There's a bar in Canandaigua in upstate New York that has the lyrics to "Come With Me" off our Piston Baroque album handwritten in full on the wall behind the bar... It's right there to greet you. We didn't know about it until we saw it. You can imagine our surprise when we walked into the bar, just to stop in for a drink, sitting ourselves down on the barstools, ordered, and looked up to find those words written on the wall just over the barman's shoulder. I don't think any of the other patrons noticed what we were so surprised about. Maybe just thought our jaws dropped because we were thirsty. But there the the words sit. Written on a wall far to be seen by the drinkers on first dates, last dates, and everything in between. Maybe nobody will notice them. Maybe those words will seep through their time spent there.

With the band, we've spent an awful lot of time in bars and clubs over the last couple of years. We're in there at night to play, of course, but we're also there earlier in the day to load-in, set-up, soundcheck and sometimes eat. Often nobody is around. Other times there are a few afternoon patrons, and the day-drinking crowd, depending on whether it's a bar, club, or whatnot.

Which brings us to Arhus, Denmark. The "jewel of jutland" is Denmark's second largest city. A university town with a large port. Full of about a quarter of a million atypically gorgeous Danish folk who call it home. The Town Pants were there to play a show there in the autumn of 2000.

It was our second European tour. So we were all feeling like quite the travelling experts on this one. Experienced journeymen who knew the bumps in the road like the back of our hand and we didn't expect anything too out of the ordinary than what we experienced the first time in Europe. But this is a new stop--and we'd never been to Arhus before, much less this bar we were in, playing that night. We set up and soundcheck, then have lunch and a drink at the front of the bar when I notice two large men and another smaller fellow who were drinking and watching the bar TV, now looking over at our table with a bit of curiosity.It wasn't hard to notice. The bar was mostly empty around that time of the early afternoon, with just a couple of the barmen at work restocking for the night, and a couple of other patrons sitting by themselves, reading and having a drink.

I was intently noticing them. Not so much because they looked like they meant business but because they were speaking English--they were British. And they were the first English speakers I'd heard for awhile on the tour. Figuring I'd break the ice, I speak up and ask where they're from. "The UK... British Sailors in the Royal Navy.", says the middle one. "How about you lads?" he asks nonchalantly. They perk up when we tell them we're from Canada, and that we're the band that's was playing in the club tonight. As it turns out, they were noticing us for the same reasons we were noticing them--we were all speaking English here in the middle of Denmark.
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