RC ROADTRIP

Day 4

Hotel Utah (San Francisco)

We woke up to find our bassist had disappeared.  It was his anniversary but his wife was supposed to be out of town, so we booked the roadtrip.  Then she wasn't going out of town so they arranged to have her come up for 24 hours.  So, while the two of them spent the day in the city, the rest of us slept late (which we so needed after our parade wakeup call yesterday) and went to get Zachary's Pizza with my uncle Avram.  Hardcore RC fans will recognize him as the man who left us an encouraging, hysterical message that we put on our demo, First Day Of Class.  My dad's older brother has lived in Berkeley since the mid-60's and is sweet, hysterical and nuts in all the best ways.  He kept us all entertained with his ideas on everything, including dating.  He always seems to be with girls half his age and told us how there's tons of lonely women in the Berkeley hills.  He may or may not regularly post a simple Craigslist ad that says he's looking for someone he can take care of and it works like a charm.

Zachary's was amazing as usual.  Still probably the best deep dish pizza on earth.  We followed it up with a walk around Telegraph and Berkeley campus since Andrew had never seen the East Bay.  Andrew and I bought a few things at Amoeba and we bought a few live bootlegs cd's (Simon & Garfunkel, Police, Television) from a guy on the street for just three bucks each. He says been doing it for over a year and no one's ever done anything.  Only in Berkeley!  Yogurt Park is still amazing too.  It was a beautiful, cool fall day so I drove down to the Marina to walk around and see the view before heading back home for a nap.  To get a day this relaxing in the middle of doing 6 shows in 5 days was really great. 

We headed across the Bay Bridge which is always beautiful at night.  A few wrong turns later (I HATE DRIVING IN THE BAY AREA), we were at the cool, comfy Hotel Utah.  The show took awhile to confirm and when we did, the booker said it was cool if I found the other bands to play with and I had a blast finding tons of cool Bay Area bands to play with.  I got two good ones to do the show, only to find that he'd already booked three other bands that weren't really our cup of tea.  Drat.  Still, we had some folks come out, including two old online friends of mine, Andrew and Ling plus the aforementioned Christine, who volunteered to take black and white pictures of us.  We need new band photos.  Perfect.  We got a damn good discounted dinner and I tried to save my voice.

Lakes, an acoustic duo, arrived and immediately asked us if they could play last "because we're from out of town".  They looked disappointed that we'd driven about 300 miles more than they had.  The Procrastanistas, stayed true to their name and started the night off late.  They fit a lot of cool gear up there, including a rotating Leslie cabinet for the organ.  They made us feel young and had a song that repeated the line "This French chick is going out with me/I don't know what the fuck she's talking about", um, repeatedly.  We played probably our best, tightest set so far.  That's what touring is supposed to do, right?   Andrew set up his drumset in the corner, which worked alright and allowed Dylan and I to take silly, dramatic quick steps back and lean against the back wall.  We did a song called "Ducks" that Pete wrote and sang for Meg for their anniversary.  Her tears of joy rolled down from the balcony, nearly drowning everyone sitting below. The 30 or so people seemed to dig it but Lakes did not look thrilled that things were going late.  I actually felt guilty about playing nine songs (even though I cut two songs from the setlist).

We got offstage quick, talked to friends and tried to act natural in our first photoshoot with the new guys (thanks again, Christine). A white dreadlocked guy that was quite nice followed us with a solo acoustic set and then the Lakes duo did perfect unplugged power ballads that would fit perfectly over the last scene in episodes of Laguna Beach, the OC or whatever the kids watch these days.  I missed them rolling their eyes while thanking the few stragglers for staying and sarcastically(?) saying that the last time they'd played SF they'd sold out the Filmore.  With their slick website and thousands of Myspace friends, think they'd be huge.  Did I mention that when you go to their Myspace page, they have an awkward recording of them saying that their album presale is now over but to still buy it?  I diplomatically said nice things and we left.  Now I'm talkin' smack online.  What a tough guy.

Late night Taco Bell again?!  Zzzzzzz…..

More photos: http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/peterbayard/album?.dir=b80ascd&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/peterbayard/my_photos