I'm still alive!

DISCLAIMER: I can't make the text on this entry larger for whatever reason because Google is stupid. Sorry for the eyesore.

Greetings, ppl of teh internetz. We're a little over a week into our U.S. Tour with Parkway Drive, The Ghost Inside, and The Warriors at the moment and I had the sudden urge to resurrect my blog from the dead and distant past. I'm going to try to keep the updates as regular as possible on this one (though I make no guarantees!) ...Video clips coming soon, enjoy!

Mikey had been working on the van with our old guitarist Dave for over a month (video update coming soon) while the rest of us finished up the new record in the studio (check out a montage of us at the height of our studio insanity here). He and I drove it down from the Bay Area to put the finishing touches on the interior with Junior before the tour started...but not before I discovered this little gem tucked away in the Ambrose family kitchen hahaha

This tour has been a lot of fun for everyone thus far. The first week we had the pleasure of hanging with our good friends in Gravemaker, as they were opening the tour. We weren't sure what to expect from the crowds on this tour because we sound pretty different from the rest of the bands on the bill but it's gone well for the most part. The first show was at Soma in San Diego. My dad came out and we got Thai food before the show, which I then went on to puke up right before our set, but other than that it went over great. Here's a pic from backstage:

The next day was Glasshouse in Pomona. Before the show we went to Native Foods with my friends Tom & Cathy. Tom's got a pretty impressive gun rack in his house.

We drove straight through the night from Pomona to "Da Bay" which was nice because I got a little sleep in my own bed, ate some Taqueria Cancun, and our buddy Doug hooked it up with some gear from the upcoming Rebel 8 Spring 2011 line. Stoked, thanks Doug!

...I could show you what's behind this door, but then I'd have to kill you.

All of the CA shows were great. The SF show was at the DNA Lounge, a venue I've been to a number of times but we've never played. The show was incredible and it was great to see so many friends and family come out and hang. We were all bummed to leave our home state, but we were excited for the next city; Vegas!

For whatever reason, the rest of the bands on the tour had a show with Retaliate that day, but we had the day off. So, in true SYG fashion, we headed to Vegas early to get our gamble on! We booked a couple rooms at the Flamingo hotel and they weren't able to add beds to our rooms to accommodate everyone, so they just moved us to a King-sized suite on the 26th floor for free instead! We definitely didn't mind.

We happened to be there on the same weekend as Magic, a fashion/clothing convention held in Las Vegas, so we had a lot of friends in town. We got dinner at P.F. Chang's with our friends Rob and Lisa, then Mikey and I lost our usual $200 on the casino floor while everyone else who gambled made money.

The House of Blues show was better than usual for us...no fights! Our good friend Jon Gula moved out to Vegas this past year and we got to see him for a bit. Jon is the ex-vocalist for one of our all-time favorite metalcore bands and past tourmates, Turmoil. Jon also did guest vocals on "Gaia Bleeds." After the show we went out with Doug, Josh, and Ricky from the Rebel 8 crew to a Famous Stars & Straps party and hung out for a bit before we had to start the drive to Salt Lake City.

The show in SLC was another good one, and yet another rarity for us with no fights :D There was a massive snowstorm and the transformer outside blew up, causing the power to go out during The Warriors' set; which was kind of crazy for a second because the entire venue was standing in darkness for about a minute straight. It didn't fully come back until about halfway through TGI's set, so the security guards had to illuminate the pit with flashlights so that people wouldn't get broken noses. Outside, it snowed about 6 inches throughout the course of the show, which made for an interesting drive to Denver afterwards. Before we left we ate at this place called The Pie Pizzeria which was incredible. If you ever find yourself in SLC, do yourself a favor and check it out!

Luckily Denver was a bit warmer, which made up for an otherwise uneventful show for us.

Kansas City was a little better. We went to our favorite local sandwich spot, Mr. Goodcents. My total was $6.66

We got to hang out with our buddies Tissue and Jason Shrout and the show that night was fun.

