Colorado Summer Tour - Part One

The anticipation is over! Finally after our show in Kansas, we made our way to Colorado on Thursday August 4th. We had a show later that night in Denver at a world renown Grateful Dead bar called Quixote's True Blue. Its a bar that we played on the last trip and from experience we knew it would be an amazing way to start out our Colorado run. The Drive from Lawrence was a whopping 8 hours - so waking up early was essential. Sleep was tough anyway due to the incredible 80 degree heat + humidity all night; and not to mention the coyotes howling nearby our campsite. None the less we arrived to Denver on time to load in for our 9 o'clock show at Quixote's.

Once again we are extremely lucky to have our good friend Carter Jennings in Denver, who has been more than gracious enough to let us crash at his house for the days we're in town.

The first show was incredible. We opened up for a national touring band called Groovement from Arkansas, and they were a blast! We had a great crowd and got everyone dancing by the end, it was a perfect start to playing in the Rockies!

The following day, Friday Aug 5th, we drove out to Breckenridge - a small ski town about two hours outside Denver. We were set to play at the Historic Brown - a 40+ year old hotel and restaurant. The good news about this show was that we would actually be provided a few hotels rooms after the show to stay for the night. Essentially we would just have to walk up stairs from the stage and BAM we could go to sleep - it was a real treat. The show here was a ton of fun. Lots of people our age were in attendance and started dancing right from the beginning - we even saw a few of our friends who live in the area. Though the stage was small and hot, we shredded through our sweat and created an epic experience for anyone in attendance. Here's a few pictures from the show...

After a great night's rest, the following day we took our van to the South Colorado town of Durango! Some of you may remember from the last tour that Durango was one of our favorite spots, and this time was no different. Upon arrival, the town was bustling and busy. We were incredibly surprised based on that fact that during the Summer months, Colorado is supposed to be a little slower - but alas, Durango was crowded. The show was no different. After about one song, people starting pouring in and ended up being some of the most attentive listeners of the tour so far. Not a lot of dancing ensued, but all eyes seemed to be on us and there was minimal talking. It wasn't until we played Z Z Top's "La Grange" that we got the entire crowd hooting, hollering and dancing! What an incredible show. 

Afterwards we spent the night camping underneath the stars in a large campground field near by - it was the perfect end to a great night. Here's some pictures from our drive through Southern Colorado

The next day we drove straight back to where we came for a show in the tiny town of Rollinsville. The venue, called The Stage Stop, was built in the 1800's and has been standing since! Made of all wood, it seemed to be a landmark to anyone passing by, though not a lot of people stopped by. Our set from 5-8 PM and performed mostly for these two guys who were incredible interested in our music. By the end of the set, they had convinced us that we needed to tune all of our instruments to 432 hz instead of the usual standard 440 hz. The theory behind this method is that 440 is a very sharp and aggressive sounding tone, while 432 hz is more mellow and actually resonates at the same frequency as every atom in your body. Naturally we had to try it out and it was actually quite amazing. I'm not sure exactly what changed, but the jams that ensued were blissful and relaxing. It ended up being a great end to our first run of Colorado shows.

St. Louis & Kansas!

Well... I'd never thought I'd ever play in St. Louis or Kansas. I imagine it's similar to as a child thinking you'll never get married, but then you get into a great relationship (band in this case) and suddenly its a feasible situation. 

Monday's show in St. Louis was billed as "Jerry Garcia's Birthday Party" for his birthday on that same day Aug. 1st. The opening band was an acoustic trio which paid homage to the great acoustic and folky elements of Jerry and the Grateful Dead. We followed with an original set to mix things up, then a rockin' electric Grateful Dead set! It was our first time playing an entire set dedicated to one artist - and what a treat it was! A large crowd was in attendance and absolutely loved every minute of it. It was so incredible to share the magic of the dead with all these strangers from Missouri, I mean come on?!! Come into a town for the first time and have the entire room dancing to some of your favorite music, it doesn't get much better! Here's what the set list looked like

SET ONE

mmmmmDOOF

Ramblin Man

Harley

Camp Cut-Coulie

Together Not the Same

Riders On The Storm

Yeti

Doc Brown

SET TWO

The Other One ->

Me & My Uncle ->

Not Fade Away ->

Drums ->

SPACE ->

The Other One

China Cat Sunflower ->

I Know You Rider

Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad

Scarlet Begonias ->

Fire On the Mountain

Franklin's Tower

El Paso

The following day we were onto Kansas for a day off at Sam's aunt's house in Kansas City. After some much needed rest, we grabbed some Southern BBQ and got even more rest gearing up for our first Kansas show the following day. 

