Tour Stories part 4

After the nearly fatal van accident of Adulterous Woman's east coast tour of 1993, we finally arrived at our friend's house in Alexandria, Virginia. It was the first stopping point between our home in Tempe, AZ and the first gig in Hoboken, NJ. Our friend Bob let us take over his small apartment's living room for a couple of days and showed us a few sights in Washington, DC. Then we had to shove on off to our gigs, and Bob decided he'd come along. We were glad for his company, and we were glad to have an additional fan in the audiences, too.

We stayed in Hoboken at our friend and former tour manager Mike's brother's apartment. It was a 5th floor walkup with no elevator. So it was necessary to lug all of our equipment up the 4 flights of stairs several times while staying with him. We arrived the afternoon before our first gig, at a club in Hoboken called Boo-Boo's, and we made some phone calls. The first bad news of the tour, aside from almost dying, was that the booking person for CBGB apparently didn't know how to read a calandar, yet alone use one, and told me that we were supposed to be playing one week later. I protested, saying that i had confirmed the date several times in different phone conversations with her. But she didn't back down, and was even rude, defensive, and in denial about her mistake. She offered us a spot in the wee hours of the morning, at like 3am, which we should have just taken, but on principles we declined. 3am on a Friday or Saturday would be one thing, and we would have overlooked her incompetence, but not for a weeknight.

We invited the BarNone guys to come out to Boo-Boo's even though our showcase with them was the next day. When we called Glenn Morrow he said that his wife was about to go in to labor, but that his sister wanted to come out and see us in his stead. She apparently did some work for the label, too. We gladly put her on our guest list once we arrived at the gig. We began wondering if Glenn was even going to make the showcase.

Boo-Boo's was very crowded when we arrived, but once we set up and started playing we realized quickly that 90% of the patrons were there to merely drink and socialize. We were largely ignored and had to play over the din of conversations with a piss poor PA system. We had to keep our amplifier volumes down just to hear the vocals ourselves. It was catagorized afterward by the band as a pretty awful gig. Glenn's sister did arrive, though, and only missed a few songs i think. She was kindly supportive and was gonna pass along her impressions of us to her brother. Oh, and she said the baby was born and Glenn would be able to make the showcase just fine the next day. Yay!

We returned to our 4th floor walkup and discussed how much we sucked that night, and how much we were looking forward to playing much better for the showcase (a foreshadowing!). The showcase was set for an afternoon, early evening kind of thing, so to take up most of the next day Kelly, Aimee, Bob, and I went sightseeing for a bit in NYC. Natalie stayed in Hoboken and brooded, and Heather kept her company (took one for the team, she did).

During our sightseeing Aimee nearly got lost in the subway. We all stepped on to an extremely busy train at one point and looked back to see that Aimee hadn't made it. The sad face we looked at as our subway car slowly moved away almost made us cry (i think Kelly actually did), especially as Aimee had given Kelly her purse to carry. So there she was alone on a subway platform in the middle of New York City with no money and no identification...and no cell phones, which we all now take for granted. The rest of us got out at the next stop, hit the surface, got our bearings, and took off running for the last stop hoping that Aimee would stay put. She did, all was well, and now we have this great story to amuse us.

(to be continued)