The band finished at 119 Bar, home court when they are in Manhattan. Drinks were drunk, pharmacological experiments took place, lies were told, all before the sun came up and chased them back to the SoHo Grand, where they got a short nap before waking up and doing exactly the same thing.
On Wednesday there were two songs on Carson Daly's show, a sold-out concert at Webster Hall -- Liv Tyler showed up and did the hang thing -- and an after-party at Delancey Bar, followed by another daylight exit from the 119. Nice, but very exhausting work, if you can get it.
The rest
On Thursday there were interviews with MTV, Fuse, Q magazine from Britain, Bass Player magazine for Jared and then dinner with another reporter.
By the time they arrived for the dinner, at Freeman's, a Lower East Side restaurant with significant hipster credentials, they were cold, tired, and just about talked out.
They shivered through a photo shoot and then settled in for food, their first real meal of the day. The band's mood brightens when they see the wine list: One of the hobbies they have picked up since hitting the big time is fancy wines, and they maneuver around the list with expertise and gusto.
With a bus call for Philadelphia in the morning, Kings of Leon's New York minute is just about over. Jared, the boyish bassist of the band -- he is 18, after all -- found the 96 hours of white hot light and very little sleeping in New York to be exhilarating.
"It was easy to go over to Europe and deal with that," he said, tearing into the macaroni and cheese that Freeman's is known for. "But you come over here and do David Letterman and Rolling Stone and all that stuff, it is a lot more scary."
The band was in Chicago two Fridays ago and will spend the month of March relentlessly touring, trying to translate all of the press and hype into an actual hit record. At the end of the month, they will join up with U2 and begin opening shows for them.
In most every town, there will be people lining up to tell them they are the last great hope of rock music, regardless of how true it is. And they'll take the praise while it comes.
"We know but for this," Nathan said, gesturing to his band, "we'd be painting houses in Oklahoma."
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