More Raising Up

After a week in Virginia, we decided that 7 days was too long without pimento cheese and came back to La Casa De Hew in NC. Last night we played at home for a group of about 15 of my parents' friends. One of the best shows of the tour, it included The Kristy Kruger Band's debut performance of Kool And The Gang's "Celebration" with Kristy Kruger on kazoo. The 30 minute show turned into more like 2+ hours. The festivities were capped with shot-taking and cigar smoking with Pops Hewett at some point in the morning. Then I fell asleep on the floor, watching "The Matrix Reloaded."

The highlights from VA were many - we played at an incredible place in Arlington called The Iota and opened for Brian van der Ark from The Verve Pipe. We'll definitely be doing more shows with him down the road, he's a swell gentleman. "Just a solid dude." There were many superstar sightings - Greg Harrell-Edge's mom; the Himes; Derek Moore; the Williams; The Ess and Sahar; and our lovely host Sarah Rand, her sister, and her crew of like 11 people.

We stayed at Matt Williams's house for a few nights that consisted of hours of Nintendo and playing with his dogs. At Sarah's house, she baked us cookies and got destroyed in our Jeopardy matchup. She was nice enough to show us the sights of Arlington - including The Lost Dog Cafe (I think they help you adopt pets - I don't get it) and The Silver Diner. The latter serves a mean eggs benedict, any day of the week, any time. Sarah's hospitality was remarkable - she made the best oatmeal chocolate chip cookies in the world, and even put them in a lovely tin, complete with that fake pseudo-grass stuff that comes in Easter baskets and doesn't really make much sense.

Richmond, Virginia is beautiful. Old and beautiful. The Camel ("Richmond's Social Oasis") wasn't as beautiful, but was a wonderful way to spend an evening. Right before we started, my friends Andy and Sarah had to leave, cutting the size of the audience in half. I thought we'd be playing for the sound guys. But about 10 minutes into our show, a big crowd came in and I think we ended up playing in front of about 50 people. Intensity.

Dylan and I saw the U2 3D movie in IMAX. Heavenly sensory overload. The only problem was that they didn't spray you with water when there was water splashed on stage, like they do in Muppets 4D at Disneyland.