Day 28: Sonoma, CA
Nau mai
Yesterday we played at Gundlach Bundschu vineyard in the Northern Bay Area of California.
It wasn’t a bad first view of the morning, looking out across a gravel lot at lush, unpruned trees, canted telephone poles, neat rows of grape vines, and a rusty old pickup truck with a couple of barrels on the back. This seemed like a land of riches and optimism we were in, a place where anyone could plant a seed in the ground and create something magical.
I prepared a beautiful bowl of fruit to have with my granola, a texturally varied and colour balanced ring of banana slices, blackberries, raspberries, kiwifruit, and nectarine.
The Gundlach Bundschu vineyard was a paradise for burnt-out tour souls. This was exactly what we needed, a restorative day in this picturesque piece of countryside with animals, beaten up roads, old piles of rocks, and sprawling fields filled with rows of ripening fruit.
This is the donkey that lives in the field next to the barn. Just visible in the background is another beat-up old pickup truck oozing character and probably a bit of transmission fluid too.
An incredible piece of arboriculture, this triple barrel Canary Island Date Palm (Phoenix Palm) is a standout piece on the welcome road into the vineyard.
Crape Myrle Trees guard the entrance to the vineyard.
A group of burly young men came to help us moving the equipment to the stage as it was some distance from the bus. They had a pickup truck with a large flatbed trailer which easily fit all our gear in one trip. They drove around in the countryside style with as many people as you could fit on the exterior of the vehicle.
The stage was in a barn that felt very appropriate to the rusticity of the surrounding property. There were hay bales holding up the stage and old tools decorating the walls. Everything else was built from old wine barrels. If you couldn’t construct everything that you needed from wine barrels and hay you didn’t belong on this ranch.
Later on we played a game called “name this tool”. Can you name all these tools? Which one would you take home? (I apologise for this poor photo of the tool wall).
What is it like to play in a barn? you might wonder. Some of the hay bales are unstable so you need to be careful when stepping on them to get up onto the stage. The ceiling was hardwood planking with no lighting truss so the stage lighting was minimal/vibey. Having a visible donkey from the stage was a huge highlight, as was the visible sunset across the beautiful vineyard. Everybody had eaten so many grapes by the time we played that the evening had turned into quite a merry affair. Liz put together a barn-appropriate setlist that was very well received, a tight hour of fast and loud tunes that felt nicely chaotic in the dark room.
Wishy playing their opening set in the Gundlach Bundschu barn.
I believe ‘double’ is a typo of ‘donkey’.
(To clarify, this is one additional point for Tristan, nominated by Gabe).
