Day 12: Denver, CO
Change to italics
Welcome
Yesterday we played our final show with the great Canadian band all always.
This is a dictation day
It was around 6 am that we were awakened by allowed Bang followed by a rumbling noise, like something was being dragged underneath the bus. Tristan tumbled out of his bike wearing nothing but his underwear and rushed to the front to inform Mr bus of this worrying noise. We pulled over to the side of the road and discovered a puncture of the heavy variety. Mr bus got on the phone and with the knowledge that help us on the waywe fell back asleep and waited for the journey to continue. Three hours later I am emerged from my bank to find that we still hadn’t moved. It was a beautiful place to be stopped though, the arid desert of the high Plains stretching out towards the horizon where it met spectacularly large and vivid blue sky.
Finally the mechanic arrived three hours later than his first ETA. 40 minutes after that we began to roll again, cruising along these scenic highways on our way to Denver. My first meal of the day was constructed as we rolled along interstate 25, Something that is challenging but was made easier by the Incredibles smoothness in control that only missed a bus can execute behind the wheel. I sliced many vegetables – capsicums, reddish, tomato, celery, cucumber call Mum, carrot, and then serve them alongside a duo of hummus and some toasted soldiers.
It was close to 3 pm when we rolled into the mile high city and despite the incredible delay in our journey we were still right on time for load in thanks to Teh flexibility built into our schedule . This was our second visit to Denvers mission ballroom , the first being a year ago when we played Support for The National. It was just as flesh as we had remembered, a spacious stage, state of the art PA system, and dressing rooms that proclaim their level of comfort by the inclusion of a record player.
We settled in and then got down to business. First things first – the final day of tour is always prank day and we had dre up a real doozy. Using a whiteboard marker to ensure that no permanent property damage was committed we changed all the backstage signs from always to always. I now skip forward six hours to the end of the evening and still none of the Band crew have noticed this prank. We could only hope to tour again with this Band in future so we get another chance to brutally humiliate them in a similar way.
Well this was going on Tristan went for a craigslist adventure. He comment did the runner from the venue and they drove off to pick up a snare drum bargain from the outskirts of the city. He returned an hour later with an extremely dirty drum, but a wonderful sounding drum And immediately began to assembling the instrument, wiping away dust in Greece and getting it to a state where it will be allowed indoors.
The enormous stage of Mission Broome had felt a little washy sound but when we kicked off our seat at 8 pm everything had tightened up beautifully and it felt Chris, with everything perfectly balanced and audible. Walking out into a room that full of people never gets old, and never fails to take my breath away. Sometimes the audience isn’t properly lit to start with and it’s only halfway through the first song that all of the faces suddenly appear, I see you Sweden Arms stretching to the back of the enormous space. Denver continued its streak of great Beth shows, something enabled by is fine and audience is a band could ever ask for.
We completed our quickest pack down of the tour yet and we we’re already out in the crowd when always kicked off. This was the best they had sounded all tour and despite if you technical problems with one of the guitars they delivered as fine a performance as one could ever hope to witness at a rock show. Skill and depth in the songwriting, the virtuosic instrumental performances, the spontaneity that lies with new arrangements, these things all combined by one of the great live bands of our time.
We played cricket twice after the gig. The first time was in the corridor and it was a challenging space for both bowler and better, tight confines and poor lighting contributing to bad visibility and tough fielding conditions. The second time was in the car park once we had been kicked out of the venue. There was a cultural exchange here when members of always as crew join us in front of the stumps. The conditions were more favourable but the tour manager did hit the ball onto the roof. The last member of our game arrived from an unexpected direction, the Uber driver who had delivered always his bus driver from his hotel turned out to be an Indian cricket fan and was thrilled to be able to play his national game with a bunch of New Zealanders at 1 am in a venue carpark.
In between these two games of cricket there was a small party to celebrate the Small but successful tour. DJ lizard was on the decks once again and the dancefloor was fire. Was sad to say goodbye to our Canadian and American friends but we are grateful for our time together and we can’t wait for this to happen again.
