8/22/10 – Columbus

The compound’s patriarch shoos us out the door by noon, insisting we’re going to be late for our gig. At one point he yells, “Get OUT of here! GET IN THE CAR!” It’s nice to have that pressure be external for once. We’ve been carrying it around ourselves for over two weeks. Someone is always drill-sergeanting, and someone is always dawdling. But the duties seem to rotate among us; no one ever gets too calcified in his or her role.

The drive hurts. I mean really hurts. Our R&R seems to have backfired, sending our battered bodies into full-on “what-the-fuck?!?” mode.

We’re playing a club called the Treehouse. And the Treehouse actually has a tree in it. A giant tree strung with Christmas lights. It smells damp and rainy, but it has a fantastic jukebox. We put in a long queue, including plenty of GBV, in honor of their home state. Within two minutes of our arrival, Tommy, the doorman, tells us an amazing story about being arrested at Disneyland–he was handcuffed and put into a rowboat and forcibly rowed off of Tom Sawyer’s island in front of all the gawking children. Oh, and he watched Tinkerbell fall to her death. The guy spent a lot of time at Disneyland. Obviously, we bro-down with him all night.

Our crowd is small but attentive. As we’re loading, a Bulgarian music aficionado named Boris tears up the alley in his car, nearly running over Yoshi’s drums. He hits the brakes, spitting gravel everywhere. He leaps out of his car, inquires about merch, and peels some cash from his fat wallet, purchasing our entire discography.

People, we have ourselves a patron.