The next night was St. Louis at Pop's. The venue owner also owns the strip club next door so we all got free admission, which was convenient because it's the only place within miles to find food, so we all headed there for lunch before the show.

After the show we drove through the night to Cleveland (which is where we are now) so we could eat a delicious lunch at Melt: home to the best grilled cheese sandwiches I've ever had.

Gotta go, time to gig!

XXX

"AP Fall Ball" Tour Journal - Part 2

Hello world!

I am writing to let you all know that I am still alive. I have been many places since I last wrote in this thing and hopefully I'll get around to posting the interesting stuff in here at some point because while I'm pretty sure no one cares enough to read about how we loaded in and soundchecked and ate food every day for like 2 months straight, there is some really cool stuff that happens on tour that I'd like to share with the rest of the world. The problem is that by the time I end up getting internet access or time to sit down and write on the road, a week or so has gone by and when I get home from tour it's usually months later and I get too overwhelmed to tackle such a tedious task. Plus I can barely remember what we did by then anyway. Soooo in order to prevent my blog from getting any more screwed up I think I'm going to get with the times and maybe turn this into a video blog. Now, keep in mind I've still got plenty of past tour diaries/pictures to post on here before I make the shift over to a completely video-based blog, so the metamorphosis will be a gradual one, but I figured why not go the way of the "now" and start putting my YouTube channel to use? I apologize for the random and scattered nature of my posting and I'm sure nobody knows or cares what I'm talking about and just skims through to the pictures anyway which is part of the reason switching to video seems like a such a splendid concept hahaha. I'm probably just rambling here but my point is that this should (fingers crossed), in time, improve the overall quality and timeliness of my entries in this blog. What are everyone's thoughts on this?? Let me know in the "Comments" section at the bottom, please!! Think it over while reading over my damaged memory's sorry attempt at recollecting the 2nd half of the "AP Fall Ball" Tour.

Sorry it took me so long, guys.

We returned to the Orlando House Of Blues the very next night to play there. I don't remember what we did after the show but I'm sure it involved food and probably wasn't too interesting.

The next day we played in Atlanta at the Masquerade and there was this crazy haunted house next door so a bunch of us headed over there with Luis from TSH and some friends. How do you know when a haunted house is good? When they card you at the door and make you sign a waiver releasing them of any responsibility in the event that you should incur any sort of bodily harm! This thing was definitely something out of a shock horror film and VERY realistic looking! It looked like a slaughterhouse and the actors/actresses, makeup, and special effects were superb. I won't get into the gruesome details but some of the rooms involved slicing off X-Rated body parts, the actors asking us to remove other body parts from theirs (at which point they'd spray blood everywhere), and they would even pee on us as we ran by screaming! We all agreed it was the best haunted house we'd ever been to.

The next day was Rocketown in Nashville. There were a ton of kids at this show. I want to say it was sold out but I don't know for sure. To our surprise this was the best show of the tour for us. During our set kids were going so crazy that they actually pushed the barrier forward about three feet... something I'd never seen before at any show!

In Charlotte we drove for what seemed like an hour out of the way to find this place Mikey found on urbanspoon.com called Crepe Cellar before the show. This place was incredibly good. I highly recommend checking it out if you're ever in the area. To read more about our experience at Crepe Cellar, check out Dan's entry in his tour food blog, roadnoms.com. The show itself wasn't bad for North Carolina but It felt like we were too far from the crowd because of the barrier. Our friend Fubu flew out to hang with us and some huge security guard kicked him out for moshing or something so that kind of put a damper on things as well. Oh well. The next night definitely picked our spirits back up.

