"AP Fall Ball" Tour Journal - Part 1

Hello Internetz!

I've come to the realization that I'm probably not going to get around to making an entry for our Australian tour with All Time Low we did last May anytime soon... if ever.

SOOOO maybe those pics will surface some day in the distant future but for now if I am ever to have anything from this tour see the light of day, I figured I'd better get to writing, so here it goes...

We picked up on the "AP Fall Ball Tour" w/The Academy Is..., Mayday Parade, The Secret Handshake, and You Me At Six in Chico, CA on 10/10. The first show was a lot better of a turnout than our show there on the Saves The Day tour. Before the show we went to Pita Pit and walked around town and checked out some of the shops for a bit. There was some kind of breast cancer benefit going on in the park across the street and there were a variety of musical groups playing throughout the day. The comic book shop in town was awesome. I hung out with my brother's friend Kelsey at the show for a bit which was cool too. After the show we went home. Ruled.

I got to the San Francisco Regency Ballroom in the early afternoon before the SYG van arrived and the Blue Angels were doing their airshow that day so there'd randomly be piercingly loud bursts of sound from the jets flying overhead. Before the show some of us walked down to The Hundreds store down the street from the venue. Junior got a pretty sweet vintage looking baseball jacket. The store looks like a giant cave, it's weird. The show wasn't as good as the NFG tour we did there but it was still pretty good. After our set, Doug (the big cheese at the venue) told us an angry mother complained to him that the moshing during our set wasn't a fitting atmosphere for her Christian family, and requested they kick out our fans who were moshing. He said that he ended up kicking out about 9 kids, all of whom were promptly brought back in through the side door hehe. Excellent work, Doug. After the show I went to Taqueria Cancun with a bunch of friends but we all went to the one on 19th and the rest of SYG went to the one on Mission & Valencia (thanks for telling me everyone was going to 19th, Manuel). Got to go home again so it still felt like we weren't really on tour yet which is always a nice feeling.

The next morning we drove to Bakersfield and though we've played there before, this was our first show at The Dome. There was a stripper pole with black lights in the dressing room. Weird. Though it wasn't a huge crowd, a good chunk of it was comprised of moshers who just came to see us and they definitely got their money's worth; our set was awesome! Afterwards I realized my friend Spencer from Trash Talk came and had tried to get in but for some reason wasn't on the list even though I'd put him on it :( ...So Spencer, if you read this, sorry bud. I owe you one! After the show I caught up with my friend John who was working the box office for a bit then did 2 hrs. worth of Australian phone interviews for Soundwave before kicking off the drive to Junior's house.

We played The Avalon in Hollywood which is always a fun area because we have so many friends down there, not to mention we love going to Swinger's so that was a must before the show. As always, a trip to Cantaloop for frozen yogurt was definitely in order as well. After the show we had a Denny's "All-Nightr" which is basically where you hang out with fans and they give you a bunch of free food. A bunch of friends came with us, including an inebriated Brian Dale. He was wearing a kimono that our Japanese friend Yuka brought to the show and posing as our samurai security guard for the evening. He sat down, ordered a beer (what?! I didn't even know Denny's served beer!!) and began engaging in conversation with our fans... I cannot remember the last time I laughed as hard as I did during the meal that followed.

All the Southern California shows were great but I felt like the shows on the "Gig Life" tour were better and even bigger in some areas like Pomona. I get the feeling our fans didn't come out because they didn't want to pay higher ticket prices to see us play a shorter set with bands they don't listen to. On the upside, I know there are a large amount of kids who are seeing/hearing us for the first time every night on this tour plus everyone on the tour has been really cool. Big thanks to all our friends at Epitaph who came to the shows and brought us some new records and Converge merch. I was stoked to get my hands on a copy of the record by Ryan Gosling's band, Dead Man's Bones, as well as the new Converge record, before their release. If you haven't heard Dead Man's Bones, check out their songs here: Dead Man's Bones Myspace - very creative and unique stuff.

On our way to the San Diego show we stopped by Innes Clothing in Oceanside and our buddy Adam Shaw hooked us up with some sweet new gear. Thanks Adam! After that we headed down to Solana beach and went to Pizza Port for lunch then walked next door for dessert at my dad's new yogurt shop, Desserted Island. Delicious! After the show we said goodbye to Junior because he had planned on leaving the tour after the CA dates to make arrangements for his wedding in November. Our good friend Justin K. is playing in his place for the remainder of this tour as well as our European tour right after this while Junior and Susie are on their honeymoon. Congrats guys!

Arizona was way too hot (as usual) and so was Texas. We had a day off between the Phoenix and San Antonio shows so we stayed with Juan and went to this place called "Bob-O's" in El Paso and enjoyed batting cages, go-karts, bumper boats and mini golf for the day before continuing on our drive:

Before the San Antonio show I went to Hog Wild Records with Justin K. and Luis from TSH. I always make it a point to stop by this place because they have hundreds of sweet punk, metal and hardcore shirts. If you're in a touring band (or ever find yourself in San Antonio for any reason) and you like metal, definitely check this place out. The show was great, kids went nuts! Dallas was a lot of fun too and though "Gig Life" was better, a lot of our fans still came out and moved around for us. Plus we got to see Joel so in a way it was similar haha

Houston was a fun night, got to hang out with my friend Lucy. During the set we took four huge rolls of toilet paper and threw them into the crowd. Kids kept throwing them across the room and they were hanging over the rafters like streamers.

The next off day was an insane drive but we managed to stop at a mall somewhere near Tallahassee, where Justin and myself began discussing the gaping holes in our earlobes (the remnants of wearing plugs) and decided it would be funny if we started wearing diamond earrings, so we bought some and so did Mikey. We also stopped by another fun center and I fed some baby alligators and played arcade games while Juan, Mikey, Justin and Dan hit the batting cages.

