wireless networks have been a little hard to find these first few days, so i apologize for the lack of posts thus far…
DAY 1:
the most notable thing about this photo is that the sliding door is open – a couple of tours back, it fell off at a rest stop in ohio. we got it fixed last week, so no more climbing over the front seats every time we get in and out of the van. also noteworthy is the ridiculous amount of stuff we brought with us, but this will be our longest tour ever, so it’s not like we don’t need it all.
sensing that we might need more stuff in our van, jordan the cat attempted to stow away. we hit the road more or less on time, made good time to johnson city, and once again arrived before the venue was open.
the bar’s decoration included some awesome 8-bit paintings, done by the soundguy. it was one of our best johnson city shows to date, in that we were the main draw this time, and we had 30 or 40 people turn up. however, places to stay were scarce, so we pressed on to nashville, arriving at about 4 am.
DAY 2:
shows in nashville are often hard to come by for us, but we always stop there regardless. this time around, we got booked at a new orleans style blues/cajun restaurant that may not have ever had a rock show before.
the show was opened by the loblaws (wyatt and todd from second saturday with todd’s two brothers), who are awesome (click this link, scroll down to the FAQ, and read the second question for an interesting glimpse of things to come (which may be of particular interest if you are, like me, a late 90’s pop punk nerd)).
the show is great, by nashville standards, and is only marred by the venue telling us AFTER the show that if we wanted to get paid, we should have had someone charging at the door (the show was free, but the venue had a $5 food/drink minimum, which it had been implied we would get a cut of).
the weather has been alternately pleasant and rainy. this is a picture of the latter.
i’m not really sure what to say about this.
DAY 3:
we drove in the rain all day, and it rained intermittently up until a couple hours before the show. highlights of said show included another awesome set from SS:
and a doppelganger:
also of note was a restaurant across the street from the show that apparently serves something i had assumed was inedible:
DAY 4:
after a delicious brunch at Venom’s parent’s house, we hit the road for pensacola. the weather held up, we made good time, and were greeted at chris’ with pizza!
our show was at the newly re-modeled sluggo’s, and was pretty great. the main stage is now in a room that used to be used for AA meetings, so the walls were covered with inspirational messages like this:
among others, we shared the bill with a terrible band from kansas city (who had apparently opened for the used recently) who brought out a bunch of screaming 15 year old girls. turns out, 15 year-old the Used fans love kg.
[for another account of our travels, see Mandy's blog.]
