JANUARY 2009 WEST COAST TOUR PART II: mt shasta! eugene! portland! salem! astoria!

///the tour headed north and to chillier weather once again, but we continued to be blessed with plenty of sunshine and great shows...

1/13/09 The Stage Door MT. SHASTA, CA

after a lazy morning in Stockton, we beelined north toward the great mountain looming in the distance. Mt. Shasta is known to many to be an energy vortex and we certainly can't deny such claims based on the fact that every time we've been there there's been an element of magic in the air. this night would bring that front and center. despite being a Tuesday night, a bunch of people came out and turned The Stage Door into a rippin good time.

locals The Exorcism of Wilford Brimley opened the night with their hard to pin down proggy eclectic shreddery. with two of them still in high school, they helped get out a younger crowd. it was rad. they were a lot of fun. and big thanks to our friend Sarabecca who with the help of her promotional arm Girl Genius Music Promotions turned this Tuesday on its head. check out the video of the last song of our encore below... not the best of quality, but you get a good sense of the party... thanks to our "tour manager" Rachael for the footage...

"PANCAKES" at the end of our encore:
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we stayed that night with our friends Esther and Richard whom we met when we toured through Shasta with the beloved Evy Llyan... we had a great time with them and they were very generous with their space and even surprised us with post-show snacks when we got there! major bonus.


1/14/09 Sam Bond's Garage EUGENE, OR

woke up in the morning at Esther and Richard's and when we walked out to head to breakfast we found our driver side mirror in the middle of the road as someone had clipped in the middle of the night and didn't bother to fess up to their crime... it was mostly funny, but kind of bummer as the cost of fixing it loomed over us... but if there's one thing tour teaches you that's the ability to roll with the punches... and so we headed to the Black Bear Diner and indulged in a glorious breakfast with the sun shining up over Mt. Shasta, and when we got back to the van we borrowed some duct tape from Richard and strapped the shattered mirror back on and continued north...

it was a pretty drive up into Oregon and we rolled in to Eugene just after dark amidst an appropriate amount of fog. it had been over a year since we'd last played in Eugene since we had to cancel our June date there at the last minute due to Cam's grandma falling ill... so we were excited to be back at Sam Bond's Garage and we had hooked up with THE DAVEYS once again who we'd missed playing with that time... this ended up being a really fun show. The Daveys were a blast and Sam Bond's never fails us. met a bunch of rad people and got the big disco ball going round and round and round. and the fog outside only added to the mystery of it all.

afterwards we saddled up the Ghost Ghost and headed to Portland... we were psyched. it was a joyous ride all the way there. we rolled in to the Mees lair around 2:30 in the AM and did our best to contain our excitement and ease ourself into sleep...


1/15/09 Doug Fir PORTLAND, OR

this in many ways was the culmination of tour... we hatched the vision for this show while in Wyoming waiting for James Brown -- the Grown Children tour wagon -- to get fixed in the midst of our tour out to CMJ in New York City with Jared Mees and co. the rest of the tour was pretty much built around it. not only was it our first time back to Portland since Music Fest Northwest in September, but it was a reunion of sorts for us and our beloved family, the entourage, our teammates JARED MEES and THE GROWN CHILDREN

this show was sooooooo much fun. some other PDX buddies WORLD'S GREATEST GHOSTS opened the show. they absolutely destroy. please check them out. and they're good people. thankful to keep such good company. by the middle of their set the place was pretty well filled out... i think the rest of this can be told in some pics (all of these below were taken by Sam Guerrero):

WORLD'S GREATEST GHOSTS


FINN RIGGINS






JARED MEES and THE GROWN CHILDREN





there are a bunch more photos from the Doug Fir that Sam Guerrero took if you go to the TenderLoving Empire flickr site. or there are a bunch more as well as others from our tour at myspace.com/finnriggins

the Doug Fir show was rowdy. tons of old and new friends there. it was a ton of fun. thanks to everyone that came out and to everyone that helped make it happen.

1/16/09 IKE Box SALEM, OR

friday night marked our return to our favorite former morgue in Oregon... the IKE Box. it was another foggy night as we drove in, which seemed perfect in so many ways. show that night was good. nice crew of kids out and up for the adventure. local DSR opened with his haunting tunes and voice. really enjoyed his set. Julian from Mill Race sat in on keys for a couple of tunes, which was rad. Jared Mees & The Grown Children followed and were in hilarious form. like i told them at the end of their set, i really do enjoy their sets that are 2 parts music 1 part comedy. it was a riot. rad rad rad Salem trio MILL RACE followed. we've played with them several times now and absolutely love their quirk and skill. pretty wild stuff. we closed the night out. it was good. i sweated a lot. which is good. there was dancing. and hooting and hollering. all things good. we're thankful to have such nice people come to our shows when we're away from home. THANK YOU.

1/17/09 day off. PORTLAND, OR

goes completely against my nature to purposely schedule a day off on a Saturday of tour, but we desperately wanted some quality time with people we love that we don't get to see very often. all of this happened on this day. if we were lucky enough to spend time with you on this day and you're reading this right now know that we are very grateful for the time we spent together. it was an amazing day. it will not be recounted here for we saw and hugged and played with too many awesome people to go into all the gory details. just know that we love you and look forward to more of what we had on this day. THANK YOU.

this is a piece of truth we found in our friend Lucas's OZ Cafe:


1/18/08 Fort George Brewery ASTORIA, OR

had a nice luxurious morning before piling us, our "tour manager" Rachael, Jared and Brianne Mees and Jeni Rose into the Ghost Ghost and taking a family road trip over to the Oregon Coast and the mouth of the Columbia and more importantly the beloved home of the Goonies... Astoria, OR... we rolled in as the sun had just set and decided we'd take advantage of the joy ride offered by the huge bridge bridging the Columbia and connecting Washington and Oregon... so we sailed our trusty steed up and over and across the mighty Columbia and then back across and over and down into the nice little town of Astoria...

show was at the Fort George Brewery as part of their Sunday night Astoria Hideouts series. they fed us some fine fine morsels and we set up and played for close to two hours. ended up playing lots of old stuff and sort of aired out the rep. it was really fun and a great end to this little west coast tour. had a great time with Jared and Brianne all weekend, but the family roadtrip capped it off nicely. especially with the addition of Jeni Rose.

we headed back to Portland after the show. and slept in the next day before heading back to Idaho and our new home in Boise.

thanks to everyone that made this little tour sooooooo much fun. really. thank you. it wouldn't have been the same without you.

here are a couple of pretty photos on our drive home:

MT. HOOD


COLUMBIA GORGE



///reporting for all of us finn rigginses.

///love,
///gilbert