It was strange leaving Austin. Although we’d only been there for less than six days, it felt a lot longer. We’d really started to settle in and the ‘crayfish boil’ on Sunday had made us feel right at home. But we had gigs to play in New York, so there was nothing for it but to pack up and leave. Plus I sensed that however much they liked us, Rachel and Chris wanted their house back.
The day started out with breakfast tacos at a renowned establishment called Juan In A Million, each of us opting for the legendary Don Juan Taco with extra tortillas.
After breakfast Chris took all of us for a cruise in his 1967 Pontiac Bonneville, a beautiful blue boat of a car, that easily fit all of the band plus Rachel (three in the front four in the back). Chris turned on the radio, and appropriately a country song called ‘Thank God for the Road’ by Austin country rockers The Flatlanders came pouring out of the speaker:
Thank God for the road
And the hubcaps and the headlights
And the mudflaps and the taillights
And the dim lights and the bright lights
Genius.
But then it really was time to leave and we made our way in boring yellow taxis to the airport. The flight was delayed due to high winds in Newark and so there was a fair bit of hanging around waiting (drinking). In an extremely uncharacteristic move, Kev managed to spill pretty much a whole pint over my shoe and trouser leg – normally the guy doesn’t waste a single drop. But this gave the old couple sat next to us an excuse to start a conversation. They were very intrigued to hear about the band and ‘just knew that we were going to be successful’. They were on their way to LA for a week to visit their daughter who is an aspiring actress. The woman said she knew people at all the big talk shows and would try and get us a slot.
The plane left about an hour late. The inflight snack was, of course, a cheeseburger. We arrived in Newark close to midnight and we’re not prepared for the biting wind. It was a lot colder than we’d anticipated. It took us an hour to get our belongings back from baggage reclaim and we finally got a bus into the city at 1 am. I think the journey takes an hour, but I conked out after about five minutes (I think I slept on Kev’s shoulder, we’re getting close you know). I was woken by the driver shouting that we’d reached our stop – Port Authority. With bleeriy eyes I tried to make sense of where I was: midtown New York at 2 am on a freezing Tuesday morning. We hopped into two more yellow cabs and finally reached our destination, a small hotel called Off Soho Suites in the Lower East Side, at 2.30 am. We all crashed out and I dreamt of the New York breakfast I was going to have the next day . . .
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