Hunter's Down Under

Its always an interesting experience for us to get to play in a new venue - let alone a new city. I'm not so much a stranger to Lafayette, Indiana (the home of Hunter's Down Under) as I lived there for three or four years a while back, and my dad's side of the family is rooted there. However, I hadn't ever played a show there. I've always looked forward to the potential opportunity to play in Lafayette as I imagined it to be some sort of baptism of my confidence. This primarily due to the fact it is the very town where I lost the confidence I had once had in music as my last project that fell apart called it home. However, those illusions were all in my head, and as we pulled up to venue I saw this fact clearly.

It is always nice to see family when in town, and I was not let down as both family and friends showed up to the show from Indy, Chicago, and obviously Lafayette. The show went pretty well, aside from the fact that I had my wah pedal engaged for half of the show without realizing it. The funny thing is, I realized something was not right with my sound, and during sound check I mentioned it to Nathan. We thought somehow I had cracked a cone in a speaker. Turns out the wah was on - they really should start putting some sort of indication light on those things. Either way, the energy in the room was good and it felt as though everyone enjoyed the majority of our stuff. We also used the opportunity to play a handful of new songs live for the first time. They all went pretty well for the most part.

The highlight of the show for me was playing, "I Know a Girl", which is a song I wrote for my grandmother (on my Dad's side) when she passed a couple of years ago. I knew I wanted to play that song that night, as she called Lafayette home, and in some way it felt like if I played it there she might hear it a littler clearer. The funny thing is, right as we started to play the song, my Dad walked into the venue, and was able to hear the song in its entirety. Earlier in the week, he had said that he didn't think he was going to make it to the show at all. Funny how things work out sometimes.