Halloween '09 was spent in Norfolk, VA at the Norva. We got our costumes at Spencer Gifts and $300 later we were decked out in Juggalo gear and ready to perform as wicked clowns! We decorated the stage with jack-o-lanterns and put ICP banners over our cabs. We threw candy, silly string, and a ton of Faygo soda all over the crowd. Here are a couple costume pics:

I wish I had more pics of the madness that ensued but since I can't find any right now and will most certainly be too lazy to post them up later, you can check out the video Mikey made of our entire evening here. Enjoy! If my memory serves me correctly, YMAS all had random costumes, TSH didn't dress up, Mayday were The Village People, and TAI had skeleton faces. After the show we went to a party with YMAS and it was lame so we left fairly soon after arriving but not before waking up the entire neighborhood with an M-80 we threw into a jack-o-lantern. We placed the pumpkin in the middle of the street and began walking away. Just then a car drove up and stopped. The M-80 went off, vaporizing the jack-o-lantern right as the driver was about to get out of the car to move it... I don't think he was too stoked hahaha

November 1st we played the 9:30 Club in D.C. They made us these cute little cupcakes and put them in our dressing room:

The show was a lot of fun and the next day we had a day off so I stayed with my homie Anton Rough and hung out in Baltimore the next day.

Philly was cool but there's so much good food and so many cool shops that I always feel like there's not enough time to do everything I want to do when we play there. Got to see John Bowes and some other good friends and eat veggie cheesesteak though. Always a plus.

Albany was a good show for us and I immediately noticed this addition to the dressing room-I most certainly approve!

Boston was (and always is) a blast. Saw a lot of good friends and our set was killer.

The next night we played Toad's Place in CT and I ran into these two girls who'd asked Jordan and myself for our signatures last time we came through on Gig Life. To our surprise, these girls had gotten them tattooed on their legs! ...Don't believe me? I was so shocked I took a picture, check this out! Definitely a first for me:

The show was sold out so the promoter brought down champagne for all the bands. I guess he did this on Gig Life too but I didn't notice. Not that I had any reason to. Wooo, champagne. Big whoop. Now if he were to bring us all Shirley Temples or Martinelli's or something... THEN I'd be interested!

I don't remember anything too exciting happening at our show at the Starland Ballroom. The dressing room was super hot and I spent most of the night getting movies and TV shows from my friend Kurt's hard drive. A trip to Wawa was the highlight of the night for me.

The next day we played the Crazy Donkey in Long Island and went to the driving range next door. Ruled. The Crazy Donkey had changed a few things around since we'd last played there with I Am The Avalanche over a year ago. The merch was to be sold in a new area outside (regardless of potential rain and no lighting) and the dressing room had been relocated from the basement... to this.

...A huge step down considering the musty smell of the basement was just as present in this retired ice cream truck/trailor. There was even a bed in the back, complete with love stains. Gross.

We spent the day off in NYC and met up with our friend from home Zed and he took us to check out ground zero. Then we saw "This Is It," the Michael Jackson movie, with some of the other guys on the tour and our friend and fellow road dog, Anthony Amor. When Juan returned to the hotel he had a long phone convo with his girlfriend. It seemed to me like the entire tour, he was always in a bad mood after a conversation with her, but I didn't expect it to be this bad. He announced that he was going home and would not be doing the remaining six dates of the tour. We said OK because if our TM didn't want to be there we didn't really see it going too smoothly if he stayed. Things ended up working out because as I mentioned, Anthony was already in NYC so he met up with us and replaced Juan, who went to the airport.

Our friend Jon Gula came out to the show at Croc Rock the next night. For those who don't know, Jon used to sing in an incredible metallic hardcore band called Turmoil. Jon brought with him a super cool gift: a couple test presses of their record, "The Process Of," a favorite of everyone in the SYG camp and a definite classic.

NYC was a headache as always but the show was a lot of fun. Our dressing room was like a Nor Cal reunion. Noah, Ben, Duncan and Leo all came to hang out... all friends from back home who moved to New York!

Buffalo was kind of a weird show but ran into Andy from Every Time I Die and got some great food down the street with my buddy Dan so that was cool.

