Hi and welcome to the blog.  We've returned safely from our 21-day tour of the east coast.  It was quite an amazing time and best summed up by Chase (our road manager and friend since childhood) as "Four months of life in three weeks."  So , I'm going to be recounting our  happenings with pictures and videos. I hope you enjoy them.  Feel free to leave comments. Especially if they come at Colin's expense.  :D

 

June 13, 2009: Goodbye Florida! Hellllloooooo.........Mobile, AL?  Yep and lemme tell ya, that place is awesome.

We were very happy to learn that Mobile was less than 90 minutes away from Pensacola.  After sleeping a few extra hours, we loaded up for our last show as a trio.  We had been in constant contact with our bandmate Alejandro (who had to miss the first few dates due to a prior commitment) and planned to pick him up the next day in Atlanta.  I think we were all ready for a thicker sound and plus, we missed our little brother!

None of us had ever been to Alabama and we didn't really know what to expect.  Stereotypes aside, we anticipated a very southern, laid back town...Welcome to Alabama!

 

 

I'm not sure if the fact that we just left the Cockroach Inn had anything to do with it but the downtown Mobile Holiday Inn was amazingly nice.  And it was walking distance to the gig.  We were schedule to perform for four hours that night at the grand opening of Hopjacks, (we played the first Hopjacks location the previous night in Pensacola.)

After getting settled in, we went over to the venue to load in. Because this was the bar's grand opening, they had yet to invest in a sound system.  Luckily, Mike happens to be a live sound engineer.  Coincidence?  When we scoped the place out, we couldn't really find the stage.  The manager told us to 'look up.' Oh, there it is.  Up a miniscule spiral staircase.  Just when we thought it was getting too easy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After load in, we still had a few hours to kill before gig time.  Needless to say, Chase was feeling like a nap. But four hours is quite a long time to play original music so since we had time, I wanted to incorporate a brand new song that I hadn't ever shown the guys. I played them the demo of a new song about religion called "Ethereal Evidence."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you're familiar with the music, you know that the songs aren't exactly simple.  There are a lot of instruments in most of the tunes which made playing as a trio very interesting.  We essentially had to create new versions on the fly for some of the tracks.  Oceans, for instance, normally a very mellow, melodic song full of thick chords and heavy reverb wouldn't really work as a trio in a bar.  So we improvised a bit...Make sure this is loud!

 

Oceans ((funky) live from Mobile, AL 6.12.09) -

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The set(s) was pretty awesome.  We jammed completely in tune with each other, both musically and emotionally, for four hours and the crowd loved it.

Here's what Dan had to say about it:

"It was probably one of the most exciting stops of the whole tour.  The first set was musically very special to me since the whole band got to improvise and I got to see how far out we can go with the music and still sound tight.  After the first set, I was excited to play two more with the band."

Afterwards, we started loading up the truck and while packing, two police cruisers pulled up five feet behind us, the officers busted out and immediately pinned a guy to the hood of the car.  Wow.  Mobile doesn't mess around.

Chase was also kind of taken aback by Mobile's attitude:

"Mobile was a nice daytime, southern sweetheart that knew how to welcome a stranger but it also knew how to shed its skin on a Saturday night.  Between seeing three separate people get arrested and seeing one hardcore cat fight within a two hour span, I knew I could hang out in this town for a while...or maybe just a night."

We accepted a few of the local's invites to some bars and Dan amazed us all by immediately ordering everyone a round of $2 Pabst Blue Ribbons, proving that in just one day, he's already become an Alabamian.  After the seventh round, he declared to the rest of the bar that he was moving in next week.   Just kidding.

Sorry, but the rest of the night was filled with inaudible speaking, arhythmic dancing and unbloggable video.

Tomorrow (or later that day, I guess):  'Nawlins!!!

 

This entry was posted on Friday, July 17th, 2009 at 9:39 pm and is filed under Four Months In Three Weeks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.