Jeremy Porter Road Blog

The Rock and Roll Adventures of Jeremy Porter and Jeremy Porter and The Tucos

Huntsville, AL
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Road Blog: Thursday October 22, 2015 - Huntsville, AL

Alabama State Line. — at Alabama/Georgia stateline. On stage at Humphrey`s Bar & Grill. Photo - Justin Tidwell — with Gabriel Doman and  2 others  at Humphrey`s Bar & Grill. Gabriel shooting dirty pool. — with Gabriel Doman at Sportspage Huntsville. Patty


Road Blog – Huntsville, AL
October 22, 2015

You never know what you’re getting into when you play in an original band but have a gig at a ‘bar and grill’ playing 3 sets. A lot of times the patrons of those places are looking to hear covers, primarily. They are often intimidated by volume and it can be an uncomfortable scene for dudes who work hard writing their own tunes and making them presentable. Humphrey’s Bar and Grill in downtown Huntsville is a really nice place with a big back patio and a stage set up in the alley facing it. It looks like something out of the French Quarter in New Orleans with a big tree in the middle, iron fences around the perimeter, strings of lights strewn about, and a balcony above. Load in and set up was a breeze. We grabbed some of their fine food and a couple local brews and fired up our first set. Everyone was super nice - from the manager to the sound engineer and the wait staff.

There was a pretty good influx of people coming and going as we played our 3 sets. At times it was pretty thin, but at other times there were people dancing and rocking out, hollering requests, and enjoying our tunes. We know a few covers, but they’re not the kind of covers most civilians would expect. We’re not playing Folsom Prison Blues, Johnny B. Goode or (gasp) Wagon Wheel, sorry. Not that they’re bad tunes, and nothing against bands who do those tunes, it’s just not our scene. We’ll pull out some more obscure stuff that most people won’t even recognize. People seemed to catch on pretty quick and gave us their attention just the same, realizing you can dance to a Tucos original just as easily as a Johnny Cash song. The stage and setting was pretty cool but we never really fully got into our groove and it wasn’t our best performance on this run, but we had some fun, sold some merch, and ended up with a decent night behind us. Our pal & Alabama brother and general all around great guy Justin Tidwell showed up too – always great to see him!

We wrapped up at 11, loaded out, had one last beer, cashed out, and headed back to our hotel. After bringing our guitars into the room (something I do religiously) we walked over to The Sports Page – a bar next to our hotel that we played at last year while on tour with Those Crosstown Rivals. Despite the name it’s a rock and roll dive bar with bands, pool tables, whiskey and a lot of smoke. It’s a really cool place, very unpretentious, and very Alabama. We watched the band play cool covers, played pool and had many drinks. Patty ran the table, beating both Gabe and I, Gabe split, beating me, but losing to Patty, and I lost to both of those bastards. Still, much fun was had. We ran into Daniel Yalowitz – a local musician we met at our show last year – and it was cool to get caught up with him before heading back to the hotel for some sleep.

This morning we took Tiddy’s advice on a breakfast spot and then headed over to the Lowe Mills artisan complex and Vertical House Records there. Super nice people and a killer record store! The complex is really awesome – jewelers, painters, luthiers, sculptors – anything and everything you can imagine is set up there. A really great collection of local talent.

Tonight we’re playing in Nashville with our pals Ned Van Go and Those Crosstown Rivals and a Nashville band called The Excuses who I haven’t seen but am excited to. Can’t wait to see our friends and get down in Music City! We’re batting cleanup, going on 4th. Just 2 more shows left on this run and that conflicted feeling between sad that it’s almost over and looking forward to getting home has set in. We’re gonna finish strong with those Kentucky boys and our friends in Lexington, so that will great cap to the trip! Bring it on Nashville!




Jeremy Porter

Rock and roll, traveling, touring, guitars, records, dive bars, whiskey, good food, TrooperGirl22.

www.thetucos.com
www.jeremyportermusic.com
www.gtgrecords.com


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