Day 19: Snug Harbor. Charlotte, NC. Easter Sunday. 3-23-08

On our tour in the fall, we fell in love with North Carolina. All of our shows there were super fun and all the people we met were awesome and the between them and the countryside the state really reminded us of home. So we were pretty excited to be headed back there, and we got our NC fix started with an Easter Sunday show in Charlotte -- a place we didn’t play in the fall, but were pumped to be hitting this time around... It was a really short drive from Florence, so we got in town with plenty of time to chill -- went to the neighborhood where Snug Harbor was and set up camp at a nearby market with wi-fi and eats.

Snug Harbor is a pirate bar, which had us curious about the North Carolina / pirate connection, since the Joli Rouge in Asheville, where we played in the fall and would be playing soon, is also a pirate bar. Not really sure on the historical ties that North Carolina might have with pirate-dom, but regardless, you can’t go wrong with a pirate bar. Snug, like the Joli, has a great scene built around it -- ran by great folks and overall stellar vibe to the place. Nice stage setup too. And it was one of the regulars’ birthday and several people had brought some trays of cheesey mash potatoes and fritatta with some Texas Pete hot sauce and some other goodies and were kind enough to share with us. Very grateful for the home-cookin and the pot-luck community dinner.

Our friends Jews(s) & Catholic(s) made the drive from Winston-Salem to play with us. We rocked a few shows together in the fall -- including at the Joli Rouge in Asheville -- so our pirate escapades were closely tied. They opened the show. Great to see them again, both personally (eddie & alanna are awesome -- and Alanna is from Idaho too… and childhood friends with our buddy Milo) and musically (very interesting drum machine w/ electric guitar + upright bass + vocals stuff… they had some sound trouble early, but by the end of their set were scorching the place. They have a new EP coming out April 2nd. Very excited to hear it. Dug the new stuff they played at Snug). Definitely check them out.

One big reasons why we had ended up with a show in Charlotte is because of this girl Leah who is a friend of Woven’s and had befriended us on myspace and encouraged us to come there, and thus we obliged. She had driven about 45 minutes from Waxhaw, NC for the show on a Sunday night -- it was rad to finally meet her and we all hit it off fantastically comparing Woven stories and chatting music in general. Awesome girl. And we had her to thank for what turned out to be a really sweet show, despite it being a Sunday -- and Easter Sunday at that.
We got started around 11:30pm. The crowd had filled out a little bit more, with a nice little posse of people that had apparently checked us out online and had come out to see us. Combined with J & C and their friends that had stuck around, we had a great little crowd -- an enthusiastic one at the very least. Inspired a really fun set out of us. They even milked three encores out of us, which was a lot of fun. We finally ended with a rambunctious “TV” and then yielded to the DJ.

Thanks to Daylon, Lisa and the rest of the staff at Snug Harbor. What a rad bar. Highly recommended to other bands or anyone looking for a good place to hang in Charlotte. They definitely seem to be the hub of a really cool scene there. Thanks to Leah for being awesome and for encouraging us to come to Charlotte. Thanks to Jew(s) & Catholic(s) for playing with us again and for being rad and for all the support in general. And thanks to everyone else that helped make our Easter Sunday 2008 so radical. Oh my.

We hit the road for Atlanta and found a nice cozy truck stop to park the Ghost Ghost at and crashed out in her belly of goodness.

Reporting for all of us Finn Rigginses =
= gilbert


PS and in a somewhat holiday appropriate reference, thanks to Cheesus for being a funny piece of conversation for a good 4 days -- starting on friday thanks to the local news in Jacksonville -- check it out... some guy found Jesus... in his bag of cheetos... and has spread the good news for all to hear: