Casey Henry

Today we’re in Baton Rouge, LA, where none of us have ever been before. Brandi is especially pumped to be in Louisiana because that’s where the Sookie Stackhouse novels are based and she is pretty sure we’re going to see at least one vampire before we leave the state.

We’re playing at the Manship Theater, which is in a big huge building that also houses the Louisiana State University Museum of Art. We didn’t go to the museum. However, Brandi and I did go to Louisiana’s Old State Capitol museum, which is across the street. When we get to a venue we always have time to kill because Uncle Earl soundchecks first. That can take anywhere from one to two hours. So Brandi and I wandered across the street to the building about which Mark Twian said, “It is pathetic ... that a whitewashed castle, with turrets and things ... should ever have been built in this otherwise honorable place.” After seeing pictures of that incarnation of the building, I have to agree with him.

The building now houses a museum about the history of Louisiana’s governors and government and it is one of the best museums I’ve ever been to. It successfully does the thing that many modern museums try to do, which is to be interactive, without being a bit cheesy. It conveys lots of information, especially about Huey Long, quickly and elegantly and is just really, really cool. I certainly never thought I’d say that about a Louisiana government museum.

The Manship Theater is a medium-sized space with two, count them two, balconies. They also had the best backstage snack spread I’ve ever seen, as evidenced by the pictures below. At the end of the night I filled a plastic bag full of the fruit and brought it back to the hotel for breakfast--kept overnight in the ice bucket. Tonight’s show followed the trend of our last couple of shows—small but enthusiastic crowd. They really seemed to like what all the bands were doing.

Tomorrow will be a long day: a five hour drive followed by the show at the Dosey Doe Coffeehouse in The Woodlands, Texas.