Thursday, May 22, 2008

Yo dawg!

The rest of our little UK escapade was awesome and is brought to you by the word NICE, the phrase "yo dawg," and weed. On the 13th we went shopping in Leeds and I got some shoes at Top Man and we went to the Cobra/ATL show in Leeds that night and did a Blink cover w/ATL for their encore it was hella fun. After that the venue had a club night so we partied with babezzz all night (and of course got with none of them), it ruled.
The first of The Peel shows was awesome but the second was way better, at least for me because ATL played and did a Midtown cover w/Gabe and both the SYG and Movielife sets went off harder the 2nd night in my opinion. Lags and his girl came out, as did many of our other friends new and old. Afterwards everyone from the show went to party at The Works, where JT spins. All in all it was a great trip. Some of the best shows we've played since the inception of our band.
We awoke at the crack of dawn and flew back to the states. I slept for the majority of the flight. We hung out at Strader's and played Halo 3 with his friends that night.
The ICC show was retarded. Sooo much hotter and way more packed than last time... it was sold out! After our set I was so exhausted that I went outside and threw up 3 times in a row. It sucked. The best shows are always the hardest to play. Keith and Pike came out for the show so we got to talk biz with them for a minute and we all got fitted for in-ear monitors after the show. We got Spike's with Fubu, Jeff, and the JS and Fireworks guys, then headed out to Cleveland where we got a hotel.
Cleveland was the last day of the HTL/Farewell/Sing It Loud tour and we were added as main support. Some girls brought us gourmet cupcakes and Wawa lemonade tea. Ruled. This show was sold out too and the first thing the promoter lady said to Craig when he warned her that the crowd would be crazy for us was, "oh well I wouldn't worry about it too much... Nobody's here to see you." We definitely made her feel dumb after about 30 seconds into our set when we had to stop playing because security was overwhelmed, Jordan's mic cable snapped, kids were diving onto a pile of bodies, and some girl had a panic attack. We were like, "wow that didn't take long!" We warned the crowd that if they didn't want to get knocked into then it'd be best not to stand in the very front. Immediately 8-10 girls moved from the front of the stage over to the side of the room. We resumed the set playing to a frenzy of kids going completely nuts. I thought I was going to break my neck. The whole set was pretty much nonstop chaos. It was by far the best set we've played in Cleveland so far, and after we played about half the crowd left which is always lame. Hit The Lights still put on an awesome show though and afterwards the lady came up and apologized to Craig.
The DeKalb, IL show was the first official date of the "TM Pumps!" tour and it was at this little cafe we'd played once before. Craig explained the promoter had to cut off presales because it came close to selling out in advance. 3rd sold out show in a row, not too shabby! what I don't understand is why Pike continues to book us at these tiny venues that are way too small/dangerous for us to play in cities where he knows we draw? My guess is that he's just too lazy to do otherwise but I wish I could figure it out. Anyway the DeKalb show went over well and afterwards we made the drive of death to Denver!
Denver was cool, Maris came and took pictures of a scantily-clad Mikey for his myspace and I hung out with my friend Nina, good times for sure. There was a Thrice/Circa Survive show across town and a Rockies game that same night, which probably affected the show's draw. Only like 150 paid but they got their money's worth in MOSH. After the show we gave Maris a ride to his graveyard before embarking on another wonderful drive to beautiful St. George, Utah!
I've never been to St. George before in my life, but man, is it ever boring! Last night was the smallest show we've played in over 2 years. There were like 7 presales, 103 total paid, and up until we played, we'd only done $75 in merch. Somehow we ended up selling something like $525 in merch by the end of the show and kids went off despite the small crowd and the "No Moshing" signs posted everywhere. Hit The Lights had a busted alternator but they somehow managed to fix it themselves and made it in time to play the show which was amazing. After the show the whole tour went to Vegas and most of them stayed up gambling and getting drunk/stoned until the sun came out. This was very entertaining to watch. I lost $30 playing blackjack, slots, and roulette before heading up to HTL's room to witness Dave and Anthony (their TM) having a drunken mattress fight while we all watched and laughed hysterically. I think it was around 5:30 AM when I finally made it back to our room and as I drifted off the last thing I remember was Craig closing the blinds to block out the sunlight as Mikey and Junior got out of bed and headed back down to the casino.
Vegas. Fuck yes.
XXX

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