The Galt Line: The Galt Line Beer and Sausages Tour Day 13 and 14

At home in the House Café

Day 13 was a day off. What does a day off look like for The Galt Line. Well, there was a lot of microwave food and $3 bottles of wine. There was plenty of work on the computer, and lots of cable TV. We worked and napped and drank. I pounded through some blogs while Blythe changed the strings on the uke. I also pounded through too much wine, and found my head pounding when the sun came stomping across our room in the morning.

We gathered our things, checked out, and pointed the van out of town toward DeKalb. Some friends of ours, CMKT4, set up a show for us at their hometown spot, The House Café. This venue serves coffee, tea and sandwiches, along with some good beers. They have shows nearly every night. Being right on the main drag, and near Northern Illinois University, it has a nice built-in crowd of music appreciators.

CMKT4 had set us up on a night with local songwriter Bill Leighly, Songstress Aura Weaver, and country madness group King of the Demons. We felt pretty good about this night, and were eager for a good show after our two recent, more awkward shows.

When we rolled in to town, we met Austin, Jeff, and Zach at House Café, loaded some stuff in, and greeted some familiar faces. With some time to kill, we rolled over to Zach’s house, met his wife Heather, and his two energetic young boys Seth and Miles. We hung out in the kitchen and bullshitted for a while before going on back to The House for a beer, some food, and music.

Bill Leighly started the night off with some cool band arrangements of his tunes, with some truly badass fiddle and guitar. Next up, Aura fascinated us with her strange songs and wild delivery. We jumped up to play a very hot and short set. The drummer from Bill’s band sat in on djembe for a tune. The crowd was good to us. We loaded off as fast as we could to make room for CMKT4, who delivered a tight set of earthy-but-electronic acid rock. Last up was King of the Demons, who totally crushed it with very amped up country music.

It was a pretty nice night over all, easy and efficient. We went over to Austin’s to celebrate. Blythe, Zach, Austin, and I cracked beers and discussed taking bands on the road, the obstacles and advantages. Soon after Zach ducked out for the night, Austin capped off the night by showing us how he had trained his giant cat, Yoda, to play the piano. It was totally golden. Then we slept.