NWAF Tour Update: Day 28

The Augusta show ended up being awesome. It was a Tuesday night but kids came out and lost their minds regardless. Nightbeast and Carridale were both great. As you can see, Nightbeast was hilarious.
We also debuted "Summer Jam" off our new record at the Augusta show, and it went over much better than expected so we've played it most nights since; the moshers love it!
The SC show was at the House of Blues in N. Myrtle Beach next door to a gator farm called Alligator Adventure. Before doors opened a few of us went to the gator farm next door and I snapped some cool picz, check 'em out:

...and some footage I captured of some baby gators:

We missed feeding time so I decided to hold one of my own. I took a couple chicken breasts from catering and chucked 'em over the fence and watched the gators fight over them while Steve filmed and others watched in amazement from the balcony above. Overall the actual show was kind of weird, what with security beating up kids and what not :\ That HOB is notorious for that. After the show I drove all night to Player's hotel room in Charlotte, NC.
When we got there he was already at work being trained to do grown-up shit so we hung out and showered and ate free breakfast. Charlotte was kind of a weird show but it was cool hanging Craig and talking with our old friend Rodney. Chris from Stretch Arm Strong put on the show so we got to hang with him too. This was also the day Fubu flew out and when he showed up he looked like this:

...He also got kicked out of the show for moshing/yelling at some kid who hit him. Guess he just looks like trouble haha. After the show we ran into this scary girl we met last time. I don't remember her name but Fubu calls her "Predator" and once we saw her we made it a point to avoid her for the rest of the night. Apparently she's banned from all shows at Amos' and all of the employees there have restraining orders against her because she harasses bands and is legitimately nuts. Creepy! After the show I left my laptop charging because it was almost dead and when I came back like 15 mins. later, the room had been cleaned out and my laptop was gone. After talking to everyone at the venue I called Chris from Stretch and he let me in on a very bad joke my band was trying to pull on me. So Brian (NFG's tech) and I decided to get them back and he called Junior panicking and saying I flipped out and punched a hole in the wall on their bus and that the cops were coming to investigate the theft of my laptop. They bought it. We hung out and ate at the bar next door for a bit then began the oh-so-fun drive to Baltimore. This was the night Shai Hulud were dropped from the tour. They were having a long talk with Steve and Chad when we left. I think NFG should be making an official statement about that soon if they haven't already.
The Baltimore show ruled. Before the show a bunch of us went down to the harbor and got food and I picked up one of these sweet crab hats and ended up wearing it onstage. $8 for one of these bad boys, but well worth it.


Trapped Under Ice was so good! They were super cool dudes too... And I finally got to see Anton Rough play his songs live!! Had a blast hanging out all night with tons of old and new friends. Baltimore rules.
A ton of friends came and hung out in Philly too. Philly marked the first night of the addition of our good friends in Fireworks to the tour. Mike Ski came out and tattooed a bunch of people too. For those who don't know, Mike is a sweet dude and sings for a sweet band called The A.K.A.s. Brett from Fireworks got some bats behind his ears, Nightbeast got a clamshell on his arm, and Joe got his Virgin Mary de Guadalupe from Warped Tour finished. The show was a lot of fun. I stagedove in flip flops for the first time in my life during NFG hahaha. After the show I went to Kingdom of Vegetarians down the street with Fubu and got some Mongolian pork. The woman behind the counter had her extremely hyper 5 year-old son there and we started talking to him and taught him the proper usage of the term "You mad!" His Mom was not a fan of the phrase hahaha. It ruled, Fubu and I had many LOLz. Before the drive to Cleveland we hit up Wawa with Fireworks and got our snack on.
Cleveland was pretty boring. It was cold out and as always there was nothing to do before the show, so we P90X'ed it. We worked on arms and then did the "Ab Ripper X" and hooooooly shit was it tough. This thing is like the regular workout on crack, and it's all stomach muscles and packed into a mere 20 minute workout. Myself, Junior, and Tymm all tried it with Chad and we couldn't keep up with him. We couldn't even finish half of it! After the show a bunch of the tour and friends played cornhole and c-lo in the loading dock and then we drove to what would make the top 3 worst Taco Bell experiences of my life. They "ran out" of beans (Taco Bell code for "we're too lazy to make more") so I got a side of rice since my choices were pretty slim after that, and went to sleep pissed off. We got a pointless one bed room at an extended stay and I think the only one who ended up staying awake to put it to use was Junior who drove.
Cincinnati yesterday was all cold and rainy. It was also our 3rd year in a row playing Bogart's on 4/20. We hit up BWW and Urban with some of the NFG and Bayside dudes before the show. The "Smoke Your Bowls" set was kind of weird, the moshers took the day off for the most part, but we could tell kids were genuinely feeling it. During NFG's set some kid tried stealing a stack of shirts from Fireworks and they all surrounded him until security came and kicked him and his accomplices out. There is nothing more disrespectful that you can do to a touring band than steal merch; the chief means of income on tour. Kid's lucky he didn't get carried out on a stretcher. After the show I hit up some place called La Rose's down the street and got some cheese ravioli, a salad, and garlic bread for $9. Ruled.
We have the day off today and we're at a friend of Fireworks' house. He has the softest and most affectionate pets in the world. Fireworks just left to see Observe & Report and we're just taking it easy doing laundry and practicing for our "Set Your Grohls" set at Hoodwink. I think tonight we'll hang at NFG's hotel and go swimming or something.
XXX