11/4/08 Washington DC

///OBAMA!!!!

it's now 5am. still up. show at Dahlak was surreal. all the other bands cancelled for a variety of reasons... we were the last band left standing. they fed us. we played very very little. just enough to help celebrate in between speeches. unvelievable night. spent it with my childhood friend Leigh McIlvaine another friend from Idaho Paul Mitchell and our buddies Woven -- Rich, Barak, Steve, Ory, Mas, Mark -- and several strangers of all types at Dahlak, an Ethiopian restaurant in Washington DC on U St. NW...

DC erupted into celebrations all throughout the streets... so amazing. spirits were sooooo high. right after Obama was declared the winner the streets came to life... Cam and Mark + Rich + Barak from Woven helped get the street parties started early with pieces of Cam's drum set outside of Dahlak... corner of 18th and U St NW...



Obama's speech floored me. floored everyone around.
McCain's speech moved me too. good man. intense moment.

U St between 14th and 9th was absolute mayhem for a good chunk of the night... until atleast around 3am. dancing on cars, in the streets, everywhere... everyone high fiving everyone else... hugging... absolutely ecstatic. fireworks, drums, pots and pans, music, chanting, horns honking, and an overwhelming sense of relief and joy. the celebration just took over. the cops were awesome. if they weren't fully taking part, they were doing their best to stay out of the way, keep it alive and keep everyone safe. it was as if this huge weight had lifted off of the nation, off of DC and everyone could breathe freely again... unforgettable...



here's another taste of the massive street party that erupted on U St. it was incredible.



so thankful to have been able to spend this momentous evening in the epicenter of everything that tonight pertained to, but mostly thankful that Barack Obama will be our next president. i'm speechless and still processing... but i truly do feel like the tone of America changed drastically with his election, and for that i'm grateful and extremely excited to see what the future will hold for us all...

lots of love from all of us at Team Finn Riggins on the ground in our nation's capitol during this historic moment in time....

///gilbert

Day 31: Talking Head Club. Baltimore, MD. 4-4-08

Finn Riggins takes on the nation's capitol head on once again... literally... we drove up 16th Ave from Silver Spring and right up to the front doorstep of the White House... before being turned left and on around through crazy DC traffic... eventually winding around past the Smithsonians -- dropping Lisa off to pee and get in line for us-- and up to the steps of the Capitol Building... then swept around the Native American Museum where we scored a parking spot within striking distance of our target -- the National Air and Space Museum, also home to some of the highlights from the American History Museum, which is currently closed for renovation...
We spent a couple of hours tooling around seeing artifacts and history on American space and air exploration. Pretty awesome spectacle. All kinds of relics from years of amazing developments in flight... everything from the actual Spirit of St. Louis hanging from the ceiling to rocks and crafts used in the moon landing. Rockets. Computers. Airplanes. Space suits. helmets. planes planes and more planes. pretty amazing the strides we've made in the art of flying in a relatively short amount of time.

also got a kick out of the American History section, obviously just a taste of what they have in the actual museum, but i was admittedly pretty excited to see some of these infamous relics: kermit the frog, Abraham Lincoln's top hat, Albert Einstein's pipe, signed babe ruth baseball, C3PO & R2-D2 from Star Wars, several Wizard of Oz relics, early telephones and computers, one of Prince's guitars, Declaration of Independence, Elvis relics, war relics, civil rights relics, and so on and so on. all kinds of exciting things. including a faux-portrait of Stephen Colbert. oh my. would love to see the whole museum sometime. pretty grounding in the magnitude of this nation's history.

we quit the sight-seeing early as we could only handle so much -- brains and feets were maxed out -- and we got a headstart on our 45mile trek to Baltimore... little did we know that it would be bumper-to-bumper the whole way and it would take us nearly 4 hours and we'd barely make our load-in time. omg. it was kind of fun, but definitley a reminder as to why we love Idaho. granted, it was Friday and rush hour, but still... pretty intense. thankful that that's not a daily routine in our lives.

show was at The Talking Head Club in Baltimore -- a place ran by musicians for musicians. great place. great sound. nice intimate setup. great staff. all led to a great show. big thanks to our buddy Bob Keal for putting the show together for us. Bob has a project called Small Sur. really great songwriter / guitar player / singer. really really cool stuff. go get yourself a taste at www.myspace.com/smallsur. watch out for his enormous beard for it will swallow you hole if you're not careful.

he put together a really interesting and good show for us with three great locals. Neil Cotterill opened with his project Infinite Honey. awesome tunes. loved his voice and guitar style. and he sang about beekeeping, which had us thinking of our Woodland Honey friends back in Moscow. tasty tasty: www.myspace.com/infinitehoney

we played after him, and took advantage of the space he'd created to play "a whale, a fish" again. as well as plenty of our ragers. really fun set. sound was solid, good crowd, and we were pretty fired up.

after us, Jason Dove & the New Aerosmith followed with a raucous set of pop tunes and guitar shreddery. they were fun. pretty hilarious stage presence and friendly delivery for it all.

Caleb Stine closed the night out with an inspired set of folk tunes sans mics.... he stood in the center of the room and gave us a glimpse into the future of music with a set of pre-post-apocalyptic music... mostly comprised of old traditionals, even sang a tune out of an old shape-note book. he had some vocal accompaniment by some lady friend, and by the end he had vocal support from the whole room with rendtions of "Circle Will Be Unbroken" and "I'll Fly Away". it was awesome. reminded me of my days hanging out with the Chubbs Toga boys back in Moscow and singing tunes around campfires. really cool to watch a bar be commanded by a set like that. loved it. really nice aural treat in the midst of tour. he has a band he plays with too... great guy. check him out: www.myspace.com/calebstineandthebrakemen

crashed at Bob's that night after some late night hanging. it was great.
here are some more photo highlights from our time in DC earlier in the day:













reporting from orbit for all of us Finn Rigginses
=== gilbert ====