Our 2014 fall tour: awesome
We're home! We made it!We took a lot of pictures!
And before we forget it all, we're writing down our best memories from this amazing couple weeks of travel. Here we go!!We started in Chicago, a show with a cameo by the amazing Patrick Rothfuss with additional insanity provided by Cards Against Humanity... including a fantastically therapeutic bit in which we made smoothies out of magic cards.The next stop: Wisconsin, where we consumed a lot of cheese and played for nerds in a bar (Milwaukee) and a game store (Madison). In Milwaukee, we listened to nerds argue about Marvel movies into the wee hours of the morning, and in Madison we put our cape on Garruk. Madison also brought us at least 4 fans from Minnesota and 3 from Iowa.. and GIFTS! Cookies, hand-crocheted Dimetrodons, and adorable kids. A couple little girls sat on the floor right next to the stage and gave the whole thing a wonderful story-time vibe.In Ann Arbor, our next stop, we met up with Super Guitar Bros, who broke hearts and strummed strings at Get Your Game On before we all went out to pizza. Next was a long-drive adventure to Toronto: our car was searched at the border, but thanks to a friendly border guard who was really excited about our show in a comic shop ("Are Sheldon and Leonard going to be there?") we made it into Canada with plenty of time to go check out one of their amazing gaming cafes. The show was LOVELY, the audience sang along to every word of Mr. Bear and patiently dealt with having to stand in three different sections of the store to watch us... and then we got poutine! #winningFrom Toronto we headed to Massachusetts, where we spent the first evening "off" doing a livestream show with our friends! Molly Lewis and Paul and Storm called in to tell us stories and sing us songs. That was really fun—I think we'll have more guests at our shows in the future.
Next up was our Somerville show—it sold out so quickly, and the audience was GREAT. We met up with Unwoman for this show, and she filled the room with wonderful sound. The room itself was full of Star Wars figures. It was one of the coolest places we've ever played. And we didn't escape without spending some money of our own... I got a Star Trek: TNG lunchbox which I am TOTALLY using as a purse.Next we headed to Northampton to Unwoman for a show at Modern Myths, a store we haven't played at since our 2012 tour with Molly Lewis. It was a great turnout, filling up every seat in the place with people of all ages. And the next stop was Brooklyn for a packed house at the Way Station, our favorite Doctor Who-themed bar. The audience came from Connecticut, New Jersey... and GERMANY! That was pretty darn neat. Before the show we hung out with our fancy NY friends Bookoisseur and Susana Polo of the Mary Sue and talked TV and feminism. Pretty darn neat.Next up: a stop at University of Saint Joseph in Connecticut—a woman's college that brought us in on a rainy night for a show in their very fancy auditorium. We had GREEN ROOMS! We got to raffle off CAT KEYBOARDS! That was pretty darn neat. And then we jetted south to the amazing MELODIES CAFE in Ardmore, PA... home to the nicest people: sound tech, booker, staff and audience alike. We've never done a really good open-to-the-public conveniently-timed concert in the Philly area, and that was a big mistake on our part. This audience was warm and loving and beautiful. Lots of kids!And then we headed south to Vienna, VA and the loyal amazing geekery that is the Jammin Java show. Storm of Paul & Storm sat in and played a song of his own, and the delightful Sarah Donner opened and melted faces with her beautiful voice and amazing songs. (Every new song of hers is a new favorite of mine. I can't wait for her to record "The Longest Road," the best song about Settlers of Catan ever written).Greensboro was next, a return to a beautiful city who welcomed us so wonderfully for last year's Comic Book City Con. We got some very excellent gifts at this show: Two little cats named "Net and Flix" hand-knitted by a fan, and a stack of the next day's new comics. These people know us so well. And the show in their awesome basement movie theater was really cool too! The last show of the tour was at Indy Reads Books in Indianapolis. Earlier in the day we sat down and played board games with an awesome family of fans who helped us out with some storage needs during this tour. Their daughter, who I believe is 7 years old, is an amazing brilliant lovely person and I can't wait til she rules us all. (We lost at Pandemic, but still, she's young yet.) The store at the BEAUTIFUL book store was a great way to wrap up our two weeks of love across the midwest/east coast.After Indianapolis, we had about 7 hours at home in Portland before taking off up to GeekGirlCon!! I think I will save that story for the next blog post.This tour was great. It's so strange to us to see people wearing our band t-shirt and coming out to our shows—people who we've never met before, people whose names I don't know. There was a while where I pretty much knew everyone we'd ever mailed a CD or t-shirt to by name and location, and there are just too many people now.We have actually seen kids GROW! Kids who we met in 2012, who participated in our various video projects.. they are AGING! That is weird.And it's so insanely lovely to get gifts, hand-made pieces of art, from people who felt strongly enough about us to make them. That's a humbling thing, knowing how much time goes into making a crocheted Dimetrodon or a batch of cookies.I want to spend some more time just thinking and absorbing the wonderful experiences—but in short: our tour happened, and it was wonderful.Thank you all for being so lovely. We will see you next time!