CHICAGO!

We woke up early so we had some time to spend in the city, as our show was actually about an hour North in the suburbs. 

Started the day off by getting lunch at a place called “Pick Me Up Cafe”.  Cool little hip restaurant.  Huge portions.  I actually ordered a vegetarian sandwich (wtf?) and it was pretty awesome.  Choke Up recommended we hit this place up the night before and I’m glad we did. 

We realized we were only a mile away from Wrigley Field, so we went to check it out.  I’m not a huge sports fan but it was pretty cool.  Atferwards we headed downtown.

Spent most of the time riding the train, which was cool because the train runs through the city instead of underneath.  Got some deep dish pizza and hit the road for Antioch for the show.

The show was in our friend Garik’s basement.  He’s in an awesome band called The Revision Plan, and it was their CD release.  I always get stoked on suburb shows because kids always come out and have a good time - which is pretty much what went down.  Best show of tour so far, even though I was super exhausted.  Stayed at Garik’s, and Rozalia’s sister drove up from Chicago to have lunch with us.  She rules.

P.S. Stoked to be back in Old Style land again.

Tonight: Milwaukee, WI @ Borg Ward

First time in Michigan, and I didn’t know what to expect.  We were meeting up with our friends Choke Up and Greek Favourites, so I was stoked on that.

We showed up and there was already a decent amount of kids there.  Decided tonight would be “whiskey night”, and the locals recommended some horrible shit called R&R.  It was going to be a good night.

This Is Your Life played the best set I had ever seen them play (which, at this point, is like 40 some times) and I was nervous to follow them.  We got a surprisingly good reaction from the crowd.  Choke Up and Greek Favourites killed it, and so did both of the locals.  After the last couple shows, it was awesome to see some great bands.

Post-show was full of fireworks, frisbee, capture the flag, and more whiskey.  I guess it kind of turned into a party, but it was a lot of fun.  Cops came at some point but they didn’t really do anything.  Cliff from Greek Favourites cut his hand open on a fence and went to the ER.  At that point, things were getting weird and I was getting too drunk so I went to bed.

Woke up in a miserable sweat and headed to Chicago early to hang out.

Tonight: Antioch, IL @ Heather House

Here’s a picture of the river we went swimming at in West Chester:

The drive to Kent was easy.  It wasn’t quite as busy as last time we were there (to play DIT Fest) since college was out.  It was pretty dead.  We were supposed to play in the alley of a massive venue, but we got there early so we went to some bro bar down the street.  When we came back, Doug (the promoter) told us that it was going to rain so we were playing in the lobby of the massive venue.  Weird.  The show was fun even though no one was there.  Joel got naked during our set and sang “Hey Peter” with us. 

A couple of us went swimming in the river afterwards.  It was nice and we got to drink some beers.  Stayed with Doug - another night on a wood floor.

Tonight: Kalamazoo, MI @ Fat Guy House

Busiest day.  Left Philly early and headed to West Chester to hang out at Grand Slam, which is an arcade the Spraynard dudes work at.  Played laser tag against TIYL (we won) and mini-golf against TIYL (we won that, too).  This local girl named Victoria took us to an awesome river spot that had a bridge you could jump from into it.  She took a bunch of pictures, so I’ll post them when she puts them online.

Made it to York in just an hour to play a show at this place called Skid Row Garage.  It was someone’s garage.  The venue itself was really, really awesome.  The town is (oddly) run down as fuck for a small town.  Should have taken some pictures.  The show was fun, a good amount of kids showed up.  It was the hottest show I’ve ever played.  The first band somehow ruined a cover of “Blitzkrieg Bop”.  Met a lot of weird people, got fireworks thrown at us. 

Kenny’s parents live about 20 minutes south of York, so we headed there to crash for the night.  Best house.  Enough room for everyone, showers, so much free food and booze.  Places like this are so perfect on tour - you can sleep on a kitchen floor for 5 days in a row but having a nice house at the end of it makes all the difference.

