Soundcheck:
| Good Vibes |
Set One:
| M'Lady | Golden Girls Theme [Andrew Gold] | Beards | Destiny, She Drives a Rolls | Modern Age | Moon Over the Water | Please Please Me [The Beatles] | Hell-Bent Woman | Mystic Princess | Fluffy Little Hands | Time [Pink Floyd] |
Set Two:
| Poet (Who Didn't Know It) | Soul Shaker | I'm a Bad Mamma Jamma (Who Works at Wendy's) | Refrigerator | All the Young Dudes [David Bowie] | Crossroads | Handlebar Mustache | Give Yourself | Jumpstart My Rocket | Last Night | Sledgehammer [Peter Gabriel] | Law & Order Theme [Mike Post] | Heaven's Just a Mystery | With a Little Help from My Friends [The Beatles / Joe Cocker version] |
 |
| We sang the Tetris theme. |
This road show was another of the rare occasions in which we've all piled into just one vehicle and gone together. It usually happens that we don't. It has simply been the Junebug way. The fates were in our favor, however, and we all went up north to Duluth in my minivan.
Duluth is beautiful country. Hills, trees, large bodies of water. It looks like the pictures you would see in a Minnesota tourism brochure. I mean, that's probably literal. Duluth shares the state border with Superior, Wisconsin. Our show was in Duluth tonight, but our hotel room was in Superior. It was a two-state night for us.
We settled into our hotel room which was in an old building in downtown Superior on a road that was closed for construction. It gave the illusion of being in a deserted ghost town. We could look down on the dirt pile below and pretty much see no one. The man at the front desk had a very bored and dour look on his face that had a hint of suspicion for this group of thirty-something hooligans.
We all rested for a couple minutes and Dillon took a nap because he played in Omaha the night before with his other group, Communist Daughter. Anthony, Dustin and I went for a walk. We found an adult beverage store and Dustin was delighted to find some local beers he knew of. We went back to the hotel and hung out for a little bit and then we headed across the border to the venue.
Fitger's Brewhouse is located in the Fitger's brewery complex which is steeped in local history. It's in an amazing huge building which was built in 1857 to house a massive brewery. Today, it is a great shopping complex with twists and turns housing specialty shops, clothing stores, night clubs, and yes, the Fitger's Brewhouse. They are a brewpub, brewing their own delicious beers on site.
We sat down for dinner and were greeted by our very cool server Misty. Who had just the right balance of friendliness and sass. The food was fantastic, the service was great, and the beer was oh-so-tasty.
When we were done, we met the sound tech Keenan, whom Dillon and I know from our IPR days. We loaded in and got all set up. The brewhouse is actually kind of small. And we can get kind of loud sometimes. But we didn't want to blow anyone's ears out, so on Keenan's suggestion, we decided to lay back tonight and just chill. Amp volumes were down a bit and I played with rods instead of sticks. It was a good call. It gave us a bit of a different sound, but it was very fitting to space and the atmosphere.
Everyone in Duluth was just so damn NICE. People were kind of coming and going all night. But they would often wait until a song was over to leave. Then they'd come over and say nice things to us and assure us they weren't leaving because of us, that they just had other plans already. When we were done, people were asking what we're doing now and would we like to hang out. After we tore down and loaded the van we ended up taking our server Misty's invitation to hang out at the Rex, a bar in the basement of the Fitger's complex.
After wandering through the maze-like hallways looking for a way down, we finally found the place and hung out. Again - everyone, nice. We closed the place down and headed back to the hotel. In the morning it was home again, home again.
What a fun gig. This was Junebug's first time in Duluth and we would really like to come back.
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