Lisa Savidge

Tour Journal: Days 5&6

I got up in Eugene and decided to head downtown (right down the road, it is a small town after all) to find something to eat.  The downtown area really is quite nice there, and I shall have to remember to try and get a show going there sometime…  Maybe if we end up doing SF over the summer, we can tack on a day to head up there.  Oddly, though, the downtown area seemed to be completely devoid of life, which struck me as odd for 10am on a Tuesday.  Isn’t this a college town, and isn’t school in session?  You’d think a whole contingent of the university crowd that had mostly scheduled their classes for the afternoon areas would be milling around.  Oh well, I just headed out of town and set my sights on something along the highway to Portland – though, not before grabbing a copy of the free weekly up there so I could take a look later to get a sense for where we should be playing (and with whom) should we make it up that way at some point.

By the time I did decide to stop, the breakfast hours had gone by, so I grabbed lunch somewhere in Springfield (I think) instead, before heading straight into Portland.  The in-laws live up there (or here, I should say) these days, so I just went straight to their place to see what was up.  We caught up a bit, hit a diner, and I got some laundry done (quite the luxury, indeed).  That’s something strange about touring if I do say so…  When you’re on the outside of it all (or when you’re just starting out) the concept of “playing rockstar” seems to be built around limousines and 5-star hotels, but in reality just getting more than one room at the Motel 6 or having clean clothes to wear or eating anything above fast food starts to feel pretty ostentatious.

Not much else to report, other than heading down to the venue to scope it out and see whoever happened to be on in the evening.  The band was good, though I didn’t catch their name, and the venue seemed really cool.  Again, with the changing expectations, I found that I was elated with the whole scene – not because the place was huge or well-appointed, not because there seemed to be a huge crowd of potential fans milling around…  No, simply because the music was good and loud & had a rock ‘n roll vibe meaning that – for the first time since our CD release show – we’ll actually be able to run our amps at the level they’re supposed to be at.  If nothing else, at least it’ll sound right and we’ll have a lot more fun…  Making a racket is ALWAYS more fun.

The road finally caught up with me, though, so I headed back to the in-laws’ place to grab some sleep on the hardest futon in the universe.  We’ve got a bit of an in-joke of referring to the thing as “the Chevy” on account of it being very much like a rock.  Again, just having a quiet place to lay down and a clean bathroom felt like the upmost luxury, so all in all, a good time.

DAY SIX:

A leisurely morning, including – miracle of miracles – a breakfast I didn’t have to go somewhere to get, set the tone for a pretty nice day.  It’s cold here, much colder than the snow-peaked mountains for whatever reason, and raining, but it’s good to get out of the sun and heat for a while, so I’ll take all I can get.  I spent most of the day just catching up on all of the e-mails and what-have-you that’ve been piling up (gotta make sure people remember we’ve got a show coming up, and gotta keep the Black Cactus wheels turning), plus sorting out accommodations for the upcoming days.

Grabbed a spot at a motel just on the “wrong side of the tracks” (quite literally) from downtown Portland, and checked in down there so I could be ready and waiting for the band’s arrival.  I had all kinds of big plans for heading downtown (I’m directly across the bridge from the Pearl district) but I was still just completely worn out…  I ended up doing what I used to do when I’d be stuck in some hotel on assignment with the intelligence guys, and just laid back to watch some Discovery Channel and run the heater (probably the first time I’ve actively watched TV in 6 months at least).  I’ve actually got a smoking room (those seem to be going the way of the dinosaur), so the added luxury of being able to sit in comfort while having a cigarette completely overshadowed the fact that this is – by far – the dingiest place I’ve stayed.  Half of the light switches don’t do anything, the bathroom door appears to have been kicked in at some point, there are places all over the walls where it appears that holes have been patched, the sounds of the highway stream constantly through the paper-thin windows (at least I’ll hear if someone breaks into my car to steal the gear – which seems quite possible in this mostly industrial neighborhood), and the ceiling creaks with every footstep in the room above.  Oh well, it still beats sleeping in the car.

Posted in Lisa Savidge/Lisa Savidge, Tour · April 7th, 2011 · Comments (0)