South by South Gomer DAY EIGHT: Roadside BBQ and the Tsunami of El Paso
- Oct 13, 2015
- 2 min read
Day Eight:
Rolled out of bed extra early to make the nine hour drive to El Paso. Yes El Paso is still in Texas and it was indeed nine freaking hours away.
We talked with a cat at the bar the night before and he said the worst part about taking a long weekend vacation when you live in Texas was, you can drive all day and still be in freakin' Texas. I said it before, it's a big state, yadda yadda.
Mark took the first shift behind the wheel and we meandered at about 70mph though some picturesque countryside, with all sorts of quaint ranches and horses and shit. It was pastoral as fuck.
Seriously.
I took the reigns when we got to Interstate 10 (the boring part), and we stopped for lunch at a bonafide BBQ joint called Juanty's, run by a Mexican family out of a single-wide trailer. I know what you're thinking an you're right. We were playing with fire by ordering lunch from a steam table in a trailer, but honestly by this point the brownish liquid evacuating hourly from our tender tushes couldn't get any looser.
I say, when you've got nothing to lose, order the goddamn Brisket sandwich.
At long last we arrived in El Paso and found our home for the night, the lovely Bowie Feathers. It was a groovy joint with some floor-to-ceiling paintings of rock stars, (including David Bowie of course).
We set up, we sound checked with our sound guy Gabe who kept the tradition of great sound guys in Texas alive and I stuck around with the gear while the other fellas went to check in at the hotel and primp for the gig.
I won't lie to you, it was not a bad thing to have a little alone time and just drink a beer and do some writing...not that I don't love those guys, but that van started to get smaller and smaller as the tour wore on...
Anyways, the band rolled back in clean and refreshed around 8:30 and it turned out we were just ahead of our second massive monsoon rainstorm of the tour. Right after they arrived, the streets were flooded with water, it pretty much dumped for the rest of the night which was bad because people couldn't get to the show, but it was good because the respectable sized crowd that had formed was a literally captive audience. (here's a video)
Pro tip: If you want a crowd of strangers in a strange town to stick around and watch your show, call in an act of god.
We rocked it for two solid sets and left them wanting more. The rain let up and we were back in our rooms, whiskey in hand, by midnight.
All in all Texas was a grand ol time! We'll have to mosey back some day soon.
Up next headbangin' in Phoenix!
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