May16th - June 1st
Unrestrained/ I Refuse spring tour 2008
Derek McIntire's Tour Diary

Okay, so this isn't so much a diary as it is a retrospective. It's now June 4th and I'm sitting in JP licks in Brigham Circle on a rainy morning. I've finally found a couple hours to sit down and sift through all that's happened to me over the past couple weeks. I'm sure i'll leave out some details and forget some names, but I probably would have done that anyways. So here it is, our tour from my perspective.

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May 15th.

I woke up late. of course... god damn it. I need to catch an 8:00 bus to vermont so i can get there by 1. I've got a million things to do. I stand, and my legs nearly cave in. A week ago I decided to enter a 5k running race after an 8 year haiatus, and my knees didn't take too kindly to it. No matter, I need to get my things together and make the trek down mission hill to the green line. I'm carrying my messenger bag, a giant bag with all my stolen food/clothes/books/sleeping gear etc, and my guitar and cables. I walk down the hill, catch the green line... I'm not sure if i'm going to make it. I transfer to the red line, I'm not sure if I'm going to make it. I get off at south station and walk out to the street, hobbling as fast as i can to the bus station, my mood is dark, very dark. I buy my ticket at 7:57am and run to the bus. I have a feeling i should get used to this... barely holding on.

I get to burlington and borrow a bike so that I can ride to the DMV and get my liscense renewed so that I can drive the van. They don't let me because i owe them a $60 dollar fee, which i was willing to pay, but needed to to montpelier to do so. Bomb the DMV.

I attend my friends post-apocalyptic mad-max themed kickball birthday party. It was alright, good to see pete.

I'm stressed out because Bryan is still not in vermont.  He'd been avoiding my calls and neglected to call me back over the past few days, making it extremely difficult to prepare for the tour. Since we live in three different states and never get to practice, we thought it would be good to go to vermont a day early and practice a bit before we head out for a two and a half week tour. No Bryan. We haven't really known him for that long, just met him on new years and he joined the band almost immediately. At this point, we're not even sure if he's coming.  We practice without him, it's fun and good to be in the same room as zeke, phil and ryan again. New practice space also rules.

I enjoy Burlington for one night, and in the morning... it's lift off.

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May 16th
-Quebec City, QC

So much to do, not enough time. We were hoping to leave by 11am, but Bryan didn't show up until 1pm. Needless to say, we did not get the Loft built in the van, so we weren't sure if we were going to actually have room to bring our friend kevin. Fortunately, because we were borrowing most of I Refuse's equipment, we squeezed him in, it just meant two people sitting on the floor of the van.

To get across the border we decided to have one of Ryan and Phil's friends drive us all over, and only Ryan and Phil would be in the van. The border is a piece of cake. We're in Canada.

The first show is Quebec City, and I haven't been there in probably 5 years. The drive there isn't very nice, but the city itself is beautiful. Unfortunately, my knees hurt so bad I didn't get the chance to walk around and check it out. We were playing at a skatepark with the band Words, who we played with in vermont a couple months prior. I was caught off guard immediately by a couple people who came up to us asking questions about our lyrics, and being generally excited to see us. We played and my knees suddenly felt better. Ryan was a mad man... who's idea was it to unleash him in a skatepark? I didn't see much, but I saw him take a few hard falls. Kids danced, we covered Bad Brains, it was a really fun set. Words played after us and killed it, I seriously love that band. Unfortunately I Refuse did not make it to this show... they're van was not fixed yet, and mariful seemed almost in tears about it. We were all bummed because we were really looking forward to meeting those dudes, but it would have to wait until tomorrow.

Turns out my friend Yan from way back was actually helping to put on the show, and it was good talking and hanging out with him again. We stayed with the bass player of Words and his friend Catherine. His apartment was really nice and he fed us and put up with our ridiculousness. Cool dude, cool city.

