So the tour is winding down.  And I gotta say, I'm a little bumbed.  As much as I missed my girlfriend, my family and my friends, it's got me a little sad that thing is soon coming to an end. We've made a lot of friends on this trek across the states and I'm really gonna miss em.  This has been the time of my life…

   But I digress. 

We're here in Charlotte, NC.  And it's actually pretty clean for a big city.  It's impressive.  However, it's muggy as hell.  And we're sweating like nobody's business. Man, even during soundcheck we're looking at each other like "Dude, we're not even moving and we're already dripping!!!"  But enough about the heat.  That comes with the job…

   By the time we hit the stage, the venue had a pretty good crowd waiting for us.  We've all been sick for the last week, and it's been a struggle to get through set without getting dizzy or getting stuffed up at the absolute worst time.  But tonight went pretty smooth.  The crowd really responded to us.  Actually, the response was huge.  I was blown away to hear the kind of applause we got.  It also answered a lot questions I had about how fans in the south would react to us.  All I know is, according to a lot you guys that were there, Charlotte loves Stealing December!  The comments we got were very flattering and to be honest, I felt a little bashful.  I guess it's that legendary southern hospitality you hear so much about. 

    I wanna say thanks to Mike and Tom for all the beers they treated us to.  And I gotta say a super huge thank you to Charlotte.  Y'all rock!

-Ryan

It's been nice having these days off to help break us into the touring lifestyle, but for me personally, I live for playing shows.  So after a good day off in Atlanta, we were more than ready to take the stage at the Roxy Theater.  The venue was pretty cool, the hall reminded me of the TLA in Philly and the bar area had a ton of music memorabilia on the wall from people that had played there in the past.

The other guys in the band had been battling colds and such, and it finally caught up to me in Atlanta.  I had been sneezing and coughing all day, and as my fellow singers out there know, that absolutely sucks when you have to sing later in the day cause your voice will wear out easier.  In the end, the show must go on!

We had a great show and a great response once again, even though the crowd was not quite as big as the past few shows.  The responses on this tour have been incredible.  It's an amazing feeling to have a room full of people that have never even heard of your band get into the music.  In Springfield over 1000 people had their hands in the air, Memphis brought an energetic setting from song one, and Atlanta was no different.  People really enjoy this band and what it has to offer and its been an amazing experience to be on this tour…

So here we go...  We rolled into Springfield knowing that the pre-sale on this thing was pretty huge.  What I mean by that is, the amount of tickets they sold prior to shows date.  The number was somewhere around 1500 or some mind blowing figure like that. So we figured this was gonna be a pretty big show.  But before I get to the show, let me give you a little run down of Springfield.  The people here completely and totally kick ass.  However, on the other, there is absolutley nothing around the venue.  We all felt literally stranded in the middle of no where.  No McDonalds. No Pizza Shops.  No Quick-i Marts.  Man, I've seen a Subway in just about stop from here to Tokyo, but even in this oasis, I found no cold cuts to purge my hunger.  Needless to say, we all pretty much starved...  But enough of the mello-drama...

So we took the stage here, not really knowing what to expect except that we were looking for a massive crowd.  Good lord did we get one!!!  By the time "Story" was done, I juts heard a wall of noise coming off the crowd that would've stunned the Pope.  These peeps in Springfield were awesome!!!  The songs and the band were welcomed like we were long lost friends.  Not to mention, looking out at that meny people can be pretty sobering. 

 
The only thing that kind of stuck out though, was the nasty acoustics of The Warehouse (that was the name of the venue).  For those who don't know what acoustics are, it pretty much the way sound travels in a room.  Sort of like yelling into a cave can cause an echo of your voice to continuously carry on.  Echo's are cool until they hit a wall and bounce back at you.  That makes for trouble.  We all had one hell of a time trying to hear ourselves the other night.  I'd play a note and  3 seconds later it would hit you again.  Ughhh!!!!  Mass hysteria!!!  But I digress..        

 
The rest of the night went off without a problem though.  The fans were really nice and complemented everything.  There were a lot more autographs then normal too.

Which is always a plus. LOL.  Not to mention Brandon's parents actually got to see us perform for the first time since we started this thing.  I know that had to be  cool for them.  First time ever in front of 1500 people!!!  Not bad, huh???  I guess I can also say that it'll never get old hearing Jacoby give us a shout out every night.

That still rocks the same way every night!

No, The Simpsons don't live here...

From Springfield

Ryan

After a killer night in Illinois we loaded up and headed back to Indiana.  I'm not gonna lie, headed back to another over 21 show made me kinda nervous.  Sometimes it's just hard to know what crowd is going to show up on a particular night, but we were really happy with the crowd that showed up to Fort Wayne!!

One of the cool parts of Pierre's in Fort Wayne is the dressing room is loaded with signed pictures of all the bands that have played there.  It seems like everyone played this place at some point in time, from RATT to Sr-71.  This place also had a pretty cool setup too; it was unique compared to some of the other clubs we've played so far.  The upper deck was packed as well as the floor, which always makes for a fun show.

Like I said, the show was killer, the crowd was great for us and got even more crazy by the time P Roach took the stage later that night.  Fort Wayne definitely knows how to rock and they shared their love with all the bands.  I heard a rumor that they are top 5 in the country for over 21 crowds and I believe it.  I just want to say thank you to everyone that has been coming out to the shows early enough to catch our set, you guys have been absolutely amazing so far!  Can't wait to see what the second leg of the tour has in store for us…

Catch you all on the road!

brandon