When we got to Melbourne we discovered a baby gator pittin' around in the canal by the hotel, check him out:

It was in Melbourne that we experienced the best go-karts of the tour thus far: Andretti Thrill Park. This place has karts that go 46 MPH! The regular karts were great too. Mine was of course #43:

We played some mini golf, batting cages, and I even saw a guy wearing a Cold As Life shirt playing one of those "Extreme Hunting" games in the arcade with his wife & kid!! Here's a pic I took with my phone while racing:

We hit up the deli (which was excellent) that was connected to the arcade before heading to the show in Ft. Lauderdale, where we met up with the one and only Anthony Amor A.K.A. Tony Love, merch guy to the stars. The show was a lot of fun and went really well for us. The Glamour Kills tour was at The Revolution that night so we headed over there after our set and caught All Time Low's set, hung out with Vinny Vegas, our buddy Chris V, and our manager Keith, then partied with all the ATL guys after their show. I unfortunately had to miss out on some of the hanging out towards the end of the night because I was dealing with some drama (but I won't get into that haha), but all in all it was a fun night for the most part.

Anthony rolled with us to Jax and stayed at our hotel because we planned on going go-karting again in the morning but we ended up getting there at like 6 AM so we all slept until noon and didn't end up going.

In the morning we said bye to our little friend, went to Waffle House with Anthony then left for Jacksonville. The show was at Freebird, a venue one block from the beach. Pretty sweet. The show went really well.

The next day we headed down to Orlando to hang out with The Swellers & Hayley at their show at the House of Blues. Caught a couple songs of The Swellers' set and Paramore killed it as usual. Here's a picture of Hayley two-stepping onstage haha

After the show we went to BWW with The Swellers, Anthony, and Hayley. We definitely played the bear hunting arcade game, watched an awkward guy & girl make out in front of the whole restaurant, and drank rootbeer floats. Someone even discovered that Life of Agony was on the jukebox so naturally, we had to mosh.

...Part 2 coming soon (maybe)

XXX

NWAF Tour Wrap Up

Wow. Where to begin? It's been a while since I've updated this thing and so much happened in the end of the tour I don't know if I'll even remember it all.
The Michigan show ruled. The dude from Cold as Life loaded us out just like he did last time we played Detroit, and I told him Cold as Life rules. He was not impressed. We hung out for a bit and after everyone on the tour stashed all of their fireworks/weapons/drug paraphernalia with Brett's friend, everyone headed for the border. We got pulled over by some MI cop a mere 20 minutes from the Canadian border. He held us up for hours with loads of ridiculous regulations he said our van didn't meet, one being that we needed our band name on the side of the van. Supposedly "it's the law." Yeah OK! After all was said and done he let us go without a single ticket, nice guy. He did however leave us with a laundry list of things we needed to take care of to ensure our vehicle was up to code. I think we threw it away. We ended up crossing the border problem free for the most part (well, they harassed Junior for about 20 mins. so nothing too out of the ordinary haha).
I awoke sometime in the morning at our hotel and walked inside and passed out. Water didn't work all day and we all really needed showers. Fail. I got healthy food for once at the mall across the street then headed to our off day show in London, Ontario. Before the show I went to McDonald's *cringe* with Mikey, more out of boredom than hunger. While there I discovered they had strawberry pies so I had to try them and they were amazing. It's like eating pop-tarts on crack. Backed hard. It was like a Monday night so there weren't a ton of people and I heard there was some kind of scene drama with the promoter so kids boycott his shows but all that aside, the kids who showed up had a lot of energy and our set was a good time. I drove to this guy Spencer's house who Kyleworks knows, he was super cool. When I showed up there was a rabbit in front of the van and I tried to catch it. Yet another fail.
The next morning we ate pancakes and practiced Set Your Grohls songs some more. We went to the venue in Toronto and got freaked out by all the black squirrels once again, a memory we'd buried deep in our psyches that we'd hoped would never resurface. We ate bad Thai food before the show, then hung out with a raccoon that kept walking around in the dumpster near the loading door to the venue. Check him out here. That night we got nachos with some Canadian friends after the show. Our waitress sucked. The nachos were horribly mediocre and overpriced but our Canadian friends don't know any better because most of them have never had real Mexican food so they were beyond stoked. After the show we drove all night to Albany to drop off Susie, who'd been with us since Chicago. I drove first shift through the border and bought some maple fudge (which is phenomenal BTW) at the duty-free shop, and continued driving on until morning, going insane and listening to Integrity the entire drive.
I think I started feeling really sick around the time of the CT show. Our set was a definite challenge to get through and my throat just wasn't up to par. Swine flu represent! After the show we moshed with Fireworks and we got Chadball to "open it up." We even got Jenny to mosh! Fireworks followed us to Strader's house where we all stayed up til 4 AM eating brownies and drinking tea and just being idiots instead of getting rest.
The next morning we went to SJC and had our final "Set Your Grohls" practice, which sounded surprisingly solid. I passed out on the way to the show and when I woke up Joe was moving the van 2 miles to our parking spot, at which point I had to walk all the way to HOB. Sucked. Our friend Josh Lovell came to hang out and brought us some shirts from his new clothing line, Bloodlust. The design rules and I can't wait to see more. Click here to pick one up! The show was incredible. Boston is always really good for us but this show and the CA shows were the best of the tour.
Hoodwink was kinda weird, it felt awkward playing slower songs to a crowd that expects fast & energetic music from us. Kids push moshed though, so I guess they liked it?? Either way it was a hell of a lot better than last year's. Watching NFG do Green Day was the highlight of the night for me. That night we all got food with Fubu & his friends, and Felicia & her friends at a diner, then everyone went their separate ways because everyone had girlfriends or friends they were staying with. There were a bunch of people in our room as it was so I stayed with my friend Genna at her hotel and got punished by all her drunk friends for a couple hours before passing out. Good times.
Bamboozle was a long day but it was worth it because not only was our set a ton of fun, I got to hang out with Duncan and see The Get Up Kids! Definitely didn't suck. After the fest we showered and at 3 AM or so, we began the 10 hour drive to Columbus, OH. Womp womp.
I finally got a laptop bag when we got to Columbus so Jordan P. could stop congratulating me on my "new" Macbook I'd been carrying in the store-bought box all tour haha. After the show I went to some donut shop with Fireworks then we booked it to Indy and crashed at the hotel.
The off-day ruled. Hit up the mall during the day then in celebration of the last off-day of the tour, Pete took the entire tour out to dinner at Olive Garden. Good man. We pretended it was Jordan Pundik's birthday and the waiters & waitresses all brought him a little cake and sang to him. Juan took some footage of the sweet hangs using some weird internet webcam broadcasting service with his iPhone. Somehow it ended up on youtube:


After that we all hung out in the hotel parking lot with some Hooters waitresses some of the NFG and Bayside dudes had met earlier, and they brought along Pauly Shore. I felt kinda bad for the guy, the entire tour punished him! Don't believe we hung with Pauly? Well here's a blurry picture to (kinda) prove it!
The next day we played the Egyptian room in Indianapolis. This place was nuts, it's like an opera house with tons of huge empty rooms and the whole place felt haunted. Didn't know what to expect from IN but we were pleasantly surprised, but kids brought the mosh and the set was a lot of fun! During NFG's set, a car parked a couple spots from our van caught fire and the fire dept. had to come put it out. Pretty nutty. Hayley and Hannah were both out visiting their BFs so after the show we all went to BWW. Here's a picture I took on the way over. Hayley is wearing my sXe beanie and looking very non-edge while doing so... hahaha

St. Louis was a sweet venue called The Pageant, which was owned by some dude who owns like half the town or something. There were pictures all over the kitchen area of him with every artist who's ever played there, among other countless celebrities (Obama, Clinton, and Bush to name a few). Our friend Kyle from Reno tattoos down the street so after the show a bunch of us went bowling and he came along and hung out.
Kansas was a good show but the real fun was afterwards. Most of the tour went to BWW after the show and started chanting things at the punishers who followed us in there. After our meal we were in the mood to dance so we all went to find a bar with music. The first one we walked into was playing some music so instantly the Fireworks dudes took their shirts off and started dancing with each other. Apparently this kind of behavior doesn't fly in Lawrence, Kansas, because they instantly turned off the music, turned on the lights, and told everyone the bar was closed. We left and went to another bar. Last call, no dice. So naturally we started chanting, "We fucked up! We fucked up!" and moved along. This dude wouldn't let us in either so we started chanting, "This place sucks! This place sucks!" and kept walking until finally we found a place with a country band and some square dancers. We dominated the dance floor with some circle-pitting and general badassery. The band liked us so much that when they finished their last song, followed by our "One more song!" They were nice enough to do it for us. We got really ridiculous for the last song and we were even running onstage and yelling things into the singer's mic but he didn't care he loved it. He even joined us in a "USA" chant! As soon as they finished the last song we all sprinted out of there just to be weird. The rest of the night was filled with harassment of the drunk locals, dives off of unconventional objects, random circle pits around people and cars, laughing at drunk girls falling, and chanting anything and everything we saw around us. We even happened to see Batman and Spider-Man running down the street! So naturally, we circle pitted around them while chanting "Outweird the weirdos!" as well. All in all one of the best nights of the tour. Check out a video Steve made here.
Oklahoma sucks. Sorry if you live there, but there's really no way around the facts. The venue was in the middle of nowhere and so we went to the mall before the show to kill some time. The only cool thing was the weapon store, where we found blowguns, ninja stars, butterfly knives, switch blades, and Nazi knives. Yes, Nazi knives. Only in Oklahoma my friends. When we got back to the van it wouldn't start so we called Mr. Chris Mojan to save the day. He gave us a jump and when our van started up again we started moshing around the parking lot in celebration. It died again when we got to the venue so Mikey and Junior took it to Auto Zone and replaced the alternator like true savs. Got the van working again and made it back to the venue and ran onstage with literally no time to spare. Played to one of the best crowds of the tour. Kids went off. It ruled. After the show I rode with NFG to New Mexico because I was sick and needed rest.
Before the Albuquerque show a bunch of us went and got pizza down the street. I got anchovies on mine just to do it. I actually kinda liked it. Then we saw the new Star Trek movie which wasn't half bad, and I don't even like Star Trek. The Trekkies walking around town in their spandex suits were also pretty entertaining, I must say. The show sounded like crap onstage but it was probably one of the more decent reactions we've had in NM to date, despite all the fighting.
After the show we drove all night to AZ where were to meet the tour at 9 AM for the tour paintball battle royale. It RULED. I got a couple people out and raised 2 of the flags when we did team capture the flag games, and left with only a couple bruises. Chad & Anthony had made a hit list and somehow they all ended up on my team so during the last game I betrayed my team (who, by the way, had lost every single game) and tasted sweet sweet victory for once. Here's one of the group shots we took:
The last show was full of pranks. During Fireworks, Chad played the audio to the "Britney Pig Squeal" video in between songs. Hilarious. If you don't know what I'm talking about, feast your eyes...


During our set, Chad (and his unknown accomplices) lit these huge smoke bombs onstage and they would not go out, suffocating us with smoke. It was intense! There were a couple fights and after our set these dudes fought a couple security guards out back, pretty gnar. During Bayside, Chad and a few others brought cornhole boards onstage and had a full on game for a couple songs, which was pretty entertaining to watch. During NFG's last song we all got shirtless and danced/moshed onstage with glowsticks. Saying goodbye to everyone sucked more than usual because the tour was so much fun and everyone on it was just awesome. As you can see, goodbyes were long and drawn out, but it was well deserved...

