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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 worth 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 20, 2009: Poor Alejandro and Mike wearily knocked on our door at eight o’clock, having packed and readied for the day’s commute. When I opened the door, they looked flushed and fatigued, like they had just donated enough blood to aid an entire platoon. ”Dude. Dan slept with the thermostat at 80 degrees in our room last night. It was like a f*cking Turkish bath.”
A band is so much like a family. When you’re on tour together, you have to be able to make compromises. Not everyone is the same as you and for the unity and good nature of the group, you’re required to give up some of your personal habits or preferences.
Every hotel we stayed in, we booked two rooms. Three guys in each. Chase and I normally shared a room because we like the temperature to be freezing. 65 or 66 was about right. Dan never stayed with us because he liked his sleeping temperature at about 80 degrees. So the other three normally rotated. Needless to say, the guys had some rest to catch up on during the ride.
We left Virginia Beach quite early. It wasn’t a particularly long drive to D.C. but we were just really excited to get there. We were getting so much into the routine of playing everyday that our off days felt underachieving. I remember, we were packing up the van, getting ready to leave….everyone was pretty quiet – tired, most probably. Some mornings, it felt like I was sleepwalking. And that’s what was so remarkable about Chase. He never seemed tired and yet aside from the two to four hours of our performances each night, he had to stay alert the entire time. Driving such a large rig takes considerable concentration, helping unload, making sure the rest of us were out of bed on time, etc. He definitely earned his stripes. And he never complained! Being in charge of five dramatic, sensitive and passionate artists for three weeks on the road is not an easy job. Trust me.
Anyway, I was finishing up some packing and about to get in the car when he got out of the driver’s seat and double checked, finding my cellphone and wallet on the car’s roof. Uh……Thanks, dude.
This is one of our many pit-stops. You can see that everyone is well into the routine and Chase still in high spirits.
God Likes The Music
Sightseeing On The Fly
Driving into Washington, D.C. is very cool because a lot of the famous monuments and buildings are visible from the main interstate almost immediately upon entering the city. Dan had never been to the nation’s capitol and it was pretty exciting for him. We rolled down the windows as we navigated through the alphabetized streets to the gig. Similar to Mobile, we would set up and soundcheck immediately before checking into the hotel. (We all prefer this way, allowing us to prepare mentally right before the show instead of working up a sweat, physically arranging kits and amps etc.)
The Warehouse Theater was a very neat place. Normally, they host art exhibitions and of course, theater, so the acoustics were adventurous. And I don’t mean that in a bad way. Mike did a great job, as always, with the sound and he managed to get a recording of the show.
We checked into a ridiculously nice hotel just a few minutes from the gig and took naps and showers. Four of our good friends from Raleigh decided to meet us up here to check out the show and to have a mini-holiday. Not to take credit for D.C. being a great city to visit but I took that as a real nice gesture of those guys. They said they really liked the Raleigh show. Me too!
Much like Raleigh to me, this was Colin’s big night. He had grown up twenty minutes south in Alexandria, VA and had invited a bunch of his childhood friends. A lot of them, including his dad, showed up that night. In fact, it was probably the most intimate show we had. Not to say there was a shortage in attendance but we basically knew everyone in the audience. All thirty or so of them were either friends or family which was a really nice change. Of course, you want to expand your fan base and play for new people but playing in front of folks you know and care about is very special. We played a very calm but passionate show, switching in and out songs that had were requested on the spot and just having a lot of fun.
Here’s a little tour of the venue with some help from Tom, Mike, Dan S and Dan F, our pals from Raleigh…
We played the Chili Peppers’ ‘Aeroplane’ that night (not an easy song to play on bass) but Colin killed it for his home crowd and they loved him.
Here is that night’s version of “So Alive” which will be on the forthcoming EP.
After the show, we hung out with our crew for a bit but eventually had to start packing. We were playing in New York the next day and knew it was a bit of a drive.
That’s when the man of the hour looked at me with his big brown eyes and said “Yo Tristan, is it cool if I take off now and go back to Alexandria tonight with my friends and I work extra hard tomorrow night to make up for it.” How could I deny that? “Of course you can go Colin. But one condition.” ”What,” he said with a cautious ear and a perched eye brows. “Be back at the hotel no later than 8 a.m. We’ve got an early start and we can’t afford to be late.” He obviously obliged and I made him promise me three times before he left.
After packing and eventually finding a 30-foot parking spot in downtown D.C. on a Saturday night, we crawled up to our rooms and collapsed on our beds with the clock showing 4 a.m.
What’s that you say? Did I honestly think that Colin was going to stick by his word and show up on time? Of course. I mean, I know that normally a straight-A student, he would have failed ‘Punctuality 101, but he promised me THREE times! THREE times!
THRICE!
I had faith in him. Either way, we were gonna find out in four hours…
