Let’s start today’s post with an apology to our old buddy Jeff from NYC. I neglected to include his reminiscence in my July 6 post. Better late than never, and I hope Jeff will agree: At the risk of being like about a million OTHER Yo La Tengo fans, “Our Way To Fall” was our first wedding dance, back at Kilkea Castle, County Kildare, Ireland, July 6, 2003. I get a bit misty whenever I hear it but that’s a product of getting older, I am sure. And sure enough, fellow New Yorker Matt writes: The first album I bought my now wife was And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out in 2000. Six plus years later when we were married (July 8, 2006), “Our Way to Fall” was the song chosen for our first dance. It was the perfect song for a wonderful day in our lives.
That July 6 post, you’ll recall, found us on tour with the Sundays, but playing different rooms in Minneapolis due to a scheduling snafu. There was no show the following day, but it was hardly time off. We spent most of it hightailing our way to Denver, where we were to be reunited with the Sundays at 23 Parrish on this day 24 years ago. We got within striking distance of Denver on the 7th, splurged on a single hotel room for the five in our traveling party, and hit a flea market on our way into town on the show day. It was only then that we bothered to call the club, to find out what time we should arrive. And therefore it was only then, in that time long long ago when dinosaurs walked the earth and cellular telephones did not, that we found out that the Sundays had been forced to cancel not just Denver, but the remaining west coast dates of their tour. We were looking at an unscheduled trip home having unnecessarily added a 550-mile detour. After much cajoling, the club agreed to let us play anyway, making the whole thing worth it. I’m kidding, of course–nothing was going to rescue that drive back to New Jersey.
