Archive Sunday #38

At the start of the new year we got offered to make another appearance at our local indie radio station KEXP. We were excited to come back with the four-piece lineup, and the hosts told us we were basically the first band to do a session in their newly built studio. It was all decked-out with these cool LED bulbs that replaced the old Christmas lights strung about in the previous room, plus the new room had a viewing area where a small audience could watch the show. I remember it being an early load-in to set up everything and soundcheck in time for the the mid-day show, and we ran into Alia D'Alessandro (who we still shared a practice room with downtown) who was tasked with filming our session. We played a few songs of Teens of Denial then capped things off with a Pixies cover of Motorway to Roswell.

After that, we started digging out our warm weather clothes for our trip to the Southern Hemisphere. Will was smart and booked a day or two in Hawaii to split the trip halfway and relax a bit. Later on the rest of us ended up kicking ourselves for not following suit.

From Seattle we flew on schedule to Los Angeles and made the connection with time to spare. But once we got on the runway to take off, something went wrong with the airline's nation-wide computer system and we spent hours grounded on the runway with no idea what was happening. Eventually the pilots gave up, and we scrambled to get in line at the customer service desk at LAX. After another hour or so, they scheduled us on a couple connecting flights first thing the next morning. We took them up on an offer for a shared hotel room for the night, but we only had time to grab 3-4 hours of sleep before making our way back for the next flight.

Funny enough, the new flights put us on a layover in Honolulu over the next night. We had maybe 12 hours to kill there, so we just aimlessly walked around town soaking up the sun and trying to make the most of the unexpected trip. We let Will and Jay our TM know it was gonna be super-tight getting to the first show in Sydney, and debated pushing it back if possible. I think we had around an hour from our scheduled arrival to grab our bags get through the international customs check then make the 30 min drive to the venue for our set time. 

It was mostly out of our hands at that point, but I remember we did our best to carry-on or gate check everything we had to save a few minutes waiting on baggage. Luckily we were still traveling pretty light at that point haha. So after another exhausting flight we made it to Sydney pretty much on time. Luckily the line at customs was super quick and we met up with Jay's friend in the lobby with a van to high-tail it to the venue. 

I remember we walked in with all our luggage in the middle of the opener's set, which was such a relief because I kinda suspected Will would already be on stage. So we threw our bags backstage, said "hey" to Will, then made our way on stage to play the show. Honestly that's kinda where my memory fades. I think the show went well, but I don't recall anything until the next morning. I know Andrew felt the same way that after traveling so much for three days with terrible sleep and stressing over arrangements our brains just kind of shut off haha.

WT: I have nothing but fond memories of our two Australian tours. I strongly recommend using it as an excuse to spend a few days in Hawaii. I like solo vacations. I wasn't too stressed about the band making it to the first night, because I knew the show would happen, either solo or not. I would have been way more stressed if I was the one rushing to it. 

AK: Will may not have been stressed but we were tripping the fuck out. First of all we were so incredibly sleep deprived, anything that took thought was stressful at this point. But there really wasn't much we could do. We were at the mercy of G O D. So we made the best of Hawaii and walked around, filmed some vids, etc. Then we made our way to Sydney only to make it to the green room about 5 minutes before going on stage. I remember sitting down at some random backline kit that was in bad shape then the rest is BLANK. I seriously don't remember a minute of that show. It's almost like your body just takes over and your brain turns off. Safe to say it was a weird few days but we were happy to be in sunny Australia. Can't wait to go back.