CarSeatHeadrest225

Archive Sunday #10

Added 2023-08-06 16:00:05 +0000 UTC

The boys are back from their first European tour and are headed to the midwest to start their tour of the states. Most east coast tour runs for us have started in the midwest. We are very familiar with this snowy drive. You can see our old van here. We nicknamed it "Bertha". It was an old 1994 Ford Club Wagon XLT, similar to an Econoline "Free Candy" van (but cooler). We drove her across the country more times than I can count. It had hilarious quirks like the steering wheel had to be almost at a 15 degree angle to the right for the car to go straight. You can ask our sound guy, John about that. He hated it. It also had a coolant leaking problem for a while where if it ran out of coolant the air conditioning would start to smell like maple syrup. We ended up having to pull into a super rural repair shop across the "street" from a rodeo where they hooked us up with a jug of coolant to keep in the van to fill it when it leaked out.

Our first show was in Minneapolis playing with the band NE-HI. All very nice dudes that had a lot of road experience. We learned a decent amount from them.

I think we stayed with Will's Aunt and Uncle to save a little $$$. They are some of the nicest people. They would always be at our shows when we were in town. Super supportive people.

Then it was onto Chicago where we also stayed with Will's other Aunt and Uncle. They had some funny stories for us. Like his uncle told us about how he gave anesthesia (I think?) to Mike Ditka, that old crazy football coach. He said he was insane.

WT: At one of our first pit stops we met a former Nascar driver named Pam Williams, whose postcard you can see in one of the pics here. One of the biggest hassles of being a Seattle-based band is having to deal with all those mountains at the start and end of every east-coast tour. (Even if we can fly, our van and gear can't.) It makes any shows past September or before May dicey business. At this time, we were blissfully unaware of these potential complications.

Love to my Aunts Carroll and Martha, and Uncles Ted and Dave. Andrew, Seth and I got our first "tour cuts" at Ted's barber.

SD: In late November 2015 we hit the road through the Cascade mountain pass and across the Great Plains, as we marveled at the seemingly endless open space all around us. We made it to Minneapolis just in time for Thanksgiving at Will's aunt and uncle's house where we stuffed our faces with the first warm home-cooked meal we had in days.

The next day we got some fresh hair cuts at the local barber where after hearing that we were in a band gave the three of us matching cuts :) Then we checked out a nearby record store and visited the house on the cover of Let It Be by The Replacements. I also walked to an army surplus store a bit later to look for a parachute, but no dice.

We played our first show of the tour at 7th St Entry attached to the famous First Avenue next door. Before the show we chatted with the Chicago-based band Ne-Hi (named after a local soda). We pretty much knew they'd be great partners on the road after we joked around and connected over music before the show.

From there we made our way to Madison, WI where we sampled a basket of cheese curds at a bar after load-in at the Frequency down the street. I remember covering Psycho Killer at the end of the show much to the delight of the mostly college-aged crowd.

After that we traveled to Chicago where we got some local hot dogs with Will's other uncle before our show at Schuba's. I remember this show had one of the biggest crowds we've played to at that point, probably due to the local support for our touring partners Ne-Hi. The venue had these beautiful wooden beams and paneling that gave it the perfect Midwestern feel that I still remember to this day.