Oh yeah, and after the show we went out to eat at this shitty dinner that served poutine. Some crazy dude came in and acted all weird... he then left without his backpack so i stole it. we took it into the van and looked through it, but nothing good, just some clothes and trashbags. so i put it in the parkinglot so he could get it back. we drove away and some dude chased us down like two blocks and banged on the van screaming about us forgetting the bag hahaha, we all laughed and drove away.

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May 17th
-Montreal, QC

We left Quebec City plus one. Catherine decided to come with us. We were playing with her boyfriends band in Montreal, so she got a ride with us, and turned out to be pretty cool. We stopped along the way and did go-karts. Not just regular go-karts either... like 50mph go-karts. Ryan and Phil took them off roading and the guy wasn't too pleased. I realized halfway through that there were no seatbelts and felt a little uncomfortable, but it was really cool. We stopped at a second go-kart place, but it was too expensive, so we just ran across the track and got chased out, then promptly realized Kevin was still in the bathroom haha. We drove back and picked him up, they didn't do anything.

I was really looking forward to this show because it had been a couple years since I'd been to montreal, and some of my favorite people in the world live there. We checked out the anarchist book fair and I got some cheap vegan food. I met up with Laurence, an ex of mine, it was really nice to see her. We all hung out and tried to play lazer tag but it was all filled up.

We went to the show and met I Refuse. We were all a little shy at first, but got to say hi and talk a little. Around 9pm we started setting up and the space was starting to fill in quite nicely. It was good to see Dan, who helped us out with the show. We played first to a packed room of not-quite drunk people. It felt really good. We played tight. Ryan was throwing things, his face was bleeding everywhere, everyone had a lot of energy. It was possibly my favorite show of the whole tour. We got a good reaction, and people freaked out when we played Bad Brains. It was exactly how I wanted it to be.

I Refuse played next and I was so excited to see them for the first time. They fed off the energy and kept it up. I knew a couple of their songs and sang along. Everyone there seemed to really like them, this was going to rule.

We stayed with some girls I didn't know in the Mount Royal section of Montreal and bonded with the I Refuse dudes. I was exhausted.

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May 18th
-Day Off

Our third day of tour, and already a day off. Although I would have much rather played a show, Montreal was definitely the best place we could have been for our day off.  I started to get to know Mariful, Jon, Dane, Brandon, Anthony, and their roady, Howie, a bit more. We walked around and met up with my friend Carina. She brought us to a vegetarian buffet that was amazing. Vegan cheesecake! We hung out for a while and eventually headed out to Ottawa, where we stayed at  Brandon's house, and further bonded with the I Refuse dudes.

Phil turned 25 at midnight, but I was too tired to go out, so I just went to sleep. Bryan, Ryan, Phil and Howie went out dancing though, sounded like they had a blast.

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May 19th
-London, ON

We drove all day. Turns out London is on the other side of Ontario! It was rainy and kind of a crappy drive. I Refuse's van won't go over 62mph, so the drive is slow, but we do good on gas. We finally get to London and I am not impressed. Seems pretty run down. The venue is beat up, looks pretty scummy. However, the promoter is really nice and there's a whole bunch of kids there that seem excited. The first band is called Waste Management. The singer is a character, and pretty entertaining. They were good, fast, definitely angry, hardcore punk.  Eating Glass played next. I had heard good things about this band and was not let down. I think they played a haymaker cover. Or maybe that was the other band, I don't know. Either way, they were really good.

We played pretty tight again, the set was not too memorable to me. I think we played Bad Brains again and some people danced. I remember feeling pretty good about the set. We sold our first shirts. It was weird because we expected to sell hardly any CD's, but the first three shows left us with under 20.

The dude who ran the venue was a dick. I'm glad we played there though, the kids we met were cool and I'd deifnitely go back. We decided to drive to St. Catherine and stay with one of I Refuse's friends, Gavin.

We get there and eat some food and watch the minute men documentary. Another amazing house. I refuse is going to be slumming it up when we get to the US!

