Denver
in denver
The new set of electro-vibes that Luke had acquired from Astoria High School for Ian to play on the road had a lot of problems in Missoula. All of the electronics and pots were filthy and this was causing so much distortion that the sound crew had to use overheads for the vibes. We hustled to Denver and to a Guitar Center so that we could buy some De-Oxit spray to clean out the wiring, replace Ryan’s lost kick pedal, and pick up some other miscellaneous stuff. Having no other opportunity before load in, we took the vibes apart in the parking lot of the Guitar Center. Ian had taken the bars off too, thinking that the generally dirty state of the instrument could be contributing to its noise, and I had the circuit boards out on the pavement. The other Guitar Center patrons were quite baffled by our spectacle. Having put the vibes back together, we hauled them inside and hooked them up to an amp and they worked great. No one who worked there really seemed to care about any of this, which was very odd.
The Fillmore in Denver is a gorgeous old room that had been a car assembly plant in the 1920s, then a roller rink, then abandoned, and finally a concert hall. With a capacity of 3000, it is one of the biggest venues of the tour. The Decemberists hadn’t sold it out, so when we played there was some room in the back of the floor. However, the crowd was very receptive for our set and treated us like headliners with their responses to each song. After we played, we piled in the van and tried to get some of the long drive to Kansas City out of the way. Everyone being quite tired, we only made it to the Colorado border before getting a hotel room. With seven people, we have to be kind of sneaky with the hotel rooms- so far we haven’t gotten caught.
