Day Six

The ride from Port St. Lucie to St. Petersburg should only take 2 1/2 hours. We take the advice of a security guard at The Mojo Room and avoid the Interstate, instead driving directly across the state of Florida on Highway 70. It is beautiful and open. Travis naps in the back. The highway stretches through small towns that look a lot like Jeffersonville, Indiana.

25 miles into the ride, I hear a worried Jason Fresta in the seat behind me. "We've lost cell phone reception." Jason has never traveled outside of the New York/New England area. He is truly worried for our safety.

Somewhere west of Acadia we are pulled over. The officer asks us how long we have been traveling without a license plate on our trailer. We tell him we didn't know we needed one (a lie for all of us but only some of us have admitted it to ourselves.). In front of the kind policeman I act like this is really gonna suck, because we have many more states to travel through on our tour. "We're in a band," I say. I think I hear Fresta gasp.

Phil is driving but he's lost his wallet. The officer accepts my license and runs a check on the van. We all start looking for Phil's wallet, but to no avail. When the officer returns, he serves me a warning for faulty equipment and lets us go. "What's the name of your band again," he asks.

"Days Of the New", I say.

"What kind of music is it?"

I know Travis is in the back and listening. If he were answering, he'd say "Acoustic World Music", but being the vanilla diplomat I am, I say, "Rock, basically. Acoustic." Consider the audience.

"I'm into country music mostly ," the officer says, "but my girl likes the modern stuff."

"Check us out on line if you get a chance."

We pull away and Malcolm suggests again that things might have been smoother if we'd taken the Interstate. In my best granny voice, i politely disagree. "This was a blessing from an angel", I say. Not only did we get off with a warning, the officer clued us in to avoid more tickets by presenting the warning to anyone else who might pull us over and to tell them that our plate was missing. Thank you, Florida.

That evening our concert at State Theater is the show we have been waiting for. "All the shows have been great," Travis says afterwards," But this one was amazing." For the first time since getting back together last year, Days Of The New is casting spells. The room at State Theater becomes a chamber with no walls, and we take off. I walk into the crowd during Travis' solo Dancing With The Wind and watch him transform himself into all the characters of each of the movements of the song. Provider ends the night on a high. Kelly Mettling's presence before the show seems to have had a great affect. He brought Travis a birthday present. A book called "The Power Of Now."

Set list

Flight Response
Touch Peel and Stand
Shelf in The Room
Dancing With The Wind
Touch Of Anger
Downtown
Perpeuate R. G.
Dirty Road
Die Born
Provider