Pete is a Father figure to Chris & Kyleworks

Nightbeast & Me

Definitely one of the best tours we've ever done in the states. I hope to tour with everyone again someday!

XXX

NWAF Tour Update: Day 33

We went to Chevy's for dinner in Peoria, IL and our waitresses ruled. One looked like Kirsten Dunst. I ate so much tamalito I thought I was going to puke... mmmm nomnomnom.
The show in Des Moines was surprisingly really good. We hadn't played there since the Terror tour so we weren't sure what to expect. After the show I P90X'ed it up with Chad, Junior and Jenny (NFG's monitor girl/stage tech/assistant TM), then Junior, Joe and I went to McDonald's and undid all of our workout before heading to the hotel hahaha.
St. Paul, MN was an alright show but it's been hard for me to get into it for the past few days because I caught a cold and it just seems to be getting worse. Myth is a cool venue though, we played there on the Paramore tour. After the show everyone had a humongous fireworks war in the parking lot, making it the coolest night of the whole tour. There were explosions in all directions and people were basically just aiming for the crowd of spectators, who would then scatter every time a rocket or firecracker came too close. A cop came after about two hours of chaos and he was super cool about it. He basically asked if we were done lighting fireworks because some of the neighbors were complaining (the nearest neighbors were probably close to a mile away if that gives any indication of how loud it was) and then drove off. We left shortly afterward and about two minutes into our drive, our trailer tire just rolled off! Luckily Fireworks was behind us and grabbed it. We were then faced with the unfortunate task of driving to the nearest repair shop and camped out in front of it until they opened.
In the morning we got the trailer fixed by some sketchy dudes who were definitely all white power, the boss even had an iron cross tattooed on his face! We hauled ass to Milwaukee and showed up at The Rave ten minutes before we had to play. We borrowed Fireworks' gear and played what felt and sounded like a weird set to us, but apparently the crowd didn't mind too much because it was the best reaction we've gotten there to date. Ruled. Our manager, Chris Allen, came out to the show and took us out to dinner at the Ambassador Hotel restaurant across the street. It was nice to eat real food that was not only delicious but also way beyond our personal budgets haha. After we got back to the venue Junior, Brett Jones, Hodge, and our friends Kiki and Jamie went exploring around The Rave and I finally saw the pool in the basement, which turned out to be pretty creepy; complete with smeared dark hand prints and pentagrams drawn on the walls. After that we drove to Chicago and stayed with our friend Daniel Schein.
Chicago rules and it was warm for part of the day yesterday afternoon, which was a first for me. Daniel took us to Gino's Pizzeria and we got some noms for lunch, then bought costumes for the Set Your Grohls set for Hoodwink. I'm still sick as hell so our set was a struggle for me to get through but all in all it was a fun show, got to hang with Steve Kane and some of the 2*Sweet dudes which is always awesome. After the show we were loading out and this valet guy got pissed because our van was blocking him from moving cars and he started trying to act hard with us and kept saying he was gonna fight everyone. Once he'd threatened us and started to get in people's faces, everyone came over and started antagonizing him until he realized he was severely outnumbered and went back to his car. After that anytime he would drive or walk past us we would all yell "U MAD?" it was hilarious. We got food at Chicago's Pizza after the show and on my way back to the van I ran into our friend Pete. He'd gone to eat with Anthony, Steve Kane and some other friends. It was cool getting to catch up with him for a bit. Chicago has some of the best dudes ever.
Today we're in beautiful Livonia, MI hanging at Kyleworks' house before the show. I don't have any cool pics or anything for this post, so here are some of my Dad sleeping. Enjoy!
XXX

U Mad?

