Jeremy Porter Road Blog

Road Blog: Sunday May 11, 2025 - Fox Lake, IL

Road Blog
May 11, 2025
Fox Lake, Illinois

I left Rockford at 10:30am, waving at the giant checkerboard explorer as I drove off. I headed east though an hour + of farmland to the cool little historic town of Woodstock, IL where I stopped into a cool record store called The Records Department. I chatted with the owners for a few about the store and possibly playing a show there sometime and headed back out. The breakfast at my dive motel wasn’t appealing so I stopped at Walmart and got some cheese and crackers, pineapple, and milk and took in some sunshine in a small park while I ate. It was probably the healthiest meal I’ve had since leaving home last week.

I drove another half hour to Fox Lake, Illinois and stopped of at a lakeside park to clean out my vehicle, which had become somewhat of a disaster area after 4 shows. It’s a giant city lake, reminding me of some of the areas in Oakland County, northwest of Detroit. Black Lung Brewery sits at the bottom of a hill right on the lake, in a great setting, with a beer garden by the dock and nice building across the parking lot. I talked to the owner Joshua, bought a bracelet from his daughter, who’s working on a fund to get a couple bunnies, loaded in and set up. Black Lung has 3 locations, I’ve played one of the others twice, but this was my first time at Fox Lake.

As I was setting up my gear I found a little container with the poop emoji on it – Pooplets “Poop-shaped Candy.” Now which one of you heathens stuck that in my gear and when? The poop emoji is my favorite of all emojis (I’m not weird about it or anything, just immature) and someone clearly knows me. So looks like the Pooplets guy will sit on my amp for the rest of the tour.

I went on at 3pm to a fairly thin crowd, and was glad to see ol’ pal Daryl walk in. Dude is a rock and roll soldier! It started quiet, but there was a pretty steady ebb and flow as I started playing and had an ok-for-a-Sunday audience for most of the set. I played 2 sets and wrapped up just after 6, tipped out, loaded out, and pointed the vehicle east. Ya never know with a Sunday, and Mother’s Day on top of that, but it was a fine afternoon, and I was glad I did it.

Tonight’s show is in Buffalo, New York, so that’s a pretty healthy 10 hour drive, if you’re keeping track, plus you lose an hour to the time change. With the early show in Fox Lake, I had an opportunity to get a good chunk of that behind me yesterday, and never one to turn down a miserable challenge, I drove to Cleveland after the show. The drive went fine for the most part, cranking the Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers Live box set (which was even more awesome than I’d remembered) and popping a couple gummy bears every time I started to fade. Gummy bears are like little fruit-flavored trucker speed for me and never fail to get me to my destination. I arrived at my motel at 2:15am (great time!) and crashed out hard by 3am. Big thanks to Joshua and Black Lung (Fox lake) for a fun Sunday afternoon!

Tonight I’m in Buffalo at Sportsmens Tavern with Jungle Steve. Show is 7-10, and I am very much looking forward to finally playing this room, seeing Steve again, and an early bedtime! Do I know any early Goo Goo Dolls covers? See ya there! xx