More Bright Eyes and some crazy weather

Before I say anything further, I should tell you that I'm writing this blog post from the sky! I'm currently on a plane to New York, and they have internet up here! Isn't technology (and the things airlines will cook up to charge you for) amazing? Before I found myself cruising at altitude on facebook though, we did some epic driving, saw some bands and some baseball, experienced some extremely diverse weather conditions, crossed a couple of state lines, and ate some pie. Pretty much a standard weekend here!

First up, a trip to Bend, OR, to see Bright Eyes, Death Cab for Cutie, and Jenny & Johhny. Bend is east of Corvallis, on the other side of the Cascades, but really, who thinks twice about crossing a mountain range in May? It's practically high summer!

Fortunately for our musical plans, it wasn't the daytime eastward crossing that was the problem and we made it to Bend with time enough for these for pre-show dinner:

 

Definitely up there with the best burgers of the trip, from the Pilot Butte drive in restaurant. 

Raccoon investigates

After sustenance, on to the show! First up, the very lovely Jenny & Johnny:

So great to hear the very lovely Jenny Lewis in the flesh again, and after seeing it played live I'm excited to spend some quality time listening to their album.

Next up, Bright Eyes. I was going to try to keep my baser instincts at bay here, but what the hell - here are a bunch of photos of Conor, making some weird hand gestures and being a hot genius:

Finally, Death Cab for Cutie as the sun went down:

Chris Walla has gone and got himself a very adult haircut

The world's best bass player, too rockin' to be in focus

Now, cast your mind back a few paragraphs and recall how I said it wasn't the daytime crossing of the Cascades that was the problem. What was the problem? The problem was that we got into our car at 10 pm, expecting that we'd be able to make the three hour drive home, back through the pass and the forest, with little more than a bit of added caution for wandering elk that might stray onto the highway. Mother nature, forgive us our presumptions! About half an hour into the trip, as the road started to climb, it started snowing, which sounds all very romantic except that it turns out that a light smattering of picturesque snow quite quickly turns into zero visibility and icy, icy roads. Who'd've thought, right? Thoughts of imminent mortal injury preoccupied me so I didn't take any pictures, but I wish I had. If we hadn't been sliding along in a little metal death box, it would have been easy to say that it was insanely, sublimely beautiful.

Because we really did want to live to see the Mariners play the Yankees the following day (I'm flashing forward here, but WORTH IT!), we made a slippery u-turn and fled back to lower ground. Let me tell you, all the motels within 30 miles of the bottom of the pass were making a killing on Friday night, and we were lucky to score the very last room at a Super 8 in Redmond, wherever that is. A few hours of restless sleep later, we were apprehensive but eager to get back on the road - originally, we had planned to be up early in Corvallis so we could drive to Seattle for lunch time, and here we were, stranded 3 hours away from home, with 8 hours of driving and possibly unpassable roads between us and our final destination. Still, better than falling off the side of a mountain, so we decided to suck it up and get some breakfast while waiting for news of the highway. No need to go hungry, after all!

 Coffee - no one's going anywhere without it

 Will we have to live in this diner in the town of Sisters forever?

If we do, it is not altogether a bad thing.

Things tend to look more positive after hash browns, and the online traffic cameras seemed to suggest that the road had been plowed already, so we decided to brave the drive. This time, I remembered to take pictures.

Look at this wintery madness!

Raccoon cam

I must tip my cap to the Oregon Department of Transportation, or whoever takes care of such things, as by 8:30 am, the highway had already been cleared and gritted and was looking quite different to the night before! Speaking of the night before - we were very relieved to discover that we turned around when we did,  because we were just about to hit quite a big slope that I really don't think we could've safely navigated during the storm. Look at it though - a bit hair-raising, but so beautiful:



Happy to report that we made it back safe and sound!

 Back on dryer, greener ground

The first town on the west side of the mountains is called Sweet Home - I think I now understand why!

Funny Old Weather

Spring seems to be on hiatus here in Corvallis - it's cold and rainy again. We're driving through the mountains this afternoon to see Bright Eyes, Death Cab, and Jenny & Johnny play in an outdoor amphitheatre in Bend, OR. The forecast is grim, but I am optimistic that the great lineup will keep the temperatures from dwindling.

Fun Times on the Greyhound

We went back up to Portland for the evening on Saturday to catch one of Paul's favourite bands, Margot and the Nuclear So & So's. It must've been Crazy Day on the Greyhound, because the trips there and back were both pretty colourful - I guess the threat of apocalypse had people on edge! On the packed bus ride up, there was heated debate amongst some of our fellow commuters about whether Tinkerbell, of Peter Pan fame, was a full-on slut, or just a sexy flirt - these are the big questions, people! This conversation proceded with much evidence from both sides, at great length - I gather it was inspired by one of the debaters' adult-sized Disney pyjama pants.

I'm not sure who won in the end, as we fled the bus terminal for the burbs in search of lunch. Dedicated, as always, to the pursuit of snacks! This time we tried out Salvador Molly's, a haven of spicy delights from all over the world.

