End of the tour, deep thought time

Hello.

So, here I sit, having watched half of "Three Kings" and feeling a need for some sort of release.

We just embarked on a several week tour with Cold War Kids. If you haven't heard them, do something about that. They're a fantastic group.

Lollapalooza was quite strange. I guess the strangest part for me is the absence of Perry Farrell. He sort of was the festival, wasn't he? They just took the name and made it into another ACL fest. Not that ACL Fest is bad; quite the contrary -- I found both ACL and the modern incarnation of Lollapalooza to be amazing efficient, with courteous staff, ample artist amenities, etc.

But calling it Lollapalooza? Isn't that like if an enterprising businessman bought the name "Rolling Stones" and started a band by that name?

Anyhow, I was confused. I did get to meet Ondi Timmoner, though -- she made the film "DIG!" and was doing another film about Lolla. Sam and I had an hour long interview with her on a range of subjects. Revolution, creation, the 60's, politics... Ondi is very cool.

The previous day we played at a Festival called "Kuyahoga." Our stage was in a parking lot. The hospitality was a slice of cold pizza. But the crowd was fantastic, enthused, and loving life, despite a torrential downpour.

The day previous to that, we played a basketball arena with Death Cab for Cutie. Surreal. Gabe and I snuck up onto the catwalk hundreds of feet above the crowd. I was looking down on the jumbotron screen. Between the flimsy grate we were perched on and the hundreds of electrical transformers all around us, I felt a bit nervous. But we had a great view, and could really hear the crowd singing along to Ben Gibbard's every word.