So far, this trip to Europe has been amazing and brutal at the same time. The flight over to London was wack. Ben (our driver) is pretty much Phil's twin so that rules. His van is a lot smaller than we'd anticipated so the entire time we've been sharing our leg room with a mountain of merch bags and luggage which sucks but luckily the long drives are over. Upon being picked up from the airport, we all decided to go to Amsterdam on our day off and party. Good idea. We took a pretty weak ferry across the English Channel to France and drove to an overpriced hotel in Belgium in the early morning and slept all day. We hung out with the horse and the Shar Pei that were running around the hotel's back yard during the day, and that evening we got amazing food at what seemed like a truck stop diner on steroids on our way to Amsterdam. Once there, we walked around for hours just drooling at hookers in between stops at cafes where everyone except for Junior and myself got high eating and smoking various THC-containing products. As with every other visit to Amsterdam, every ten minutes or so we would walk by guys asking, "Coca? Ecstasy?" so I started saying it to them first haha. All in all it was a fun night and at the end of our excursion a baked Ben drove us back to our hotel where the butter-toothed old man let us in at 3 AM.
We woke up early and headed to Groezrock. This thing was way organized. I was tired and hot so I slept in our dressing room until the fest started. We opened the fest at 5:30 PM but our set was awesome and the sound was surprisingly really good despite the fact that we were playing on a gigantic stage in a massive tent. There were so many friends at that thing that it felt like we weren't even in another country across the ocean. Anti-Flag, Silverstein, and All Time Low were all there. We got a chance to see ATL kill it and hang out with Fubu (who showed up way late) before taking off for London. I felt bad because we didn't have room for Fubu but there was nothing we could do. Luckily he made it the next day.
The drive back sucked even more because we were already so tired and sleeping for like 20 minutes on the ferry was just a tease. There was no point in getting a hotel since load-in was so early, so we attempted to sleep in the van in the parking lot of a Tesco down the street from the venue. We were so tired by the time we got to Give It A Name fest that we all just immediately crashed on the concrete floor of our dressing "cubicle" the minute we got there. Luckily we had Ben and Phil to save our asses, taking care of checking us in and getting merch sorted out in the morning while we slept. I Woke up more tired than I was when I'd fallen asleep and we all played exhausted to about 20,000 people. Unfortunately everything that could've gone wrong, did. Mics and guitars cut out and the camera guy stepped on a power cable at one point, causing half the stage to lose power for the second half of "Flight of The Navigator" which caused the rest of us to lose track of where we were in the song. We should've just stopped playing but we continued on, further embarrassing ourselves by completing the song... no big deal, it was only the biggest show of our career to date! Keith was there and unfortunately witnessed the entire disaster. After that I tried to sleep some more but I was so stressed and tired already that I couldn't. All Time Low were awesome and so were Paramore.
When we got to Annie's I went to get food down the street with Dan and Joe once we got there and we witnessed the craziest brawl ever. There were like 5 dudes with their girlfriends being kicked out of a bar and fighting with security, and security was fighting back! I got a couple seconds of footage with my camera. That night we got like 4 hours of sleep. So pointless. Oh well, at least we got to shower.
The Sheffield fest was about half the size and way more laid back, not to mention our set went over way better. I was so bored all day before we played. I was relieved to see Fubu though, he'd made it alive! Alex from ATL came out during our set and did a song with us, then Hayley came out and did the end of "To Be Continued" with us too (it sounded so good!) so all in all it was a fun set. ATL owned as always and the rest of the show was great. After the fest we walked with ATL and Paramore to look for food but after walking 15 minutes in the wrong direction, we realized that T.G.I. Friday's, and everything else, were closed due to it being 12:30 AM on a Sunday night. Stupid England. Apparently you can't do ANYTHING after 6 PM on Sundays here, not even eat. Not to worry though, there are always plenty of Kebab shops! We went to one near Leeds on the way home and got pizzas for ₤2.50 at a place called "Simpsons Pizza." The outside of it was decorated with characters from The Simpsons (I guess they don't have copyright laws in the UK), it was amazing. Junior and I hung out in the kebab shop while everyone else got high in the van. The ride to Helen's house until we went to sleep was undoubtedly one of the funniest hours of my life.
Today we got Popina's in the morning and I took it easy at Helen's with Phil while everyone else went to Movielife practice. Ruled.
XXX

"Bamboozle Road Show" Tour Journal

I didn't have frequent enough access to the internet on this tour, so I just wrote all of these down in my phone as I went along and figured I'd post them all at once later. I've finally uploaded all the pics so now it's as ready as it's ever gonna get. Here's what was cool enough for me to commit to my crippled memory on this tour:

3.29.08 - 2:37 PM
Last night was the first night of the Bamboozle Road Show featuring Saves The Day, Armor For Sleep, SYG, Metro Station, and A Cursive Memory. Jathon is riding with us for the first 3 dates and on the way up to Seattle he and Jordan ate and smoked a retarded amount of weed. Jason brought a bunch of "day ruiners" and sold them to Metro Station's merch dude, Chris V.

Check out Anthony (our merch guy) sleeping:


4.8.08 - 2:54 AM
...Jason and Chris Clark did the first few days of the tour and their last day with us was Chico, which they drove up for. Jason brought more day ruiners with him and sold them all to Chris V, at which point he proceeded to eat 5 in a row, after which he smoked a blunt in Metro's bus and shouted absurdities out the window to us while we did an interview with a guy named Matt Wilson on the sidewalk below. Jason has never seen anyone eat more than 2 of these things in a day, and says 5 is an inhuman amount. The day ruiners, as well as Jason's weed, quickly became legend among the smokers of the tour and he was missed as soon as he and his traveling weed dealership left the tour haha.
Anyway I just drove 6 hrs. on the first shift from LA to Albuquerque w/Anthony in shotgun. We've grown delirious. We almost ran out of gas and luckily made it to some bizarre gas station that I'm convinced exists in an alternate dimension we discovered via wormholes in the space-time continuum after driving 85 miles straight without seeing diesel. This place had ceramic lamps depicting images of Catholic saints and half the store was lined with fish tanks. We had the pleasure of paying the low low price of $4.89/gallon for our gas and my snacks cost me $13. What a steal! When we walked inside I grabbed a Cactus Cooler and upon seeing this, Joe immediately goes to the van to get his $ so he can buy the last one. While he's gone Dan buys it just to fuck with him and we stand in the candy aisle with Jordan and Junior, anxiously anticipating his inevitable "discovery." Like clockwork, Joe walks back in and walks over to the drink case and opens it, looks around a bit, then realizes the Cactus Cooler is gone. "Oh, god damn it!" We all lost our minds. I got some cherry M&M's which kinda sucked but Dan liked 'em. I also got chocolate Skittles which are veg and actually pretty decent.
Earlier today Rupert took us to the Urban Outfitters he works at and got us all his 40% discount. I got some Puma sandals and a heather red hoodie. Mere minutes later Joe goes into the Vans store and buys the red Vans I have; THE SAME EXACT ONES THEY WERE SELLING AT URBAN THAT WOULD'VE BEEN $25 WITH RUPERT'S DISCOUNT!!! Undoubtedly one of his greatest anti-survival moments yet. Keep in mind this is after he'd received a phone call to warn him not to do what he did, and after buying them I told him he should return them and go buy them at Urban but of course he ignored that too. Joseph Ray, ladies and gents. Going out of his way to make life harder on himself 24/7.
Bamboozle Left yesterday was one of the best days I've spent in the last 4 years with this band and without a doubt one of the best shows we've ever played; we opened with the Blink cover we'd been doing the past couple days on the tour w/the ACM dudes and it went off. I already miss those guys. The whole day felt amazing but our set was especially great and The Movielife set was incredible too. I appreciated it so much more knowing it was probably the last time I'd see Vinnie sing these songs and that it was my bandmates playing them. OK time to go to sleep...

