Howdy,
It's been so long since we posted a blog documenting our adventures. Seems like the last official blog dates back to May of this year and was posted on June 4th and that was about our tour to Pennsylvania, New York, and Chicago.
We also have to write up about our huge U.S. Tour from April which took us to states like North Dakota, Montana, Washington, Oregon, California, etc. In time it will all be posted. Plus we have plenty of footage from the road that we're compiling for you all to see in the future.
From what I can remember we played at a place in Minneapolis called "STATION 4" on June 5th. The drive was fairly decent. The weather wasn't terribly hot. We saw our good friends Ash and Katie. They brought along their friend Jayden too. The opening band was a two piece. Bassist/vocalist and a drummer. I believe they were both brothers which was cool. They were loud as heck! They had enough sonic soundscape to make the building rattle. I'm kicking myself for not writing this blog sooner but as soon as I remember what the band's name is i'll post it here. We played for about 90 minutes or so. Afterwards a bunch of guys wanted to hang out but we were pretty tired. Ash gave me this really cool shirt that has Kurt's Jagstang Schematic on the back. All of us went back to her and had a few drinks (I however was too tired and didn't drink anything at all.) Sam and Alex were pretty tired as well so we crashed out at about 4am I think.
The next morning we began our drive to Des Moines Iowa. The location: PEOPLE'S COURT! No Judge Wapner here..just a great big room with a huge stage and lots of cool folks. We played here before back in March and I remember these cool fans Suzanne and her friends came out. There was this one blonde dude (Lance? Steve?) that came out the first and was there again. Dude...if you're reading this i'm so sorry. I'm trying to catch up here. The night went very well. We played for 3 hours straight! NO BREAK! The fans kept us on stage and we were glad to play as long as their hearts were content. After the show we took time to thank people and sign some things. We also gave away a copy of Gillian G. Gaar's book "A ROUGH GUIDE TO NIRVANA" but I never heard back from the winner. If you're reading this....please write a review of the book at
www.amazon.com Thanks! :)
Here's a clip from the Des Moines show.On June 12th we found ourselves within Buffalo NY at a place called Rhino's. We met some long time friends there...Sandy and Jim! They saw us at Club Infinity last year and had been dying to see us again. Apparently the Penguins won the big game that night so people were pre-celebrating elsewhere. Even so.....we STILL played a full set of music and even went back for a couple of encores. The staff was very friendly and nice. Tom was cool and we hope to see him again in the near future.
June 13th....The Starland Ballroom (Sayreville, NJ). This show was so awesome! Over 1,000 showed up and they all dug our set! Our friends Pat, Becky, Chris (whom we FINALLY MET!), Rych (whom suggested we play at The Starland! THANKS FOR THE HELP!) and many many others came out for our show! It was insane! It was hard for me to really see the audience becuase the lights were so bright on stage and pointing straight at my face. I didn't know if the crowd was moshing or not. I kept thinking that they were'nt so we kept playing some aggressive tunes. haha! Our set was intense and i'm glad that you were all there to share that with us.
Here's a clip of the NJ show Sorry the audio is horrible. We hung out by the merch table while the other guys played and hung out with so many fans. We met lots of parents too. They brought their kids along to share the excitement of what it was like to see a show in the 90's. Thanks to all you people for making his a cool show! Afterwards we went to some little restaurant....stayed at a hotel...then made our way back home to Chicago.
June 18th....The U.S. Virgin Islands! We've been here before and we were very excited about the opportunity to see our friends again. Our flights were on time and we were picked up by our great friend Alan from 104.3 THE BUZZ! Alan and The Caribbean Saloon set us up at a very nice hotel and had us rest up before taking a ferry from St. Thomas (where we landed) to St. John. We met some of the locals and promoted our shows on the island. First show took place later that evening in St. John. The setting was pretty mellow. We had some unusual circumstances that we had to deal with but all in all we still had fun. We tested some stuff out for the next night. After our show a few of the locals wanted us to stay and party but we really really had to get back to St. Thomas to get some rest. We took a water taxi which was the coolest thing ever since we took one in the middle of the night! DJ ROB (Another great friend of ours) and I were talking about the most random stuff possible! lol! This man has the best converations ever! We load our guitars and bags into Alan's car and then it happened...one of his tires went flat. Luckily we were near a gas station and Alan pumped air into his tire. The poor guy had to sleep at the station so that he could be up in time to do his broadcast. We went to his place....he got his clothes...and then he dropped us off. The next afternoon Alan calls and tells us that his wheel fell off....then something happened to another guy's car ("Web" from The Buzz as well) and even Christina's (From the Buzz too!) car was having problems that very same day! Omg! Must have been a bad day for vehicles. Luckily Web finally got his car up and running and he picked us up at the hotel (on the opposite side of the St. Thomas) to take us to the Caribbean Saloon (the happiest place on earth as far as i'm concerned).
We see our awesome friend Terrie, DJ Rob, and Frank! These guys are all smiles! Such great attitudes and genuine sweethearts. We set up our gear....Frank and his co-workers change the surroundings a bit to accomodate the stage and we began to soundcheck. We brought up Terrie to the drumkit to practice a number with us. All was going very well! After rehearsing/soundcheck we sat down and ate some of the best food the island has to offer. I looked out the window and this huge rainbow stuck out over St. John. It was quite a site. Terrie was nice for driving back to the hotel since the rest of the vehicles weren't doing so well. We were so tired from the night before. We slept for about 3 hours and then were picked up by Cristina and we headed back to the Saloon. We set the stage....had Web do a great intro and we began with "Radio Friendly Unit Shifter". We were off to a a very good night. We began to mix up our set a little starting with Terrie joining us on stage for Metallica's "Sad But True". It was her birthday celebration as well as Rob's! We had DJ Rob sit in with us for Nine Inch Nail's "HEad LIke A hole". He even sang on Radiohead's "Creep". I really felt that one. Hearing Rob sing it hit me like a ton of bricks. He conveyed every emotion from that song and made it his own. I connected with that song when I was younger. I guess it just brought out this feeling of being out of place and alienated for it.
Well there is more to write about but I have to get our chat started...
Talk to you guys soon.
-J.