Awoke to one of Eric's fabulous blueberry pancake breakfasts.
Downtime in the afternoon, so we stopped by a Walgreens so I could get some hydrocortisone for the numerous mosquito bites I'd been acquiring the past few days and more deodorant so I don't stink up the van. Went by Ryan's mom's place to hang out by her pool for a bit, I didn't get in but was nice relaxing there.
While there, weighed myself on the bathroom scale out of curiosity. Was feeling a little thin, and sure enough was down to 152. I usually run 155-160. Note to self: regardless of how stressed I am, food is more nourishing than a cigarette.
Drive to Plover for the Shooters gig was again, quick and painless. Shooters, or Sha-Hooters as they call it, is a cool place with an attached banquet room with good food. Run by this crazy guy Gene the Dancing Machine, who was apparently really good on the concertina and trumpet. He was indeed a character, and I will present evidence of such very shortly.
Set up in the corner, got everything up in running, then off to the banquet room for our complimentary burgers and mashed potatoes.
We waited a bit to see if the crowd would grow a bit before we started. We were admittedly a bit worried. Sha-Hooters usually has a built in crowd, but apparently they hadn't arrived yet. Made small talk with some people, turns out a dude at the bar was from Round Rock (just north of Austin) and here for work. So were we, heh! Small world sometimes.
So we dove into the first set and people started showing up after a few songs. What a relief! Rest of the show was really fun, got a great crowd reaction, and had two different drummers get up and sit in for a tune.
But during set break, something amazing happened. Gene finally got out his trumpet and played happy birthday to a guy at the bar. And played it *purposely* horrible. But you could still tell he was a great playing *trying* to sound like he has never played before, heh.
Then he got out the concertina and this happened:
Just, wow. One of the many reasons I love being a touring musician. Because you get to experience things like that. Words fail me, but "awesome" or some variant comes to mind. Wow!
Rest of the show was a blast. Good times with weird people in weird places. I love my job!
Again, drive back to Wisconsin Rapids was quick and painless.
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