Our spring of 2011 Barnstormer got unlucky for three of its five days, as cold temperatures really made things tough. We saw snow and a lot of white breath the first night as we played the Free Range Film Festival Barn in Wrenshall, Minn., up near Duluth. We were in the middle of nowhere and we caught an amazingly crappy day of weather. Keegan DeWitt's van got royally stuck in the mud and yet, the night was a pretty one with some incredible performances by Guards, DeWitt, Sondre Lerche, Hellogoodbye and The Romany Rye. We next hauled to Chicago, to play in a barn owned by the city of Streamwood. It was a great place and it was here that Hellogoodbye brought out an old chestnut that floored everyone.
We moved on to our first experience with Dexter, MI, and we weren't prepared for how wonderful it was going to be. We had the first ever pre-sale sell out of a Barnstormer show and the audience was electric. It was the last night of the tour for Hellogoodbye, who jumped up on stage and played a song with Sondre. This night couldn't have been any better. Once again, we get to Monticello, Ill., and things continued on their hot streak. We added Mike & The Moonpies, who were playing their first show ever outside the state of Texas, and ARMS, from Brooklyn. Everything that happened this night was special. The last night of the tour in Maquoketa once again exceeded expectations. It was another huge crowd of nearly 500 people and there were more moments of chilling, arm-hair-raising that you'd imagine. It was the lone show that Los Angeles band HANDS played, performing right before ARMS.