Walking into The Bomb Factory to see Tripping Daisy on Saturday night, everyone noticed the same thing first: the longest merch line of all time. It began at the front entrance and snaked all the way through the venue to the bar on the left side of the venue. Granted, the selection was pretty awesome. New I Am An Elastic Firecracker-themed tour shirts, celebrating the album’s 30th anniversary. The Tripping Daisy classic red, white and blue logo shirt. Beautiful posters, and a handful of rare bundles for $200, featuring trinkets pulled directly from Tim DeLaughter’s archives.
The line was populated in groups. Middle-aged men were the primary demographic, either grouped together in packs reliving their glory days through music, or paired up with their teenage children and trying to explain how Tripping Daisy made those days glorious at all. There were the DeLaughter diehards, the ones you see at every Polyphonic Spree show, and who have informed opinions about Preteen Zenith. And then there were the teenagers and 20-somethings, all of whom certainly weren’t around to see the band in its prime, but still think of the psych-pop-rock outfit as one of the hippest projects to ever come out of Dallas.
“Loud and loose. Quiet and tight. Young and old. Weirdos are all the same age,” guitarist Phillip Karnats told us last summer…