Day 35: Atlanta, GA
Welcome
Yesterday we played our final show with The National in Atlanta, Georgia.
I have no way of calculating this with any certainty, but I believe this is my 400th breakfast and travel update. There doesn’t seem to be a particular convention for celebrating a 400th jubilee but apparently a 100th anniversary is commonly celebrated with a 10 carat diamond so I’ve decided to go ahead and award the blog its 40 carat diamond anniversary award. Congratulations to everyone involved – writers, videographers, photographers, consultants, and of course, supporters.
www.breakfastandtravelupdates.com
At 9am we left Nashville, heading southeast toward Chattanooga, the city which lies on Tennessee’s southern border at the lower end of the ridge-and-valley Appalachians. We crossed into Georgia and continued onto the Piedmont Plateau, which gives its name to this coastal region of cities, the Piedmont Atlantic Megaregion, an emergent megalopolis, and one of these phrases that I can’t help but copy down when I see it written.
Our first stop of the day was at U-Haul, which if you haven’t heard of it is a vehicle and trailer rental service famous for its cheap rates and the convenience of being able to rent and return to different locations. The bean counters in the back of the van had been tossing the numbers around and discovered that our Ford Transit 350 was going to be much too small to fit everything once we didn’t have The National’s semi-truck carrying our amps and drums. The solution was a trailer rental and as much as it would hamper our ability park close to the entrance of a store, or to nip in somewhere for a quick breakfast, this was the only (cheapest) way to solve this problem.
The man at U-Haul in Atlanta was extremely helpful and set us up with a 5’x 8’ cargo trailer which is aerodynamic and lightweight and has a handy loading ramp at the back. He helped us install the brand-new hitch and connect the brake lights and then we were off, the empty trailer clunking loudly along the bumpy roads on the way to the venue.
Twenty minutes later we arrived at the Cadence Bank Amphitheatre which sits in Chastain Park, in Atlanta’s northern suburbs. It has the feeling of being in the middle of a forest, this concrete music bowl with a backdrop of greenery, almost the opposite of the downtown Nashville setting of the previous evening. This venue dates back to 1944 and has a rich musical history ranging from the Atlanta Pops and Atlanta Symphony Orchestra to Johnny Cash, Dianna ross, and of course Dan Fogelberg who generously gave his name to the plaque outside our dressing room.
Our trailer in the loading dock.
It was going on 3pm and none of us had eaten yet so after unloading we headed straight to catering where I served up a large meal consisting of a chicken po’ boy, a salad with romaine lettuce, red onion, beefsteak tomato, and Hellman’s mayonnaise, and a bowl of vegetable soup.
I’m not sure how the scheduling for these shows works but it seems that one day we have the longest, most leisurely sound check and then the next day we only get ten minutes on stage. It was the latter yesterday afternoon, a quick line check and playing through half a song to make sure everyone was comfortable, and then we rushed off so we wouldn’t get in trouble.
We headed out to play at 8pm, a crisp, thirty-minute set that we finished with about ten seconds remaining in our allotted time. The crowd trickled in as we performed our eight songs and by the time we were walking off stage the bleachers were feeling very full, and everyone was settled in, ready for the main act.
They would have to wait because the main act were busy summoning us to their green room so they could give us a giant bottle of bourbon as a parting gift. The National would be rushing off after their set so we said our goodbyes and took a group photo to immortalise the past couple of weeks, a time that we would be sure to remember fondly.
We went right up the front to watch this final show and it was the perfect way to experience this fine band one last time. They were headed next to Madison Square Gardens to perform a huge concert, so it felt special that we were watching from only a couple of metres away and seeing and hearing every single detail that had been meticulously prepared by these musicians. Matt Berninger went out into the audience again and I got to see the Ben the backline tech up close, belaying and then wrangling this long mic cable to keep it above everyone’s neck level. After the show I asked Ben what happens when he runs out of mic cable. The answer was simple: he holds fast. The tough, copper core and thick, rubber jacket of this balanced, low impedance XLR cable is more than strong enough to stop Matt in his tracks.
After saying goodbye to our friends in the crew we headed to our lodgings, only ten minutes away, checking in late at night to boutiquey hotel by the name of Even that had no worthy hotel art but compensated with a fun and dangerous set of exercise equipment in every room.