We were stopped at a random checkpoint in Arizona earlier in the tour and some of our dudes got in a little bit of trouble with John Law for having some illegal plants on them, so we were unsure as to whether or not we'd be able to cross into Canada. Somehow we made it though! We got some crappy hotel and got to chill with all our Toronto friends that night. But onto the really fun stuff...

The second to last day of the tour was in Cleveland, home of the Alternative Press Headquarters. Before the show I went to the crappy mall down the street and found this sign in the men's room, thought it was pretty funny. Only men would need to be reminded of this hahaha:

I also found this in front of a business in the same mall, maybe you recognize it from a certain Tooth & Nail band. Who is ripping off who here? That's what I wanna know!

The show was great. During Mayday's set a bunch of us ran out onstage with guitars and pretended to rock out as an end of tour prank. Afterwards everyone from the tour was invited to some secret party with an open bar upstairs where a bunch of rich people in nice clothes, the AP staff, and of course a bunch of random girls who somehow found their way in, were waiting. Everyone actually had a lot of fun as you can see by this picture i took of the tab at the end of the night (complete with boner doodle). Alt. Press sure does know how to party!

The pranks continued on last night of the tour in Pittsburgh, PA at the Altar Bar. During YMAS some of the Mayday guys got on the PA and heckled them from the front of house. During our set a bunch of guys from the other bands ran out and danced around onstage shirtless during our intro. I think "It's Raining Men" was supposed to be playing in place of our intro music but something went wrong. Still a good prank nonetheless. Other than that, I can't remember anything too eventful from the last show but I do remember the Cleveland show was the last big party night and felt more like the big farewell of the tour anyway.

In closing, I leave you with a picture of a mighty neard, as pictured on the portrait of this slave owner that we found on the wall of a Cracker Barrel. Enjoy!

XXX

"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

Long overdue tour wrap-up: Japan

In case anybody who reads this thing hadn't noticed by now, I'm really pretty lazy about updating. Well, I'm pretty lazy about a lot of things to be honest but hey, what do you want from me? I'm in a band! Responsibility isn't part of my vocabulary! Soooo anyway, I'm gonna finish with Japan now and get around to Australia sometime in the next few days. Sound good? I thought so...
Osaka was sweet. Started off the day with some "Kono Pizza" with Joe for lunch before lobby call. Not bad, but not the best pizza I've ever had either. Kinda weird that they serve it rolled up in cone form (the cone is the crust) though, so we had to try it regardless.
The last show was good but in all honesty the first show was the best... So let's move on to aftershow activities! Dan, Jordan, Mikey, and Junior went to some sushi place with Mayumi & Mitsuko. There was a huge jug of what appeared to be a large jug of snake wine (and a jar of what appear to be snake eggs?) by the stairs. AWESOME!!!
Joe and I didn't like the looks of the place (can you blame us??) so we ventured onward in search of something interesting to eat. We found some place very far away that served very interesting food that just so happened to taste very good. I started things off with some miso soup and a lemon soda, then ordered this musubi (that's rice ball in Japanese!) with tiny seasoned baby sardines inside of it, and purple stuff that might have been eggplant? Not sure, but I hate eggplant and I hated this stuff. The rice ball was good though, the sardines tasted like beef jerky.
I also ordered some smoked salmon, cream cheese & avocado salad that was really good and some crab fried rice that was even better. Then Joe and I split an order of stingray. This stuff ruled! It was chewy and a little crispy on the ends and came with seasoned mayo for dipping. Very sweet and delicious. This one's for Steve Irwin! In your faces, stingrays!
What an excellent meal for our last night in Japan! I left stuffed and the place was nicer than most places we'd found, yet decently priced. Good stuff. After that a few of us went to the aftershow "party" at some place called "Rock & Roll Bar" or something. Here's a picture of me with our tour manager, Emi. Emi loves to party as you can see.
I also found this old picture of NFG on the wall. You can't see it because of the glare, but Steve wrote "420 Dogg" below his name hahaha. Also, check out Joel from Good Charlotte wearing a Make Move hoodie in the next pic over! For those who don't know, Make Move was on our first tour ever. We met Junior because he was playing guitar for them at the time.
The next day at the airport sucked because Malaysia Airlines sucks. Oh well, at least Japan is cool. Australian tour summary coming soon!
XXX

