Day 9: Santa Cruz
Welcome
Yesterday we played our first ever show at The Catalyst in Santa Cruz, California.
We were all seated inside our Mercedes Benz Sprinter by 9:40am and Paul was in the driver’s seat, nosing us out of the carpark of the Hyatt Regency in downtown Sacramento. Across the street was the state capitol building, currently under renovations and half covered in plastic, the incessant clatter of jackhammers emerging from behind the fence to remind us that morning had indeed broken. We left this all behind and set off to find coffee, black and hot, the way I prefer to enjoy it, and luckily the way it exists in most coffee shops in the United States. Our chosen coffee shop was Camellia Coffee Roasters, and it wasn’t one of these places with a thousand different roasts and blends and origins and fancy tasting notes, they served a no nonsense hot brewed coffee which I ordered, twelve ounces of steaming liquid, and no further questions necessary. For breakfast I ordered from their equally no-nonsense sandwich menu choosing a breakfast sandwich with a two-egg omelette, cheese, mushrooms, Cholula aioli, and spinach on a brioche bun.
We left Sactown behind, travelling southwest on I-80, the Dwight D Eisenhower Highway, driving past countless orchards of almond trees, and then endless orchards of fulfillment centres and logistical hubs. We stopped once for diesel and donuts and then we drove on, leaving I-80 and cutting south at Cordelia onto I-680, driving through a countryside of green rolling hills and vast orchards of towering wind turbines.
Early in the afternoon we reached our destination, a town on the northern edge of Monterey Bay called Santa Cruz. It was sunny and warm when we pulled into the venue parking lot and unloaded ourselves from the Sprinter, whipping up the roller door on the back of our U-Haul trailer and beginning the transfer of musical equipment into the venue and up on to the stage. It was a very tall stage we soon found out, a stage diver’s paradise, and a set list thief’s nightmare. The room was long and high with a floor of rough concrete and balconies that ran the length of each side. It had the well-worn feel of a club open continuously for several decades, thousands of bands treading the life out of the stage carpet, every surface scuffed and scratched, and paint worn from every leanable surface.
After soundcheck we went to the beach, only a fifteen minute walk from The Catalyst and located on Beach Street, at the southern end of Cliff Street, or Pacific Ave if you’re coming from the northeast, or Bay Street if you are arriving from the west. Santa Cruz Beach was all of these things except for cliffed; a white sanded beach in a sheltered bay on the Pacific coastline, and it was a sight to behold on this warm, placid Wednesday evening. Sail boats were eased across the mouth of the bay by the gentlest of breezes while sea birds soared and plunged in search of food, both in the water and around the rubbish bins.
For those to whom this was not sufficient entertainment there was the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk with plenty of stalls and rides to enjoy, a cable car hanging overhead and a couple of fearsome rollercoasters for the thrill seekers. One of these thrill seekers was Liz and she rode the Giant Dipper, a wooden coaster that is celebrating its centenary this year. Jon and Tristan and I hopped in the water and found it to be cool and refreshing, slightly too cool for an extended swim but absolutely worth the trip.
We had the pleasure of hearing Jess Kallen for the second night in a row. They opened the show at 8pm and played to a full room of impressively punctual Californians, fine audience members who were quiet and respectful, far too respectful to talk over the top of the opening act as so often happens. Santa Cruz were already well on the way to earning the Breakfast and Travel Updates Best New Audience award by this point but the moment that the decision was made for me was near the end of the show, at the beginning of our last song when four men removed their shirts.
It could have been body paint, but equally it could have been sharpies that were used to spell out four of Liz’s most successful words: How does it feel? It felt sticky on their chests I imagine. This kind of dedication was impressive and although I was disappointed by the lack of breakfast related body paint, I have to respect the intent and execution of this masterpiece.
Our hotel was close by so minutes after we had finished removing ourselves and our equipment from the venue we were pulling into the carpark of a Hampton Inn, an aggressively three-star hotel with all the trimmings you would expect of such an establishment: complimentary breakfast from 7-10am and a business centre with two height-adjustable swivel chairs, a telephone, and a LaserJet printer; this was a bad place to be an unfinished task. We headed upstairs and straight to bed, ready for an early start and a big drive to Palm Springs.