Jeremy Porter Road Blog

Road Blog: Saturday September 28, 2024 - Columbus, OH

Road Blog
September 29, 2024
Columbus, OH

This fall so far has been all about the solo record and touring solo-acoustic behind it. I was immersed in that mode and looking forward to a couple weekends off after some Midwest and Canada shows and before I head out west for a longer run in October. Then, just about as the schedule was set in Stone, my pal Colin asked me if The Tucos would like to open for WATERSHED in their hometown of Columbus, at a great venue called the Rumba Cafe, and then also play together somewhere in Detroit the following weekend. Well, there was no way I was passing that up, so goodbye downtime, hello rock! We landed a Maumee show in the middle, so it’ll be 3 Tucos shows in 8 days before I take the Martin out west. In addition to the opportunity to play with Watershed, an incredible band I’ve admired for years, I was excited to get the Tucos out of the basement, which hasn’t happened often this year – these will be our 3rd, 4th, and 5th shows, easily the fewest since the band formed, except the pandemic year of 2020.

Gabriel and I left my house and picked up JakeE Jacob at a coney island in Ann Arbor where he was rapidly and feverishly finishing his cruciferous breakfast. Three years in this band and the kid still struggles with our “Annoyingly Punctual” tagline. The remnants of Hurricane Helene have pushed into the Midwest, and the constant rain would be an annoyance for the duration of our trip (but admittedly not nearly as bad as the Carolinas and the rest of the southeast got it.) We made good time once we got through bad accident traffic early in Ann Arbor and late in Columbus.

We were in my SUV for this run, grateful to Watershed for letting us use their drums and bass backline, a common practice that saves a lot of time, space and energy for everyone on multi-band bills. We had Karen Jacobsen - The GPS Girl focused on the mission at hand, and my USB drive playing it’s 10’s of thousands of songs in alphabetical order, a technique TrooperGirl22 discovered a truer “shuffle” than the actual shuffle, which tends to fixate on the same few bands over and over, ignoring 95% of your collection. What that means, however, is that you’ll sometimes get different, or even the same, version of a song multiple times occasionally. For example, between album versions, compilations, live versions, and bonus tracks, there’s about 13 versions of “I Wanna Be Sedated” by the Ramones on there; Road to Ruin, Road to Ruin remaster, Road to Ruin box set Remix, Road to Ruin box set live disc, Ramones Mania, Live in Ann Arbor, Live in San Antonio, It’s Alive!, Demo bonus track, alternate take bonus track… you get the point. Beyond unnecessary, but difficult to clean up effectively. As we hit Columbus it was “Bringin’ On the Heartbreak” by Def Leppard (in the “B”s, obvs) and we dissected the difference between the original Pyromania CD version, Early Years box set remaster, Live in LA NYE 1983, and 1984 remix versions. The boys were patient through it all and we liked the live and remastered versions best.

We checked into our dive motel near the OSU campus and the front desk clerk wasn’t the sharpest chisel in the drawer, taking about 20 minutes of clicking the same 3 buttons on his iPad over and over and expecting something different to happen every time. There was a much nicer Hilton Garden Inn next door to our dump with two tour busses in the lot and we joked “Oh, looks like Watershed is staying next door!” I snapped a pic and sent it Colin. We weren’t sure, but we guessed it was most likely Alkaline Trio, also in town. Some sorta unrelated trivia, but The Lemonheads were also in town, and that’s back-to-back Saturdays we were up against the Lemonheads, after my record release show in Michigan last weekend. We grabbed some mediocre-at-best Mexican American food at the restaurant next to the hotel and headed over to the venue.

Watershed was wrapping up their soundcheck as we arrived, and they sounded amazing. We met the promoter (Monica?), their main dude Michael Biggie, and the sound engineer as we set up and sound checked after they were done. It’s a great room, sorta square and dark and just grimy enough to be a respectable rock joint. The sound and stage are awesome, and things sounded great. We did some record shopping across the street at Used Kids Records where I picked up the new Soul Asylum record, then we chilled upstairs from the Rumba in their great green room, chatted with drummer Herb a bit, and had a drink before the show.

We went on at 8:15 to a fantastic crowd that nearly filled the big room. They were attentive, engaged, and responsive, and frankly, that’s a few steps up from our normal shows. We had a blast, played fairly well, had a laugh or two, and cleared the stage. I introduced JakeE to the crowd as a former Michigan Wolverine running back who’s blood flows maize and blue, to the OSU loving crowd’s boos and his dismay.

Watershed went on at 9:15ish and played a colossal nearly three-hour set, including their new record front to back and tons of stuff from their back catalog. They opened as a trio, with Colin, Joe and Herb, playing a great version of “Seasons of Wither” by Aerosmith, a great song that most bands couldn’t and wouldn’t dare touch, and a ballsy opener, but they killed it. Second guitarist Rick came out for the rest of the night while Herb traded spots on and off with their other drummer Dave. They sounded amazing, played great, and not one person bailed before they wrapped up.

We had a few friends out and it was great to see Dawn in town from upstate Ohio, my pal Scott, who works at Lost Weekend Records and I’d missed the previous weekend when I was in town, fellow Pencil Storm contributor Kevin, and my pal and fellow Cheap Trick nut John, a Columbus firefighter and mega-rock and roll fan, shooting photos front and center all night. We also met a whole bunch of new people and really felt welcome and appreciated.

After the show we did the usual merch selling, packing up, loading out, and saying goodbyes. Watershed was heading out right after the show, northwest to the Cheap Trick mecca of Rockford, Illinois, where they’ll play tonight, a move we found a bit baffling, but hey – rock and roll doesn’t sleep, and there was a giant checkerboard Explorer waiting just off I-39. We went back to our motel and crashed out.

This morning, after a short, restless, and unproductive sleep, I woke to see a photo in my feed of Watershed in their van under that very Explorer and gave them the ol’ Jeremiah Johnson head nod from afar. I got up and tried repeatedly to get the shower to work but there was just no water – like…none, dry, dust. After a few pissed off minutes as several attempts I said F it and gave up and got dressed. Jake walked in, closed the door, and I heard the shower fire right up for him. G'dammit.

Now it was time for my second Starliner Diner breakfast in as many weekends, and as much as I’d told myself “I’m not going to order the Starliner Burrito again. I’m not going to order the Starliner Burrito again.” I bellied up and ordered that awesome sucker right off, nothing else on the menu grabbing me with that intensity. I did stray from the norm and, at Rick Kisinger’s suggestion, got the jalapeño cheddar soup, which was awesome. JakeE was looking a little peaked next to me in the booth, a bit worse for the wear after the Saturday night revelry, but he soldiered through, and before long we were on the road north.

The drive home was uneventful save for some rain and a quick bio break at a Pilot gas station somewhere just south of Bowling Green. The boys didn’t share my enthusiasm at the prospect of going in together on a Bible Trivia book for band bonding, team building, time killing, and education in the van. Realizing we’d collectively know next to nothing on those pages, I didn’t push it further. We dropped Gabriel off in Dearborn at 1:30, 25 hours after we left, and landed at my place in Plymouth at 2.

It was a great night, a perfect one-off show. Watershed are amazing, as a band and as people, and we are eternally grateful to them for sharing their audience with us. It was EASILY our best Columbus show of several to date, and I truly love that city and it’s people (and music). The Next road blog will be from Portland, Oregon in less than two weeks. If you’re near Detroit or looking to road trip, next Saturday’s Tucos show with Watershed at Ghost Light will be epic!

Xx