Dave Melillo: "How many of you ate lots of turkey today?" Crowd: "Yeah!!!!!!!!" DM: "Well I'm a vegetarian so I think that sucks."  What an awesome way to open a set on thanksgiving.
The rumors of the venue cooking for us yesterday turned out to be a farse, the truth was that they wanted load-in to be later so THEY could eat. Bummer. At least they gave me some bread to make a peanut butter sandwich.

Bury Your Dead stopped by to spread the holiday cheer. They loaded up on some Cute merch for their next photo shoot, admitted that Cartel rocks their socks and jumped in some costumes for Hellogoodbye’s “Touchdown Turnaround” finale.

This morning I woke up to what I thought was the bus losing control and me dying but after I didn’t hear anyone else screaming I fell back asleep for 4 more hours until Justin woke us all up to tell us that the trailer had fallen off hours ago and that we’d been sitting in the lot of a repair shop trying to get it fixed. The steel hitch on the back of the bus snapped and ripped all the wiring from the trailer (way to go Pittsburgh). Only the chains kept it attached.

There’s no way it was going to get fixed in time to make it the 6 hours from Rancho Cordova to LA so a Suburban was rented to get the band to the show and Magann and I were left with a broken trailer and a tour bus all to ourselves. We decided the best thing to do was to go back to bed for another 3 hours, waking up at 3pm Pacific time (6pm real world time). I’m effed when I have to go back to work on Tuesday morning.

 

11/24/2006 20:30:19 by Mike | Comments [1] | Trackback 

So after that show HGB's tour manager came on to our bus to say that he's gotten a call from Richard (Drive Thru owner) because some kids at the show saw the girl flash and told their parents who called the venue who called Richard who called the tour manager to yell at him about it. So I guess it's the parents that are conservative in UT. No more rock shows for those kiddies.

 

Another story that I forgot to convey was the night that the other merch dude saw a girl with a blood sugar monitor in her pocket and asked "Is that a Diabetes IPod?" Girl: “Haha, yeah” Merch dude #2: “You got insulin’s greatest hits on there?”  Generally after that kind of abuse most kids would shy away but she ended up bringing him to buy video games and then buying him dinner. Sometimes I just don't understand kids these days. 

11/21/2006 02:15:21 by Mike | Comments [0] | Trackback 

I figured Salt Lake City was a small conservative city filled tons of wives and few husbands. I was wrong.

 

The view was pretty sweet to one side with a nice mountain backdrop and to the other side, absolutely nothing. The venue was next to a soup kitchen and “The Bridge,” an awesome vegan café. The first people I met happen to be Straight Edge kids who are legendary for being insane but this these dudes were wicked cool. Within 4 minutes of meeting them they asked if we needed a place to crash. No swords, no chains, just BMX bikes.

 

Cute is not a band that many 18+ people are into so most shenanigans are limited to general making fun of dudes for buying merch and calling girls myspace whores. Honestly, shows get redundant if you can’t find a way to amuse yourself. Last night the amusement found us. What we thought would be nice Mormon girls turned out to be girls jumping out of their shirts, literally. To this point on the tour the nudity was limited James from Reggie but this all changed. We (the merch tables collectively) had groups of girls asking to show their goods for free stuff. Generally turned down the offers due to paranoia of finding ourselves featured on the next “To Catch a Predator” but one table was willing to risk it to a girl that definitely looked of age.

 

Later in the evening a girl came over to the Reggie table to tell how she tried to throw her bra at James but some kid hit her arm and her shot was deflected. Where’d she go to school? BYU.

 

I have a feeling that the tour is going to start getting a bit crazier.

 

Today, Boise Idaho, after show fun POTATO FARMING!  

11/19/2006 16:52:39 by Mike | Comments [1] | Trackback 

Lawrence, Kansas may sound like a town east of nowhere but it truly does rules. Those that know their emo history know that the Get Up Kids are from this area east of nowhere and with Reggie coming through town out of the woodworks came the ex-Get Up Kids to catch the show. Reggie was in full effect hamming it up with the addition of a second guitarist, Cory, formerly of COALESCE (reunion coming soon btw) and they were absolutely insane. Highlight of the tour so far was when Matt Pryor got pulled onto stage by James during the Hellogoodbye encore to sing “Action Action.” This is probably the closest thing we’ll see to a GUK reunion for quite some time.

So the Granada Theatre is on “Massachusetts” which is like a Newbury St w/o the eurotrash. Totally hip but wicked laid back. This city rules.

 

 

11/16/2006 03:00:59 by Mike | Comments [1] | Trackback 

All it took was watching Brendon from Panic! At the Disco shred to Avenge Sevenfold to convince them that they NEEDED this game. Jeff seems to be the best. I've yet to have a turn.

 

Oh yeah, tour not really cancelled.

11/14/2006 02:13:13 by Mike | Comments [0] | Trackback