(no subject)
Jan 27 - Fargo, ND:
We woke up and hung out with Tommy for a little while before taking off. We hit up the MALL OF AMERICA. There was a lot of army shit there... got some patriotic pictures, politely called someone a fascist, got my glasses fixed at lenscrafters (for free), met up with my sister (really fuckin nice to see her), got a pair of gloves (for free), got treated to lunch, and drove to fargo.
case in point: FARGO FUCKING RULES. best time i've ever had playing a show. the show was really well attended, we were well taken care of by the promoter, any day played solid as fuck, the crowd got into it and stayed into it the whole time.... basically everything you ever hope for went down. i can't wait to go back.
we hung out for awhile at one of the dudes' house... ate stolen food and talked for awhile and hit the road. real fuckin cool kids.
Jan 28 - Milwaukee, WI:
We tried driving through the night but all of us were just way too tired. nick made it almost to the border of wisconsin, and i only made it a couple hours to eau claire. around 8 am i pulled into a gas station and slept for a couple hours. then i woke up and got us into madison and justin got us the rest of the way. i can't wait to post all the fucking ridiculous photos from this tour.
we got to justin's, hung out, and then drove to shorewood. turnout was a little disappointing, but totally predictable for a show on a monday that was barely promoted. we still had fun. the band who was touring with liferuiner, ambush!, seemed really into us. their performance seemed a little too choreographed, but i was pretty into their music.. which weirdly enough sounds nothing like their recordings. sucks they're from florida but maybe we'll get down there someday.
the promoter stiffed us. we saw it coming. no kids + tour package = we get stiffed. but we sold some merch and the last three days we were well taken care of by the promoters.
i got to see a bunch of familiar faces which brought me up. i was having kind of a shitty day on the personal end of things. sara and sarah showed up but a little too late.
we went back to justin's and hung for awhile and fell asleep.
Jan 29 - Franklin, IN:
We got out the door a little late and that was even before we realized we didn't take into consideration the fact that there would be a time zone change. Nick did most of the driving which was great. I got a good amount of sleep and took over around Indianapolis. He drove through some fucking intense thundering, which we later found out was due to a tornado right around where we were coming from. Got Taco Bell before we hit the road again, which surprisingly, was the first Taco Bell stop of the entire tour. we got moving again and were running a little late which is where the bullshit started.
the turnout for the show was pretty bad. i'd be generous to say 30 kids were there at the height of it. bad fucking attitudes all around. the two big touring bands never showed which was stressing everybody out and we were gonna open but we drove through a tornade so we were a little behind. the dude who was in charge of the show, who was different than the dude who hooked us up. but anyway the guy who was in charge was saying how we should play 5th. right before the band that he knew wasn't going to show up. they never even got a callback number to be like "uhh where are you." we convinced one band to let us go before them. they got pissed that there were so few people and left. so the only bands who played were local metalcore bands who talked about god in between their songs. the last band featured the dude who set up the show. a handful of kids were there specifically for us. they picked up some merch (which we badly needed them to do.. they totally bailed us out) and left before that last band.
i didn't care that they were playing for their girlfriends and that's it. he obviously didn't give two fucks about whether or not we had the money to get home, whether we played for 20 kids or 0, whether we lived or fucking died. he was a complete dick and has no place putting together shows if he's willing to stiff a touring band. like it's our fault no one wanted to stay and watch his shitty christian metalcore band. trent made sure to preface 'empty pages' with "this song is about how there's no such thing as god."
anyway. we guilted the promoter into giving us 10 bucks. sold about 50 in merch. and up until last night in milwaukee we'd been taken care of, so we're not really fucked at all, we just probably won't have much to put towards the van payment. but we were planning on paying that out of pocket anyways so no biggie.
on our way to kokomo, where ben from in the face of war is offering up his home to us, we were going 60 on this secondary highway and hit a patch of ice. we were sliding sideways. i turned the wheel. we started sliding sideways the other way. we pretty much spun out all over the road and landed about 1 foot shy of the ditch on the right side. we all took a minute to collect ourselves and slowly backed out and drove 30 mph the rest of the way. i always escape what are potentially the worst situations relatively unscathed. like... we could've flipped our van. easily. and my bike accident last summer could've resulted in way more permanent damage. i must be the luckiest fucking kid on earth.
apparently, when we started spinning out all i said was.. "uhh.. guyyyys?" as if no one would've noticed otherwise. nice.
anyway, here we are at ben's place and there's some sweet vegan restaurant we're journeying to tomorrow. sweet. sleepy time.