4.9.08 - 1:33 PM
The drives lately have been sucking. It's a cold Wednesday afternoon in Texas today which is strange because it's usually hot here. The van smells like dirty laundry and none of us have showered since Monday morning. Last night in Albuquerque was the worst sounding set of the tour. All we could hear onstage was an echoey (sp?) wall of noise, it sucked. We did like $400 in merch. Lame compared to how merch sales on the rest of this tour have been. After the show we hung out with Anthony from Armor and Buck (international TM and road technician to the stars) at a karaoke bar. He was going to do No Doubt's "Spiderwebs," but they never called his name so instead we watched him drunkenly insult the fat chicks onstage, calling them Chewbacca and what have you. At some point he wandered off and we couldn't find him anymore.

4.16.08 - 11:48 AM
Last night was wild. The entire week since my last update has been almost nonstop awesomeness.
Austin was cool, we stayed with our friend Nate and his GF at their apt. with their crazy ass deaf dog who likes to bite people/things and hung out with Ariel, Juan, Nutter, and a bunch of other friends after the show and went to Won Foo and got Dr. Pepper Slurpees at 7-11. Apparently you can only get them in TX.
In Dallas we hung out w/James K and finally went to The Clubhouse for the first time and got a picture with Vinnie Paul, it ruled.


Oklahoma was aight, I called out the security lady working the show onstage because she was a bitch to me before our set and she was letting kids fall on their heads when they came over the barrier. I got food at this amazing Italian pizza/pasta joint down the street from the venue called Falcone's. This place had posters of every great mob movie on the wall including a poster for "Casino," my favorite mob flick, signed by the cast and crew.

I want this!

Houston was a good show too. I was stoked I got to hang out with Lucy, who is one of the sweetest people I know. We got Thai food and sat around people watching all night. Ruled. The drive after the show suuuucked.
We spent our entire day off driving and loafing around a mall in Tallahassee.

Here's a dead bird we found stuck in our radiator grill:


4.18.08 - 12:42 PM
The FL shows were ridiculous. I feel like we entered an alternate dimension when we hit the state line. Such a weird place. We started things off properly by stopping to eat at the first Cafe Risque we saw. After that we stayed in Orlando because we were burnt out on driving. Playing The Revolution was nuts as always, SoFlo loves SYG! Dan and Junior got tattooed before our set at Colorfast studios around the corner from the venue, where I would be getting my nipples pierced later that night. It was Chris V's birthday (merch guy for Metro) he turned 25 so he was drunk as hell and so were Taylor and Melissa...

Right after the show I got my nipples pierced (along with a very hard slap in the chest) in exchange for some free shirts from a very drunk Scott at Colorfast Studios around the corner from Revolution.

All in all it was a crazy night filled with drunk people, nipples, piercings, tattoos, gorgeous women who are out of my league, shirley temples, and even a fight involving Diablo FSU at the bar next door! Some dude said something to him and Diablo just knocked him down in one punch. It broke out into a brawl and everyone kept trying to calm him down but he was hopping around like a leprechaun waiting for the next person to make a move, holding his SYG shirt in his hand throughout the entire ordeal! I caught the tail end of the brawl on video with my digital camera. Wildest night of the tour thus far.

After a night like that I didn't expect much from St. Pete but the crowd went nuts for our set and afterwards we enjoyed some awesome Thai food down the street.

Orlando was cool too, a bunch of our friends came out. Hung out and talked with Rob Dobi and his wife Maggie for a bit, that guy is so awesome. Artie (ACM's merch guy/TM) was there too. All the support bands shared the big green room so it was without a doubt the sweetest backstage yet. It was like a full on frat party complete with beer pong, flip cup, and other drunken foolishness. After the show we went to BWW with Keith & his GF Anna. Chris and Ben from Armor and Anthony's friend Eddie tagged along too. Frank 3 Gun walked in while we were in there strangely enough, said what's up to him. Apparently his GF lives in Orlando. Anyway I drove from 2 - 6 AM after the show with a very high Hash Brown passed out next to me riding shotgun:

In case you were wondering, Hash Brown is the nickname Jordan has acquired somewhere along the course of this tour. This can be attributed to his newfound appreciation for smoking hash, and his last name being Brown.

Speaking of which, we're in Atlanta now and I just got a hash brown casserole at Cracker Barrel. Rules.

4.20.08 - 9:39 AM
4/20 bro! Smoke weeeeeeed! Atlanta ended up being the best show of the tour for us. 700something kids paid and went the fuck off during our set. On top of that, Saves The Day's set consisted of pre-"Stay What You Are" material only! Everyone kept buying them drinks while they were playing so by the end they were pretty trashed haha. This was the first time they'd played a lot of these songs this tour so Mikey filmed the entire thing and I got a set list from Durijah afterward, which I meant to post a picture of but now I can't find it. Instead here's a picture from the show. This was probably the best STD set all tour for me.

The next night we played the Skate Park of Memphis which was weird because the vert ramp was gone and the layout for the place was totally different. Our set was intensely hot and my mic sounded like a cyborg when I'd sing into it. Wack but we hung out with Andy and Hannah the whole show which was cool. After the show we began driving...

4.30.08 - 6:59 PM
Cincinnati was cool, it ended up being the best set we've played there to date. It's funny, we played there on 4/20/07 on the Anti-Flag tour which was one year before to the day. So naturally we announced ourselves as Smoke Your Bowls again haha.

