Road Journal 11/11/2021 - Happy Veterans Day
I’m at the desk getting to the day’s tasks and after settling last night’s paperwork, my attention turns to Veterans Day.
I’m sensitive that veterans carry with them a wide range of roles, duties, experiences, emotions, struggles, gains, victories, defeats, losses and physical affects from their time spent in military service that I am not privy to and that belies any well-intended “Happy Veterans Day” salutations I could offer. I’m also clueless to those details. Many of us Americans don’t know what it is like to be a part of that culture, and don’t have any compare/contrast to hold up to our lives as civilians. I think non-military civilians want to show acknowledgement and appreciation without coming across as smug, trite, or worse, completely tone deaf.
Having said that, Happy Veterans Day to our 19 million veterans, and a big thank you to all of you Carbon Leaf fans who have served in our United States military.
It was a really fun Wednesday night in Portland playing our first time at One Longfellow Square to an appreciative audience - and on CL drummer Jesse’s 34th birthday - thanks for the love. Our usual venue in town, Port City Music Hall, was one of many casualties across the country that did not come out the other side of a prolonged shuttering during the height of the ongoing pandemic. We are heartbroken that PCMH closed, and thankful One Longfellow Square opened it’s doors to the band and it’s audience.
Things out here always feel tenuous, fragile, in the balance of going one way or the other.
But for now, it’s a sunny, crisp fall day as we exit the Kennebunk rest stop and the radiant heat from the morning sun is starting to warm the cabin through the windows. Tour Manager & Front Of House engineer (“TM/FOH”) Doug Ross is at the wheel getting the White Whale underway towards our show tonight in Connecticut.
The November shows are going well, after a dip down south for shows in GA, SC and NC, we point north and into New England through the weekend. Uncasville tonight, followed by Burlington VT Friday and Rockport MA Saturday.
This road journal is brief because things are steaming along and my sit down time is shorter on the east coast because cities are relatively closer together.
Thank you for joining us on tour and through or social channels as we work our way through The Hunting Ground. We hope to see you all at more live shows in the coming weeks as we wind down 2021.
- Barry
