Chicago / Rock N Roll Field Trip

The first morning in Chicago, I had a few free hours so I went to The Art Institute of Chicago, where I saw a John Singer Sargent exhibit and a cool photography exhibit called, somewhat wordily: "Volta Photo: Starring Sanlé Sory and the People of Bobo-Dioulasso in the Small but Musically Mighty Country of Burkina Faso." It was work from this photographer in Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso, I guess) who took photos of a lot of the music going on there in the 60s and 70s. In addition to photographing various orchestras and bands, he would bring a boombox to different villages and put on impromptu (disco) dance parties and photograph the attendees.

After the museum, I made my way over to The Chicago Theater, where we were playing for 2 nights. It’s another one of these cool old theaters that was built in the 1920s. Bobby, Reed and I wandered around the theater looking at all the old details and fixtures. On the balcony, there were red velvet banquets, where we liked to think that Al Capone hung out. I posted some pix below. The dressing room was a bit less charming. It fell into that lead-paint-chipped-youth-hostel category with which Reed and I are becoming so familiar. And no fruit plate! But at least it had a few chairs.

Our sound checks are getting shorter and shorter. They take about 5 minutes now...and then the drill is that I go find an empty room to do my vocal warmup. It’s usually in some basement or somewhere kind of out of the way in the depths of the backstage area. Yesterday I told Reed that if I wasn’t back in 22 minutes, he should send a search party. I kind of meant it.

Back in the tiny, run-down dressing room after my warm-up, Andy Bell poked his head in and told me that he was watching us from backstage the previous night in Grand Rapids and he thought we sounded great. All I could think was thank god I didn’t notice him there at the time. But it was a very nice thing of him to say and it gave me a little extra confidence. The show the first night in Chicago went well. I’ve learned that even the quickest if shout-outs to the people in the balcony does wonders for engaging the audience. Someone I met on Facebook through an activist group lives near Chicago so I invited her to come to the show. After our set was done, I ran down to the lobby to meet her quickly before we had to leave (more on that in a sec). It was nice to meet her in person! Hope you had fun, Ginger!

So the plan for that night was that right after we played, we were going to take a cab across town to see My Bloody Valentine at the Riviera Theater. This was our rock n roll field trip. I learned so many things. First of all, Chicago is f-ing massive. "Across town" felt like 20 miles, all of them chock full of massive monolithic skyscrapers. Even New York doesn't have anywhere near that same density of skyscraper. Anyhyow...the other thing that was immediately apparent, though less surprising, was the difference in the Erasure and My Bloody Valentine crowd.

MBV is notorious for playing extremely loudly, so I wasn't surprised when they handed us earplugs at the front door. But even with the earplugs, the volume was really intense. It was great to see my friend Deb play bass- she is unbelievable. All I kept thinking is that she and the drummer must need a shitload of Gatorade after each show. They are pushing so hard the whole time. They also had amazing videos projected on them during the whole set. The videos were very abstract, but each song had a completely unique color palette and style. It was really amazing.

Afterwards, anyone with a VIP pass was ushered over to a waiting area where an attendant would soon come pick us up to lead us to the backstage waiting area (unlike the Erasure tour- where no one comes backstage unless you go get them, pretty much ;). After being ushered over to another waiting area with ten other people, we were told to wait again and someone different would bring us backstage. Now it really felt like we were on a class trip.

They finally brought us backstage, and it was awesome to see Deb for the first time in at least 12 or 13 years. Besides being an amazing bass player, she is also a wonderful human. We also chatted a bit with a woman named Jen who just joined the band on guitar and keyboards. She was really nice and funny. We noticed they had nuts on their rider too. But also, chocolate! What a good idea.

The next day, Reed and I ventured to Dark Matter Coffee because of course, we had to (see the track listing of our new cd). The walk was long and slightly sketchy, but worth it for the "Dark Matter" t-shirts and one of the best iced lattes I have EVER HAD IN MY LIFE. After that, I used my free hours to go to a flea market in town, where I saw an AC/DC baseball shirt and thought "oh that's cute" until I saw the tag, which said $225. Realizing there were no bargains to be had, I left.

We sat with Emma, Valerie and Andy at dinner and compared different remedies for phlem-y throats. They told me that Annie Lennox drank Port with garlic in it. Then we talked about how they eat rotted shark in Iceland.

The second night in Chicago went well. Reed and I had a good friend from college who happened to be flying in from London to Chicago that night to see her family. She was too late to catch the show, but she hung out with us in our dressing room for awhile and it was great to catch up. That picture is also below...

Today, we drove to Minneapolis, where we have a LOVELY fruit plate in our dressing room.