Pitchfork

As the legendary Mission of Burma make their way down the West Coast on a week-long trek, guitarist Roger Miller shares his tour diary with Pitchfork. Stay tuned for daily entries ("Of course, it depends a bit on free WiFi," Miller says.)

Here's part ten, in which Burma end the tour in San Diego.

Read part nine here.
Read part eight here.
Read part six here.
Read part five here.
Read part four here.
Read part three here.
Read part two here.
Read part one here.

Are you getting bored of this yet? Definitely feels like the end of the tour. All a bit tired, but fine. Loaded gear out of the Troubadour and then on to San Diego. Stopped off for some superb fish tacos, then picked up some bass strings; if Clint breaks one tonight, we can still finish the show. And that extra-long guitar cable I used last night got coiled around my beer during the show and knocked it over onto my Vacu-Trem Unit during the set! So we picked up a more reasonable 12' cable-- no beer knock-overing tonight...

This is Sharon's hometown, and she guided us to Brick by Brick, the venue for tonight. A fine, if slightly divey, space-- and they have Arrogant Bastard on tap! Then my memory kicked in, and I recalled No Man opening up for No Means No here in 1991. We had loaded out before the violence happened-- and the story was that it was pretty ugly. Tonight we're going to burn incense and hang peace signs all over the club to defray the mayhem.

So SoCal

Check into the hotel after soundcheck. Bob and Keats go to a sports game (baseball is a sport, right?) Pete stays in the hotel working on his Transcendental Meditation techniques. Clint, Jimmy, Sharon and I go to the beach. Beautiful night on the beach, and Clint actually goes into the water, curiously wearing Bob's trunks. Back to the hotel.

Everyone in San Diego perpetually apologizes for San Diego. But the club was fine-- spacious, good sight lines, good sound. The opening local act, Kill me Tomorrow, was very interesting-- had a bit of the "loft-art scene" feel from 1979. An excellent opening act. 50 Foot Wave was superb as usual-- it'll be odd not to see them every day.

Since we had been so "warned" about how lame it was going to be in San Diego, the large and very enthusiastic crowd won us over quickly. No broken strings tonight, so the flow was a lot better. After the show, a gent who had seen us the night before in L.A. said that this show was a lot better. A-OK with me, and a fine way to end the tour.

Set List for Brick by Brick