Blog by Matt Moore
June 5th Day 1...Arrival in San Marcos, CA. Been driving on buses for about 5 days straight. The first show is tomorrow and Warbringer is playing at the same venue tonight. They are kicking ass and we are getting wasted. Promoter Joe is cool and
some of us and Absu head back to his house. After raiding the house for every possible trace of alcohol after crushing the final beers, Ryan and I find two nearly finished bottles of vodka which we promptly finish off. The night ends with me, Ryan, and some chick that drove us drinking out in the hills of San Marcos. Sun is coming up and convenience stores are about to sell beer again. Our new friend says she'll drive us so we can keep the party going....as soon as we get directions we pass out on the floor though....luckily the girl who gave us directions wakes us up with a fresh six pack.....time to go to the venue for soundcheck #1....this tour is gonna rule....
June 6th ...First show. We played Death's Sacred Serenity as our sound check. Awesome to see Absu....this is going to be fucking great seeing them every night. This is the one band I really wanted to see this year. gonna see them 23 times. killer songs in their set. Total party again after the first show....we played well but after a week in the bus driving from Philly to California we're still gaining our stride on stage. This is where each band on the tour sees what each others deal is. Sothis is the other band on tour with us in their own RV. Symphonic epic-ness. Total support from each other. Some of us hand picked avocados from local trees. Ezezu from Absu and I were hanging out and looking for something to smoke with. We both did a double take at the avocado and realized that yes...that would be fashioned into our bowl...this was used every few hours until the Canadian border. Ryan got laid tonight....it's always the guy you don't expect.
June 7th ...Parked in Hollywood. Playing House of Blues tonight. Walking inside the place there is a live gospel band for the Sunday Gospel Brunch. Thrashed righteously tonight...crowd seemed to appreciate it but are standing wide eyed. Black and Thrash metal doesn't make sense in a venue like this. Can't wait to play some dirtier clubs....There were probably lots of wild and crazy other things going on but beers erased those memories. A dude named Doctor Sodom brought the Cali medical shit. Aethyris from Absu cleans the bus thoroughly. Zawicizuz is single handedly fixing every possible technical difficulty immediately as it happens, soldering iron in hand. Solid dudes all. Proscriptor and Scott the tour manager are busy every waking moment dealing with tour business. Still they are finding every chance to hang out. It's official that Absu are the best dudes.
June 8th ...San Francisco, CA. Possibly the best show of the tour. Played our first song to a room full of people who mostly haven't heard of us... by the second song the heads were banging harder...by the third the crowd is in a frenzy...that's what we're here for. Shawn and I have been drinking Hemp Ale. California has good laws. Got bay area Sushi earlier today which was one of my tour goals. Chicks think Shawn is hot, so they're giving us extra money as tips after buying our merch. He's keeping them well at bay because he has a serious girlfriend. Gary Holt from Exodus was at the show and after Shawn yelled his name he came over and shot the shit. Cool guy.
June 9th ...Portland, OR. The best part of the day was the 1 dollar tacos that Pat and I got before the show. My worst performance of the tour....Fuck this show...maybe someone else can say something more interesting. Sorry Portland. I'll give you everything I got next time.
June 10th ...Seattle, WA. I woke up and everyone was gone from the bus. I walked around for hours getting coffee and asking the locals for directions. So many hills, enjoying the exercise. Went to the store Zions Gate who kindly let our label ship extra cd's there so we could have them to sell. Cool dudes. Traded some of my Creeping Vine Productions stuff for the following discs...Summoning "Lugburz" (me or Ezezu have put on track 3 "Flight of the Nazgul" at least once per day on the bus since), Summoning "Dol Guldur", Death"Individual Thought Patterns", and Nachtmystium "Assasins, Black Meddle pt. 1" (Me and/or Ryan get down to the song "Ghosts of Grace" as often as possible). Shawn and I got 1 dollar beers at a bar and some drunk chick just started yelling at Shawn out of nowhere..."Nice bandana ASSHOLE!"...good times. Cool crust dudes went crazy for us at this show. This was the last shower we all had for a week.
June 11th...Off day in Spokane, WA. Pat and I went to a sporting goods store that also sold board games....we bought "Escape from Frankenstein" for 5 bucks.
Played it many times. finished off all fruits and illicit substances in preparation for the border crossing. Then we played drunk chess for like 2 hours....at the end of the game it was taking too long so Ezezu helped us out by coming over and knocking all the pieces off the board. Had a killer wasted Absu/Rsg poker game as we approached the border while blasting country and prohibition music. Pat cleaned up.
June 12th... Calgary, Alberta. Definitely one of the best shows and times of the tour so far. The opening band Begrime Exemious was awesome and the dudes were cool as hell. Great response from our first Canadian show of this tour. After this show all the bands were hanging out for a sidewalk party. A few hookers were walking by trying to see if we were interested...this fucking awesome dude named Bernie just made them drink from his bottle of Wild Turkey and kept coming up with priceless one liners. Not everyone could tell that they were hookers but the Canadians we were hanging out with assured us they were. There was a dance club behind this venue....usually metalheads and club people clash personality-wise but we were totally hanging out with the Justin Timberlake looking fucks walking by and drinking some Pilsners. So then me and Zawicizuz go into the dance club because we had VIP passes from playing earlier....Sure enough Ryan is already in there doing splits on the dance floor with Calgary's hottest women. My last recollection of this night is the dude Bernie body-slamming some girl on the dance floor.
June 13th... Regina, Saskatchewan. Walked around town listening to music for the first time on this tour. Emperor, The Ghetto Boys, and Led Zeppelin were ringing through my head. Played an awesome show to a rabid crowd. At one point I was writhing around shirtless on the stage floor...from this show on I decided to go shirtless because I was tired of sleeping in soaking wet shit. Also played a riff with my teeth. Fun times. All of us in RSG went berserk when Absu played, especially Pat. I was the ass who yelled Slayer between songs. Managed to score a ton of premium beers via thievery this night.
June 14th... Winnipeg, Manitoba. Killer lunch at this club with Sothis and Absu. Some dude named Metal Craig and his girlfriend gave everyone in every band a cd. Apparently there was a murder at this club recently...the upstairs was like a European style hostel but the rooms were really dilapidated and run down. All had oddly tidy beds though. I expect a wraith or something to moan despairingy from one of these fucked up rooms. The few Winnipeg headbangers are rad, but the strip clubs are closed and the pizza sucks....looking forward to getting back into the states.
