Travel Blog, Anaru

Monday 4th MARCH 2011

Name: Andrew McDowall

Instrument: Trumpet

Travel Blog:

Kia Ora!  I’m Andrew (or Anaru as I’m often introduced) the trumpet player for Katchafire.  I’m writing this to you from the town of Bellingham which is within a whisker of the Canadian border in Washington state.  Tonight is the 11th gig since arriving in the United States 12 days ago for a one month tour.

And what a tour so far!!!

Since day one at Belly Up in Solana Beach near San Diego (2,165km south of here!) I have been utterly astounded at the reception Katchafire gets over here.  The crowds are completely off the hook!  From the moment we step on stage to the final note of the encore the energy coming at us from the audience is relentless – making all the effort and sacrifice of life on the road justified in every possible way.

We played sold out shows at the House of Blues in both Anaheim (disneyland!) and Sunset Boulevard – all the time I’m standing onstage thinking to myself ‘what the…?? how on earth have they pulled this off? a bunch of kiwis from Hamilton!!! who knew!!’

In the middle of our first week we caught a plane to Wyoming to play an outdoor festival at a ski resort called Teton village.  This was one of the most challenging gigs I have ever done.  The ambient temperature there was minus 6 degrees which played havoc on the instruments – especially the horns.  Jamey’s saxophone lost all lower register and my trumpet was playing so out of tune I had to do most of the gig in another key!  Nevertheless the crowd – all 4,000 of them – appeared to not notice the cold and were very quickly singing along with the band and having a great time.

Another highlight was back to back nights at the Independent in San Francisco with the promoters trying desperately to make a third show happen!  Also special mention must go to the crowd in Portland Oregon for the incredible reception they gave us when we walked on stage.  Side note:  did you know you cannot pump your own petrol in Oregon?  Or take beer onstage?  Every state we play in we have to learn a new set of stage etiquette rules!

Tomorrow we travel to Boise, Idaho which is 1,125km away.  We’ll do this in one day.  We have to go the long way because the more direct route is snowed in.  These are things that couldn’t be considered when looking at the deceptively sunny aerial shots on google maps.

The following week we travel through Idaho, Colorado, Utah and Nevada before flying off to Hawaii for the last week.  Looking forward to every minute of it.

-Andrew McDowall