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May 20th
-Niagara Falls, ON

We played at this cafe called Bad Vuggum.  Don't ask me how to pronounce it.  It reminded me a lot of Radio Bean in Burlington, VT, run by some old hippy. He had these really cool Black Flag posters hanging up.  We played with Gavin's band Class War, who was awesome. The set was really fun, everyone danced, nothing really got broken, Ryan hurt himself a bunch. I Refuse played their best set yet and they got a great reaction. Kids there really like them. Jon's friend Shannon had a cook out for us. She made us so much food, it was amazing.

We went to the falls, which was cool. I had been there once when I was 10, but thats it. We took a lot of pictures and went to this haunted house. It was super expensive and ultra-touristy. I kind of hated the whole place. So I stole a glass skull that was 30 bucks and just left. 15 minutes later Ryan and Phil came out and told me they noticed the skull was missing and the I Refuse dudes weren't down with running. So I gave it back. Then we got free passes to the Ripley's museum, which was pretty cool. They have a hallway that spins around you and makes you wicked dizzy. I jumped and tried to touch the ceiling and fell sideways, smashing my elbow on the metal railing. Ryan and I ran around until we felt sick.

Everyone went to the casino afterwards, where I was denied entry because my liscense was expired. I made a little bit of a scene and left. Then a couple people wanted to go out to eat, but everywhere was closed. finally they found someplace and i was so tired i just wanted to go to bed. i waited in the van an hour while they ate. Then they went to marine land and snuck in to pet the whales. They got chased out and had an amazing time, but I was just sleeping in the van because I'm a party pooper and just wanted to go to bed so i could get up early and enjoy the day haha. I was a little grumpy.

We eventually went back to Gavins, and when i tried to go to sleep everyone started watching the office and wouldn't turn out the lights. I ended up being up until 5am. I was not siked.

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May 21st
-Toronto, ON

I don't remember much about this drive. It probably rained. I'm assuming everyone got up really late... I remember shannon brought us pancakes. We said our good byes and went to toronto. I wanted to get there early to hang out with my friend Jenny who I hadn't seen in 4 or 5 years, but it's hard to get 12 people motivated to leave early. We got there a little early anyways, and Jenny took Phil, Bryan and myself out to dinner and paid for us. Then she made us cupcakes. Turns out she still rules. There were flyers for the show everywhere. It was at this bar called Rancho Relaxo. It seemed to be kind of a mixed crowd. The first band was a metal-core band from quebec, who seemed nice enough, I just wasn't really into them. There were a few hardcore and punk kids there, but also a lot of kids who probably didn't quite get it. The show was fun anyways. The stage was big and deep, which made it a little awkward. Jenny and her boyfriend came out to the show despite being very much "over" hardcore haha. The promoter was really cool, and I won a whole bunch of money playing C-Lo against I Refuse!

We left that night and went back to Ottawa to stay at Brandons. I think we got there at about 7am. Long night....

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May 22nd
-Ottawa, ON

I was really excited about this show because it was I Refuse's home town. It was at a basement that had never done shows before and I wasn't really sure what to expect. This band Shewolf played first and they were cool. Three piece with two girls and a dude wearing a wolf mask. Then this band Smartmouth played... really young kids. They were good, played a Gorilla Biscuits cover, and were fun. We played pretty good, I don't remember much, but I know we got a good reaction. I Refuse was amazing. I couch-dove and walked on the ceiling and everyone freaked out.  Seeing them at home was the highlight of the canadian half of the tour for sure. Unfortunately this was our last day with Howie, and it was sad to say bye to him, but we were all really looking forward to the US part of the tour as well.

We walked around Ottawa and saw a lot of hardcore kids, got rained on. Went to a haire-krishna vegan buffet. Ottawa seemed cool, just wish I had more time to spend there.  After the show we drove over night back to Vermont. I stayed at Zekes mom's house, and it was nice to have a little break, especially since I was booking the show the next day and had to get everyhing organized..

