Day 24: The Soapbox. Wilmington, NC 3-28-08

Apex -- The Peak of Good Living. Pleasantville? sort of seemed that way. in a very suburban sprawl sort of way... pretty hilarious name for a town however you look at it. We visited with my friend Tisha and her cute kids until just after 10am, then tried to find some sort of local restaurant to eat breakfast in... we drove around forever before finally settling on a Cracker Barrell, which was on our checklist, but was definitely not a local restaurant. It was fun though. And the apple dumpling was heavenly.

We arrived in Wilmington -- the home of Michael Jordan and lots of Civil War history -- sometime mid-afternoon and made our way to The Soapbox. Rad place. Three story venue with a laundromat too. Our show was on the middle floor and the main laundrolounge. Lots of cool art on the walls. It was a stellar day in Wilmington and we quickly made ourselves at home. Our friend Mamie from Moscow (now Missoula) had called our attention to her brother Adam that lives in Wilmington and plays in a band called Ponchos From Peru -- he took us under his wing for the evening and put together this show and promoted it and opened his home to us and cooked us vegetables for dinner... some much needed vegetables. So rad of him.

Show that night was so good. The Soapbox is a rad place. It's able to be all ages and a bar simultaneously, which certainly helps, but the bill that night was great and a bunch of people came out on a super nice spring Friday night in Wilmington. Upon arriving we found out that Minmae from Portland, OR had been added to the bill, which was a fun surprise -- another band from the west, but also folks who knew our buddy Jared Mees and some other friends for 'ol PDX. Helped shrink the world once again. Since they were added last, they went first. Pretty cool Crazy Horse inspired moody rock tunes. Really nice guys, and a good start to the evening.

We followed and managed to hit the crowd at its peak. Really really fun set. Lots of energy in the room and enthusiasm to feed us... The Nothing Noise from Chapel Hill followed with a rad set of emo quirk rock featuring trumpet, bells, violin, rad bass playing, and cool vocal delivery. Really rad band. and super nice. check them out at www.myspace.com/thenothingnoise

Ponchos From Peru were super generous all around, including offering to play last on a four band bill. They pulled the weight in fantastic form, and were a fun end to the evening. Super fun. Rad lyrics. Great tunes. Very creative and quirky stuff. Cool arrangements. They'll be recording soon and we're excited to hear what comes of it... in the meantime check out what they're up to at http://www.myspace.com/ponchosfromperu We had a blast with them all around. Adam, McKenna, Matt and Andrew. oh my. crack ups.

we hung out late into the evening with Adam and his girlfriend Nicole... awesome people. we laughed and laughed and tested our growing vocab with their GRE vocab flash cards and ate cheese sticks and half-cooked pizza into the wee hours. oh my.

slept so good that night.

reporting from North Carolina for all of us Finn Rigginses
)))gilbert


check out our gracious and hilarious host Adam in his sandy front yard: