On our last blog we left off at Myrtle Beach. After that show we played the final 2 shows w/ Collective Soul & Gavin Degraw in Florida. The Orlando show was amazing! We played a massive House of Blues pretty much smack dab in the middle of Disney World. The crowd was great; nice & loud! After the show we all hung out pretty late w/ the CS & Degraw band and crew. We went down to Planet Hollywood and had one last hurrah. It was blast. We had a ton of fun on tour w/ all them, and it was pretty cool how close everybody had gotten by the end of it. Kinda like one big touring family. The next day we played the last show in Ft. Lauderdale and said our goodbye’s to everyone. All in all the tour was amazing. The Collective Soul guys have always been super cool to us since the first time we met them & they have helped our band out a ton over the past couple years. It was also really cool getting to hang w/ Gavin and his band, seriously an awesome group of guys.  

After the show we packed up and drove 4 hours back to Orlando. We got in at about 2:45am and woke up at 5:15am to play on a TV show called “The Daily Buzz”. We were SUPER tired, but the show was really great. As soon as it was over, we went back and crashed at the hotel till noon. So there we were in Orlando, w/ a whole day off and too poor to go to Disney World. We decided to see if we could sneak into the Hard Rock Resort because we heard they had a massive sweet pool. Annnnd it worked! Just act like you know what your doing and nobody stops ya. So we spent the rest of the day lounging, catching some sun, sipping on margaritas, and enjoying the sweeet Hard Rock pool. 

From there we made the long drive from Orlando to Indy to jump on the David Cook tour. On the way we stopped in Nashville. We hung out w/ Josh’s brother Matt and we went to NAMM ( a musicians gear heaven). We made it to Indy and the first couple shows w/ David were amazing! The crowds were INSANE! The 4^th show on the tour we played a giant fair in West Bend, Wisconsin, one of my favorite shows of the summer. The weather was perfect and there were over 15,000 people at the show. We got there early and got hang out w/ David Cook’s band and crew. We threw the Frisbee and football and their tour manager grilled out for everyone. It was awesome.
 

We’re always a little nervous going into a new tour b/c you never know if you’re going to hit it off w/ the other band. But David, his band, and crew are awesome! Seriously some of the coolest group of guys we have met on the road.  David and his band are super down to earth and have been incredibly cool to us. We’ve had a blast getting to hang w/ them the past couple weeks, and I can’t say enough good things about them as players and guys. From there we played a massive casino in Minnesota (I lost $4 to penny slots) and another huge fair in Iowa. The Iowa fair was awesome! We ate fresh Iowa corn, got sick on carnival rides (the hurricane destroyed me), watched a killer firework show, and had a great show (despite David  and TC  throwing peanuts at us the whole time….but don’t worry we got them back during their set). 

THE WRECK

So it’s been about a month since we embarked on our summer adventure. We left Texas knowing this summer would hold some great times and some less than great times. Getting to share the stage with Gavin and Collective Soul has been such a cool experience for us. Some of the most exciting parts of touring is what happens when everyone is hanging out after the show. So many stories are told and random conversations happen. We have had a few really cool moments. Summerfest was one of these! This is something that we had heard so much about and it did not disappoint. There were close to 10,000 people. It was an insane show! We were on the stage with Collective Soul and Gavin Degraw while Train was also playing 100 yard away. All bands we look up to. Such a cool experience. We left Milwaukee and made our way to St Louis where we played a 4th of July show with Train underneath the arch. There is something amazing about the 4th. The great outdoors, good food and drink and fireworks! Can’t get much better. After St Louis we made our way to Tulsa where a few of our friends and family came to hang out with us!

I feel like sometimes our job is to drive professionally as much as it is to be musicians. We have clocked some serious miles in the last few years. In the many miles we trek there are always close calls and we have been lucky enough to avoid some serious accidents. Thank the Lord!  Well we weren’t so lucky 2 days ago. We were in Minnesota playing an outdoor festival called Basillica Block Party. We were opening for Matt Nathanson and Counting Crows. 2 amazing artists! The show was amazing. There were 15,000 people there and the weather was amazing. Cities 97 (the radio station) had invited us out and has been playing “Come On”. It was pretty dang cool to see people in Minnesota singing along. The night was full of great moments. Between our set and Matt Nathanson there was a sandwich eating contest. Who could eat the most Jimmy Johns foot long subs! These weren’t any amateurs. The #2 and #5 eaters in the world? Yea there is such a thing. They had 6 mins to eat as many as possible. The winner threw down 21 sandwiches. It was insane and kind of disturbing how much food they ate. We enjoyed Matt and the Counting Crows. We were stage side for the Counting Crows singing along and soaking it up!

After the show we loaded in the van at midnight to head to meet back up with the Collective Soul and Gavin boys. We had a 22 hr drive ahead of us to Myrtle Beach which we were going to drive straight. Geoff kicked off the first leg and drove the graveyard shift till about 5. Jamey relieved him and we were making our way just outside of Chicago when we all woke up to the van swerving to barely keep control. Yep a kind gentleman from out of town was not sure what to do with the toll signs so he decided to give a strong brake on the highway. Our vehicle does not stop that fast so Jamey did all he could do to miss the vehicle. All in all it was just a mild fender bender that could have been much worse. We sat on the side of the highway repairing our vehicle to try to get it back on the road. Thanks to Denton Hunker beating our bumper with a steel pole he borrowed from the cops we were ready to roll. A few bruises but good to go! We made it to Myrtle Beach in 27 hrs..had a great show last night and now are on our way to Orlando!

josh