Our beloved, Jacob Cole, is on tour for three weeks playing guitar with Dante Elephante. While he’s away, he’s keeping us updated with this tour diary, so we can live vicariously through him. Here’s his fifth entry.

 

   Boise, Idaho 3/24/18

It was only about a 5 minute drive from where we were staying to where the venue was. One of the great things about downtown Boise is that everything is pretty much within walking distance, and thankfully it didn’t snow until the last day of the festival!

Good food

There was so much good food in Boise! Mashed potatoes and a turkey sandwich for lunch prior to the show at Bardenay Restaurant & Distillery. Those potatoes from Idaho are on such another level, it’s like thanksgiving every day. Randall would love it!

Spent the day wandering around the city, and I was able to see quite a few artists.

Worth mentioning Haley Heynderickx, already in love with another Hendrix and falling in love fast with this one as well. I wandered into the El Korah Shrine with our drummer Alec and caught her and her band as they were about to go on. Really beautiful set, trombone, synth bass, drums, and Haley on guitar and vocals. My favorite artist I’ve seen so far on this tour. Her vocals were reminiscent of Angel Olsen, but her writing wandered more and felt like it embodied her multiple cultural backgrounds, in a good way. Very cathartic melodies. And her guitar playing reminded one of Elliott Smith, maybe not a direct influence but certainly a likeness in chordal beauty, tone and proficiency. We met early the day before at the Treefort central base, but I didn’t know who she was. Good conversation about gardening, growing and struggling as an artist.

Gig at The Olympic. Nice spot.

Soundcheck was great, another very professional set up and sound engineer. Proper respect to each instrument and monitor mix. Just a overall very good sounding system and room.

Serpentfoot opened. I wasn’t into the music, but it was refreshing hearing a band with raw energy, especially after catching mostly indie / folk artists with a more down tempo vibe.

250+ in the crowd. After playing a couple lighter shows it was refreshing to play to a larger audience that was definitely there for the music. We all had more energy as a result, and being in the same city for a couple days gave us all time to relax and really bring it with extra confidence.

The funniest thing for this particular show was the band that played after us.

They were an eleven piece band and definitely made it known that they were a “big” band. This venue was upstairs and required a haul to load in. Once we had our gear inside, there was a corner by the bar that we could tuck into as we waited to set up onstage. However about 15mins before we needed to do our thing, this band of eleven (that will remain unnamed) just dropped all of their gear in a giant pile stacked in front of ours, blocking us in.

Never stopped to ask if our stuff was going off or on, and then gave us attitude as we proceeded to move their gear in order to reach ours. Then as soon as our set was done this same band of scoundrels was trying to rush us off stage, in the rudest way possible, continually saying “we’re an eleven piece band, so if you could hurry it up” – no offer to help off-load just commands and criticisms from the side of the stage.

Overall the show was one of the best to date. We were locking and really energetic. Left it all in Boise.

I’m really gonna miss this town.