Day 37: Baltimore, MD
Welcome
Yesterday we played in Baltimore, Maryland.
Day two of Jon’s birthday (the American day) began with a 9.30am van call, not especially early but we were feeling pretty rough after a late night. When we left after the show at Cat’s Cradle we had driven for ninety minutes up into Virginia, stopping at South Hill to bed down for the night. Now in the morning we had a 370km drive to get to Baltimore and according to the GPS this could take anywhere between and four and seven hours depending on traffic. We would of course be travelling on I95, the busiset piece of highway in the country which does its best to connect the cities of the BoshWash Corridor, also known as the Northeast Megalopolis, from Richmond, Virginia in the south, all the way up to Boston, Massachusetts at the north end.
There wasn’t much time to fritter away on this drive, so I was glad to have some leftovers from dinner to contribute to my breakfast in the van. I reheated the remaining lower third of my Pescado Asada Burrito - grilled fish with black beans, rice, lettuce, and salsa, safely encased a corn tortilla and a layer of tinfoil which I removed before anything entered the microwave. This leftover dinner was obtained from Carrburritos restaurant in Chapel Hill, and I accompanied it with a sweet course, two blueberry muffins, pulled from a batch that had been lovingly baked by another North Carolina local, Izy Nardin.
Gabe was in charge of our van and trailer rig, taking us up the length of the Commonwealth of Virginia, through the capital of Richmond, and continuing on towards DC. At Alexandria we crossed the Potomac into the state of Maryland, and looking up the river we could just see the dome of the Capitol Building in the distance. The traffic was heavy but definitely not as bad as it could have been, and it ended up being closer to the five hour mark as we passed the Baltimore welcome chimney and saw the waters of the Patapsco River.
Baltimore’s welcome chimney, the Wheelabrator Incinerator is the city’s single largest standing source of pollution.
With our return to playing club shows I have begun to realise just how photogenic the theatres and amphitheatres of the past few weeks were. The Baltimore Soundstage was a perfect example of function over form, a windowless concrete room with a low ceiling, devoid of decoration except for alcohol advertising, electrical conduit running in every direction and air conditioning ducts delivering the temperature of early Spring; a rock room pure in its purpose.
There was time for a short break after our long drive and then we got to work again, unloading the trailer, and setting the stage for soundcheck. An idea had been produced by Gabe (correction) Jon which would allow for the return of bass guitar amplification to the stage. We had a spare guitar amp, a Fender Deluxe 68 reissue, and this was stacked on top of the bass cabinet, their matching grill cloths and logos providing a visually pleasing stack that brought balance to my side of the stage. The Deluxe was hooked up and did a fine job of driving the speakers of our bass cabinet at low to medium volumes – a brilliant interim solution to this problem.
The venue was only a block from Baltimore’s Inner Harbour and after eating dinner we headed down there to visit the National Aquarium which is spread out across several of the piers in this historic seaport. Liz had been waiting all tour to see an octopus and this was the day for it, the chance to visit one of the few locations in the country that has one of these creatures in captivity. It was a bit of a shock to find out that their Giant Pacific Octopus had recently died, but we had already purchased our tickets and were inside by that point, so we enjoyed the rest of the experience and met plenty of fish with expressive features.
Back at the venue we watched Disq open up the show, the perfect way to get in the mood for playing our own set. The room had taken on a new character and the blank concrete walls now wore the beams of colour that had been uttered from the lighting rig, and everything looked better with a huge amount of haze spread across the air. This Baltimore crowd were enjoying their Friday night out and were a pleasure to play to, providing plenty of encouragement and singing support. There was even a beautifully sung impromptu happy birthday that emerged late in the set and it was a warm and generous moment.
The love language of music promotors is customised baked goods, and I know this from experience. Yesterday we received the most extravagant personalised cake we have ever seen outside of a baking show, a reward from our promoter for selling out this 1000 capacity room. Somehow the cakesmith had perfectly recreated our photoshoot with Frances Carter, the four of us huddled together, soaking wet, in front of a hanging backdrop of the ocean. The fish and the pieces of foliage from our album cover were also a very nice touch.
We had been thoroughly inundated with sweet baked goods by this point of the day after surprise deliveries of freshly baked pies and cookies so when this cake arrived after our set it was all we could do to admire it for a while and then try to figure out how to bring it with us. An empty vinyl box did the trick, and we carefully threw it into the back of the van with the rest of the merch.
The next day we were required to be in Quincy, on the outskirts of Boston, and in order to make that a realistic goal we had to leave Baltimore after the show and drive three hours to Princeton, New Jersey. Jon did a heroic stint behind the wheel, getting us safely to our Quality Inn just after 3am so we could close our eyes for the remainder of the night.