Our visit to Grand Rapids on this day in 1994 coincides with Melissa Etheridge’s, and just our luck, our pal Will Rigby is drumming for her opening act, Matthew Sweet. He comes over to the Reptile House after his set and joins us for two songs. In 2000, in Champaign, we salute Cities In Illinois That Aren’t Chicago by covering “Come On, Come On.” But with all respect to Will and Bun E., the most memorable event on April 6 happened offstage. With a travel day on our 1992 tour of the south, we hightail it to our next stop, New Orleans, arriving in time for lunch at the late lamented Uglesisch’s. Afterwards Mr. Soundman declares himself “kinda tired” and seeks a park where he can lie down. Let me backtrack for a moment and emphasize the tight squeeze of touring circa 1992: the five of us are traveling together in a van, and pretty much always on the move–most every day includes not just a nighttime concert but daytime promo at a record store or radio station. Even the two hotel rooms we are paying for every night feel like a luxury, although James and Joe, sharing a room with the soundman, might not reach for that specific word. Anyway, our snooze-bound soundman has now left the four of us by ourselves for the first time in a week. For the next hour we remain in Uglesich’s parking lot, complaining, laughing, and–if I may go way way out on a limb here–perhaps stumbling onto what might be termed by someone else a Team Building Exercise. At this point, James (and Joe) have been part of Yo La Tengo LLC for just over a year. None of us have any inkling that we’re going to be doing this for another 22 years and counting, and it’s just possible that were it not for the way we united over HOW HE WAS DRIVING US BONKERS, we may not have.
