Days 6 and 7

Portland was great on Saturday, but I think our show in San Francisco might go down as the best of this tour, with Davis a close second.

It’s not that our performance at the Bollyhood was even that great. In fact, at our scheduled start time, things were looking decidedly grim. Aside from the bar staff, us and the headlining band, the place was empty. We thought it might down as another Seattle/Arcata experience. And we were only so-so for most of our performance — songs were a little sluggish, my energy level was down.

But as we played, the place started to fill — with friends from Sandpoint and Redlands, with parents of friends from Spokane, and with the loyal, passionate and remarkably international and multilingual fans of Diana Gameros and Makru. The latter were a boisterous crowd, and very supportive — even though our brand of white-bread, twangy pop felt a little out of place.

But everything came together at the end. I played my two San Francisco songs. (Singing “sorry that you led me to the Mission” in the middle of the Mission was exceedingly satisfying.) Then Makru broke out their battery of percussion instruments and joined us for our last two songs — “The Alligator’s New Skin” and Mark’s ukulele song.

It was utter magic. The band followed along beautifully, the crowd beat out a clap that was more sophisticated than we could even keep up with. The place was pounding. I felt like my soul left my body. I could’ve died happy, there on the dance floor.

Then Makru took the stage, with a fiery set of Latin barn-burners that had the entire crowd, including a flamenco-dancing cross dresser, on their feet. We clapped until our hands were raw. Moving on the dance floor, looking at the Benetton ad swinging around me, I thought, “This is what music is supposed to be.” Moving, laughing, singing, clapping, sharing the experience together.

Bringing people to the table to eat, essentially. That’s what I’ve likened it to since one especially moving homecoming show in Redlands around 2004. My friend Jesse Pizzitola — at whose kitchen table in Davis I’m now writing — came to that show, and we were talking about his love of food and farming. What was it about that drove him, that animated him? He told me that the toil and the sweat were worth it when, at the end of the day, you could get people around the table to share a meal together. There’s something innately human about that.

Brian Estes, a gardener for a CSA in Spokane, told me the same thing, when I interviewed him for a profile in The Inlander a few weeks ago. “It’s hard not to recognize someone’s humanity [at the dinner table],” he said. “Eating is so fundamental to who we are, and it’s so fundamentally pleasurable. It’s hard not to find yourself a more compassionate person when you have to look another person in the eyes to pass them something across the table.”

It’s the same with music, I think. It doesn’t matter what wind blew you onto the stage or dance floor, or from which direction, when you start dancing and clapping and singing and having fun together. I know that’s an impossibly simplistic, idealistic thing to say, and it’s not really an answer for anything. But it seems like a seed for something.

Last night in Davis was different. Not the romantic experience of San Francisco, but such a solid show. We played on the packed front porch of Sophia’s Thai Kitchen, a very hip and very happening place packed with college students and really nice people who were ready to dance. The venue is booked by Michael Leahy, a middle school counselor and the host of a popular Davis radio station. He’s connected to several of my musical friends from Portland and Spokane, and he’s such a sweet guy. Exceedingly nice. Very easy-going.

We played a short set, cutting out the slow tunes and hyping up the dancey numbers. People seemed to love it. And we made $200, which is nothing to sniff at. And we took another round of Fernet-Branca. And we met some very nice people afterwards (Brian was especially sociable last night…).

Today, we’re relaxing at the house of Jesse and his lovely wife Lisa, who is out stringing up tomatoes in the garden while we thumb through books and prepare for a swim in the pool across the street.

We’ll head to Sacramento this evening, for our penultimate show. I think the prospect of the tour ending is a little foreboding for all of us, but on a day like this, with such good company, and two really lovely shows behind us, it’s hard to worry about the future.