Okay, we're not too far behind now. I keep publicly flagellating myself for not updating these on the reg, and it ends today. Let's just jump right into it.
Scranton was cold. Fucking cold. Like, if you watch the Office, like I do, you see it snowing, they have their little Christmas episodes and Michael Scott wears an overcoat and a scarf or some shit, but never not once does Stanley complain about having icicles form in his mustache hairs. Maybe it's because he's the stoic strong black character, or maybe it's because he's a native of the north and is used to it. I don't know, but let me tell you: that shit fucking sucks. I believe the saying is "the bitter cold." Anyway, the show was at a nice little joint called the Vintage Theatre. The stage was a little shoddy and there was no booze served there so we had to haul it down the block to get a few boilermakers. One of the lower turnouts of the tour, but we sold some merch and one of the other bands bought us a round at the bar later. Stayed at the promoter's dorm room. For a twenty-year old college kid Christian sure has his hands full. Upwardly mobile. One of the perks of being straightedge I guess. We arrived to the sounds of a girl crying so hard it sounded like an air raid siren was going off. Some random drunk coed had somehow found her way into Chris' dorm as her friends were hysterically trying to calm her down. Her face tear-stained and black with mascara, hair matted to her face, and her nice white fleece North Face jacket tragically covered in streaks of vomit and what appeared to be, allegedly, shit stains. The campus is supposed to be dry, so as one might expect, security was called. They managed to pry her from the couch where she dropped off some of her filth, also managing to sully our nice clean towels. I wasn't even mad. I was impressed. I took a shower and managed to get relatively dry with a hand towel and fell asleep on a floor to Evil Dead.
The drive to Cleveland was the first semi-brutal pull. Not too terrible though. We got to see the better part of Pennsylvania, some mountains and Mennonites and other bric-a-brac and curios. My hopes for Cleveland were low on account of the last time we played there to three kids, who, and I admit this as humbly as possible, loved our shit. I'll tell you one thing, there are a lot of fucking bums in Cleveland and they all want your cigarettes. They come into bars from out of dark corners all spewing the same story of their kids in a broken down car down some street somewhere and all it'll take to get them home is a spare cigarette. The bar started filling so our hopes got higher and we met one of the support acts who apparently wanted to get on the show because they saw we were playing. Apparently those three kids had gone home and spread the fucking gospel to all their friends and suddenly we have a following in Cleveland. It was inspiring. Especially when you look down in a different city and see kids singing along to your songs. That was a first for me. Both the bands were good so check them out: 19 Action News and Steves and Julies. We stayed at Dave from Steves and Julies' house and I chugged more High Life in an hour than I have in years. We got wasted, sang songs, and Cleveland was redeemed in my heart and future tour planning.
We stopped in Ann Arbor on our way to Lansing to pick up our buddy Steven who used to play in a band called Friends of Friends from town. We ate some food and got showers at his place before the hour and a half drive to the club. The venue was a decent-sized dive with a nice sound and good sound guy. It was an early show on a Monday so there wasn't much you can do with that, especially when the second band members all have curfews and sounds like a low-rent Evanescence. The first act though were called City Yards and they were fucking bad ass. If you like power trios who sound like a tougher Hot Water Music check them out. We played to the band (the other band had to go home and get sleep before class, first period, high school) a few of their friends and the sound guy. Definitely the most disappointing show of the tour thus far, but there's always a silver lining. We made a good impression and sometimes that's really what counts... But there weren't any free beers. We went back to Steven's place in Ann Arbor, hit a few bars, played some foosball and got ridiculously high and watched TV. Felt like being at home. A much colder home, but a home none-the-less.
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