We loaded into the Bottleneck the following day (the site of the Lawrence, Kansas gig). What an incredible room! Sam informed us that his Dad had played the exact venue about 40 years earlier, what a trip to be on that same stage. The bar looked even older than 40 years and certainly smelled like it! Though the crowd was small we had a lot of fun playing through a bunch of new tunes in preparation for the Colorado shows ahead!

Safety First Summer Tour Kicks Off!

On the road again! We've just hit the road on our 'Safety First' Summer Tour; based off of our recent album "Safety First". This is our longest and most expansive tour to date. Once again we will be taking Colorado by storm, but this time we are playing shows in New Hope, PA; St. Louis, MO; and Lawrence, KS along the way! Here's the full list of dates...



Day 1: We offically hit the road on Saturday, due to the first two shows being with reasonable driving distance from our hometown of Wilton. As everyone arrived to Nick's house to pack the van we soon realized we were going to be filling the van to max capacity.

We are very fortunate to have a light designer on this tour! Dan Howard, one of Connecticut's finest liquid light engineers, agreed to share his space-gift with us for the next few weeks. Here's a picture of his liquid lights in action at one of our New Haven shows...



In addition, we have our good friend Ethan Michael on tour again! During the last Colorado tour, he filled in on bass for Seth - but this time, he will be playing guitar and percussion. Throughout our band's four year history, he has been a constant source of energy and enthusiasm, so we are very excited to have him back on the road!

With these two extra people, we will have a whopping 6 people in the van throughout the entire tour. That also includes 6 bags of clothes, sleeping equipment, and everyone's musical gear. Basically we're stuffed!

Our first show is at Triumph Brewing Company in New Hope, PA - a venue we've never played before! The drive was quick and easy, but the load in was tough. We hit a freak thunder storm right as we were arriving to the show and had to race to get everything inside, whilst getting poured on. Once we were all settled inside, we quickly set up and had dinner before starting the first of our two sets. Here's the setlist from the night.

SET ONE: mmmmDOOF, The Wave, Goin’ Down The Road Feelin’ Bad*, Ronnie, Pool Rock, Ramblin’ Man**, Lion in the Grass, What Happened***, Together Not the Same, Crossfaded Mammoths, Can’t Have Both

SET TWO: Banana Jam, Officer, Pancakes, Me & My Uncle*, Reptar, Yeti, Riders On The Storm^, Rogue II, Sacrifice^^

* Grateful Dead Cover

** Allman Brothers Cover

*** Sublime Covers

^ The Doors

^^ Expendables Cover

Day 11 & 12: Tony P's and The Cloud Station

Day 11 was set to be our last show in Denver at a pizzeria called Tony P's. After spending the last three days in Colorado's capital we were excited to cap it off with a good old fashion hang out. Unlike the other venues we had played, Tony P's was very much a "Bring your own crowd" type place so our entire crowd of 25 ended up being our Denver friends, and some folks who had seen us either Monday or Wednesday. 

The show itself was very fun and super casual, a very different vibe than the rest of the tour so far and everyone was having a great time! Tomorrow we would head back into the mountains, but it was nice to r out our Denver run with a bang!

We woke up on Friday and headed for Crestone. None of us, or anyone we met this far had heard of the small town, but we were still very anxious to get there and play. We arrived around 3 pm and went to scope out the scene. The town was a fraction of the size of our hometown of Wilton - with tons of huts and a very obvious down to earth community. 

The venue ended up being a health food store on one half and a venue on the other side. Upon entrance, we were immediately transported to a different time. There was a man on stage playing guitar and singing the most beautiful middle eastern type music, this man we would later find out, lives in a cave and was about to move to Mexico. He was also one of the best guitarists I have ever seen. 

A few minutes later we were introduced to the owner, Ben. He was one of the nicest venue owners I've ever met. So sincere and genuinely friendly, it was such a nice change of pace. By the end of the night we all walked out as good friends. The venue also did not sell alcohol - so it smelled amazing and it was so CLEAN - why don't more venues do that? We had a great sound check and explored the town a little more, locating a camping area for the night. By show time, locals were trickling into the room, paying the $10 ticket price with no qualms whatsoever. Try charging $10 in Connecticut, and you won't find the same results. These people were here to dance and they appreciated it beyond our knowledge. We played the first set and had the entire room dancing the whole time - everything was going so well. We even had a local harmonica player sit in on Camp Cut-Coulie. 

By set two everyone was still hanging around and continued to dance the entire time. At its peak we had around 40 people in the room, not bad for a town of population 150! We even met a couple from Wilton who moved out west over 30 years ago, what a small world!

After the show we hung out with Ben a bit more to discuss our camping situation and he pointed us to a great hike to take in the morning which I'll discuss later. We set out on our way up the mountain nearby to set up camp. We lit a Bon fire and reminisced on this great adventure. With only one show left, we were feeling happier than ever. Colorado is amazing.

