Day Six: Awesome all over again. Lincoln, NE

Pretty nice showing up to the venue and having all our gear already setup and ready to go. .. As was the case last night, since we were still setup from our set on Sunday at Box Awesome. We had decided to stay and play their Monday night Open Stage of Radness series rather than leaving town and having a night off. We played first since we were already setup. We blasted through a set of all different stuff from the night before with the exception of Hraka. Then ripped our stuff off stage and settled in for an evening of Old Style tallboys and shootin the shit.

There was another touring band on their way to SXSW that had showed up for the open stage -- a band from Ann Arbor, MI called Great Lakes Myth Society. Their set of literary folk rock (a la The Decemberists) was fantastic. Featured some accordion, some sharp suits, and a lot of attention to detail. By then we had befriended some locals, two of which in a band called Esau, and this other fella with a solid tendency toward friendly heckling named Kyle. He got some colorful stage banter going with his offstage jabs. Pretty hilarious stuff. Kept things light in the room.

Hung out with the GLMS guys and a handful of other folks as the open stage turned into an open jam and wandered its way towards closing time. Great way to spend a Monday “day off”.

Crashed out in the Boom Chick Records studio once again and Liz & Brooks’ place. So thankful for shelter.

Reporting from the rolling plains of Kansas for all of us Finn Rigginses :::
e.gilbert


PS check out the street name and the giant flag in the distance in this photo. this greeted us upon arriving in Lincoln on Sunday. shoulda known from right then that Lincoln would treat us well. god bless america.

Day Five: Box Awesome. Lincoln, Nebraska. Corn vs. Potatoes

Woke up bright and early in Boulder, CO with a big drive ahead of us to Lincoln, NE. We had lost an hour over the night due to daylight "savings" time and we lost another hour crossing into the Midwestern Time Zone. So we trucked out of Boulder while our friends were all still sound asleep and made our way across the plains of eastern Colorado and western Nebraska. Once again another clear and sunny day made for a beautiful drive. Today, however, we saw several massive flocks of migrating birds. In the air, on the ground and in water. They were everywhere. Definitely a highlight of the drive.



Upon arriving in Lincoln, we followed our New Zealand GPS babe toward the venue. However, we were greeted by a road that no longer seemed to exist and were turned around in circles for awhile, before finally confirming the location of Box Awesome by foot. As you can see, Box Awesome was thoroughly in the middle of a massive construction campaign. We found it though, and then got a tip about a 3 tacos for $1 deal across the street and enthusiastically scored what might be the cheapest meal of our whole tour. Hopefully, more such deals find us, but for now we're still savoring this particularly glorious score.



We were added to the early show at Box Awesome on this particular Sunday just over a week earlier, and thus had very low expectations and were up for anything. Right away, we were greeted by awesome staff and a really cool room and were thus psyched we'd made the effort to get there. Plus, we got to load in off of a cobble stone alleyway. How cool is that? Lincoln-based cello & accordion duo Dos HobosEroticas opened the evening with an interesting set of re-arranged pop covers and instrumentals. Dug it. Then Ixnay (new orleans, la) played a raucous set of punky garage pop. Super fun stuff. Really nice girls too. And by then a decent little crowd had come out. Made for a real fun homey night. We played last and playfully heckled the room with taunts of the epic battle of Corn vs. Potatoes. As early on some staff were throwing the potato jabs at us. So we jabbed back. High Fructose Corn Syrup pushin Huskers. It was fun. Really rad little scene. Felt very much like home. So much so, that we decided to stay setup and play again tonight on what was going to be a day off for us. But we found out about Box Awesome's "Open Stage of Radness" that happens every Monday, and decided it would be fun to stay. Luckily, the Box Awesome folks liked our set and were all for us staying to play again.

A very nice girl named Liz invited us to crash at her place and we went across town to her place where we hung out with her and her husband Brooks late into the night in their basement studio and home of their indie / garage / punk label called Boom Chick Records -- specializing in 7" and other vinyl as well as distributing other garage / punk records from all over. Quite an impressive operation. And super nice people. We slept in their studio and practice space for their punk/ garage/ radness band called The Terminals. They've been schooling us on underground garage and the pretty sweet international 7" scene that they're apart of. Pretty wild. Check out their label at www.boomchickrecords.com

They also have some really awesome kids, some baby chickens and some piranhas that have been keeping us company as well.





Reporting from corn country for all of us Finn Rigginses.
--mr. gilbert