Show Journal 2001-08-27
Day 4 – Nothing says good morning like a truck stop shower. Thankfully I brought flip flops this year. Another scorching hot day in the van. I-5 through California is so boring it’s painful. Nothing to see and lots of traffic. We no longer ask Dave to hand us anything in the van since he has developed a nasty habit of rubbing everything on his balls before giving it to you. I slept a bunch in the van today which is unusual because usually I can’t sleep while we are moving. We ate at a truck stop where the waitresses thought Justin was a celebrity. Probably Tony from ‘Blossom’. At another stop Kevin made the mistake of using an outdoor port-o-let. As soon as the door closed Dave and Justin ran over to shake it violently while Kevin hung on for the ride. Kevin was not amused. The drive from Sacto to Reno was incredible. Very cool rocks and lots of neat landscape. I had another In and Out burger and am in love. Upon arrival in Reno Dave and Justin decided to try the lucky quarters they had been keeping in their shoes. No luck for them and I feel satisfied knowing that I resisted the urge to put a coin in my shoe. The show situation looked bad tonight. The Reno Jazz Club didn’t have a PA, there was no promotion or flyers, the promoter was sick and didn’t show up and to top it off no one showed up to the show. The club owners were really cool so we weren’t too upset about it. Let me rephrase that … we were very dejected … just not pissed off. Anyway we were about ready to pack it up and drive back to Sacramento but at the last minute we decided to stop at a club called the Zephyr across town which was having an open mic night. We talked to the promoter (Georgia) explained the situation and asked if we could play. She said sure and we signed the list for the show. Since almost every other act was solo and/or acoustic we decided to play an acoustic set! Let me rephrase that we begged and pleaded Dave to let us play an acoustic set. It’s easy to hide behind a guitar or drum set on stage but Dave was just going to sing without the masking of distortion and noise. He resisted the idea from the get go. Eventually I pitched a temper tantrum until I got my way. Dave agreed and finally we were ready to rock acoustically. Before we played there was a female stand up comedian. I’ll spare you the full story but during her act Jim confessed to everyone that he fantasized about Duran Duran in bed with him and the comedian approached Kevin with a 6 pack of beer and a corndog in hopes of luring him into bed. Both tales are true. So finally we played our first unplugged set. Dave was in rare form tonight and was probably more entertaining that the comedian. He introduced us by our MRE names and accidentally confessed that a trucker gave him a shower today. Never mind. We had a hat for tips on the stage and at one point Dave looked in the bag to discover that someone had thrown us a bag of pot! What does the world’s most boring band do with pot? We gave it away of course. We played a few songs and even a Misfits cover that would surely upset any hardcore fan of theirs. We got to hang out with some local Reno girls who seemed to like our music. What do I know about that though, because I am a fucking mute. On the way out of town we gave a ride home to 2 skaters known as OG Dog Nuts and White Lightening who came to the show. By dumb luck it turns out we were driving behind the girls from the show. Jim hassled them on the PA and I’m not sure exactly what he said but we were awarded the honor of being flashed by the girl in the passenger seat. God bless Reno and the United States of America. The skaters were impressed and thought we were the biggest rock stars on Earth because we all got to see boobs! Thanks to Georgia for letting us play and thanks to the Reno girls who will remain in our hearts forever. On the way home we saw a lot lizard complete with a prom dress servicing the truckers. Creepy. We got lost for an hour on the way to Kathy’s house and were not happy about it. We also decided during that time that the driver’s seat is now referred to as “The Hot Seat” because of the verbal abuse you will endure while driving.