Day 10: Quixote's

Our 5th show of the tour was at another local Dead bar called Quixote's True Blue - very similar to Sancho's, except it has two actual stages and is much more spacious. We had actually heard a lot of great things about Quixote's even before we came out to Colorado and were very excited for this set. But first! van maintenance!!

Driving 3,000 miles since Wilton, it was time for an oil change, a tire rotation and even to change our brake pads which Sam and I took care of for a few hours in the morning.



We headed to the venue around 7 pm and starting setting up for our two hour slot from 10-12. It was set to be our only 18+ show in Denver, so lots of Ethan's friends were able to come out and see us, very fun!

I just want to take a second to note that Ethan has been absolutely phenomenal playing bass with us. He learned all our songs in just a few weeks and is playing ferociously every night, having an absolute blast, we couldn't be happier to have him aboard for these shows.

The show ended up being fantastic, we impressed a lot of folks and had a crowd of about 30, half friends / half random locals. It was a fun night bolstered by the fact that after we finished, two more bands were playing, one after us on the main stage, and another on the smaller side stage. It was nice to enjoy music from a spectators position for a little while and definitely super fun to dance and relax.

In addition, we were quite affected by the death of Merle Haggard and decided to pay tribute by covering his song "Mama Tried" at the show, it was a truly special moment for us. RIP Merle.

Here's the setlist...

4/6 Denver, CO - Quixote's

Harley > Willy, King Kong, The Wave, Can't Have Both, Scarlet Begonias -> Fire on the Mountain, Yeti, Denver Jam -> Pancakes, Smoke Two Joints, Together Not the Same, Officer, Banana Jam -> Doc Brown, Mama Tried, C3PO, Smoke

Day 8 & 9: Sancho's and Red Rocks!

Day 8
Our eighth day of this colorado tour would mark our first show out of three in Denver. Besides the the fact that our friends in town could finally come see us, we were especially excited that we only had to drive 10 minutes from Carter's apartment to the first venue, Sancho's Broken Arrow. The club was legitimately a Grateful Dead bar. All over the walls hung old Dead show posters, photographs and psychedelic artwork. As we walked in, we were amazed at how crowded the bar was for a Monday and credited it to the Mens NCAA Basketball National Champion showing on TV in the bar. We were shocked however when the game ended and no one left or seemed to care - this was a built in crowd.

We set up in the middle of the bar, on the floor (there was no proper stage), and began playing around 10 pm. We had a lot of friends, old and new, in the audience and their energy seemed to rub off on the locals. Soon we had the interest of the entire (completely packed) bar. This was already the best show we had ever played on a Monday!

Midnight rolled around and we were planning on a set break, but considering we had a day off yesterday, no one was tired! So we kept playing what would end up being a 3.5 hour marathon set. Incredibly, the entire crowd stayed till the end of our double encore - we were on cloud nine. Later we found out that 149 people had come through the door, our biggest crowd of the tour so far.

Here's the setlist...

4/4 Denver, CO - Sancho's

Can't Have Both > Willy, China Cat -> I Know You Rider, Pool Rock, King Kong, Yeti, Smoke Two Joints > Banana Jam, The Wave, Pancakes > Ronnie, Camp Cut-Coulie, Officer, Together Not the Same, C3PO -> Garden Grove -> CP3O, Doc Brown, Denver Jam ->Rogue II, Lion in the Grass, Fire on the Mountain > Crossfaded Mammoths, What I Got, Reptar

E: Denver Jam #2, Harley

Day 9
We had another day off on Tuesday and spent it hiking at Red Rocks amphitheater right outside Denver. For those who don't know, Red Rocks is one of the most famous outdoor venues in the country. Built into actual "Red Rocks" national park in Morrison, the venue has hosted some of the greatest artists around since the 1940s. Here's a picture of Sam and I (peter) on the stage.

It was great to get some exercise and explore some mountains. Check out some more of these pictures from our hike...

Afterwards we met up with Carter to check out a local Brewery and then retired back at his apartment with a movie (Electric Apricot - A Les Claypool mocumentary about Jam Bands, I highly recommend it to fans of Spinal Tap) to rest up before Wednesday's show at Quixote's True Blue.

Day 7 & Photo Update

Sooooo... Sunday (Day 7) was pretty awesome. We ended up going skiing in Vail, which I guess is supposed to be the best mountain in Colorado! Ethan was able to get us lift tickets for just $99, a whopping 50% off the ticket window price! So we all rode up the gondola in celebration for our first ski run in the Rocky Mountains. Here's some pictures to sum up the trip so far...