St. Bonnie / Pittsburgh / Somerset, PA

We wake up around noon at Uncle Tom’s house and I am starting to feel a bit under the weather as well. Will is coughing up phlegm and I just have a scratchy cough. Great. I go to the kitchen and grab a slice of cold pizza for breakfast. That should do wonders for my oncoming sickness. The others drink coffee while I have an orange juice. We pack ourselves into the van and get ready to hit the road, but something is in the way. There’s a giant turtle blocking our exit.



Jeremiah tries to fight it to no avail.



I pet it like a cat but to no effect.



Finally Will charms his way out of the door and we are on the way to St. Bonnie to do a radio show with the guys at WSBU.

We arrive some time around 2:30pm at good old St. Bonnie. We love this university. They’ve been nothing but supportive of our music and they are super cool dudes. We are greeted at the radio station by Pete and Zach and the gang. We’re to do a 30-minute Q&A with Pete and Zach with a few acoustic numbers thrown in. We play “Where No Wild Things Are,” “This Summer” and “Out of the City.” We’re getting pretty good at doing this acoustic thing. Funny thing is Will and I are coughing up a storm the entire time. Hope no one else gets sick!

We bid farewell to the fair gentlemen at WSBU and head for Pittsburgh, where we’re playing Howler’s Coyote Café. Carmin directs us through the Allegany National Forest, which is ridiculously beautiful. We roll in around 7:30pm and load in. They’ve readied Chinese food for the bands and all the bands get a free pitcher. Then they come back with four pizzas for the bands. How can we eat any more? Amazing! We greet Aushua and Civil Twilight, two other touring bands on the bill. Aushua are from L.A. and Civil Twilight from Nashville, via South Africa. Weird. They turn out to be pretty amazing bands. Both of them have a pretty big Coldplay vibe, which makes this billing the most serious (somber may be a better word?) lineup we’ve played with this tour. I am blown away by both bass players. I have some serious practicing to do if I hope to be like these guys.

At the show is the music director of WWVU, Daniel. He’s a super cool guy and he digs the music. He wants to set up a show with us at the University of West Virginia in Morgantown. I’ve been down there once to visit my friend Bob. Beautiful place. Can’t wait to play there.

We leave the club and drive part way to Baltimore to Somerset, PA. We’ve stayed in this town before, the last time we played in Pittsburgh.

I wake up in Somerset, PA and my throat is killing me. I am definitely sick. Will seems to be on the verge of recovery. We are here for one reason and one reason only: The Summit Diner.