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Best wishes go out to the friends, families and fans of The Exploding Hearts.
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Holy crap! We have pictures and a review on the Warped Tour web site. Speaking of Warped Tour did anyone who was hanging out in our tent accidentally (or purposely) end up with a bag containing an Avenged Sevenfold shirt, stickers and some CD’s? If so please drop us a line … that stuff was expensive!
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New patches, new stickers and new buttons have arrived. Check out our merchandise page for more info.
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The Warped Tour was a blast as were our shows in PDX, Bend and Richland. Thanks to everyone who saw us over this holiday weekend and extra special thanks to Same Day Service for the good times!
Show Journal 2003-07-06
I never thought I could have such a fun and fulfilling day on so little sleep. I swore that we’d check in, find out our slot and then I was going to sleep or just relax in the van until we played. No such luck. Let me describe what’s it’s like behind the scenes at the Warped Tour for a smaller band. It’s utterly and totally confusing. “You need to go to the promotions building”, “you aren’t on the list”, “we don’t have the schedule yet”, “we don’t know what stage you are on”, “we don’t have a set time yet”, “who are you again”, “you can’t park here”, “no more vehicles on the field”. That pretty much sums up the first two hours. Finally at about 11, Dave became so fed up he took matters into his own hands. With an determined look in his eyes he walked to the main building and 5 minutes later came back with our passes as well as our set time and stage information. I’m still just assuming he pulled some Obi Won Kenobi jedi tricks on the staff. We still had to figure out how to get our gear from one far corner of the parking lot to the opposite corner of the field where our stage was located. Again, Dave took matters into his own hands. We were standing around scratching our asses contemplating how difficult it would be to move 1000 pounds of gear across a 1/2 mile grassy field and then out of nowhere Dave rolls up in an ATV with a trailer. Amazing. That’s why Dave rules … he’s the kind of person that can just pull shit off. Anyway, we found a tent spot, unloaded and got settled in. By then it was almost noon and time for the music. Good lord there were a lot of good bands this year. The only act I was just dying to see was Andrew WK. In a cruel twist of fate we played at the exact same time he did so I didn’t even get to see one single minute. Not even a suggestion of partying for me. Sigh. Musical highlights for me were Less Than Jake, Suicide Machines, Thrice, Tsunami Bomb and the Dropkick Murphys. I also really enjoyed the Used until the singer spewed the following load of crap from his mouth “if you are in rock band keep playing music and stick with it because eventually great things can happen for you. We’ve been a band for two and a half years and …”. I can’t remember what was said after that because the collective groan of disgust from every small, unsigned and independent band there overpowered whatever else he was saying. Two and a half years? On behalf of every band who have busted their ass for far more than two and a half years we have four words for you … fuck you little man. So how did we do? We did great and I can’t thank everyone who watched us enough. There were so many 800 Octane shirts around it was amazing. We actually had the best turnout of the day on our particular stage. (Yes, it’s a small accomplishment but we were proud.) If you were one of the people who took the time to watch our set with all those other great bands playing we’d really like to thank you … it meant a lot to us to get so much support on this show. Extra special thanks to the people from other bands who watched us including EPD, Spare Lead, Virus 9, Countdown to Life and of course SDS. One more thing about SDS … we just wanted to say thanks for playing all the shows with us and we hope the rest of your tour goes well! Again, thanks to everyone who watched us play … it really meant a lot. Extra thanks to PJ for being our roadie/merch/slave for the day. Oh yeah, if you read last year’s Warped Tour review I’d like to point out I remembered sun block and a hat this time.