Woke up to eggs, biscuits, and coffee.  Ready for our six hour drive.

Tonight: Kent, OH @ Kent Stage Alley

Warning: hungover post.  No pictures.

First show of tour last night, played the Cracker Factory in Philadelphia.  We played year in March and it’s an awesome basement.  This show was stacked, with 6 bands playing (us two, Great Explainer, HisDayHasCome, Caleb Lionheart, Scarier Area) - and a keg.  And grilling.  It ruled, and a lot of people were there.  Got some pre-show beers at Kung Fu Necktie, which is a cool bar we played last time we were in Philly. 

Every band killed it.  James held his own with This Is Your Life, and our set was wild.  It’s cool to have people singing along to your songs in a city that isn’t Richmond.  Bonded hard with the Caleb Lionheart dudes, saw a lot of old friends, made a lot of new ones, drank too many beers.  I definitely can’t explain how excited I am to do this for the next 25 days.

Afterwards, we did our post-show tradition of going to Yesterdays, which is a weird redneck bar in Fishtown.  It’s one of those places that suck so much that it rules.  This time was no different - took over the jukebox, drank after last call, and got threatened to get the shit kicked out of me for “being jealous that he is getting with the bartender” (who was like 50….).  Never a dull time at Yesterdays.

Thanks Philly, you’re still the best American city.

Tonight: York, PA @ Skid Row Garage

I completely forgot to post about the recent tour I did with Timeshares and Sundials.  It was fun.  It was fucking hot.

5/30 (Day 1) Richmond, VA @ Rock Garden Started off tour in the best way possible: being super fucking nervous.  The show was us, Sundials, Timeshares, The Wild, and RVIVR.  How we were going to make this show work in a tiny basement freaked me out the closer we got (though, I’d never let that on to James, since he had been nervous since it got booked and I was his reassurance).  The show actually ran pretty smoothly.  100 or so kids showed up and Rock Garden had its first miserably-fucking-hot show of Summer.  It’s always weird booking a show like this and seeing people outside of my 20-odd group of friends in the band’s basement.  Our set was fun, though probably the hottest show I have ever played.  RVIVR was weird, Timeshares and The Wild are some of the best people ever.  It was a fun kickoff.

5/31 (Day 2) Pittsburgh, PA @ 222 Ormsby Going to Pittsburgh always rules.  222 Ormsby is one of my favorite DIY venues to play.  It was also the first place we played on our first ever tour.  If you haven’t ever been there, basically people live upstairs and rent out the downstairs, which used to be some kind of oriental grocery store, for shows.  It’s run by the Playoff Beard dudes and they always take care of us.  We played kind of sloppy, but it was fun.  We also had to play after Timeshares which is always a bummer since they’re so fucking good all the time.  This show was Doug’s moving away show, and afterward he threw an after party at this awesome dive called Rugger’s Pub.  We drank a lot, ate good food, commandeered the jukebox - usual stuff.  I watched Jake revert back from veganism by eating cheese.  That was cool.  Last call came (as always) and we went to the river.  Some people swam, but the river was fucking disgusting so most of us opted out.  The night ended with a million cops showing up and then Doug showing us his dick.  Good night.

6/01 (Day 3) Columbus, OH @ Monster House This was probably the show I was most stoked for this tour.  I’d never played in Columbus before, and have been hearing about how awesome the Monster House is for years.  And, of course, my man Matt from The Sidekicks set it up and he rules.  The show was great, we all played well (I think) and kids got into it.  This band called GREAT HEALTH played their first show and killed it.  Weakerthans sorta stuff.  We spent the night hanging out and in the morning went out for some bagels and coffee.  Columbus is a cool town.  Everyone was attractive. 

