Lineup changes, a robbery and the sky-high price of gas were not enough to derail Luego as the band toured from Florida to New England this summer.
The 65-show tour ran from May 13 to Aug. 22 and was the first large scale jaunt for the local group, which had previously kept their performances in the South. They traveled from venue to venue by van, equipment in tow and food and lodging improvised.
"When you're in a van with four people, and oftentimes you go to a place where you don't know a soul, it's pretty strange," said singer, guitarist and leader Patrick Phelan, Trinity '07. Forced to rely on couchsurfing.com and hospitable showgoers, the band surprisingly managed to find housing in all but one locale.
The high price of gas, the group's "only real expense," Phelan said, made it very difficult to turn a profit on the tour, an obstacle faced by many small bands.
The problem was large enough to merit a July 6 Washington Post article prominently featuring Luego. Aside from fuel issues, the article also detailed an incident in Baltimore where the van was robbed of a cashbox containing $400 and an iPod among other things.
Expenses became easier to manage about 40 shows in, when Phelan chose to halve the size of the band.
"I let go of Spike [Brehm, a senior] on the bass and Dan [Carlin, Trinity '07] on the cello, because we were losing money and there were just artistic differences," Phelan said. Writing on the band's MySpace page, Phelan expressed his gratitude for fond memories playing together and thanked Brehm and Carlin for their support.
"We wanted it to be about collaboration, but he wanted it to be a follow-the-leader kind of thing," said Brehm. "He had musical dreams in his head, but we didn't fit into them."
The change reduced the band to just Phelan and drummer Chris DiMarco, enabling them to tour in Phelan's Honda Element and make six times more money, by Phelan's estimate. Various players filled in on bass and cello for some of the remaining performances, but Phelan said he enjoyed the new dynamic of playing with only DiMarco.
"We had to work really hard to keep the people and keep them interested," he said. "But the performances were actually more compelling, because Chris and I were on the same page."
DiMarco saw the experience as very beneficial for the two.
"We both had to come a long way musically, especially because we didn't have anywhere we could hide," he said. "It's a totally naked performance, and it's really out there, but I think we pulled it off."
The band has since added a permanent bassist, Josh Rose, and is working hard on putting out their first full-length album. The record, currently titled Taped-Together Stories, is expected to be ready by January. Phelan says Stories is the first of two LPs he is preparing. He expects it to have more of a rock 'n' roll feel than Luego's previous work.
The band said recording the album is a far different experience than touring, largely because of the band members' commitments now that they've returned home.
"Any space we can find to fill, we're doing our recording," DiMarco said.
But the band is still performing, and Phelan hopes to be back on the road to promote the new album after its release.
"We all have full-time jobs right now, so we can only record on weekends," he said. "And some of the weekends we have to be playing shows, because those are the money-making nights."
So goes the life of the aspiring rock star.
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