Wohoo! At long last, we have a chance to fill you all in on how our wonderful, busy summer tour has been going for the last (almost) three weeks in the northeast. First, we had a great time at the Northeast Kingdom Music Festival--here's a video of "That's Why" from our main stage set on Saturday.





It was great to get a chance to check out some other bands like Enter the Haggis, Luminescent Orchestrii, and our friends Hot Flannel. After much merriment and music, we headed down to Burlington, VT. At our show at the Red Square, we dragged Chris' cousin, Jeff, up onstage to shred some with us--it was great to share the evening with family and some new friends!

After we left Vermont (for a little while) we drove south to Binghamton, NY where we always have a good time at the Cyber Cafe West. We were greeted with lots of StereoFidelic tees and a very enthusiastic audience. On Saturday, we drove down to Bethlehem, PA to share an evening at the Wildflower with Michael and Tamara Fritz. We always enjoy playing a show with them and Chris got a chance to squeeze in some gear talk and guitar playing with Michael. On Sunday, we headed into the Big Apple to play our first show ever in Manhattan proper. We were lucky enough to get a parking spot right in front of the door to the venue, which made the rest of the evening quite a pleasant experience. It was wonderful to play for such an enthusiastic crowd in NYC; at this point in the tour we've just about ran out of stickers and sold out of all the discs that we brought with us--it's definitely been a success!

On Monday we decided to do some sightseeing, so we walked all around Greenwich Village and 5th Ave., wrapping up the day by posing with a $27,000 Batman made of Legos. Back up North on Friday, we played in Maine at Hempstock in Harmony, where the smell of patchouli and other aromas were strong in the air...we left after our set to start the drive down to Portland. With no rest areas in sight, we were directed to go to the 24 hour L.L.Bean Flagship store in Freeport. The next morning we went back to see the extra large boot in the daylight-quite a rewarding experience. That evening we played at Slainte in Portland to a packed room with Dead Man's Clothes, Gin Circus, and Take One Car. Yesterday we drove across New Hampshire into western Vermont for the Turn of the Tides music series. We had a great time here on our last Northeast tour and were excited to get back. This time the potluck dinner was amazing (just like last time!) and we now have a new appreciation for home-grown zucchini (zucchini muffins were fantastic, as well as grilled zucchini, zucchini au graten, etc. ) Lovely folks and a lovely way to wrap up the long New England portion of this tour.

We've been busy getting our October CO/midwest tour wrapped up and our November Northeast tour booked--keep an eye on our schedule page for new dates!

After back-to-back Salt Lake City shows, we pulled an all-nighter so we could make the drive to Boulder in time for our show at Avery Brewery on Thursday. After much merriment, beverages, and rocking out with the Longest Day of the Year, we drove into the mountains for some late night studio time (we're keeping that all pretty hush-hush for now. . .). On Friday, we went on-air at the Naked Stage on KGNU to play a 30 minute radio show. Saturday was a music-filled celebration and we were thrilled to be a part of two of our friends' special day!
Our last day in the Rockies was Sunday and we spent it playing a wonderful Denver listening room, the Walnut Room, with the Radical Knitting Circle, Lisa Genee, and an old college friend's new project, Beast Haus. We promise to have some live tracks from that show posted soon. . .

This week is a quick trek across the midwest through Wichita (Kirby's was FUN as usual), Indianapolis (we were able to perform this time, unlike last time we were scheduled at the Melody Inn and half the band was hospitalized with severe pneumonia--we played extra hard for the crowd that missed us last time!) and tonight is Cleveland. See you in the North East!

Well, we're at the point in the tour where we're following signs that say "East," but we still have a ton of shows left to play before we return home. We had a GREAT time at Mountain Sage last Saturday. We were excited to have the chance to share the stage with Blue Turtle Seduction from Tahoe and play for some rowdy Yosemite-ites. (We'll have some photos posted soon. . .) It was wonderful to see some return folks from last summer's excursion, have some delicious hearty food (thanks again!) and get pointers on where to spend our Sunday in Yosemite. One of the places was this beautiful mountain lake-Chris enjoyed a stroll along the beach at about 6000 ft. above sea level.
We started the drive towards Salt Lake yesterday and passed this seemingly Star Wars themed exit in Nevada. . .
We just got some pictures from our Hutington Beach show a few weeks ago--thanks to Erik for sending these along!

We started heading up the California coast for Oregon last Saturday and got to make a quick stop at the ocean, which was freezing.

