Day 45: Washington DC, Day 2
Nau mai,
Yesterday we played the final show of our North American tour at 9:30 Club in Washington DC.
I started my day off with a trip to Arepa Zone, just a short walk from our hotel in downtown DC. This restaurant served up several different Venezuelan specialties but I decided to stay in the Arepa zone, not venturing into the Cachapa zone or Empanada zone, or god forbid, the Tequeño zone. I ordered a Pabellón, a cornbread pocket filled with shredded beef, shredded queso fresco, sweet plantains, and black beans.
The temperature had warmed up a bit in the capital and it was nice to be out walking. I had a free hour in my afternoon before soundcheck, so I headed down through the Federal Triangle, strolling along Constitution Avenue where some of the great museums lie on the edge of the National Mall. The layout of central Washington DC is an impressive piece of city planning and the sightlines up the major avenues are particularly satisfying with the pointy needle of the Washington Monument and the Capitol Building’s graceful dome regularly popping up on my horizon.
I spent my spare hour at the National Gallery, an art museum that was so determined to impress its visitors, it breathed and sweated grandeur from every pore of the marble that clad every surface. Most of the museums in the capital are free and it was as simple as strolling in the front door, passing through a metal detector, and I was being greeted by an attendant who knew the layout like the back of her hand and was already circling rooms on a map that she thought I should visit. The paintings are mostly on the second floor and that’s where I headed, up a wide marble staircase and into the second-floor atrium - more marble, columns, a fountain with a bronze statue of mercury - an enormous space that welcomed and overwhelmed. Of course, the Christmas decorations were up at this time of year and there were bushy fir trees that provided ample Christmas cheer.
The paintings were displayed in smaller rooms, each set of rooms contained within a wing that represents a period or style. It felt a bit like a maze, the way these rooms were connected, and you soon lost your reference to where the corridor was – but this was a pleasant sensation wandering aimlessly amongst the works of some of the great masters of this art form.
Here are a few of my favourites; as you can see I have a soft spot for a depiction of a sailing ship.
We made it to the venue at around 4:30 and performed a cursory soundcheck, blowing through a few songs to make sure everything still worked. It was a standard show day except for the emotional energy in the air. Saying goodbye to everyone would be hard after a beautiful six weeks together. The sets were dotted with thank-yous but we tried not to make DC suffer too much from their forced participation in our emotional processing. We sat up on the little backstage balcony above the stage and watched Phoebe Rings do their final set of the tour, and it was a fiery one to round off these thirty-one shows. This was not even their last show of the tour if you must know – they had a headline show to play the next night before they could call it a wrap!
I love it when Crystal does overlapping hands keyboards.
The Ringers watched from their tiny balcony as we played our final set, and it was a beautiful ending to it all. The riders of Lavonda were all in attendance, our incredible crew – Gabe, Annie, and Erin, Jake and Apple -our managers, Crystal, Simeon, Ben, and Alex from Phoebe Rings – all these people who have been so caring and so easy to live alongside for the past weeks. I give my deepest thanks to all of these wonderful humans.
And of course my love and gratitude to Jon, Liz, and Tristan who are simply the best people to make music with.
Ka kite anō au i a koutou.
