Rebecca and Ryan will be playing as “Stripmall Architecture” in Los Angeles at Club Violaine on July 19. They will be performing a good number of halou songs as well as a few new tracks!

Hope to see you there!

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North Carolina:

I believe we’ll look back on this tour in two parts: before NC, and after. Those of you that know us well will surely hear why.

The show itself was great. Strange venue/crowd compared to all the other shows, but very friendly. We haven’t gotten one ‘boo’ or ’show us your tits’ the whole tour, which I consider to be a big endorsement, considering everything (especially the fact that I’m quite well-endowed).

After the show, a little bit of hell breaks loose. Hopefully, no lasting damage is done.

Atlanta, GA:

We got offstage about 45 minutes ago. The Variety Playhouse is an old theatre, complete with seats and box office. So, as you might imagine, the opening band (Halou) plays to a bunch of people sitting in the seats about 50-75 feet from the stage. Weird.

The performance itself was great. Especially considering the chaos last night. I have my own little inside joke about ‘It Will All Make Sense In The Morning’. If I’m too loud during soundcheck, I’m too quite during the show, and vice-versa. By show 10 or 12 you don’t really give a shit, actually. I love that part. The deadening of nerves. And the numbing of fingers.

So, I’m here, backstage at the Variety Playhouse in the ATL with a bellyfull of Mediterranean food (wtf with all the mediterannean in these parts?). Tomorrow could be interesting considering the noises the van has been making. Next show is Austin, TX, which is about 1000 miles away from here. Hopefully, the van, and feelings, make it that far.

RYAN

Yesterday was a nice day off and we arrived here in Charlotte, NC just after 9pm.

This morning, Rebecca and I woke up and headed out into the town to see what the surroundings were like. Ended up at some sort of upscale mall and was (finally) able to pick up some new shoes. My last pair were unfortunate companions in the snow and were so wide that I would fatfoot my guitar pedals leading to all sorts of mayhem.

Very hospitable people here and the city itself is quite likable, actually. Looking forward to the show in a few hours…

RYAN

Evensong live in NYC

We’ve just got offstage here at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC. I’ve been told over and over that this is THE club to play here in the District and I’m really looking forward to it.

Tonight is the earliest show of the tour, I think, in order to facilitate Bob doing his late night BLOWOFF club. His hometown crowd is insane, too.

So, we get here, check in at the hotel and scramble to the club. The help here is just on it. Food waiting for us. Quick load-in. Soundcheck is totally efficient. Just waiting for the other shoe to drop, you know.

When we hit the stage, I’m totally surprised by how many people are standing in front of me at 7:30pm. Impressive, actually. And many of these people know EVERY word. Even the new jams. WTF.

Tonight was my favorite of the shows so far in some ways. I guess, despite everything, I had modest expectations since the set time was so early. We played really well, Rebecca was in perfect voice, and people just seemed to love every note (it could be, too, that the spring weather and Chardonnay were creating a bit of magic). Tonight, Professional really stood out to me.

Tomorrow, we wake up and drive down to Charlotte, NC (6+ hours). We’ve got the day off, so hopefully a nice dinner will be arranged to go with the wine shipment to meet us at the hotel there. Then, Monday evening, we play Charlotte and hit the home stretch as we make our way back west through the lower part of the country. Tornadoes, move aside, please.

RYAN

In Philadelphia istening to campaign updates the whole time. You can really feel the political tension everywhere these days.

Apart from that, there’s this tour going on. We played in the center of Philly’s Chinatown at the Trocadero in all its faded glory. Just like friends (or enemies, I guess) every venue can be appreciated or despised for its unique character and I immediately liked the Trocadero for it’s spacious backstage area and attentive staff that made our late arrival a non-issue. Turns out we got some bad directions and got stuck in rush hour traffic. Damn.

So the show was an early one and the crowd was a bit timid about coming up to the front of the stage. This always makes things a little awkward, but we had a great time nonetheless and the performance was great, I thought.

Rebecca’s sister lives in Philly so we connected with her and I got to see my wife light up with that connection. They’re very cute when they’re together - just like they must have been years ago when Rebecca visited New Jersey.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before but we’ve cut Hollywood Ending from the set to make things a bit more taut. I love the song, but the last few shows without it maintain the right energy throughout now. It’s sort of a mixed blessing to be judged as a ‘rock band’ now by people that haven’t heard us before. We never fully escape our past, though, which is a good thing.

