Lorne's Snow Bowl Review: Our Snow Bowl Tour was a great success for us. We thought that the weather would be terrible the whole time when we started out getting the Camry stuck in our own parking lot! That day NYC got 4 inches of snow, then 2 inches of rain and then 4 more inches of snow. That was the toughest day of driving!
We made it to Buffalo a little late (1am?) but Tom Kolor, Professor of Percussion at University at Buffalo, was there to greet us. The next day we met all of the percussion students for a master class in which we played through our road show, the long program, and discussed our processes from composition to business. As we left that day, it was snowing, but to be expected in Buffalo, all the way to Toledo. (I Chickened out on driving. The amount of trucks on the road was way too intense!)
Our gig at Toledo was really nice. Gabe at the Robinwood concert house puts on great events in his living room. This is definitely a repeat place for us to play. The audience was fabulous and the company was FUN! After this gig it felt as though we had already been on the road for a week, but we were just getting started.
The next three stops were very nostalgic. We rocked Holly middle school with our great friend John Hill (who broke his cats foot while we were there) at 8:00 am! Then quickly loaded up the car and headed to Michigan State University. This is where I saw some of my first concerts and always wanted to perform at the Music Building. Well, now we can check that off the list. Gwen was a great host and we hope to return. Then it was off to Thom's and my the Alma Mater, Central Michigan University. Andrew Spencer hosted us for master classes with his students. It was nice to play in the hall again, it has been almost 15 years since I played there.
Then, of course, it was snowing, wouldn’t be a SNOW BOWL TOUR with out it. The blizzard was on the way and we had to get to Wisconsin for a show the next day. Instead of driving south of Lake Michigan, we went north through the UP, stopped at the Tighe Family House, (Patty’s, my wife's, parents) and had some pasties and squeaky cheese. We continued on to Appleton and just beat the Blizzard by mere miles and minutes. The next day we had an excellent concert at Lawrence University. The sound was great and the students were very helpful during the frozen load-in.
That night it went down to about -20 as we arrived in Minneapolis at 3 a.m. There was some crazy “business” happening at the hotel, which ended up leaving the catch phrase in our heads, “Not cool, Not cool at all”. We got up to warmer temperatures, about 15 above zero, and loaded into the Southern Theater. What a great space! The sound system and engineers were great and we actually had a real sound check. We shared the show with Juliana Barwick, which was an excellent double bill as we are two TOTALLY different acts.
After this show we were felling the road sores and drove up to St. Cloud state where Terry Vermillion hosted us in a master class and an evening performance. Terry was great host and the students were amazing to work with. We hit the road right after to make it to Chicago for our last performance. We crashed at the Red Roof Inn in the Wisconsin Dells, which I have heard are beautiful, but with 4 feet of snow and darkness upon us, it looked like Christmas Eve.
Click HERE for a video from St. Cloud
We woke up late, got a late start, and scrambled down to Chicago to play with The Rowe-Clark Academy steel band directed by our great friend Doug Corella. Man, can his kids play! After the concert we had a great hang with all of our friends and family that are in Chicago. Good times had by all! Doug hooked us up with a great breakfast in the morning and we were off on a 14 hour journey back to New York. We really need to find a great spot to play a show in Pennsylvania along I- 80. Any suggestions?
Oh Yeah, of course we got the Camry stuck in the parking lot again, just to keep the the whole tour balanced! Thom had to put chains on the tires at 3am just to park in the ice rink of a lot in Bed-Stuy.
Good Times!! Great to see all of you on the road and stay in touch. Hope you enjoyed the tales. There are a bunch of videos online from the shows in Minnesota. If you search "Loop 2.4.3, St. Cloud" or "Loop 2.4.3, Southern Theater" in google or youtube, you should find some fun tour coverage.
All the Best - Lorne, Loop 2.4.3
photos by Jon Behm, http://www.reviler.org
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