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May 23rd
-Burlington, VT

I hyped up Vermont a lot to I Refuse.  The last couple times we had played at home it was so much more than I had expected. The show in February at 242 sold out and was one of the best shows I've been to in the last few years, the Wasted City show, although outside of Burlington, still did really well.  I expected probably a hundred people to come out.  

We got breakfast and built the loft in the van. We got more covers for our CD's printed up, and took care of all the loose ends. I went to 242 to start setting things up. My band was late as usual, and the first band needed our equipment, so I was a little stressed, but not too worried, this happens all the time.

When the first band went on there were about 40 people there. The first band was When Satelites Weep. I had never heard them before, but they messaged me and told me Ryan had said they should try to get on the show, so when To The Wolves dropped, I added them. They're young, and they'll find their place eventually.  Maneuvers played to maybe a few more people. They're really good, but play a really long set. I didn't really mind because I was hoping more people would show up in time to see I Refuse. I think all in all, about 60 or 70 people, including bands ended up coming, which really is not bad at all, but for some reason I was a little disapointed. I Refuse still played great and got a really good reaction. It was awesome to see that a bunch of people in Vermont actually knew their songs and reacted that way. Sound wise, it was their best set. The vocals were clear and sounded awesome, everything was mixed well... i really enjoyed it.

Our set was crazy, right off the bat, Gary Lane, a local legend, stage dove and took out like 5 people. There's no stage diving allowed at 242, but Gary Lane can get away with it. We covered Chain Of Strength and it went over really well. This was our first time playing "They Live!" in Burlington. I don't remember how people reacted. This was Kevin's last show as our roadie. We were bummed he wasn't coming with us on the rest of the tour, so we also played Bad Brains and he sang.

We all stayed at Zeke's mom's place, except Bryan drove to Maine over night to see Hannah. We woke up the next morning and hung around Burlington for a bit. It was nice to show I Refuse around, because I love that town.


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May 24th
-Brunswick, ME

We got going late of course, but this was by far the best drive of the whole tour. We took the back roads across VT, NH and ME. The landscape never changed, it was beautiful. I woke up at the show in time to see an accoustic act play. They were really good. This was definitely not a hardcore show. It was something Bryan had just thrown us on last minute.  There were a fair amount of people there, but as each band finished, more and more people left. I Refuse played to about 10 people and we played to about 4. Someone turned the lights completely off and I couldn't even see my guitar. I told ryan I couldn't play like this, but he didn't care and said to just play. That sort of put me in a bad mood.  Someone was taking pictures and a flash kept going off in my face, completely blinding me. I played like shit, and didn't care. I smashed my guitar against Zekes cymbals and purpously swung my guitar around violently hoping to hit someone, hopefully ryan. haha. Dane tried to give me a back rub and I kicked him in the balls. I think most of the time I was just hitting open strings.

After the set I went for a walk and sat by myself for a while. We packed up and drove to Boston that night. On the way we discovered the art of knocking orange roadside barrels over with the van. Ryan drove over one and then drove next to them while I knocked them all over with my door for about half a mile. It put me in a good mood again. Then Jon got sick and threw up in his sleeping bag.


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May 25th
-New Haven, CT

We woke up at my apartment and went out to brunch with Ryan. We went to veggie planet in Harvard Square. When we finished I called Danielle to tell her we were about to leave to head to the show and she should expect us around 5. That's when I learned it was an early show that started at 3 and had to be done at 6. CRAP! I tried to rush everyone, but everyone moved at the same pace. It took us forever. We finally picked Bryan up at the bus station, picked my sister up at a gas station and headed out for the second half of tour... We made it to the show in time to see the end of the first bands' set. Not bad!  Offsides played and they fucking ruled. I hope we get to play some more shows with them in the future.  

I refuse played and then us.  The set was awkward. There weren't a lot of people and it was in the middle of the day. I just wasn't feeling it. Mike, our old drummer, was there, and he freaked out. I think he smashed into a few things and knocked some people over and caused kind of a scene. We got vegan pizza and sat in a field afterwards. it was cool to hang out for a bit.