There was a small get together after the show that was nice - and the Burmese cuisine was quite delicious in spite of my loading up on mediocre Chinese a couple hours earlier.

Another great night, overall. Looking forward to Bob’s hometown show in DC tomorrow night…

RYAN

OK, New York, that was CRAZY!

Definitely best show of this run so far for me (and, I think, all of us). Everything I hoped it would be. The energy was just so insane onstage. ’Professional’ and ’Clipped’ were just full-on and fun as hell to play.

Things were so tight and there were obviously many Halou friendlies in the crowd yelling for old songs, etc. Funny, but awesome. ’Oceanwide’, wtf? Classic.

Rebecca totally nailed it tonight, too. Her family was here watching her onstage for the first time so it meant a lot to her that things went right. And they did.

I’ll probably write more tomorrow. Right now, Bob is finishing his set and it’s nearing that time when we load out and look toward the next city.

Wish you were here.

RYAN

Driving to Boston was refreshing. Almost no snow at all on the sides of the road and it looks like this winter might be receding for good. Tonight’s show is an early one with us scheduled to go on at 8:00pm. Taking yesterday off gave us the opportunity to catch Niagara Falls (Rebecca and I have now seen the falls and the Grand Canyon inside of a month’s time - total pro tourists). It was cold in Canada, for sure, but near the Falls it was just insane freezing.

It’s at this point that I’m able to look back on the drive through Wyoming and the slide through Ohio with a little detachment. But not much. This alone puts me in a good mood and Boston is a great place to be at the moment, however briefly we might be here.

So the show begins and there are very few people in the club. It’s really something we expected more of, actually, since we are not headlining this tour and our start times are fairly early. Also, sound check was very brief so none of us are totally acclimated to our setups tonight and there are a couple hiccups. For example, when I hit the first guitar note on Honeythief it blows my ears off. Usually, I keep the guitar volume in my monitor quite low. Really, we’re into the third or fourth song before things normalize and people start filling the room. As usual, I notice some people getting into it and others quite obviously fidgeting while waiting for Bob to play after us. Understandable.

Watching Bob tonight, it’s obvious that the crowd is giving him some love. He seems to be enjoying himself quite a bit tonight and the band is tight as hell. Out by the merch setup, Rebecca is hanging out and absorbing the comments people always throw her way. ’You guys really remind me of a band called Lush’ I hear one Bostonite say.

Not my favorite show of the tour so far, but still another night’s worth of experience and a beautiful town to cruise through. Tomorrow is NYC, so I expect things to get pretty crazy in the next 24 hours…

RYAN

Toronto. I love this city.

We wake up in the most amazing house. At 1pm. I walk downstairs and Count and Rebecca are already cooking. I quickly jump on pancake and chorizo and about and hour later we’re all eating the most amazing brunch. The perfect way to start this day.

We’ve got minor repairs to make to the electrical for the trailer and we manage to sort that out rather quickly. I must say, the problems we’re encountering on this tour seem to be easily repaired and everything is falling nicely into place.

So, it’s a smooth pull-up and load-in at the venue and soundcheck, again, goes very nicely. Our laptop setups continue to run reliably so we get things done in about 30 minutes these days.

About 90 minutes ago, at 9pm, we went on and, for the most part, everything went great. My in-ear monitors came undone during the last song and I had to deal with that for the first part of the song, but I recovered and people seemed into what we were doing.

Tomorrow is a day off/drive day, then Boston.

RYAN

Another great show, I think. The venue is totally small but people were totally fired up for Bob and into our set, as well.

The drive to Hamilton was, thankfully, pretty easy. Seriously, the whole Ohio experience may be the worst driving conditions we ever encounter in our lives.

We were chatting with Bob before the show and he was actually saying that it’s lucky we were driving east because the winds were blowing the westbound vehicles right off of the highway. The shit that we saw from our side of the road was just insane. Even the snowplows were stranded on the side of the road.

So, anyway, Hamilton. It’s just north of what appears to be Ontario wine country. Awesome. The exit, though, is a descent into factorytown. Steam, metal and exhaust everywhere until you gradually come out into a small Canadian town…and cold like I have NEVER experienced. Temperatures well into the negative digits.

Tonight we stay at the house of one of Count’s old college friends and it’s a huge brick palace in the Toronto suburbs. Shag carpets, huge kitchen, countless bedrooms. I’m going to sleep until soundcheck tomorrow…

RYAN