The Grand Rapids show was one of the smallest of the tour because Paramore and Jimmy Eat World were playing across town that night, not to mention Grand Rapids is generally a weak area for shows to begin with (or so I'm told). Chris Mojan, Justin K, Baloni and friends came out to hang which was awesome. Jaimie and Stephanie came out too, and Hayley had their runner drive her over from the Paramore show to say what's up. After our set, Mikey, Dan, Joe, Junior, Mindy and myself went to the Paramore/Jimmy show to hang out and caught JEW's set.

This was my first time seeing them and it was nuts (I once stood outside of Bottom of the Hill on their "Clarity" tour with my friend Josh but didn't go in. Way to go, me). They were so intense and didn't say a word their entire set until they were finished playing and then again for the encore. It was cool catching up with RJ while they played and talkin' smack with him haha. JEW's drum tech is the original drummer for Suicidal and their other guitar tech is Timmy Chunx. Sweet road crew. After their show, Hayley went with us to T.G.I. Friday's and so did the Fireworks crew... It was rowdy! After that we moshed all the way back to the buses and everyone went home so we played Halo 3 on Armor's bus for a bit before beginning another overnight drive.

Our day off was kinda lame, we went to Steak 'n Shake and then hung out in Chicago and I went with Joe to a secret Myspace show Moby was playing downstairs at The Metro across from Wrigley Field. There was a huge line outside but since our friend Pete works there he hooked it up. It was kinda lame though.

The Moby show:

Wrigley Field:

St. Paul, MN was cool, finally met Colin Strandberg who designs a bunch of shirts for us. Turns out he used to sing in Nehemiah haha. I found the coolest costume shop around the corner from the venue and we got a bunch of animal masks for our Warped promo photos, and got a Fidel Castro mask for Anthony which he began wearing while selling merch. Yes...Cuban B! hahaha. Ate an amazing veg chicken parm sandwich and then we bounced out for Milwaukee.
Milwaukee wasn't bad but the pillow room was locked! :( It was the best sounding set and the best reaction we've gotten at The Rave to date so that was cool, plus the AL4W dudes came out to the show so we chilled with Matty most of the night. Here's a picture of the parking lot at The Rave that I took from the front of the venue before the show. Above our van you can see the sign for the Ambassador Hotel across the street, where Jeffrey Dahmer killed and ate hella fools:

Hung out with J-me and Kiki which was good times. We got Pizza Shuttle after the show with AL4W and acted like idiots, cheering and chanting and singing, making fun of people while a hired police officer just stood by and watched without doing anything haha. After the show we drove to Chicago and showered at Jenna's before rolling to the show.
Chicago's show was at HOB so that ruled, I ate hella food and after our set I mostly hung out by merch for the rest of the show. That night we drove to Liz's house and got there early in the morning and passed out for a few hours before heading to the show.
The guy from Cold As Life loaded our equipment into the Detroit show which was pretty weird haha. Our set was a lot of fun and Saves The Day's was even better. Chris told us that their printer was out of paper so they were just gonna do requests and they liked doing that so much they did it every night for the rest of tour. We kept holding up signs that said Third Engine until finally they played it. The surrounding area sucked and nobody ate anything but PB & J sandwiches and chips all day because that's the only food we had in the dressing room upstairs. After the show we went with Lydia to Liz's house and partied with her and Jaimie & Steph. Party.

Columbus ruled. I don't really remember our set but Saves The Day's was so awesome. We kept buying them shots in order to get them to play the songs we wanted to hear and they ended up playing an hour past curfew! Eventually the rest of the band walked offstage (they were all trashed) and Chris grabbed the mic and said, "What is a curfew anyway, honestly? Isn't this supposed to be a college town? Nobody here goes to bed early!" and proceeded to play Three Miles Down as the venue turned on the house lights and the entire crowd screamed the words at the top of their lungs. He ended up getting in trouble with the venue afterwards but it was well worth it if you ask me. It was seriously incredible to watch, and easily one of the best sets of the tour. I wish we'd videotaped it. After the show we went to BWW with Mitch, Chris V, and the Armor dudes. They got rockegnized by our babe waitress.

The next day we stayed somewhere in VA on our day off and went to a shitty mall and hung out with Metro for a bit. It was Junior's birthday so we went to Olive Garden with some of the Metro dudes and got him a pizookie with, "Happy Birthday Audelio Flores Jr 88" written on it in frosting and a bunch of Sprite and grenadine. Afterwards we chilled with Chris V and Mitch at their hotel and then passed out at ours.

5.12.08 - 8:20 PM

The show at The Norva was our most decent show there to date. Kids were moshin' it up and singing along, and the rest of the show was pretty cool too. Keith came out to the show and hung out for a bit. I can't remember anything from after the show but it probably wasn't terribly exciting but it may have been the night we played our final game of front vs. back lounge Halo 3 on armor's bus. it ruled because they had all the best players and on our team we had all the worst players plus Ben. So basically it was Junior, Dan, Ben and myself on our team and we won every game! I think it ended up being like 6 games total. We rule. After that we definitely didn't let them hear the end of it hahaha.

Baltimore was awesome. Anton, Fubu, Joe Mitra, and all of Senses Fail came out to the show to hang and had a blast. My mic kept cutting out so at the end of the set I threw it up in the air and let it fall on the stage and the venue got a little pissed about that. I got into an argument with Junior and Joe about it afterwards in front of everyone which in turn made me even more pissed off, it was retarded. Anyway after all was said and done we talked it over after the show and minutes later a very drunk/high Chris Conley jumped the parking lot fence and ran into our van, rolling around in our bunks and ranting and raving about how much he loved them. He continued rambling on about a lot of things, like how he liked the smell of the cave and we got some sweet video documentation of this. Upon exiting the van, he left us with some slurred words of wisdom. I don't remember what it was exactly but he said something along the lines of, "Life is great but it's going to end so let's enjoy it!" Out of everyone on that tour I think i could relate to his perspective on things the most. Funny because most of the time he came off as socially awkward to others but he has a very objective approach to everything which I think is cool. Talking to Chris isn't awkward unless you make it awkward because he seems so relaxed all the time. We got some footage of everyone smoking in the infamous back lounge of Metro's bus before taking off for Kurt McGurt's house.

