Baltimore, Maryland

 

Maryland: owned by the perfect storm.

We had a great show at the Grey Eagle in Asheville, North Carolina and I stayed up way to late. I slept for three or four hours, but awoke to the first of two deafening hotel-wide fire alarms at four-thirty. Then, after three unnecessary wake-up calls, we were on the RV and headed north into the aftermath of the blizzard of a lifetime. The Central Eastern seaboard was buried nearly four feet of snow this year. Scotty, our driver, who hails from northern Minnesota, just laughed while the Californians and Jamaicans started getting nervous. “I love snow. I can’t wait!” he said. He looked a little crazy.

Scotty: Driver, roadie or Minnesota polar bear?

Scotty got his wish. When we rolled into Towson, Maryland, only a few major thoroughfares were clear. Most streets were completely buried, while a few roads had only a single open lane. Every truck bed was filled with snow. No car left unattended during the blizzard could be cleared without the help of a shovel, and street parking was impossible. Stage assistants set up a ramp to get our heavy gear through the pool of freezing slush at the the back of the club. The few people picking their way through the three and four foot drifts on the street looked shellshocked.

Despite the disaster, more than three hundred people turned out for the show. Groundation’s senior studio engineer Jim Fox drove nearly two hours from Washington D.C. just to say what’s up and bring us a box of t-shirts from his studio. He hadn’t left his house in nearly a week due to the storm. Ex-TM Dave Alima came out with his wife, and brought comic books for the bus.

The Johnstons of New Orleans. Southern hospitality at its finest.

The snowstorm marked the end of our southern run which started in Texas, and passed through New Orleans, Florida, the Carolinas and Virginia. Though we were two weeks early for Mardi Gras, we received a dose of authentic Southern hospitality from Jacob and Antoinette Johnston, who grabbed us after sound check and fed us red beans and rice, jambalaya, green salad and King Cake (I didn’t get the baby)*. If there’s one thing I hate about touring in the States, it’s that almost every meal comes to us cold in a styrofoam container. The American attitude towards cooking and eating is pathological, except, that is, in the deep south, where the relaxed pace, the love of good food and drink, the easy generosity, and social graces signify the most culturally distinct region of the country. The south has its faults, but they’re far outweighed by this richness.

Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil? Can you tell food congealed from a home-cooked meal?

My brief stint as an LSU football fan last year left me cold, but all of us were rooting for the New Orleans Saints as we watched the Super Bowl on the TV over the bar during our sound check in Jacksonville, Florida. Maybe we wanted some kind of karmic payback for the insult Hurricane Katrina paid to the Crescent City. I was rooting on behalf of all my aunts, uncles and cousins who’ve put up with the ‘Aints’ tragicomic saga for forty years. A cheer went up from the crowd when I played a quote from “When The Saints go Marching In” in the middle of Bob’ Marley’s Simmer Down that night, and I could tell that many of us were Saints fans that night.

* King Cake is a traditional New Orleans desert eaten during Mardi Gras. It’s like a giant psychedelic doughnut with a PLASTIC BABY BAKED INSIDE! If you get served the slice with the baby, it’s supposed to bring good luck, but it really means you have to buy the cake next year. People are rumoured to have choked to death on these toys, which isn’t what I’d call good luck.  It’s clearly a hazardous food, but that’s the price you pay for culinary authenticity. 

Finally, the entire band would like to express its deepest sorrow at the unexpected passing of Linda Haereiti, originally of Brigham City, Utah.  We received this sad news at our hotel in Austin, Texas on the first day of this tour. Linda was the mother of Tekanawa Haereiti, the drummer for Groundation, who some of you know by the name Rufus. Our thoughts go out to Rufus and Linda’s surviving family and loved ones. She will be deeply missed.