We wasted the rest of the day doing nothing, hanging in front of the venue trying to decide what to do, or where we cold stay. We wanted to go to NYC, but I Refuse didn't want to. We decided to split up, and I Refuse went to Philly. I finally got in touch with my friend Roshni, who was staying at her boyfriends, and they let us crash there. Turns out her boyfriend and his room mate are in We The People with our friend Chuck, so we sort of knew them too. They turned out to be awesome and helped us out a ton. We watched Dirty Work and got bagles in the morning. Then we got Pizza and headed out to Baltimore to meet up with I Refuse.

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May 26th
-Day Off

 We got to Baltimore and tried to go to a show that was happening but it was sold out. We hung outside the show for a while and saw some friends. Mitch, Gavin from Surroundings, my friend Caitlin from Boston, who was there playing with her band Bear Trap, the dude from petition, who we played with a month ago, and Phil and the dudes from Blind the thief. Zeke, Phil and I took a walk to get a drink and got a 40 thrown at us. It smashed at our feet and we decided to turn around. It was a little sketchy.  There was nothing to do so we went to Rob's house.  Rob plays in Ruiner and was booking the show for us. He let us crash and hang out and was an all around cool guy.  

We went for a walk and climbed onto a billboard and took some pictures.


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May 27th
-Baltimore, MD

The room we slept in was like a dungeon, no windows or anything. So we ended up sleeping pretty late. When everyone finally got up we went to the port area to try and find I Refuse, but didn't end up meeting up. Instead we decided to go to the aquarium and try to sneak in.  Phil and I tried to walk through the exit, but were immediately stopped and questioned. We decided to walk around the building and found an emergency exit. I pulled on the door but it didn't open. I pulled harder and it popped open! As stunned as we were, we wasted no time at all and ran straight up the stair case. I peeked through one door window and saw an employee. We ran up another flight of stairs and saw a sign that said "Dolphin Show Late Arrivals", this was our chance. We walked into this arena with a huge swimming pool in the middle. There were dolphin trainers and dolphins swimming, and a crowd of people watching the show.  We quietly sat down in the bleachers. The dolphins did tricks, flips, barrel rolls and some idiot thought a training device was called the "biology stick".  The show ended and we followed the crowd back into the aquarium. We were in. We saw the sharks, the rain forrest, the sting rays, snakes, bats, the Australia exhibit, crocodiles. It was awesome. So awesome that we were late!

We rush back to the van to meet my sister, bryan and zeke, and drive to the show. Charm City Art Space is sweet, we played there last august and had a great time. This time we were playing with Eld, who are from maine and we played with in April.  I have to say, I liked them a lot more this time. Brandon said they were his favorite band on tour so far. Blind the Thief also played, and did an AFI cover.  Those dudes rule. I had fun playing, and afterwards Mitch told me we gave him goosebumps... like "bane goosbumps" is what he said. cool. Bad Brains didn't get much of a reaction though, don't know what was up with that.

After the show we decided to drive for a while since we were 9 hours away from our next show.  The van was uncomfortable and we all wanted to stop somewhere and sleep, but Ryan had taken some crazy energy drink and couldn't sleep so he just kept driving.... for 9 and a half hours... I was not happy since I also did not get to sleep.


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May 28th
-Lexington, KY

I was in and out of sleep between 6am and 9:30 because my leg kept falling asleep, but here we were in Lexington, KY with nothing to do. It was nice out and i figured sleep was a lost cause so Zeke, Bryan and I got out of the van and walked around downtown while Phil and Erin slept. Ryan went to visit his girl, who was the whole reason we drove all night.

We got some food and tried to get to the top of the tallest building we could find. It was a bank and we were as far as the elevator before the security guards stopped us. In Boston the police would have been called, or they would have at least been not so polite, but in Kentucky... they told us to have a nice day.  We went back to the house we were going to play at, and met up with the kids there, who rule. James, who was booking the show, and his room mates took us over to a field to throw a frisbee around and we all just hung out in the sun and relaxed for a bit.