Thank science we went to Wawa the night before because we didn't have time to hit it up in the morning before the show.

The show was sweet, Jimmy Eat World had a day off so RJ and Timmy Chunx came out to the show and hung out. I got a GG special from Gianna's which was better than the show itself and afterwards I went with Joe, Junior and Billy Yayo to see Tragedy at the First Unitarian Church:

We made it back to the show in time to catch the end of Saves The Day's set and afterwards we hit up this pretzel factory that RJ recommended in the ghetto that sells giant pretzels made fresh and they're like 35 cents apiece! Ruled. That night we crashed with Kurt again and got like no sleep because we had to go play Hoodwink the next day.

Hoodwink is basically just a Bamboozle warm up show with like a quarter of the bands playing to about 1,500 kids. It was freezing and we sold like $90 in merch. Weak. Joe played in a bunny suit though, that was entertaining:

That night we got a tiny hotel and chilled with John Bowes, our good friend who plays in the band CDC.

...And here's John eating his own beard:

Bamboozle was crazy. There were so many people and both our set and The Movielife went off. It was one of the best shows we've ever played, and also one of the biggest crowds we've ever played to.

Hit The Lights had a great set too.

Yeah, that's an inflatable mattress they threw into the crowd that Nick jumped onto.

Later on RJ waved me up onstage to watch Jimmy as all the "cool" people got denied stage access for the first half of their set. Mwahaha suckers. They were awesome despite the crummy weather.

After their set I checked out some of Snoop Dogg before heading over to the Red Bull VIP tent, but all I could see was smoke.

The Red Bull VIP tent was exactly what I thought it'd be at first: a ton of "industry elite" types schmoozing about, mooching free drinks from the open bar and "networking." That type of get together doesn't appeal to me at all and events like these are usually what make me hate the music world, but HOLY ASS things got awesome fast! We knew almost everyone in the tent after about an hour of people trickling in when word spread that everyone was hanging out in there. My time in the tent went from making fun of people, throwing drinks, degrading women, and uttering racial slurs at increasing volumes w/Mikey and the HTL dudes... to helping Fubu get drunk... to dancing with Lydia to the surprisingly decent mix the DJ was spinning... to laughing at Nano drunkenly falling on girls with Keith... to chatting with the Red Bull guys, who for some reason treated our band like royalty and allowed us go in and out as we pleased with as many guests as we wanted, even though everyone else had to stand outside due to the tent reaching capacity... to playing Rock Band with Mikey... to finally running into Chris (high on shrooms at the time) and listening to him tell me about how sweet his shoes were as he proceeded to hug (and kiss!) every member of my band he saw that night, and tell us how much he loved our band and that he wanted us to write out a set list for them for the show the next night. After I said goodbye he resumed his solo dance session in the middle of the room with his eyes closed. Chris Conley everyone, best dude on the planet. We went to a diner with Keith, Craig and Fubu afterwards, and ran into Chris V and his friends. Bamboozle was another one of the best days I've ever spent with this band and I hope we can play again next year. We took off but we were all so tired from sleeping like 3-4 hours/night for a week solid that we had to pull over and sleep at a rest stop about an hour into the drive.
In the morning we made a few pit stops in MA to buy sombreros, a pinata, candy, and a bottle of Patron tequila for the show that night. I figured that since we wouldn't be on tour together on Cinco de Mayo, what better way to end the tour than by celebrating Quatro de Mayo?!
Tom and Brad Rheault came out to the show and so did Strader, so it was good hanging with them for a bit.
Valencia was on this show which was cool too, those guys seem pretty sweet and Ollie Mac was TM'ing them (in his limited all-over print myspace hoodie) which ruled.
During Metro station's set, Jordan, Dan and myself all went out on stage carrying bass guitars and rocking out pretending to be their missing "mystery" bassist that comes through the PA every night. They actually thought it was funny which was good haha. For our set, we all came out wearing the sombreros and Metro Station booty shorts (except for Jordan who had fallen victim to fear's tight grasp). We had some trouble breaking the pinata ("Of course this giant plastic toy bat will work!" -Mikey) but we ripped it in half and threw it, and the bat, into the crowd. The set was incredible up until the last minute and a half, at which point a fight broke out, died down, started up again, and was then broken up completely...But not before Jordan decided to PMS about it and run off the stage and hide in the van for a good hour sleeping in the cave. This pissed the rest of us off because there was so little time remaining in the set and it had been so great up until that point.
I'd written our band's song requests on a paper plate and placed it in STD's dressing room and to my surprise, Chris walked onstage carrying it and actually used it for their set! This night was the most drunk we got them the entire tour and by the end of the set they'd killed the whole bottle of Patron. For one of the last songs Manny just laid down on the ground and remained there, playing the entire song that way.

After the show I hung out by merch and listened to Chris V's weed and alcohol induced ramblings about life. I told him he ruled and he said something so funny I had to write it in here: "Matt, I don't rule. I am just a weakened version of your reflection, bro!" He then admitted he'd stolen it from of a DMX song hahaha. After that there was a full on rager on Metro's bus.

Everyone on the tour made an appearance with the exception of Manny (who was puking, which Dave informed us was a first for him), Durijah, and Ben, Nash, and PJ who were hanging out with their ladies.
Needless to say we were all bummed when we rolled away that night and everyone agreed The Bamboozle Road Show was one of the best tours we've ever done and we will always remember it that way. I learned a lot as a touring musician and as a person on that tour and got to know a handful of great people who I hope to remain friends with for a very long time and hopefully tour with again at some point.

XXX