Day 15: Carrboro
Nau mai
Yesterday we played the first of two shows at the Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro, North Carolina.
What is a cat’s cradle? - is the question that Google answered for me before I had thought to ask it. I was content to never put a cell of deep thinking into the name of this historic independent music venue and would have been happy simply knowing the correct location and the spelling for the name. Now I know that a Cat’s Cradle is a traditional string game where the two participants stretch taut threads between their hands and attempt to create a Union Jack, passing the pattern between one another until someone makes a mistake.
It was searing hot in the city of Carborro yesterday. After disembarking from Pegasus and the safety of her air conditioned cabin I walked through several blocks of parched desert until I found a coffee shop to rescue me from the heat and sate my thirst. It was called Open Eye Cafe and it was a haven for laptop workers and stranded musicians. Their range of cold coffees was excellent. I had a delicious grapefruit cold brew and a maple walnut scone.
This may look like a huge loaf of bread but it is in fact a normal sized scone.
Setting up on the stage of the Cat’s Cradle. It was cool and dark inside the venue. We are standing around chatting because the tight stage means there isn’t enough room for everyone to set up at once.
In the foreground a quartet of socks dries in the warm afternoon heat. Sometimes you run out of socks on the wrong day and there are no laundry facilities, a problem that necessitates a quick hand soap wash of these garments in the venue bathroom.
In the background Pegasus attempts to find shelter under a stand of trees at the edge of the lot.
The stage is set and the backdrop just fits with a small bit of cropping. Jon is last in the order of soundcheck, and once he has checked his amps and tones we like to play and rehearse a few songs together, often pulling some lesser played songs from the back catalogue that have been requested for up-and-coming shows.
Here we are doing some leisure, enjoying the luxury of not having to pack down after the show. Jon looks like he is about to execute a fiery pool shot. We are at The Cave, a dive bar in nearby Chapel Hill that had the perfect vibe.
