NYC Retrospective
A few weeks back I emailed Brendan this very classic picture from the UM archives to get his thoughts on memory lane. I hadn't quite got around to posting his comments but today seemed appropriate as this image popped into my mind when I rolled out of my bunk and reflected on this morning 8 years ago.
This photo was taken during our first band visit
to NYC. We had been together for over a year and 1/2, but had only
recently begun to try to promulgate the faith. We were not seasoned travelers
by any means, and within five minutes of being in the city a local in a car
began cursing our very existence for being in his way. We had arrived.
A friend of ours from ND had a boat and we went
for a sail right after this picture. After stopping to marvel at the Statue of
Liberty we noticed that the anchor was wrapped around the hull of the boat, and
we were rapidly approaching liberty island as the tide and wind were pushing us
toward certain death. Kevin Browning stripped down to his speedo (he always is
wearing a speedo no matter where we are in the country, cause you never know)
and dove into the Husdson with a steak knife to cut us free. Who knows
what would've happened to the band had he not been so brave. The Boston
Celtics hat that I'm holding was from 1983, and she was a casualty of that
voyage, but we survived.
We actually slept on the boat that night, as we
had no $ for hotels. The next day we played the basement of the Wetlands.
Fifteen people were paying attention, but they had to because the bathrooms
were next to the lounge where we were set up. We thought we had made
it. Notice the baggy pants and other outdated fashion trends we were
sporting. I think Farag is exhaling from a cigarette....(last week he ran a
triathalon....how the times have changed us).
Thank you NYC.....
xoxo
bb
Finally, I wanted to share one other audio clip
from the archives as you all know my tendencies to document life as it unfolds.
On the night of September 10th, 2001 we pulled into the Band &
Breakfast in Ithaca, NY to rest our heads before our gig at The Haunt on
9/11/01. We spent that night hanging on the porch, listening to the
sounds of wilderness and strumming on acoustic guitars. I had the DAT
recorder going for most of the evening and kept it out the next day to capture
some of the history as it unfolded. This is from that same porch as we
sat around reflecting on what had happened and tried to decide if we could still play.