Day 4: Grand Praire, TX
Welcome
Yesterday we played a show in Grand Prairie, Texas.
At 9am we assembled in the lobby, ready for the drive to our second date with Deathcab for Cutie and The Postal Service. There were two hundred miles of interstate highway in between us and the venue and the only thing that would help the monotony of driving along this seldom-veering road was a DJ set by none other than DJ Lizard, who had packed a tiny mixer in her backpack to enable her to spin from the front seat. This opportunity had been a long time coming; none of the vans on our last tour had AUX inputs so she hadn’t been able to connect the laptop. Yesterday she made up for lost drives, kicking off a set of tunes at 120bpm, a slew of songs that beautifully fused together for an hour of enjoyment at the most reliable tempo.
It was important for Tess to experience one of the institutions that defines the state of Texas and that’s why we stopped at a Buc-ee’s for breakfast. Taking care to avoid the temptations like lawn chairs, grills, and tents that were for sale in the entranceway we made our way in and tried to find a meal that wasn’t a brisket sandwich. I emerged feeling slightly stressed and over-stimulated but victorious with a vege burrito in my hand, an item that was brand new to the Buc-ee’s menu and would save me from a two consecutive days of BBQ breakfast.
A vege burrito.
The remaining two hours of the drive were repetitive save for when we passed the Texas Tesla Tower, or so this unusual structure has been dubbed by locals. Viziv Technologies is supposedly the company behind this striking landmark, its bulbous metal dome resemblant of Nikolai Tesla’s Wardenclyfe Tower or even a Van de Graaff generator. Attempts to research this object dropped me straight into a pile of conspiracy theory websites but the common theme from the small amount of reading that I did seems to be that Viziv Technologies is using it to research wireless electricity transmission utilising the Zenneck surface wave. I’d love to her from anyone who has any stories or information about the Texas Tesla Tower so feel free to drop a comment below or reach out to me at breakfastandtravelupdates@breakfastandtravelupdates.com
📸 Gabriel Nardin.
Our route to Grand Prairie took us right past the city of Dallas whose skyline was looking resplendent behind a tangle of soaring flyovers and other bits of freeway come to a climax south of the downtown, creating an epic spaghetti display of road engineering and automobile infrastructure. One of these mighty flyovers carried us westward and we descended onto I-30 for the last small leg of the journey. Soon we crossed over one of the widest bridges I have ever been on, a concrete pier-and-beam freeway bridge with cable stayed pedestrian and bike lanes that run along the outside. The Margaret McDermott bridge also carries 10 lanes of freeway traffic, a high occupancy vehicle lane, and four regular road lanes, which add up to a 137m width when they are all done and dusted.
Our route through the spaghetti overpasses.
Crossing the Margarett McDermott Bridge.
We pulled into the Texas Trust CU Theatre shortly after 1pm and after a drawn-out discussion with Kevin, the aging security guard at the gate, we negotiated a parking spot that he thought would be well out of the way of any large vehicles needing to manoeuvre around the loading area. The venue was dark and cold inside, a powerful air conditioning system defying the warm Texas afternoon which was quietly raging outside.
There were several hours before we were required for soundcheck so the keenest amongst us headed out for a run. Tess, Tristan and I said goodbye to Kevin and headed out to explore the grounds around the theatre, discovering a horse racing track, a cricket oval, a scenic cycle path, and even stumbling across some racing cars screeching their tyres as they did turning practise in an empty car park.
Kevin greeted us on our return, checking our accreditation before allowing us back into the theatre. At 5pm we were given the stage for our soundcheck and we began setting up in the polar conditions that were established inside this giant auditorium. Fans were blasting air across the stage and the air conditioning was turned right up in an attempt to restrict the amount of sweat that frontman Ben Gibbard would emit during the evening’s performances. We checked all the microphones and played a few songs and once Gabe was happy out the front we retreated to the backstage to eat dinner and get ready for our half hour of power.
It was pitch black and the majority of the audience were invisible when we walked out at 8pm and it was hard to tell how many people had showed up to watch the opening act. The people up the front made up for this, though, with good screaming and dancing and we felt warmly welcomed.
Our second viewing of the Deathcab for Cutie/Postal Service 20th Anniversary concert was just as great as the first. We sat in the front row and screamed through the whole show, surrounded by thousands of eager fans who were ecstatic to witness this beautiful event. The band had already disappeared when we returned to the backstage afterwards, whisked onto the buses for a quick departure so they could begin the long drive to Phoenix. We took our time packing out and then said a final thank you and goodbye to the guardian of the gate, Kevin, as we left for the drive back to our hotel.
I’ll leave you with Tristan’s latest video, highlights from the last few days on the road.