EWITFR...N Tour Diary. Portland and Kennewick

The first show after California was in Portland Oregon. We played with a band called And And And, who were pretty awesome and had perhaps one of the drunkest and most confused people I’ve ever seen playing with them.

The crowd was pretty small, apparently due to a basketball game that was happening at the same time. As I’m sure you all know, if you were to look at a Venn diagram of sports fans and fans of conceptual pop music/reply songs, there would be massive overlap in the middle. In fact, it just looks like a perfectly-drawn circle.

My postcard went to a man called I think Ryan.

We stayed with more members of Dyan’s family in Portland but barely had time to sample their hospitality, although there was just enough time to be in their bathroom when they were trying to get ready for work (sorry). We were in a rush as we had an important radio session to get to in Kennewick.

The radio session in Kennewick was one of the most fun/surreal radio sessions I’ve ever done. We had to play our songs acoustically to a small group of disinterested school children without any monitors or way of hearing what we were playing.

I don’t know if you’ve ever blindly played a song that is an historically accurate account of Nazi-occupied France to a group of school children who look like they really want to leave, but if you haven’t, I recommend you do. It is character building.

Our show in Kennewick that night was in a booze-free coffee shop. So not only was the audience sober, they were very sober. It was a quiet show again, much quieter than Portland. This was not because of a sporting event this time; it was just because they really didn’t like us.

Bill Hicks has a joke about an audience looking at him like a dog that’s just been shown a card trick. I’d like to say that about Kennewick but I don’t think that would be fair to them. Looking into the audience their faces more resembled people that had accidentally walked into an empty shop, been greeted by a friendly shopkeeper (me), and then realized there was nothing they wanted to buy. Their faces all had a polite look, but one that was hiding a frenzied plan for escape. That’s fair enough, I don’t think EWITFR…N is for everyone and I appreciate them for trying to enjoy it.

We sold one T-shirt to a man that almost looked ashamed to be buying it. I didn’t sell my postcard. I’m saving it to hopefully sell to some one who really enjoys us. I’ve written ‘wish you were here’ on it.