Our next stop found us in Lawrence, Kansas. I never once thought that this would be a stop on our tour. The only experience I’ve had in Kansas prior to this was when I was touring the country two years ago, frantically driving out of Wichita, straight to Chicago, at 4 a.m., after making the mistake of staying with a man named Hyde, who turned out to be insane. I wasn’t ever planning on coming back to Kansas, with the exception of driving through it on the way to Omaha.
And here we were, sitting in a house a block from downtown Lawrence, drinking beer and playing through stop-motion videos with Megafaun. They were playing a show in town that night and suggested we come along to participate in the shenanigans.
We were all being put up for the night by Kevin Lawrence (of Lawrence) and his bandmates, who had set up the show and were opening for Megafaun. They were planning an epic post-show cookout for us. Beer, beards, and bratwurst. I’m thinking this detour was worth it.
The venue was incredible. Neon illustrations, black lights, pinball machines, spaceships hanging from the ceiling…. it felt like we were all in a comic book. The Megafaun dudes were telling us how talented Ample Branches (Kevin Lawrence of Lawrence’s band) was, but upon hearing them I was really blown away. Their music was so fun and jolly and awesome. And they all multitask quite well instrumentally. I always dig that.
Megafaun’s set was particularly awesome. They had to cater to more of a party crowd, but it worked out perfectly… the set just turned into a giant burly dance party.
We all finished the show up with a giant round of tequila, then marched back toward the house. I was a bit surprised to see it overflowing with people.
And so the shenanigans begin.
We never cooked the brats, but we made lots of new friends, drank more tequila, ate lots of Doritos, and took photos of beards until 5 in the morning. Thank you Lawrence… my views of Kansas have been redeemed.
For more stories + photos from my phototour, check out the tourlog: http://www.welldonetour.com!
Love, hp