Dec 21, 2013

I went over to Kim and Chester's in the morning to meet their new human, Courtney. Clearly, she took to me right away.. ladies. But seriously, she was cute and pretty much slept the whole time I was there shooting.

As per uszjh, we did some ridiculous photos with farm things. I took pictures of them on tractors, near corn cribs (which I didn't know was a thing until this morning,) and of course, with the cows. I need to bring some city people out here to take some photos just to see what they do.

I met Jess in Philly at Spring Garden School No. 1, an abandoned elementary school north of downtown. We easily gained access through an open window in the back and were soon quietly creeping up the stairs and through the mess of hallways.

We heard someone on the second floor so I said hello and a guy came out, said hi, and then moved on. I felt the threat had been neutralized. I could tell he was a nice dude, so I wasn't worried anymore about a homeless guy with a broken bottle coming to stab us. All good. We went up to the roof and shot some photos of reflections and the skyline, enjoying the view.

The cage on top is a cool, unique feature. We slowly made our way down the floors, checking out the different rooms. Few were picturesque, but it was certainly interesting to see what had become of the school. I was surprised there were so many books still all over the building. We encountered our friend again, who was taking wiring or pipes out of the walls to sell, I presume. We exited through the basement, giving instructions to several girls who were just making their way inside. We checked out another building nearby, but we couldn't find an obvious way in so we called it a day.

I went over to Sedgley, where there was a tournament going on and a ton of people playing because the weather was so nice. I chose to come to The Abbaye instead. I got a Fullers ESB, which was perfection, and the seitan cheesesteak. I chatted with a guy at the end of the bar until Jordan and Phil showed up to hang with me. We had a good time talking and Jordan really liked the Sweet Baby Jesus! Food and drinks and friends was good.

Joanna met us there and hung out for a while before going to The Foodery and then Soy Cafe, where I got a green tea coffee or something like that. It was cold. And it was pretty good. We spent an hour or so there before it was time to head over to the show.

We went over to Union Transfer and waited for a while near annoying people until The Early November came out. They played through The Room's Too Cold in full, which was awesome almost all of the time. The last track didn't really play well live, but the rest of it was fantastic.

Ace said something like, "Oh we forgot to turn on these Christmas lights during that whole set.. If you guy hang around we might come back and play another one." And then they did. They played a decent amount of songs from their other albums. The new songs all sound so good live.

They closed with "Every Night's Another Story" of course. It was a great ending to an awesome show. The crowd was great; everyone was having a good time and being cool. Ace was as grateful and happy as always and I left with a big smile on my face. I love those guys. I didn't miss missing the Brand New show at all. This band never disappoints.