We heeded the warning and made sure to stay the hell away from the huge icy waves.
After our show and house party in Arcata (where it's just as chilly and foggy as San Francisco) we headed inland a bit to the Redwoods National Park. We stopped off at Corkscrew Tree
and got inside.
After spending some time feeling really tiny, we floored it up to Crater Lake National Park, which we definitely wanted to experience on one of our days off. Crater Lake is so high up that it's just now springtime and the snow is still melting. We took some time for a quick snowball fight. . .

Then there was this bear who has the weirdest fetish....
Alright, it has become a damn vaca slideshow. New pics and video from shows coming next time, promise!

We crossed into California last Thursday after lots of driving, little sleep, and much heat. That night we played at the Blue Cafe in Huntington Beach, CA and were coincidentally paired with Brown Shoe, a band from Folsom, CA that we played with in Chicago on our last tour. . .crazy. . .Friday we played a show at the Good Hurt in LA (where all the wait staff dresses in short nurse-maid outfits) with our old friends and their new band, Pet the Dog. After much catching up, partying, and general mischief, we headed out of the city to Redlands on Saturday. Playing at the Vault was as much fun as we remember it being last time we were in Oso Rey country. The crowd was super-enthusiastic and danced all though our sets. We had a blast having Spiro (the one, the only Spiro) up for some tunes.
Monday we left for points North and headed up California Rt. 1, ocean-style. We passed through many beautiful and interesting towns, including the artichoke capitol of the world. Note the large artichoke feature of this building:
We hit Hayward, CA on the way into the city to play at the Bistro, the best beer selection in the most, um, "up and coming" area we've hit yet. Once we hit San Francisco on Wednesday, we made a point to drive through Chinatown on our way to the venue, Grant and Green, which, ironically, was located at the intersection of Grant and Green right outside Chinatown. We had a great show with some more old friends playing under the name Otto Mobile.
Yesterday we went on a hike around Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve in the hills outside of Oakland. We stumbled upon this really interesting labyrinth in the bottom of an old quarry.
Once we got back from our hike, we crossed the Bay into San Francisco to play an in-store performance at the Apple Store. It was really humbling to play the same stage the the Counting Crowes have played on and it was great to reach a whole new group of people with our music. We found this picture online with a caption that read "Musica en directo en la Apple Store de San Francisco. The StereoFidelics, me estan gustando mucho y son muuuy buenos. Macs y musica en directo igual a EPIC WIN" (thanks so much for the kind words and for taking/posting this shot!!) We had great sound and really enjoyed meeting and chatting with everyone after we played.
On to points north!

We spent our two days off relaxing in Mesa Verde National Park and looking at some really old buildings.
The view off the mesa was absolutely stunning as well.
Today we headed down to Durango a little early to walk around and see the downtown . When we were loading in, this guy was taking a break from things and relaxing on a bench. Chris found this very amusing.
We had a great show this evening at the Summit in Durango. We played with Aftergrass (actually, we played after Aftergrass) and in the middle of our first set, Will from Hendersonville, NC showed up out of the blue. It was a total suprise for everyone involved!
We took some time to catch up a bit after the show was over, and then packed up and hopped in the car to start the trek to Huntington Beach, CA tonight. . .

We got to Colorado on Wednesday and hurried into Boulder for our show at Pearl Street Pub. After seven hours of driving, our three and a half hour show went by so quickly! We reconnected with an old friend I hadn't seen in about six years and got all caught up at set break (he's now playing banjo with members of String Cheese Incident). At the end of our show, we caught wind that Vince Herman from Leftover Salmon was in attendance that night--a pretty exciting way to start our string of Colorado shows!
On Thursday we made the trek into the mountains to Jamestown, where the London Broil Steak Dinner was fantastic. We enjoyed visiting with the Jamestown folks again and always love playing for such an enthusiastic, genuine audience.
We had a great time on Friday in Nederland, CO at the First Street Pub with our friends Longest Day of the Year. Keep an eye out for video from that show as soon as we get it uploaded. . .

We were busy on the 4th of July, first we joined Longest Day of the Year at their show at the Boulder Farmer's Market (which is actually more like a bi-weekly street festival), then we played some on Pearl Street, and in the evening we played our show at the Laughing Goat. We were thrilled that folks decided to spend their 4th of July evening with us!

Yesterday we headed down to Conifer, CO to record a little bit at Sole Sound Recording Studios; we'll be finishing that little project the beginning of August and then. . .hmmm keep an ear out this fall (that's all we're at liberty to say right now). . .

This morning we crossed the Continental Divide and stopped at a great overlook to cool the brakes down. We've got our first day off today and tomorrow, so we'll be relaxing and enjoying the area for a