Wednesday, April 1, 2009
HNMTF Tour Diary #9: Manhattan, N.Y.
Saturday, March 21
Manhattan, N.Y.
I (Joe Hall, guitarist) woke up at my cousin's apartment at a less than respectable 1 p.m. He lives right in the heart of the Lower East Side on Houston at Avenue A. I only had to walk out of his building to get right where I wanted to be for the day. My band mates were still in Brooklyn, so I had the afternoon to myself, a rare thing when you're on tour.
I grabbed a coffee shortly up Avenue A and walked to Rivington Guitars, now located on 4th St. Every guitar they have is gorgeous, but way out of my price range, averaging around $3,000. I dreamed a bit about the day when I can take my pick from the wall of guitars, and then headed over to St. Marks Place to visit my good friend Dumpling Man. On my way, I spotted a vintage clothing store and stopped in, not exactly planning to buy anything. The British woman working in the shop was too good of a salesperson, though, and I ended up buying two shirts. She told me I was a "sexy man." I had to buy something from her! I ate some dumplings, hung in Tompkins Square Park for a while, and made it back to my cousin's apartment just in time for the UNC basketball game. Jeff and our mutual friend Jimmy met me at the apartment. We cheered the Heels on to victory.
On to the rocking and rolling: Jeff and I walked to our venue for the night, Piano's, which is just two blocks from my cousin's place. We met Duncan and loaded all the gear in, starting our set at 9 p.m.—too early for the Manhattan crowd. When we got off the stage, we found out one of the bands scheduled to follow us had canceled.
The timing was unfortunate because the news meant we could have waited until 10:00 pm to play our set, when there was actually a good crowd in the place ready for some rock 'n' roll. The next band took its time setting up and went on when the room was full of people. After they started, we got word that Duke was tied with Texas with only a few minutes remaining in the game. We ran across the street to cheer the Longhorns on, but the Devils prevailed. We spent the rest of the night out with friends on the Lower East Side, capping the night off with hot dogs from Katz's.
Oh, and Duncan saw Tim Robbins playing roller hockey. —HNMTF
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