Northampton, MA – “R.I.P Purple Shirt” -The Iron Horse – September 3, 1999

It was hot in Northampton. I felt like I was baking in my overalls and tank. Vocal rest, while great for certain things, can also be such a drag, and I must admit I felt somewhat uncommitted to my silence. I’d left my favorite Purple T-shirt with the rainbow trout on it, which I’ve had since I was 8, back in the band house on Nantucket. So I was desperately calling the club and talking (or rather, having my bandmates talk) to people who could have cared less about my shirt and were probably using it as a bar rag as they insisted they hadn’t seen it “It’s probably gone by now.” They said.

Outside the Iron Horse, there was no sign-up that we would be playing and I wondered why no one had even bothered to advertise our show or put up any posters. I decided to do it myself. After we loaded in, I went to work postering the town with some duct tape and a Sharpie.

I came back to the club exhausted and HOT. “Sally?” I heard and turned around to see someone I’d never met before. “Hey, I’m Tom, I’ve been reading your road journal. That’s how I found out about the show tonight.” He said excitedly. Upon seeing the rest of the guys he yelled out each of their names having recognized them from their pictures. The boys seemed frightened but I was delighted as he recalled to them, the different scenarios we’d been through in the past couple of weeks. He offered to buy the guys a drink. “I think I’d better,” said Delucchi still stunned that the guy knew what color his coffee press was.

Celia was the opener. She lives around Northampton, so she brought in a good-sized audience and she sounded good too. She sang some cool jazzy stuff accompanied by sax and piano. Neil, the manager, told us to abbreviate our set but he was too polite to tell us by how much and that merely cutting two songs wasn’t enough. So I was greatly disturbed and confused when despite the positive reception and reaction we were getting from the audience, people were getting up and leaving after about an hour of the show. I felt rushed and somehow invisible up there in the red and orange glowing spotlights.

Afterward, when Chris was settling, Neil told Delucchi that people who come to see music here are used to a 45 to 60-minute set and that our 95-minute set was just too long for them. I wish they’d told us that before. We would have had no problem shortening our long set. Besides my voice was tired and raw now and I couldn’t imagine how I’d make it through the 5th consecutive show in Rhode Island.

Neil invited us over to the “Black Elvis Show” that was going on down the street. We agreed to go for a while. Inside it was dark and loud and everyone was twelve with too many holes in their faces, they wore ink stains on their shoulders and arms, and braids that had turned into lifeless arms that flapped and clapped as they hopped and danced in their thrift.

We felt old. Well, not old “just a little too ol’ to be in the club”-Chris Rock. On the way back to the van, Soucy had to stop into an old romp of a gig he used to play in Northampton. Chris went to school at Smith, so he knew all the ins and outs of the area. I fell asleep in Moby while the others went for late-night snacks down the hill.