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Belated Tour Blog
Although this tour ended almost two months ago, the combination of my chronic (420! lolz.) laziness and how frantic shit has been has kept me from doing this. So, to the best of my knowledge, tour went a little something like this:
December 26th - We woke up, all in our own respective houses, and waited for the others to get ready and what not. Being that it was the day after Christmas, we were all in festive moods.
For instance:
After hours of waiting, we finally hit the road and headed for over 200 miles on the beautiful Indiana Toll Road. After attempts to piss Nick off for over 4 hours, we finally arrived in Norwalk, at the Reservoir Clubhouse. We met up with Victor! there. All the other bands were already there and in full swing. We did a bit of hanging before the show started:
Note: Bobby's face.
Anyway, the show was awesome, with Juniper Wait's new band splitting a set with The Aroma of Women:
^Despite my expression, I was actually pretty blown away.
Victor! ruled per usual, we just had no pictures due to the fact that they made us use their camera. Bummer. Antilles, with it being our first time seeing them, destroyed everything that night:
After that, our "crew", drove 45 minutes east to Cleveland, ate at an IHOP at 2 in the morning, and crashed at a hotel (after searching for one for 45 minutes) Killer also managed to insult a front desk women at the local Days Inn. All in a good night.
Day 2: We slept in late, then hit Cleveland to kill some time.
Talk about an interesting city, but the worst weather ever. Most of that probably contributing to the fact that I wore a shitty hoodie (surprise, surprise) Good time none the less, and got some rad shots of Cleveland.
We arrived at our ultimate goal. Cleveland Browns stadium. Nick almost had a stroke. Most of his hair fell out, and he had a horse shoe haircut for the rest of tour.
After killing time, and various buckets of gourmet popcorn at the Tower Mall, we headed to the Davenport in Parma Heights. Awesome venue/bar, and 5 dollar pizza for bands at the pizzeria upstairs. All the makings for a good show, except for severe lack of attendance. We opened to Victor! and the other band, _the network, who I will address in a second.
_the network was also on tour, so that makes 3 touring bands all on the same bill. A bill that consisted of three bands. Great booking. Anyway, not to discredit this band, they ruled EXTREMELY hard. Very awesome hardcore, and probably one of the loudest bands I have ever heard. Cool dudes too. I mean, their lead singer's name is Bones, and that right there is instant street cred. No pictures, but there is this picture:
Dem Bones.
Then Victor! played:
Here is where the night gets really interesting. While Victor! is playing their set (which we convinced them to play some oldies during), two dudes come over from the bar, one being at least 2 feet taller than his compadre.
For effect:
So anyway, Thor (left) and Little Andy (right), which is what I will call them, start rocking out to Victor! dancing, clapping (even when there is no music), and being generally awesome.
^Lovin' it.
Then, Little Andy comes back from the bar with his beer. Thor thinks it would be awesome to knock the beer out of Little Andy's hand. L.A gets sad. So, he gets another beer, and good times ensue. Then, they begin to "mosh" (with just themselves, mind you). Little Andy pushes Thor. Thor then realizes they are not friends anymore.
His face looked something like this:
He proceeds to pick up Little Andy and start to pummel him. Being that he is a full 2-3 feet taller than him, you can tell who will win. He threw the little guy into the wall and made a huge hole. The soundguy, who was also 2-3 feet shorter than Thor, had to come and throw them out. Thor did not understand why, and his face looked the same as it did in the previous picture. They left. We were crying from laughter at this point, and I think I am still laughing to this moment.
All in all, it was a good night.
Day 3 - We wake up and finally leave the hotel we've been at for two nights. We drive south to Columbus, OH, which turns out to be a pretty nice drive.
The town of Columbus is actually really awesome. We get there 7 hours early and do some sight seeing.
We didn't start taking pictures til that night however. Anyway, we dudes all bought various types of books and intellectual magazines and DVD's from a local shop while we waited, while Victor! went inside Bernie's and hungout.
"Hey guys! Break is over, why not get an early start to the semester?"
Anyway, Bernie's was a dive bar, and again, no one was there, due to the fact that there were three out of town bands on the same bill. Luckily. we again lucked out and met a bunch of awesome dudes in Let Me Run from New Jersey. So, to sum up the rest of the night:
(Bernie himself?)
true love (not sure who the other people are.)
and last but not least:
Good ol' red eye.
After that, we had an unfortunate turn of events, and had no place to stay. Luckily, our friend Marissa offered up her house in Muncie, so we made the 3 1/2 hour drive and got there and crashed at 6 in the morning. This was after Ryan got naked and did various poses on her futon, and we discussed the origins of the phrase "slob on my knob." Sleep tight.
Day 4 - We awoke at 2 or 3. Most of us showered, and Bobby and Killer shredded their face on the excellent razors Bobby's mom had bought him. We found a local Pizza Buffet named "Eatza Pizza" and decided to try it out. Disappointing? Well, yeah. Pat also pointed out Gary Coleman's wife, who worked there. We drove about an hour north to Marion, and arrived at the 803. It was maybe 50 degrees in the building when we got there, and didn't heat up much over the course of that night. Anyway, we met up with our best buds La Dispute and Ivan, who actually got us on the show. (Thanks again dudes) So, Victor! played, then us, (I think this was my favorite set of ours during tour), Ivan, La Dispute, The Quality Object (who are rad dudes and you should check them out.) and finally In The Face of War.
