Chi McClean

Despite our hopes and dreams of waking up in a 4-star hotel, we actually still woke up in a hole of a room that, yes, still smelled like sewage. “Mm! I just LOVE the smell (actually, I think we could taste it at this point) of sewage in the morning!” In any case, we packed our bags, loaded the truck, fired up some Starbucks breakfast Sando-Calrissians (for your Star Wars fans) and busted our butts back down to San Luis Obispo to play the local Borders. Now, we didn’t really know what to expect, but when we got there and set up next to the cooking section across from the music section, we started to wonder what we were really doing down there.

Setting up inside the Borders in San Luis Obispo, CA.

Well, we quickly dismissed those thoughts as a small crowd started to gather that had apparently heard our radio interview and performance the day before on 92.5 FM The Krush. (Cool! It worked!) We actually were taking requests from random fans who had caught wind of my music on the radio or from friends who heard us earlier the day before, which was a good feeling.

We played for nearly three hours for a rotating group of music fans and ended up selling a boat load of CDs, which was awesome. In fact, I was occasionally interrupted at the end of a song by an audience member who wanted me to sign their CD. Now, that’s an audience! The only odd thing was that some dude thought we’d be a great addition to his business scheme and forced us to listen to his “sales pitch CD” which, I’m pretty sure, brainwashed Jesse, at least for a little while. (You’re getting sleepy… buy my junk! Sell it to your friends!)

Signin' CDs and kissin' babies... We love you SLO!

After we wrapped up the gig and narrowly avoided losing Jesse to the suspicious and hard selling sales guy, we packed up the truck and teetered back to the Firestone Grill (this time for a healthy salad) since we had great success there the day before with some burgers. A little tri-tip salad brought us back up to speed and geared us up for another 2+ hour set at Linnaea’s in downtown San Luis Obispo later that night.

Setting up on about the smallest stage ever at Linnaea's. Might have to play through the window in back!

Again, starting out with low expectations, we played to a packed house and sold the pants off of my CDs. I think there’s something about the Central Coast and music… they’re either starved for acoustic rock or they just really happen to like my tunes. Either way, I’m not going to ask too many questions and am happy it went so well!

After wrapping up our performance and gulping down some Chai Tea, we packed up the truck again, locked the doors, and headed across the street to check out Downtown Brew. There wasn’t any live music, but we got into some trouble all the same and enjoyed some blueberry ale (really) before sampling the legendary Bel Frites late night followed by (you guessed it) a huge burrito, then some artsy photography in an alley.

Percussionist Jesse Weber doing his "I'm an artist" shot in a back alley down in SLO.

Gotta say that the Central Coast is pretty darn near my favorite place to play. Welcoming audiences, great people, good food, warm temperatures, and beautiful country. Hoping to get back down there again soon! In the mean time, we had to figure out how to get down to Santa Barbara, CA for our next gig at 2:00pm the next day (this picture above was taken at about 2:00am…. ruh-roh!).