, and making the noise “HOO HOO HOO”.
We ended our night aboard Placid Thunder, a vehicle that might be considerably noisier than Blue Paradise but was a fine craft all the same. One by one we slid in beneath our DVD entertainment systems in our bunks and drifted off to sleep as Mr Bus drove us east.