Japan: update

Japan still rules. I'm having way more fun this time around and I don't want to leave. Maybe it's the fact that it's not freezing cold and we're here with friends. The 2nd show in Shibuya wasn't as packed but it was still fun. Yesterday we had a day off so we went to lunch with our friends Miki and Gucci from Sony Music Japan, then we went to Harajuku where we spent wayyyy too much money at Kiddyland (a 6-story toy store), then walked around a bit. Here are some of the highlights of the past 2 days...

Lunch with Miki & Gucci
A Loss For Words Endcap display at the 7-story Tower Records in Shibuya, NBD

Spotted this giant Terminator at some Nike promo in Harajuku

Mousemobile!

We then went to dinner with Graham, Yuta, and Tome from Inyaface at our favorite udon restaurant in Shinjuku. On the way we stopped at a pet store and I found these cute but retarded-looking kitties...

I ordered the scrambled egg one, it's the jam.
Hangin' tough with Tome

Today we woke up super early and hopped on the bullet train to Nagoya. On the way Junior pulled out one of his McDonald's cheeseburgers from last night that he'd saved as a snack... disgusting.

"Don't judge me"

Apparently the ATMs here get sad when you cancel your transaction:

The Nagoya show tonight was really small (150 kids) but we could tell they had a good time. After the show we all went to some chicken wing spot and ate a bunch of really weird food. Tomorrow is our last show in Japan, Osaka!
XXX

Japan rules.

Hello everyone!
Yesterday was the first show on our short Japan/Australia run of shows with our good friends in All Time Low.
We flew out of SFO, then transferred to LAX before heading to the Tokyo/Narita airport. In LAX we saw Busta Rhymes with an entourage of dudes. I also spotted this lady in line wearing what appeared to be a Bayside hoodie, but turned out to be what I'm told is an Old Navy hoodie with little Bayside birds all over it, weird:
Kelly Rowland of Destiny's Child was also walking around, I think she was on our flight because we saw her when we landed. We got to the Narita airport Sunday evening around 4:15 PM local time. Got to our hotel and cruised around Shibuya for a bit and found some weird crap at Don Quixote:



I got some hot lemon drinks and udon before going to bed. When I went to bed my voice was still completely shot from staying up all night for the video shoot. Luckily yesterday morning I could talk but I still haven't completely recovered. I managed to snap a pic of myself in these sweet PJs they give you at the hotel:
Walked around Shibuya some more yesterday with the band and managed to make a friend on the way. A girl came up to us on the street with gifts and introduced herself as Yuka. She said she'd been looking for us and happened to get lucky. We kidnapped her for the day and she proved to be a most useful translator. We hit up a ramen spot that some of the dudes went to last time and then got dessert down the street. Here's a picture of us with Yuka at our favorite boba & crepes spot in Japan, Pearl Lady:
After that we headed back to the hotel and then walked to the venue to get ready for the show. Before we played they had us do some press videos and photos. As you can see, we take these things very seriously:
Despite my throat not working, the show was great. The crowd was awesome and the kids were chanting our name when we walked onstage which was a pleasant surprise. Stage sound was awesome too. I took a picture of the crowd from the stage:
All Time Low sounded amazing. Looking forward to tonight's show at the same venue. After the show we took some photos with fans and then got sushi with Graham, Tome, Yuta, Mayumi and friends. They had this special item at the sushi bar called tuna steak, which I'd never tried. It tastes exactly like a mini steak on a ball of rice but it's tuna. Amazing. I ate at least 3 orders. After that we went to some lame bar for like 20 minutes. They played decent music and there was a cracked window that someone in Metallica supposedly broke, but other than that it was pretty boring and I was way too tired to hang out so I went back to the room. That's all for now!
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