Show Journal 2001-08-26
Day 3 – Today is my birthday. I never imagined I would be driving around in a van and sleeping on floors at this age. I had Froot Loops for breakfast today which always makes me happy. I guess I never imagined I would still like Froot Loops at this age either. For lunch I had an MRE. The pork chop sucked but the orange pound cake was dope. I ranted and raved about it so much I was given the nickname ‘pound cake’. After a few moments of road induced stupidity we all were granted our own MRE nicknames. Dave is ‘ham slice’, Justin is ‘cheese spread’, Jim is ‘pasta with vegetables’, and Kevin is ‘accessory pack b’. On to Ventura in the 100+ heat. At one point during the drive Justin humped Dave’s pillow. We thought it was funny and then he humped Dave’s face. Now we are disturbed and are jockeying for sleeping positions away from Justin. I finally got to try an infamous In and Out Burger and it was the bomb. We stopped at a Target at one point and picked up some neck pillows for the van. They aren’t that comfortable but look hilarious when affixed to Dave’s head. We got to Ventura early and had time to kill. For some reason it’s really damn cold here all the sudden. As a birthday gift I was treated to dinner at a Mongolian Grill. Justin almost killed us on the drive there though. The man made 30 turns to get to a place 1/2 mile away. The ridicule of Justin’s driving continues. Dinner was cool so thank you guys for the dinner! No thanks for the upset stomachs that everyone got. No opening band at the show tonight and a turnout of less than 30. It was still fun because the people there were paying attention and noisy. Thanks to Joe for setting up the show for us. We met some people from Portland at the show which was kinda weird. One of them gave us the secrets to winning big in Reno. The answer involved putting quarters in your shoes so I passed on using the information. If they win it big tomorrow then I guess I’ll be kicking myself. Kevin drove well on his first time behind the wheel of our land yacht. We decided that we might test everyones driving skill by putting soup cans in the roof extension and see if they fall and maim the passengers. We slept in another truck stop tonight where we had slept before on our 1999 tour. Familiarity with a truck stop shower and bathroom is a frightening thing.
Show Journal 2001-08-25
Day 2 – We finally got a chance to sleep in the new roof extension for a few hours and it rocks. It’s a little claustraphobic sometimes but hopefully I will get used to it. Today was Kevin and Justin’s first introduction to the MRE … i.e. the prepackaged military meals that we consume on the road. A funny thing happened in Grant’s Pass. We stopped to get gas and some guy in the parking lot asked if we were 800 Octane! He had seen us with Guttermouth in Chico last month. Pretty cool to be recognized. Our roof extension is nice but now our van blows all over the road. Justin’s already scary driving is extra bad now. We make him very aware of this fact for about an hour until he gives up the wheel. We listened to a Dee Lite CD and Kevin informed us that when this CD is on girl’s panties practically fall off. We played Nintendo 64 in the van today until my eyes burned. The show tonight was awesome. Spent did an excellent job setting up the show and we really want to thank them for it. Jimmirig kicked ass with thier new and improved lineup and Hand Over Fist was equally intense and good. It’s so nice to play with such cool and down to earth people. Our apologies to Spent for missing thier set!!! I know, I know … we suck. Thanks to everyone who saw us in Chico and drove to Palo Cedro for the show. Tonight we stayed with Justin’s sister Kathy in Sacramento. We have been terribly amused by the phrase “tell us more about Sacramento” and have said it at least 200 times now. Not as funny as our new catch phrase is the huge bruise on my knee. It’s from my guitar and is 3 different colors and makes walking painful.
Show Journal 2001-08-24
Day 1 – The beginning of tour #4 . This time we are bringing along Kevin … our good friend from Seattle as our roadie/merch person. God bless him for wanting to spend countless hours with us in the van and embark on this potentially ugly journey. New for this year we have added a 3 foot roof extension to our van which sleeps three. Now we can sleep in truck stops with comfort and style. No more sharing a bench seat! We were excited to hit the road in our newly modified ride and get going to Tri-Cities but we ended up having to move all of Jim’s apartment into a storage unit. Boo. Nothing quite like heavy lifting before a show. After two hours (!) of moving Jim’s possessions we hit the road. We quickly realized that the only thing we forgot was a way to secure the baggage. I learned this first after being smacked in the head by a flying backpack on the way to pick up Justin. Tonights show was our long awaited return to Tri-Cities and the show tonight totally rocked. At one point Dave proclaimed himself the mayor of Tri-Cities. People advised him against his newly appointed title. Poor Dave … once he was the King of Tri-Cities and now he can’t even be the Mayor. No respect. It was good to see The Creeps again and SK and the PAB sounded better than ever before. Very cool show to attend. After the show we drove through the night back to Portland to pick up a few forgotten items … most importantly our list of directions and phone numbers. Oops. We finally pulled over to sleep around 8:00 A.M. outside of Eugene.
