Jeremy Porter Road Blog

Road Blog: Thursday May 07, 2015 - Cleveland, OH

Tour Blog – Show 1 – Cleveland
May 7, 2015

Hey again! Keeping the spirit of the blog from our last couple longer tours alive, I thought I’d try it on our shorter ones too. What’s a tour these days anyway, right? This run is 7 shows in 10 days (or something like that). Last night we played in Cleveland at The Happy Dog , which is a gourmet hot dog restaurant/music venue. We played here for the first road show when Partner In Crime came out, and now we’re starting the campaign for Above Sweet Tea Line here too. Halfway to Cleveland and I realized I had neglected to pack any clothes other than socks, so the first stop was at Goodwill of Greater Cleveland where I scored a couple sweet “gently used” flannels (my fav pictured below).

We were greeted at The Happy Dog with beers and dogs and smiles all around. There were a few guys having dinner who saw us last time we were in town and rattled off some requests and agreed to a shot after the set. An old pal (Dave?) from The Boys from the County Hell l (a Pogues tribute band that Clashback has played with) was tending bar. There’s a Strummer poster behind the stage and a Westerberg print in the merch booth. We felt at home. We loaded in, met Melanie from the local band on the bill - Duo Decibel System - and before long it was showtime. The room was decent for a Thursday night. We were a little rusty from lack of practice and weren’t thrilled with how we played, but people seemed to like it. We sold some merch, watched the Duo Decibel System, got a six pack to go and headed back to the Super 8 in the suburbs.

This morning it was a quick run in the adjacent metropark, a banana and english muffin in the lobby, and it’s off to Cincinnati to get some underwear, do a little record shopping, and tonight’s show at THE COMET with Alone At 3AM and Pike 27! Patty and I have an informal pact to not drink ourselves stupid on this run and he has taken on a fatherly role, making sure, that Gabe is ready to meet at the truck on time and the toilet paper is on the roll. Here we come Cincy!