Show Review
Right next to the Girlz Garage was the Kevin Says stage where a local band, 800 Octane, was ripping it up. Definitely a Misfit/Danzig inspired rock band with a slight twist of Alkaline Trio. Coming from Portland, these guys do a really good job considering the crappy clubs and music environment that the Northwest has to offer, no offense of course. (Warped Tour Pit Report / warpedtour.com)
Show Journal 2003-07-05
We got a real late start on the way to Bend and missed the first band. We did see Syris and they were kind cool. Sort of a new school / technical / stoner rock thing. Definitely different but that’s fine with me. Third up was our friends in Spare Lead. Very solid set and quite honestly it was probably the best I’ve ever seen them play. People were moving so they must have been rocking someone other than me. SDS was definitely the hit of the evening and they totally stole the show. A full set of moshing and stage diving impressed us all. I actually have a picture of a skinhead stage diving to them from this show … classic. Mad props to them for laying down the rock. Much like sex with a one legged hooker our set was difficult at first but ultimately rewarding. We had lots of technical stuff go wrong including broken guitar strings, un-tunable instruments and even a knocked over guitar amp. We barely manged to hold it all together but somewhere during our last song the stage turned into complete chaos. I can’t even describe it. People everywhere, jumping up and off the stage, only to be eclipsed by someone standing next to Dave shouting “you guys fucking rule” at him. A wild ending to say the least. After the show we headed back to PDX to get in a good 2-3 hours of sleep before the Warped Tour. Oh yeah, Jim got a real bad speeding ticket in Sandy. $305. Once again it sucks to be Jim.
Show Journal 2003-07-04
Atomic Records is one of our favorite places to play so we were a little skeptical to play some place other than the beloved record store. Would the new place live up to high expectations? The venue (Ray’s Golden Lion) was a little weird because it’s stage is sort of off center in the room. It did have some perks which included two raised dancing stages with poles and more importantly a big stage with an even bigger sound system. (I did kind of miss having people two inches from us while we were playing though.) Absent Minded was first and sounded pretty good with some cool guitar parts. SDS was next and sounded great as usual. People seemed to enjoy them but no one was really moving which made us a little nervous. After about 30 seconds of our first song we realized the show was going to be just fine. Normal Richland chaos ensued for the rest of our set and we loaded out with gigantic smiles on our faces. Our lesson learned tonight was that it’s the people that make great show and not the venue itself so props to Tri-Cities for rocking. After the show we headed over to Denny’s and watched a Richland local (anonymous for his protection) willingly drink Dave’s evil concoction made of syrup, jelly, tobasco, ketchup, salt, sugar, coke and a few other items likely to make your stomach churn. Mmm mmm good. Thanks to everyone who skipped the fireworks and family stuff to see the show. Next time we’ll pick a day that isn’t a holiday! Oh yeah, shameless CD plug … on the drive up we listened to the new Dave Attell CD called ‘Skanks For The Memories’ and laughed so hard it was embarrassing. If you like slightly crude and somewhat disturbing humor I couldn’t recommend a better CD. We just about wrecked the van when we got to the track which revolves around getting a hernia from trying to take a crap too fast. I know … too much information.
Show Journal 2003-07-02
God bless the Solidstate. You can have a pretty small turnout and it still feels packed. Do that at the Paris and it feels like you are playing in an empty barn. (Granted that barn actually has a stage but that’s beside the point!) Anyway … totally fun show. The Civies were first and man they’ve gotten good. Not that I thought they sucked before but they really impressed me this time around. The Altarboys were lots of fun to watch as well. I wasn’t so fond of Nate wearing a mini skirt but beggars can’t be choosers. SDS played next and man it was nice to see them again. We did a week of our 2000 tour with them along with a few shows here and there (mostly here) over the past few years. Not much to say that hasn’t been said before … rock solid poppy punk. I can’t speak much for their acquired taste for day old pizza but that’s another story. Three more shows with them this weekend so hopefully I can dig up something less generic to say about them over the next few days. We played last and decided to take requests for our set which actually ended up working out pretty well. No one requested ULS, Shabba Time or anything from Swank so we had it easy. Not too much crowd activity but everyone seemed to be paying attention and only minimal yawning was observed. Big thanks to Jessica for hooking us up at my new favorite all ages venue in Portland!
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