People started showing up for the show, I Refuse arrived, and my eye started to feel wierd. I think I was getting pink eye! It kept gunking up and bumming me out. Bryan was really bummed because he had just broken up with his girlfriend and was in a weird mood. The show was really awkward. I Refuse was awesome, but our set was weird. Bryan and Ryan got into an argument and Bryan literally stood with his back to everyone for the entire set. This whole US leg of the tour wasn't going as well as I expected.

We were at a point where we were starting to lose money. We had come out on top for the whole canadian half, but going down the east coast we lost all of it and then some. We'd been in a van together for over a week and this was the make or break point. It didn't look good.

After the show Phil and I talked to Bryan for a long time.  That talk was much needed. In the end, everything came out good, and we were all on the same page, ready to play Cleveland the next day.

We stayed with some kid, who was at our show the last time we played there too. I can't remember his name, but he was awesome. I quaranteened myself in the computer room and apparently yelled so much in my sleep I woke Mariful up.


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May 29th
-Cleveland, OH

I woke up in Kentucky and couldn't open my right eye.  It was totally gunked shut. I went to the bathroom and scraped the gunk away until it opened. I was worried, my eye was all red. I didn't want it to spread to the other eye. We went to a CVS and i stole some pink eye medicine that helped almost immediately. We drove to cleveland and met up with Russa and Joel, who we missed dearly. We were in desperate need of a good show, and we knew this would be it. Some crack head sold Zeke a Jay Reatard 7" for 5 bucks and rode his bike away as fast as i've ever seen anyone ride haha. Zeke also messed up "To Face A Fear", which we always seem to mess up in Ohio for some reason.  The show was really good though, good reaction, I Refuse played really well. It was just what we needed to get the tour back on track.

We stayed at Russa's house. Mostly we just hung out and played guitar. In the morning we got going pretty late...  We were going to check out the Rock N Roll hall of fame, because we heard that if you give them a copy of your bands CD you get in free. So we're headed in that direction when we start throwing things back and forth between the vans, something we'd been doing since we got into the US.  Ryan and Zeke smashed a bunch of donuts and threw a whole bunch of snapple on I Refuse's windshield.  That got sticky.  Then I Refuse took a jar of peanut butter and spread it all over our windshield with pita bread! Phil couldn't see anything, but kept driving anyways. We passed a cop and promptly got pulled over. A few more cops pulled over as well and next thing we knew, both vans were pulled over and there were at least 6 cops trying to figure us out. They were jerks so we messed with them a bit.  Zeke was clipping his toe nails and one cop said "well, you don't seem to be too stressed out" to which zeke replied something like "well, we didn't do anything wrong, our friends did this, we're just looking for a gas station to clean it up" the cop then told him it would be in his best interest to "shut up". The cops decide they are only going to give us one ticket for "obstruction". Phil asks them "is that all you could come up with?" the officer said "no, i can arrest you".  Phil then signed his ticket "P$", and when the officer said "sir your signature does not match the one on your liscense" Ryan and I couldn't hold it in anymore and we just started laughing at the cops. Needless to say, that ticket won't get paid.

Then we got some really good food and an amazing vegan chocolate milk shake and headed to Buffalo.


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May 30th
-Buffalo, NY

Russa and Joel came with us, so we traveled as a pack. I slept in the loft, and apparently Ryan was sleeping at the wheel as well. I woke up and Joel was driving because everyone in the band was too tired to drive. Not sure why. We get to Buffalo and there's already a whole bunch of kids there and the first band, No Love Lost, has already played. I was bummed because i actually wanted to see them. The basement was really cool, perfect size, perfect lighting, perfect atmosphere. Nick from Get Back Up helped us out with this show, and it would turn out to be one of the best of the whole tour.... top 3 for sure.

