On Friday we headed down to Ports O’ Call in San Pedro for the second stop of the Railroad Revival Tour. It was sort of a last-minute deal for us but we ended up getting a push cart backstage and we gave away a couple hundred ice creams to the folks hanging out and working.
Mumford and Sons, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and Old Crow Medicine Show met up in Oakland, California the night before for a show then hopped onto a vintage 14-car train and headed south to San Pedro. The six stop tour will take them all the way across the country ending in New Orleans on Wednesday. I think most people enjoy traveling by train but the logistics can be tough.
The train showed up around 4:30 as they were letting people into the show and Old Crow only had an hour or so to get ready to take the stage. This didn’t seem to affect their performance at all as they were very high energy and it seemed like everyone was enjoying being on the train, even if they weren’t getting much sleep.
Edward Sharpe was next and their set seemed to start off on a more mellow, jammy kinda vibe before picking up steam and knocking out a couple of their bigger singles, “Home” and “40 Day Dream” that got everyone singing along.
Right before Mumford and Sons went on I handed the cart over to Crash and headed out into the audience to see what the setup was like. I heard they sold 8000 tickets but it didn’t seem overly crowded which was nice. The only issue I really saw was that Mumford and Sons are so big now, that they’ve crossed over that gap where it’s not ‘music’ fans that like them but people who don’t normally go to shows or festivals. People were spending $16 for two beers and double fisting them while getting ready to sing along to new favorite band. We stuck around a bit to watch some of the show then skipped out early to avoid traffic. I do kinda wish I would have stuck around til the very end to see all the bands play “This Train is Bound for Glory” before hopping back on the train and heading for Tempe, AZ
You can follow the tour at RailroadRevivalTour.com. The train stops in Austin, Tx tomorrow and New Orleans on Wednesday but I think both those shows are already sold out.
Big thanks to Dave, Jim, Greg, Ron, Cody and the rest of the gang for helping to get us out there. We wish them all luck with the rest of the tour.