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Well this is it
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Shout out to everyone in Eugene who made the New Found Glory show a blast for us! Rumor has it our already enormous Ford Econoline van is gaining an extra 3 feet in height and will now be referred to as “the great white whale.” Will the Kelvis really be our roadie for tour this year? Web page updates include the posting of all of our lyrics plus a complete show history with flyers that date back to 1994!
Show Journal 2001-08-17
Finally our first stadium show. Well kind of. Tonight’s show was at a baseball field in Roseburg, OR. The show was a benefit to help cover with the medical costs of a local Roseburg kid who we were told is in a coma. That’s what we heard and it’s a good enough reason for us to play the show. Back to the stadium. The “stage” was a truck bed that was setup right behind home plate and the crowd stood out on the grass in the field. It was kinda weird especially when they turned on the stadium lights in the evening. The sound was pretty good for an outdoor show but only if you stood about 50 feet back from the stage. People who stood up front made us feel welcome but couldn’t have really enjoyed the show because it sounded like ass up there. A lot of people came up afterwards and gave us plenty of generic comments like “thanks for coming out” which actually translates into “You sounded like ass tonight but under different circumstances I might really enjoy your music.” So true. More technical difficulties tonight … my input jack broke on my guitar, I broke an A string and Justin’s guitar cord broke in the second song. That’s 3 cord failures for us in a month. In typical central Oregon fashion we had to cut our set to 7 songs. That kinda sucked for us since the van is in the shop and we had to rent a trailer for the 4 hour drive to Roseburg. 8 hours of driving, 20 minutes of setting up and 20 minutes of playing. I’d like to be pissed about it but it was a benefit so really who cares? It’s more about getting everyone together for a cause than seeing a technically perfect show. Thanks to Paint By Numbers for inviting us to play and also thanks to Easy Target as well. Special shout out to everyone who came out to see us last night in Eugene!
Show Review
800 Octane
Show Journal 2001-08-16
I apologize in advance for a somewhat generic show review. Nothing terribly exciting or noteworthy happened tonight. It was just a good, well ok … great show with New Found Glory. As usual in Eugene tons of familiar faces came out to see the show (Compact 56, EPD, Paint by Numbers, Barry, Hopper and the Mullet) which made it extra fun. I think we recognize more people in Eugene than Portland sometimes. A lot of people seemed to be into us when we played which was cool given the size of the club. The high point for us was at one point during ‘Kelvis’ I looked out and there were at least 100 people were bouncing along to the music. It was sooo cool to see. (Well at least until New Found Glory played and got about 500 people bouncing up and down!) Still though you gotta start somewhere. Speaking of which New Found Glory were pretty cool to see live. It’s amazing how energetic they are live. Also, their cover of ‘Never Ending Story’ rocks! Thanks to everyone who came out early to see us, thanks to Dan and Mike for the show and Lisa for selling our stuff. No thanks to Justin for having the crowd clap along to our song out of time with the song.
Show Journal 2001-08-11
Man what a good show. I was a little disappointed that the outdoor thing didn’t happen but at the same time I’ll play at Reid’s any day. The fog machine allows the Pit Stop to surpass all venues in coolness. I’ll spare you the individual replay of all the bands but will mention that Allister probably kicked the largest portion of ass that night. Our set was pretty good. It was hot as a mo-fo up there and I think I lost 5 pounds in sweat before the first song. We had 3 guest vocalists during Berserker which was kinda cool. Something very creepy about high schoolers singing the 3rd line of Berserker though. Tonight was the debut of Justin’s brand new guitar amp which sounded amazing until the guitar cord got smashed and rendered the amp incapable of producing sound. Luckily the problem was just a $20 guitar cord rather than a $1000 Marshall amp head! Still there were a few minutes of panic. Thanks to all who came and cheered and made us feel like a big important band in front of the actual big important bands. Again, thanks to TJ for the hook up. No thanks to Brady for choking on his big joke telling opportunity!!!
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