Jeremy Porter Road Blog

Road Blog: Thursday October 15, 2026 - Lincoln, NE

Road Blog
October 15, 2026
Lincoln, Nebraska

We left our dive motel with sticky floors in Joliet bright and early at 8am, with an eight-hour drive ahead of us. Spirits were high after a pair of fun shows in Indiana on Wednesday. Troy was at the wheel, I was shotgun, and JakeE Jacob was in the back. We played the next two Pink Floyd albums in the discography – Soundtrack for the Film More and Atom Heart Mother. These are both meandering, experimental, often improvised albums that cover well-formed ideas that show where the band was going, and indulgent, meandering jams that left us questioning how they even made it to tape. Not sure if we missed Ummagumma, but we’ll try to figure that out today.

It was raining most of the day, but not enough to make driving difficult, just a bit unpleasant. It also turned cold, and tee-shirts turned to hoodies. We stopped at a Love's Travel Stops, the greatest of all truck stops, in central Iowa, and got some delicious but terribly unhealthy, salty, processed food to break up the boredom a bit. We crossed the Mississippi river around 10am, and I was dozing off when we passed the I-80 Truck Stop (the-self-proclaimed and probably truthfully “Worlds Largest Truckstop”). The drive was uneventful, with Troy showing us the towns along the way where his kids played baseball and he played gigs when he lived there and flipping off giant barns painted with the Trump logo. Sloan, You Am I, and Dire Straits rounded out the soundtrack.

We checked into our dive motel in Lincoln around 3:30, having made great time. By Joliet standards, this place is a f’ing palace, I’ll tell ya. I got caught up on some business, shook the drive off for a minute, and met the boys back at the van for dinner. Troy was in the mood for Asian, so JakeE picked the Perfect Diner, not far from our motel. Judging by the ample parking available, it’s not a big destination for the locals, but we took our chances anyway. I ordered a cup of the sweet and sour soup and it was no less than ½ gallon served in a bowl that could hold an extra-large popcorn at the movies, for real. Obviously a serving meant for the table, so the boys weren’t complaining, and the price was single-serving appropriate. My Szechuan chicken was really good and the boys seemed to like what they got. Plenty of leftovers for later, and we headed downtown.

Bodega's Alley sits on the main drag of downtown Lincoln, two doors down from the legendary Duffy's Tavern (always a bridesmaid...). The street was torn up for construction, so it was baron of cars, and the sidewalks were equally baron of people. We could tell it was going to be a quiet night. Hip-hop was blaring through the PA while we loaded-in through the back alley and a band of young fellas with fluorescent dyed hair and California plates loaded into Duffy’s next to us. We met our sound engineer Miles, who dialed us in, and it was showtime.

This business can me a sonofabitch sometimes, friends, and last night was band practice in Lincoln. The bartender seemed to like about every third song (she was very sweet, but I expect her playlist is very different than my record collection), and we got to dust off a bunch of material we hadn’t played since spring and are going to need on upcoming nights, but it was lonely in there. The staff cited Fall Break, which at my advanced age and lengthy experience playing college towns all over North America for the last 4 decades I have never heard of, and the show over at Duffy’s, which also looked a bit thin. Whatever, if you let it get to ya it’ll chew you up and spit ya out. We had a couple drinks, loaded out, thanked the friendly and accommodating staff, and went looking for a whiskey.

The security guard at Bodega’s (nice fella) suggested O'Rourke's Tavern – and it was a good call. “Where you guys from?” the bartender asked. She pointed to our patch jackets and general disheveled look and said “It’s not like I know everyone in this town, but if you lived here I’d know you.” She’s in 4 bands, and she gave us the rundown, and we talked about 13 Nightmares, my fav Lincoln band that I’d seen in 1988 in Ann Arbor and never forgot, and their offshoot band Mercy Rule. I wish I could remember her name and hope she reaches out. Some folks bellied up next to us and I met Amanda, who owns and runs another local venue and we talked extensively about that, our band, the scene in Lincoln, and the decline of the health of the indie music scene overall in recent years. She and I had a lot of common knowledge and some things we didn’t quite feel the same about (respectfully) and could have talked forever, but we agreed to keep in touch and the boys and I headed back to our motel.

We scarfed down our leftover Asian quinine, Troy walked around the room wearing almost nothing but what the good lord gave him, Jake giving me the silent “don’t ask me” look and shrug, and I did a little band business before crashing out at the crazy reasonable hour of 1am.

This morning I hit the motel breakfast buffet, which is basically stale bagels, yogurt without expiration dates (what’s the worst that could happen?) and mediocre-but-serviceable coffee. Beavis and Butthead are on, and I’m trying to get my shit together for day-3 of tour and block out the shitty show last night. It was far from all-bad though – we met some cool people, with a decent chance we’ll do better next time, and hey - we got ½ gallon of sweet and sour soup for $6. Always find the positives, friends. Thanks to Bodega’s Alley – y’all were very nice to us despite the circumstances, and it made a bad night better. We’ll see ya next time Lincoln. Tonight we’re off to Kearney (which Amanda told me how to pronounce lest we meet potential hostilities over there) where we’ll play at Joe's Honky-Tonk at 10pm. Here's to better days! xx