Last Day of Tour
When we left off last week, we were about to rock the hell out of Albuquerque on a Sunday. If you can imagine, there were NOT many people out on the Sunday after Valentine's day. Also, the bar didn't bother to book any local bands. Great. Nonetheless, two very enthusiastic and kind people watched our whole set, showered us with compliments, and the male of the duo professed his love to me.
We had Monday off and had decided to try and see the Grand Canyon which is more-or-less between Albuquerque and Phoenix, our next stop. We made it to Flagstaff at around dusk, so we parked it there at the Super 8 and found us some RAD karaoke at an establishment called Museum Club. I'm pretty sure Museum Club was airlifted out of Livingston, MT, so at least I felt right at home. There were many dead animals on the wall, and not in that ironic King's Hardware kind of way. The karaoke being performed was predominately country, so I warmed up the crowd to us city slickers with some Judds and Barbra Mandrell before we said farewell with an all-Hellgate performance of System Of A Down's "Chop Suey." Then, we walked outside to two inches of snow.
The next day we attempted to go to the Grand Canyon but the road was closed because of snow, so we sat on our asses in Phoenix, enjoyed some fare from Hooters then went to a movie. The club was definitely not in a good part of town, a point which was proven by the mugging that happened outside the club during our set. We played with a really sweet band called Tugboat who kindly put us up for the night.
We had a scheduled day off before our Las Vegas show, so we booked a couple of nights at the Imperial Palace for some R&R. The first night, Samantha and I took some time away from the boys to go on a date. The boys entertained themselves by leaving us the pictured gift on our bed. The next day we found out our Las Vegas gig was bumped for a magic show (thanks, Las Vegas, you cheap slut), so we did what any responsible band would do - we filled up my 32 ounce boot from Coyote Ugly (that had previously been filled with daiquiri) with Jack and Coke and hit the strip to take some new band promo shots with Jon. Then we parked ourselves at the Bellagio slots, got a few free whiskey and Cokes, refilled the boot and resumed our mission.
Last night we played in Reno which was all-around bizarre. The club was a 24-hour sports bar that usually hosted metal bands, but the patrons all looked like they were more interested in hip-hop. We followed a local band which, between breaks of asking the ladies in the crowd to show their tits, played some sort of pop punk/metal. By the time we took the stage, I didn't think we were going to win any audience members over. The awkwardness of the night was multiplied by me breaking a string during the first song and Ben tripping on my mic cable and knocking over my mic stand and drinks. But the people who stuck around seemed to love us. One guy threw a twenty dollar bill on stage during our third song. I thought was going to ask us to play some Journey or equally bad cover songs, but as it turned out he really like our Rush-esque timing changes. Then he offered to buy us drinks and asked what we liked. I said whiskey. He returned to the stage a few minutes later with 2/3 of a bottle of Jack Daniels for the band to share on stage. The rest of the set, while not technically our best, was full of enthusiasm and vigor.
Today we've been hanging around Sacramento waiting to play our last gig. The van got an oil change and we're going to pull an all-nighter in order to get back to our own beds ASAP.
I'll be posting some more videos and photos as we all exchange our goods. I'm sure everyone is dying to see Ben sing "Band On the Run" or Jon's tour montage.
Hooray, Tour! Extra special thanks to Carly at Starbird for hooking our shit UP!
We had Monday off and had decided to try and see the Grand Canyon which is more-or-less between Albuquerque and Phoenix, our next stop. We made it to Flagstaff at around dusk, so we parked it there at the Super 8 and found us some RAD karaoke at an establishment called Museum Club. I'm pretty sure Museum Club was airlifted out of Livingston, MT, so at least I felt right at home. There were many dead animals on the wall, and not in that ironic King's Hardware kind of way. The karaoke being performed was predominately country, so I warmed up the crowd to us city slickers with some Judds and Barbra Mandrell before we said farewell with an all-Hellgate performance of System Of A Down's "Chop Suey." Then, we walked outside to two inches of snow.The next day we attempted to go to the Grand Canyon but the road was closed because of snow, so we sat on our asses in Phoenix, enjoyed some fare from Hooters then went to a movie. The club was definitely not in a good part of town, a point which was proven by the mugging that happened outside the club during our set. We played with a really sweet band called Tugboat who kindly put us up for the night.
We had a scheduled day off before our Las Vegas show, so we booked a couple of nights at the Imperial Palace for some R&R. The first night, Samantha and I took some time away from the boys to go on a date. The boys entertained themselves by leaving us the pictured gift on our bed. The next day we found out our Las Vegas gig was bumped for a magic show (thanks, Las Vegas, you cheap slut), so we did what any responsible band would do - we filled up my 32 ounce boot from Coyote Ugly (that had previously been filled with daiquiri) with Jack and Coke and hit the strip to take some new band promo shots with Jon. Then we parked ourselves at the Bellagio slots, got a few free whiskey and Cokes, refilled the boot and resumed our mission.Last night we played in Reno which was all-around bizarre. The club was a 24-hour sports bar that usually hosted metal bands, but the patrons all looked like they were more interested in hip-hop. We followed a local band which, between breaks of asking the ladies in the crowd to show their tits, played some sort of pop punk/metal. By the time we took the stage, I didn't think we were going to win any audience members over. The awkwardness of the night was multiplied by me breaking a string during the first song and Ben tripping on my mic cable and knocking over my mic stand and drinks. But the people who stuck around seemed to love us. One guy threw a twenty dollar bill on stage during our third song. I thought was going to ask us to play some Journey or equally bad cover songs, but as it turned out he really like our Rush-esque timing changes. Then he offered to buy us drinks and asked what we liked. I said whiskey. He returned to the stage a few minutes later with 2/3 of a bottle of Jack Daniels for the band to share on stage. The rest of the set, while not technically our best, was full of enthusiasm and vigor.
Today we've been hanging around Sacramento waiting to play our last gig. The van got an oil change and we're going to pull an all-nighter in order to get back to our own beds ASAP.
I'll be posting some more videos and photos as we all exchange our goods. I'm sure everyone is dying to see Ben sing "Band On the Run" or Jon's tour montage.
Hooray, Tour! Extra special thanks to Carly at Starbird for hooking our shit UP!
posted by Jamie H at 6:02 PM
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