The first band we saw, I can't think of their name, but they covered Saves The Day... You Vandal. Zeke and Jon loved it, I enjoyed it, and I think the rest of our bands hated it haha. Even their own guitar player put his guitar down because he hates saves the day. They were tight and it was awesome to play with bands who were actually good. I Refuse played after them and got a great reaction. People were dancing, and I Refuse was feeding off the energy. Dane was flipping out as usual, Mariful bouncing off of everyone, Anthony was swinging his bass around, Jon was moving, might have even jumped a few times, and Brandon had a big smile on his face as he always does when they're playing good.

We played last and I was not prepared. Almost immediately Ryan started bleeding. After the first song I noticed he had a huge booger hanging out of his nose, apparently from when he punched himself in the face, seperating the cartilidge. All of our songs got good reactions, and both Bad Brains and Chain of Strength were crazy. I saw a glass plate get thrown and shattered, someone cut their finger pretty bad, blood was pouring out of ryan's face... twice as much as any other show. I had a great time.  Afterwards we all went to Nick's apartment.  We watched some TV and ate pizza and bocca burgers. I think I was heard saying "Time flies... oh THAT will help..." in my sleep.

The next morning we woke up and went to Amy's Place for breakfast. I was excited because they had vegan french toast and BBQ Seitan sandwiches. The french toast was not very good... they didn't have any maple syrup, just fake corn syrup filled with high fructose corn syrup. grossest thing ever. I wasn't siked. However, I got a BBQ seitan sandwich to go, and that was delicious. We headed out for Albany.


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May 31st
-Latham, NY

We arrived at the show an hour early for a change. We hung out in the parkinglot and Rian was probably nicest promoter we came across. He seemed siked to help us out and got us anything we needed. The first band had two full stacks for guitars, and the bassist had four 4x10 bass cabs. a little over kill. I wasn't really into them, but they were good for what they were playing.  I figured they would take a while to breakdown, so Jon, Zeke and I went on a search for Moe's to get some tofu burritos. We ended up going to the wrong one and getting a bit lost, so we missed the second band Reptar, which was a bummer because I really wanted to see them. However, we got back just as Final Friday started playing. They were awesome, sounded a lot like infest. I grabbed one of their shirts.  I Refuse played next and killed it. It was a little sad knowing it was the second to last time we were going to see them on on this tour.  I think we played okay, people were definitely dancing and having a good time, and loved the Bad Brains and Chain of Strength covers.

After the show we all hung out and watched an MMA fight... Kimbo Slice vrs. some dude with a weird ear. It was a close fight for the most part, but Kimbo was getting a lot of good punches in, the dude just wasn't going down. Eventually he hit him in his "alien life force" ear and the dude started bleeding everywhere and the ref called it. After that we headed out on a 3 and a half hour drive to my parents house.

We arrived and to my surprise, my mom was actually home. We put on Ladies man and all crashed. I slept next to Ryan on the floor and in the morning he told me I yelled "It's me and you Ryan, It's me and you!" then he asked me if I was talking in my sleep and i responded "probably." haha.


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May30th
-Boston, MA

This was the best day of tour, although sad, it was definitely a triumphant end. I woke up after about 4hours of sleep and went downstairs to hang out with my mom and the kids who were up. My sister took zeke and jon and brandon and mariful into Boston early so they could record shop.  My mom gave me some money so i could go to the store and buy stuff for breakfast.  I got home and made everyone vegan pancakes. They were good and very filling.  Everyone got up and we hung out for a while. It was beautiful outside, until out of nowhere the skies went almost completely black. It started pouring out.... then hailing! There was lightning, and the wind was making it come down almost sideways... it was crazy, and awesome to watch.  Then, literally 10 minutes later, it all stopped and the sun came back out. Turns out I also left the windows in the van down... oops.

We left my parents house around 1:30... we had to be at the show by 2. We drive into Boston and there isn't that much traffic, so we're there on time. Tommy is hanging outside and It's nice to see him. We're hanging out waiting for someone who lives at the house to show up so we can start setting the show up. Ryan and a bunch of my other friends show up, and I'm actually happy to be back in Boston. I really can't wait to show I Refuse around and introduce them to everyone. Finally Jason shows up, and the rest of the bands and we start loading equipment in. We get all our equipment in and there's a lot of people there for a sunday afternoon show, I was really excited. Then a neighbor threatened to call the cops.  This old lady next door was sick of all our "balogna", and was going to get the show shut down before the first note was even struck. We were bummed. People started trying to find other basements to do the show in. They were all "no." I started to get bummed.