We woke up and hung out with Tommy for a little while before taking off. We hit up the MALL OF AMERICA. There was a lot of army shit there... got some patriotic pictures, politely called someone a fascist, got my glasses fixed at lenscrafters (for free), met up with my sister (really fuckin nice to see her), got a pair of gloves (for free), got treated to lunch, and drove to fargo.
case in point: FARGO FUCKING RULES. best time i've ever had playing a show. the show was really well attended, we were well taken care of by the promoter, any day played solid as fuck, the crowd got into it and stayed into it the whole time.... basically everything you ever hope for went down. i can't wait to go back.
we hung out for awhile at one of the dudes' house... ate stolen food and talked for awhile and hit the road. real fuckin cool kids.
Jan 28 - Milwaukee, WI:
We tried driving through the night but all of us were just way too tired. nick made it almost to the border of wisconsin, and i only made it a couple hours to eau claire. around 8 am i pulled into a gas station and slept for a couple hours. then i woke up and got us into madison and justin got us the rest of the way. i can't wait to post all the fucking ridiculous photos from this tour.
we got to justin's, hung out, and then drove to shorewood. turnout was a little disappointing, but totally predictable for a show on a monday that was barely promoted. we still had fun. the band who was touring with liferuiner, ambush!, seemed really into us. their performance seemed a little too choreographed, but i was pretty into their music.. which weirdly enough sounds nothing like their recordings. sucks they're from florida but maybe we'll get down there someday.
the promoter stiffed us. we saw it coming. no kids + tour package = we get stiffed. but we sold some merch and the last three days we were well taken care of by the promoters.
i got to see a bunch of familiar faces which brought me up. i was having kind of a shitty day on the personal end of things. sara and sarah showed up but a little too late.
we went back to justin's and hung for awhile and fell asleep.
Jan 29 - Franklin, IN:
We got out the door a little late and that was even before we realized we didn't take into consideration the fact that there would be a time zone change. Nick did most of the driving which was great. I got a good amount of sleep and took over around Indianapolis. He drove through some fucking intense thundering, which we later found out was due to a tornado right around where we were coming from. Got Taco Bell before we hit the road again, which surprisingly, was the first Taco Bell stop of the entire tour. we got moving again and were running a little late which is where the bullshit started.
the turnout for the show was pretty bad. i'd be generous to say 30 kids were there at the height of it. bad fucking attitudes all around. the two big touring bands never showed which was stressing everybody out and we were gonna open but we drove through a tornade so we were a little behind. the dude who was in charge of the show, who was different than the dude who hooked us up. but anyway the guy who was in charge was saying how we should play 5th. right before the band that he knew wasn't going to show up. they never even got a callback number to be like "uhh where are you." we convinced one band to let us go before them. they got pissed that there were so few people and left. so the only bands who played were local metalcore bands who talked about god in between their songs. the last band featured the dude who set up the show. a handful of kids were there specifically for us. they picked up some merch (which we badly needed them to do.. they totally bailed us out) and left before that last band.
i didn't care that they were playing for their girlfriends and that's it. he obviously didn't give two fucks about whether or not we had the money to get home, whether we played for 20 kids or 0, whether we lived or fucking died. he was a complete dick and has no place putting together shows if he's willing to stiff a touring band. like it's our fault no one wanted to stay and watch his shitty christian metalcore band. trent made sure to preface 'empty pages' with "this song is about how there's no such thing as god."
anyway. we guilted the promoter into giving us 10 bucks. sold about 50 in merch. and up until last night in milwaukee we'd been taken care of, so we're not really fucked at all, we just probably won't have much to put towards the van payment. but we were planning on paying that out of pocket anyways so no biggie.
on our way to kokomo, where ben from in the face of war is offering up his home to us, we were going 60 on this secondary highway and hit a patch of ice. we were sliding sideways. i turned the wheel. we started sliding sideways the other way. we pretty much spun out all over the road and landed about 1 foot shy of the ditch on the right side. we all took a minute to collect ourselves and slowly backed out and drove 30 mph the rest of the way. i always escape what are potentially the worst situations relatively unscathed. like... we could've flipped our van. easily. and my bike accident last summer could've resulted in way more permanent damage. i must be the luckiest fucking kid on earth.
apparently, when we started spinning out all i said was.. "uhh.. guyyyys?" as if no one would've noticed otherwise. nice.
anyway, here we are at ben's place and there's some sweet vegan restaurant we're journeying to tomorrow. sweet. sleepy time.