First up, the Great Balls of Fire - these spicy habanero cheese fritters are something of a local eating challenge. They're so hot that you win a tshirt and get your photo on the Wall of Flame if you successfully consume all five of them and all of their toxically spicy sauce. The waiter very sagely advised us to start off with two rather than the full five, since we were Great Balls novices. Now, generally I'm up for an eating challenge (particularly if it involves great volumes of cheese, chocolate or peanut butter), but I'm not really one for very spicy food, and with a night of fun ahead I took one bite of these fiery morsels and hastily bowed out, leaving Paul to soldier on, to brave and tearful effect - by which I mean, he was very tough and manly, but fuck, they were some hot balls. Adam from Man vs Food has a hairier chest than both of us, but to be fair I think he does have a something of a professional advantage!

Fortunately I still had mastery of my taste buds and enjoyed the main course - Barbados Mac Pie for me (how good is it when a great food (mac & cheese) is combined with another great food (pie)? It's great, let me tell you!). 

And the Chiles Rellenos Del Norte, with some kind of delicious corn bread, for Paul. It was tasty, but I'm not sure he was able to experience the full effect!

After lunch, we hot-footed it (har har) back towards downtown to try out a completely genius dessert concept store, Pudding on the Rice. This country has a zillion cupcake bakeries, gelato stands and frozen yoghurt shops, and I salute the person who decided that the humble and oft-neglected rice pudding deserved join the world of speciality dessert retail. 

Best enjoyed in the park at dusk! Somehow I resisted the siren call of the Peanut Butterfuco and instead went for the Bittersweet Symphony (bittersweet dark chocolate) and the Cinnamon Kane. Twas a superb combo, and very cooling on the digestive tract after Salvador Molly's. 

Paul opted for the fruitier route, with Bananarchy Cream Pie and Strawberry Fields Forever. Nom!

We found a window full of Sterlings on our way to the show.

A pre-show tipple, to wash down all that tasty, tasty, burning food.

Waiting for showtime 

Margot & Co 

 They were the support act, so presumably not everyone in the room was familiar with them. At one stage someone called out, "Tell us about yourselves, you hot men!", and the singer, always a little surly, replied, "We're Aerosmith. Thanks for coming early." If you're going to be a cranky artiste, it helps to have a quick comeback!

They played a pretty rock-y set, which I gather is more in the vein of their new stuff, as well as some of their older folky numbers. It's a shame they didn't get to play for longer, but I guess that is the lot of the support act! Since we weren't particularly into the main act, we headed back to the Greyhound once Margot finished, and thus ensued one of the weirder bus rides of our lives - between the raving Tourettes guy and the coked-up twitching girl with the neck tattoos, it seemed like perhaps we hadn't survived the Rapture after all. I'm pleased to report though that we survived, and unlike all the other poor people who were trapped on that bus all the way to San Diego (SAN DIEGO! That is a REALLY long bus ride), we made it home without losing our minds. Now, who wants to become a Pudding on the Rice franchisee with me?

Epic Road Trip of Awesome: Portland

It isn't really fair to call this a Portland post - we had a lazy Saturday morning of browsing around downtown Seattle, so by the time we made it back to Portland it was late afternoon, leaving us only a short window for pre-show snacking before it was time to hit the queue like over-excited 15 year olds for Bright Eyes at the Crystal Ballroom. If you're only going to fit in one meal in Portland though, it may as well be a Deluxe Grilled Cheese at Dot's Cafe, one of Portland's many dark and dingey late-night bar/diner/cafe establishments (it is apparently too cool to have a website, so you're just have to imagine us eating our lunch in a booth in the dark):

 

It's the herbed cream cheese that does it

Filled with delicious cheese, it was time to head to the show. Lucky we got there a couple of hours early, as the line was almost around the block when we joined it. 

 

I won't crap on too much about Bright Eyes - you all know that they are my favouritest favouritest band, and I'm sure you're not surprised to hear that I've never been happier to queue up for two hours in the cold to get a good spot as I was on Saturday night. Portland was kind to us and even held off on the rain while we waited.

 

 The Crystal Ballroom was originally opened as a Cotillion Hall in 1914, and still has many glorious fixtures of the era (including floors that shake terrifyingly when the room is full of excited kids - according to Wikipedia this is because of its sprung flooring, which is designed to give more bounce for ballroom dancing. Who'd've thunk?). The chandelier, decorative cornices and murals on the walls were a great distraction while we waited through the total yawnfest of a support band.

And then to the main event - 

 

Needless to say, they were completely amazing. The new album really lends itself to a huge, full-band sound, and with the usual suspects as well as a second drummer and second keyboardist in tow, the sound was massive. My ears may not ever recover! 

 

 

Best of all though, the two and a half hour long set included about half, maybe more, of the new album and a ton of old stuff, including a few songs off Fevers and Mirrors that I never thought would see the light of day, and a couple of great b-sides. I nearly weed my pants when they played The Trees Get Wheeled Away, and Poison Oak, which is one of my all-time favourites, almost reduced the whole theatre to grateful tears.

We had a great spot so we took a lot of photos. I may put them all up in a set on flickr, but for now here are a couple more for your delectation (Maddy, I suspect you'll be the only one interested in more pics!):

One way to stave off post-amazing band depression is to make sure you have tickets to the show the following night, and that's exactly what we did. We headed straight to bed because the next morning we had to be up early for the long, long drive to Arcata, CA for the next leg of the trip and... more Bright Eyes!