morton: state & madison

my summer vacation started a few weeks ago and i spent the first two of them at home in st. louis. it was a lazy and relaxing two weeks and since i had nothing better to do with myself, why not take a mini roadtrip with my friend claire?! so that's exactly what we did.

state and madison has played middle-of-nowhere morton, illinois a couple of times before because of our mutual friend matt so i jumped on the chance to visit everyone with a fairly short two and a half hour drive. (morton is about about halfway between st. louis and chicago if that gives you any kind of mental picture)

claire and i received numerous different start times for the show: doors at five! show at seven! state and madison at seven! state and madison at nine! the band told me nine so i went trusted that answer. and while they were indeed correct, shit happens. an opening band dropped off the bill last minute so state and madison were bumped up to eight. well claire and i thought we'd left in plenty of time, but with the last minute change, we baaaarely made it with the band stalling as much as possible. we walked in during the first song. not too shabby!

they played a decently long set, and it was really great to see tony filling in on bass for them. he recently left the band to pursue other interests, but they have yet to find a replacement. plain and simple, it just felt good to catch up with friends whom i hadn't seen in quite a few months. they loaded out fairly early and i think we were all on our way to a cracker barrel around ten. not after nick let claire and i preview a few new demos though. (they're fucking rad. there are STRINGS. and HORNS.) seriously. every single time nick shows me new songs i'm completely blown away. they just get better and better.

it was a five hour trip for maybe three hours of time with them, but it was worth it.

www.stateandmadison.net