So after all those bands destroyed (sorry for lack of pictures, we got really forgetful about it) and some serious hanging out, we again were without a place to stay. So, I made a call to our brother Mallie in Civil Hands, and he talked his girlfriend Julie (total sweetheart) into letting us all crash at her apartment in Bloomington............3 hours away. Sigh.
So we drove all the way to Bloomington, got there, and after we all got inside, we realized after 45 minutes that one of us was missing. After some serious searching, we realized Dan was not there. We tried calling, but his phone was dead. Nick went outside and found Dan sitting outside with all of his luggage. Good times.
Day 5 - We awoke mid-afternoon and hung out with Mallie and the Bloomington crew for most of the day. After lounging around for hours, we headed to the Cinemat, a video store/venue, with the shows taking place in a screening room. This venue beyond ruled. Our brothers in Civil Hands met up with us, as did some old friends. Rob from Mouthbreather was there, and provided a PA, which no one thought to bring. The show was really unorganized, but turned out to be a really good time. Plus we got to hang with our bros, and that is always good. We even convinced Impure Jazz to play.
^De Jaya.
We played mediocre, and there are no pictures of Victor!, which is always a bummer. Still, a good time none the less. That night, we stayed with our main man Brad, at his place in Greenwood. Turns out he has an awesome house. So we slept comfortably on his living room floor.
Day 6 - We woke up on New Years Eve, and all showered and shaved. It was a nice change. Nick played with Brad's cat, which was in some serious heat (Not the DeNiro kind). Turn and Churn. We drove to Lafayette, and after getting some Ryan's buffet (where Jef helped himself to a plate of Jello and Mashed potatoes.) then headed to the Venue. La Dispute and Ivan were there as well that night. So we all met up, and spent New Years together. The show itself was a bit of a bummer, with attendance being EXTREMELY low (on New Years?! go figure) but we tried to make the best of it. Then, our friends Angela and Meg got a hotel room and offered to share it with our two grody bands. We accept. Laterz 2007.
The next couple days, we headed home to regroup, and finish a new song.
After playing the same 4 songs every night for the past two months, I would have rather played Stone Sour covers than to do that set again.
Day 6 - We packed all our shit back up, and headed to Kalamazoo. We met Victor! at Redrum. There are no pictures from these last two days, so I am going to keep these summaries short and sweet so it's not too boring. The show was saved by our friends from GR (the DTF crew) and our beloved Reptilian boys showing up and showing some love. So, Victor! ruled, per usual, Spit For Athena was great and Ozenza was heavy. We then crashed at Jessica's house, and had a fiesta in our underwear in her kitchen.
Day 7 - The final day. We drove the longest possible way to South Bend (making the drive twice as long) and arrived to an impressive show. Our bros in Civil Hands were there, so that right there is enough to cheer one up. A lot of great bands were part of that show, and the crowd was amazing. They played, Victor destroyed (we got them to play Sweaty Pipes, you should urge them to as well), and we played a rough, but good enough set. We said our tearful goodbyes to our brothers in V!FTS, and headed home and had a huge hangout.
So, although this blog gets less visual as time goes on, the tour didn't get any less fun. We learned that we love V!FTS more than anything, and can't wait to tour with them for even longer in July. Good times.
-Ed
*I will probably revise this, it just took me over two hours to write all that. I mean, damn!
Watch and Learn: A Thank-You, In Essay Form.
So to put it simply, we've had a rough couple of weeks:
-we lost our van, making us immobile except for local shows
-our myspace got deleted, eliminated all of our networking and contacts
-we all caught sickness at one point or another and had to cancel numerous practices and a show because of it
-we've had super inconsistent weather and suffered the consequences of it
But, of course, things began turning around with a little determination and hardwork:
-we got a new van, for free. bonus.
-we got a new myspace, better than the old one
-we've made friends with a couple great bands from the midwest in the past couple weeks (Antilles, Cougar Den, Charles the Osprey)
-we've made some really close friends in people that have come to see us lately
So things are definitely getting better. Moral is high, though we are sick right now, but still that will pass, and moral will remain high.
Here's where you come in:
This is a thank you to everyone who has posted a bulletin for us.
This is a thank you to everyone who has made a banner for us.
This is a thank you to everyone who has ever come to our shows and driven a good distance to make it.
This is a thank you to anyone who has ever bought a shirt, cd, sticker, pin or poster.
This is a thank you to anyone who has ever wanted our music via email or asked for a demo at shows.
This is a thank you to ALL of you for being our good friends and showing us the time of our lives.
This is a thank you to all of our best friends for helping us out in our time of need:
Victor! Fix The Sun
La Dispute
Civil Hands
Lion Of The North
Lautrec
We Are The Colossus
The Reptilian
Ivan
Impure Jazz
Schmitty Warheimer
The Quality Object
Without you guys, none of this is possible. As Doyle from Lion of the North put it, THIS is why we do this. This is why we drive hours through the snow, through stomach infections, through the flu, through the loss of vans, just to play to however many kids.
If anyone were to tell us six months ago that we'd come to know such an amazing group of people that would support us at such great lengths, I'd flat out call them a liar.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, thanks for proving us wrong.
All of you, take care, keep in touch. Thanks again for everything. We can't wait to see you faces again.
Love, your very dear Native boys.
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