Parkway Drive Tour - Part 2

Well, I'm finally finding time to update this thing. Things have been super busy for the past couple weeks. On top of the usual band happenings, we've got a ton of stuff going on with the record coming out in June. PLUS I found out right before I came home that all my roomies are jumping ship by the end of March, so I had to plan an unexpected move and find a place to keep all of my things until I find a new residence (I didn't) in the ten days I had at home...fun stuff.

Anyway, here are some highlights from the rest of the Parkway tour. My phone erased everything about 30 times on this tour so a bunch of pictures I took of sweet stuff are now gone forever. I may be upgrading to a new phone soon, my BlackBerry isn't cutting it.

First things first – here's the video of Mikey and our ex-guitarist and expert handyman Dave Yoha building our new tour vehicle that I promised last time. I still don't know what to call this thing. It's not quite a van or a bus...it's like a mini bus!

Not much to report about the middle of the tour, other than almost dying driving through the snow and rain every night. The most memorable part was probably in Montreal when members of the tour all pitched in to pay Marshall of The Warriors $200 to play two full songs in a G-String. Here's the video of "Transistor." Watch it...if you dare.

Here's a pic of a fort I made with Anthony after we'd lost our minds driving through the night at some ungodly hour:

Here are a couple tour updates Vans had Mikey make for the tour...enjoy!

The East Coast was amazing as usual, but Richmond, VA was probably the best show of the tour.

Surprisingly, the next night in Charlotte, NC was the worst show of the tour for us. It's strange because they're only four hours from each other. Now, I don't condone fighting and try to avoid it at all costs, but at the Charlotte show there were a couple guys front and center for our set who did not enjoy our band to say the least. They were taunting us with insults and even threw a can of beer at us before instigating a fight with some of our dudes after the set. They lost. To add insult to injury, they were kicked out and missed the band they came to see. My guess is next time they'll think twice before sitting through an entire band they dont like's set just to insult/pick fights with them. So remember kids, just because a band's music isn't tough doesn't mean they can't kick your ass ;)

Anyway, the next night in Atlanta was great. Our friend Chris from Jimmy John's brought us all sandwiches and the set was a blast. Our friend Corey Emond was out with Ice Cube and our tours crossed so he came and hung out and bought us all pizza after the show (that's him on the right):

Here's another pic of the Fellini's pizza crew:

Unfortunately the road beast had an oil line issue and we had to leave it (and Justin) in Atlanta while we drove a one-way rental van through a hurricane to get to the TX shows in time. Glad we did because the shows ruled and we priceline'ed the sweetest room ever at the Omni in Austin and made a beeline for the hot tub as soon as we got there. Here's a pic of the hot tub crew:

While we were in Texas, Corey hit me up and told me that he'd gotten Ice Cube's son, O'Shea Jackson Jr. AKA California Heir, to wear one of our crewnecks onstage at one of the shows. Pretty sweet. California love!

Justin met back up with us before we headed out to El Paso to pick up our buddy (and former TM) Juan and join the rest of the tour party for "tour paintball" on our day off. We were too busy blasting at each other all day to take any decent photos or videos, but here's one pic of the SYG paintball crew, minus yours truly:

The Phoenix show was at some awful venue we'd never played before called The Nile, but it didn't seem to matter because our set was a blast. We couldn't wait to get to CA so we went swimming at a friend's then drove straight through the night.

The Hollywood show was a headache because not only was it the last day of the tour but the show was two tours combined (the other being another metal tour w/Whitechapel & The Acacia Strain), which only added to the stress of having what seemed like a million people we know at the show to hang out/talk business with; label people, friends, etc. Before our set, Kelly Paiste (yeah, like the cymbal co.) took us and John Robinson out to dinner at Asia de Cuba next door to the venue. It was probably the best dinner I've had so far this year. If you're ever near one and have a ton of money to spend I highly recommend it. They were both very cool people and very nice. Thanks Kelly!

I think that about wraps it up. Such a fun tour and I hope we get the chance to tour with the Parkway Drive guys again soon, great dudes and crew. I'm home now and it's been raining all week but luckily I found a 30 minute window of sunshine yesterday between the intermittent showers to move some of my things into storage without them getting ruined, hooray! We leave tomorrow morning to head out East for the August Burns Red Canadian tour. Another metalcore tour...I'll be sure to let you all know how it goes!

Peace out.

XXX