Metronomy Tour Diary (August 9, 2007)

On The Road, Chicago to Detroit

Today's Weather: 89F, relative humidity 90%. Starting fair, with heavy rain in the afternoon. A fine evening, cooling off, with light south-westerly breezes.

In A Word: Muggy

After our epic drive up to Minneapolis, we are working our way back with stops for shows. We are "taking a swing through the Midwest." Minneapolis seems enthralled to the twin gods of flour and cheese (the only gods that matter). We play in a park, before a movie on an outdoor screen, and we're fueled by Vitamin Water, which is a sort of very strong squash with plenty of irreverent back chat on the side label. There is another dancing competition (these Prairie Folk move well when prompted). Afterwards we end up at the kind of piano bar you only see in the movies, populated with the kind of people you only see at piano bars like this in the movies. It's my kinda town.

Chicago comes next and is the most American place I've ever been. For breakfast we eat a pizza that could only have been dreamt up here. It's got a high-sided pastry crust, an inch of melted cheese, then a layer of raw dough and tomato sauce on the top. Delicious. Now we're in Detroit and it's got all the chain link and freeways I could hope for. Everthing's just they way it should be.

--Gabriel

We have a book about clouds in our van. Gabriel got it for his birthday. It makes for a surprisingly good read and has plenty of anecdotes about pilots ejecting into thunderstorms and clouds that predict earthquakes. On our current drive from Detroit to New York the book is coming in handy as there is plenty to see in the sky. Our Pittsburgh show has been canceled because of the weather...something to do with the electrics in the building, so now we're on the open road and I'm looking our for twisters. Oscar seems pretty sure that the van we're in is a storm chaser and says he has some kind of prototype machine in the back which can measure a tornado from the
inside. So we might try and track a few down on the way.

Detroit was great last night, we went bowling with some folk who'd driven from Grand Rapids to see us, the game was a two-way tie. I wasn't involved in the tie, but I put that down to the fact that all the balls seemed to be designed for people who have strange long spindly hands; Lizard people.

--Joseph