Lo, what lush green pastures we pass through!  What purple mountains we barrel betwixt!  What shining sea awaits us after only 20 more hours in this shining mini-van!  With our first 5 shows and our first 3,000 miles behind us, the Sorrow Killing Division is in fine form and good spirits!

We kicked things off with our first ever appearance in the state of Michigan.  The crowd at the Ark was mighty and showed particular enthusiasm for Wes’s banjo solos.  Next we stopped at a great new venue in Evanston, IL called S.P.A.C.E.  The space is a combination venue, studio and pizza place.  The green room even had a ukelele on hand for artist use, which may have led to a delicious new Jolliff/Kearney co-write.  Iowa City was next, where Arcara proved invaluable to our operation with his triple threat prowess at guitar playing, sound board running and heavy speaker moving.  Next we played in St. Louis alongside our new pals, The Wiyos.  They were sick!

After a marathon road day, we rolled into the Colorado Folks Festival on Saturday night just as The Swell Season was beginning their set.  Maybe it was just the twinkling lights in the trees, or the dramatic glow of the cliff side, or the free New Belgium beers backstage, but we were all blown away!  Between their set and Sunday morning’s opening set by Abigail Washburn and Bela Fleck, we were thoroughly inspired and pretty freaking nervous by the time we took the stage on Sunday afternoon.  The set went great though and we got a great response from the crowd, who even forgave Emma for asking, “what is that thing out there?” (pointing to a silo) from the stage.  Afterwards, we met a lot of good folks, got our first request to sign someone’s body (don’t worry, just an arm) and enjoyed more music by Richard Thompson and John Prine.  In short, we LOVE Colorado Folks Festival and hope to play Planet Bluegrass Events for the REST OF OUR LIVES.

Coming up next we hit up Berkeley, CA for our first show at the new Freight and Salvage!  We are excited to see our Cali pals again and play some our new stuff for them.  Then onwards to Corvallis, OR for the first annual Beavergrass Festival, then onwards to many many many more places!  Check our calendar page for details.

Hope to see you out there on the road!

Love,

Bridget, Emma, Jake, Matt and Wes

Mid-Tour Update: Joy Still Killing Sorrow!

Tuesday, August 17, 2010