Chapin Sisters Tour Blog #2: Humidity, Shopping, And Rain!

Now back in the states, touring with She & Him and preparing for the September 14th release of their new album Two, the Chapin Sisters are going full-force into the heat of the summer. In this entry, the Chapin Sisters tell us about how humid it really is in the south, what kind of historic landmarks are in Alabama and eventually, rain!

This has been a hot and sweaty week for us through the southeast! After the 4th of July in NY, where we battled 100 degree temperatures at our outdoor show on Governor’s Island we’ve only headed South and into the thick of it (literally- the humidity in Alabama is no joke!)

Tuesday in DC we played at the 9:30 club. It was so hot we could barely leave the building, but we did wander around the Ethiopian neighborhood nearby in the afternoon. The show was great, they gave us cupcakes backstage and we filmed an interview segment for PBS’s Newshour Arts Beat Blog during sound check.

The next day we had a day off in Chapel Hill, NC.  We found an amazing vintage store where we bought dresses, and for dinner we ate ourselves silly at Lantern. Today we’re in Birmingham, Alabama, where we are playing at a supposedly haunted steel factory called Sloss Furnaces. It’s on the national registry of Historic Landmarks and is crazy-looking: enormous iron structures, levers and tubes on an extremely grand scale. We’ve spent the day wandering through the coalmines and up and down abandoned staircases through the factories. The heat-wave we’ve been chasing finally broke, and the sky is blue!

Friday took us to Atlanta, where we stopped over at WMLB, a local independent radio station (the last in the area!) We learned that Emmylou Harris had been there two weeks ago. Night took us to the beautiful Atlanta Botanical Gardens, where there are carnivorous plants, glow-in-the-dark frogs, and flora and foliage of all description.

The show was out on a beautiful green, and people had arrived with wine and lawn chairs. The audience was warned that if there was to be rain the show would still go on, but if there was lightning and thunder, they would be ushered into an indoor “evacuation room” to wait out the storm.  So, we kept our fingers crossed. During our first song, an a cappella chant, the sky - a blur of blues grays and hazel - started to rumble and flash.  Halfway through our second song there was a flurry of color, as umbrellas popped open throughout the crowd, and parkas were lifted overhead. Then the thunderstorm began. We were ushered into the back area, where we wandered into an indoor terrarium.  We waited out the rain among baby quail and singing birds, giant plants reached out from all sides in the green glow, a glass ceiling the only reminder of the wild weather outside.

The rain eventually stopped in time for She + Him to play a few songs to the crowd.  All in all it was a very strange night.

A + L

Check out more pictures from Lily and Abigail's adventures after the jump!!