The New Limb Tour Diary: Day 5




Day 5: Portland
Woke up in Portland. It started with pancakes, made without eggs but had 
bananas instead, and Greek yogurt topped with honey. Weird start, but
delicious. We proceeded out the door of my high school friends' place.
While there, we passed through a beerfest and I thought it would be a
bad way to start the day. Instead, I consumed a breakfast sandwich that
took 20 minutes to make and came from a 50-year-old trailer painted a
flat blue.
]

The idea of downtown really sunk in this morning when I saw a
middle-aged Caucasian lady with a pink blouse and shorts that went to
her knees. It seemed like she was high-fiving a man who walked past her in
black leather, with tattoos covering his half bald head. Harmony. Considering their motto is “Keep Portland Weird,” the community
is doing a bang up job.

So we left, and I went with friends that
hooked their stagecoach to ours for a couple days. To them it seemed fun
to follow us around. The venue we were playing at was eloquently named “The Quesadilla
Factory” and housed two pool tables, table tennis, a restaurant that served
made-to-order quesadillas which included pulled pork as an option, and a
stage next to the X-boxes.

Strange first impression, but as the day went
on it turned into the only place a highschooler can get a good music
fix in a 100-mile radius. We played fourth in a set of five bands and
the crowd received us well. It was a good set, though one song we hadn't
practiced or played live in about a month (“We Forgive You, Gene”)
sounded pretty dang good.

We finished, I went outside and began talking
to one of the other bands, Future Space Orchestra, whose members were
some of the coolest people alive. One included a boy just out of high
school. He wore a green shirt, tan vans, and an afro. We were talking
about music and their band, and then Dylan, the boy with the afro, left to buy our CD.  He approached the table with only one source of
currency–his shoes–and offered them to our bass player Dave as an
exchange for a CD.

Dave asked what size they were and agreed to the
terms. We loaded the trailer and kept in conversation with Future Space
Orchestra and began talking about the tour dates we'll be playing. Dylan
proposed that if we took him from the Salem area
and drove him to Chico, Calif., he would bike back on his single speed.
 
After dialoging about liability issues and other details we have so far
agreed to this and will be seeing Dylan again soon on our way back South next week.  Dan drove us to Seattle and I fell asleep for about an
hour in the car.  There was much more we experienced when we arrived to
our destination.  All I know is I woke up between my brother, Dave,
and a tan pair of Vans from Salem, Oregon.

Adam Chavez, drums and vocals

Here is a video of the band performing an acoustic version of “Birds and Stuff” in a backyard in Seattle:

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