Day 9: Austin, TX
Nau mai
Yesterday we played at Emo’s in Austin, Texas.
We awoke aboard the yellow bus whose name we have not been told, and whom for now we shall refer to as Old Butterblock. This fine vehicle stood proudly in the carpark in front of the venue clean and shiny save for a face that was now freckled with splattered bugs from the night’s drive. Out the port window was a corrugated-iron-clad cuboid structure that housed our venue for the evening, and out the starboard window my view of the Colorado River was interrupted by roof tops and air conditioners and a fairly grotesque sculpture of a burger.
A five-minute walk from the bus was a bar called The Buzz Mill that sunlighted as a coffee shop, a classic Austin patio bar with a rustic courtyard that had a couple of food trucks to service this nice sunny area. One of these was the taco truck Santo Patio and it was from there that I ordered a Zuccini and Egg, and a Migas taco, to enjoy in the company of a tall black coffee and a few pages of my book.
I had my first ride in a Waymo yesterday afternoon. Jon and Gabe had headed to a guitar shop on the other side of town, and I decided to join them, attempting to call an Uber on my phone and during some part of the negotiation in the app getting transferred into a driverless cyborg vehicle. For all the bad press I have heard about these futuristic taxis my experience was not a bad one. I selected a music genre from the computer screen and relaxed into a seat that had plenty of leg room as the driver’s seat was slid all the way forward. This robot driver had a good grasp of intersections like the four-way stop, and knew how to safely execute a right hand turn on a red light. Overall, I felt safer than I have with a lot of Uber drivers, but I did miss the thrill of experiencing erratic offensive driving on the freeway.
Sadly, this was not the shop where Jon was going find a replacement Gold Top Les Paul, or any Les Paul for that matter. We headed back to Emo’s and began the load-in, this nicely designed venue not putting up much of a struggle as we rolled everything across a smooth concrete floor and up an aluminium ramp to stage level. Gabe was in heaven when we began to soundcheck, the clean acoustics of the room giving him a chance to do less problem solving and more creative mixing.
Tristan’s full set of Zildjian drums and cymbals sparkles beneath a front wash.
I am a complete sucker for a southern sunset. We just don’t get anything like it in New Zealand. The brilliant colours created from this scattered arrival of light through the atmosphere, smeared across the horizon and captured by the mirrored glass of the downtown skyscrapers. I was out for a run after soundcheck and thoroughly enjoyed Austin’s windy boardwalk along the Colorado River. It was nearly dark by the time I made it to the Congress Street Bridge, and the bat colony was active, an airborne highway of these tiny, winged mammals materialising from nowhere to speed into the night sky to hunt.
Emo’s looked amazing once it was full of people and properly lit up, the huge open space complemented by intricate hanging sculptures framing the stage and catching the colours. Gabe said this was one of our best shows, and it certainly felt great for us up on stage.
The night ended on a high. I was enjoying my shower in the extremely pleasant green room facilities that this venue sports and I experienced a shower head design that blew me away. This technology just doesn’t exist in New Zealand, or in the 3-star tier of American hotels that we frequent. No longer does the individual have to choose between a fixed stream or a handheld sprayer. No longer must you reroute the water stream when you want to clean the bottoms of your feet. The Delta Faucet In2ition Shower Head with its Magnatite locking system is a game changer.