Finally Tommy said we could do it at their practice space over in Kenmore.  I was a little worried because there were already a lot of people at the basement, and I wasn't sure how many people would actually make the trek over to Kenmore. We loaded all our equipment back into the van, drove over to the practice space, unloaded all of Draize's equipment out of the room, then loaded all our equipment back into the space. It was getting hot. A few people started to show up to the new space. At this point, the first band couldn't do it anymore because it was too late, so I Refuse was going on first. We got everything set up and by the time I Refuse was ready to play the room was actually packed. I'd say almost everyone made it over, which was awesome and got me even more excited than before.

They started playing and the room exploded, it was hot and the energy was high. It was my favorite set of the whole tour for them. It was our last together and we made it count. I sang along, but tried to save some energy because we were playing next... I was already sweating from head to toe.  When they finished there was a pit in my stomach, it was almost as if they were already gone. But they weren't.

I went outside and met my friend Jess, who turned out to be awesome, but i couldn't talk long. I caught my breath and went back inside to set up.  I had made the setlist for the night, but Ryan wasn't sure if he could handle it because it was so hot. I wanted to do: They Live!, To Face A Fear, Refuse To Conform, Catholic Hell, The Lantern, Uncivil Fights, Right Brigade. That's a long set for us. We opened with They Live! and I think people liked it. There were speaker dives, crowd surfs, and jumping everywhere. After To Face A Fear, which got a pretty decent sing along, Ryan decided he was too tired and needed to play a cover, so we played Bad Brains. Everyone flipped.  During the end breakdown a kid fell and hurt his ankle so we stopped playing. People called for us to finish, but we just moved on and played the rest of the set, minus the lantern, which i really wanted to play but didn't argue because it was so hot.  When we finished we played the end breakdown to right brigade again haha and it turned out awesome. That set was the most fun of the entire tour for me. The perfect way to end it. Like Rats played after us and they were great, I picked up a demo. Shitshow, who were supposed to play first but couldn't because it got delayed, came back afterwards and ended up playing about an hour later. A whole bunch of people stuck around to watch them and the set turned out to be really fun. They covered Black Flag's "Depression".

We left the show and the bands, plus my sister, plus Ryan went to Grasshopper for dinner. Everyone was blown away, even Ryan loved it... and he HATES vegetables! During the dinner, Ryan and I snuck out and krazy glued a dildo to I Refuse's van haha. We left grasshopper very satisfied and feeling a little mushy, since most of my band had to leave that night.  We took a whole bunch of group photos which were awesome. I got to be the top of a pyramid.  On the way out we all watched I Refuse discover the dildo glued to their van, they thought it was pretty funny.  Then Dane found a whiffle ball.  I ran to our van and grabbed the baseball bat we'd taken with us "just in case", and a whiffle ball game of epic proportions ensued. I Refuse vrs. Unrestrained. We destroyed them. Sorry guys, but it was a slaughter. 25-4? funny moments: Mariful taking a whiffle ball to the face, zeke hitting the ball right back at dane, me hitting a homerun while running the bases backwards, dane missing an easy fly ball and kicking it away from him. It was literally the most fun of the whole tour.

We all went back to my apartment, and Ryan, Zeke and Phil headed back to vermont. The rest of us went to sleep. In the morning Bryan left early, and then the I Refuse dudes headed out for their last show in Syracuse without us. When the door closed I felt empty, but gratefull. Everything seemed quiet. Even as I went down to the cafe to check my email, the rushing of traffic and general buzz of the city around me seemed to settle into a dull backdrop. Maybe it was standing next to my amp 15 days in a row, or mabe it was just over.