6/02 (Day 4) Cincinnati, OH @ The Good Stuff Fucking Cincinnati, best city.  On the way in Cory and I picked up a bottle of cheap whiskey.  We hung at the Vacation dudes’ house for awhile before headed to the show, which was in their practice spot.  For a fairly last minute show, a decent amount of people showed up.  They were, for the most part, pretty weird (I got asked for meth, and Timeshares could tell you their own interesting stories).  Some of the Dopamines dudes showed up and it was cool to hang with them.  The show was definitely my favorite of tour.  Jerry and Evan’s other band, You Blockhead, played and were the best thing ever.  All of our sets were super fun.  Lots of shirtless dudes (don’t tell RVIVR) and crowdsurfing and drinking and general mayhem.  After the show, the edge kids once again caused trouble - this time, in the form of “chairing”.  There were a ton of wheeled chairs and stuff to make ramps out of.  After finishing the bottle of whiskey, what did we do?  Make ramps and ride off of them.  For two hours.  Here’s a video of Eric.  The rest of the night consisted of hanging out in a junkyard and trying to break a meter off for change.  Whoa.  We stayed at the Vacation house and got breakfast in the morning.  Sorry Evan and Jerry, you guys are the best.

6/03 (Day 5) Indianapolis, IN @ The Dojo This show wasn’t the best of tour, but still fun.  The show was 5 bands - all on tour.  I think the show did two paid.  The people who came and the people who ran the space were all super awesome and hospitable (bought us pizza! lots of it!) so maybe it was just an off night for the space.  Anyway, we all played well and drank in the parking lot.  The other two touring bands were on day 92 of tour and still had like a month to go.  What the fuck?  I remember them playing Richmond a few months ago and it was crazy to think they hadn’t been home since.  They didn’t watch our set, save one dude, and all seemed to be generally miserable.  I love to tour, but people are gonna know who my band is before I book 120 days.  After the show, we went to stay with our new friend Nick who lives in a carriage house behind a mansion.  We watched “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and then went swimming in the pool behind the house.  Woke up the next morning pretty early so we could hit the road for the first day of In Your House Fest in Lexington, KY.

6/04 (Day 6) Lexington, KY @ In Your House Fest This fest was kind of a special occasion because Anthony, a good friend and the guy who set up the fest (and Crucial Fun Fest for the last few years) was recently diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.  You know that guy where, no matter what town you are in, everyone is talking about how good of a dude he is?  That’s Anthony.  It’s amazing to me that he still put on a fest and was there hanging out.  It was awesome to see him.  The fest itself was in a house called Hammerhead House, which is where Hold Tight! stayed last summer when we were on tour.  Small living room, insanely hot.  We didn’t play this day, but a lot of awesome bands did.  Hung hard with some sweet people and then broke into the pool that I have a tattoo based on.  Slept on the floor I’d be playing on in a few hours.

6/05 (Day 7) Lexington, KY @ In Your House Fest Started the day off with selling Spraynard’s van on Craigslist in numerous cities across the country.  They were pissed, and they blamed it on Alex from Young Mountain for awhile.  Successful razz, I would say.  Day two of the fest was awesome.  Spraynard played “Wonder” with us and made James sing without knowing what they were doing.  After the fest, we again broke into the pool (after dinner, of course) and had a great time.  Lexington is the shit.

6/06 (Day 8) Asheville, NC @ Fred’s Speakeasy Asheville is another amazing city, so I was stoked on this show.  Matt Evans set it up and he is the man.  We played this basement bar downtown, it was pretty cool.  Matt’s new band, Old Flings, opened and killed it - doing the whole 90’s revival thing and pulling it off.  The show was good and there was a good amount of people there, but the sound wasn’t the best.  Everyone in Hold Tight! thought we sucked, but I didn’t think it was too bad.  Who knows.  Had a good Taco Bell hang sesh after the show and stayed at Matt’s. 

6/07 (Day 9) Durham, NC @ Motorco Music Hall Bittersweet last show of tour, bummer.  We played Motorco for Death To False Hope Fest in January and it’s a great spot.  This show was especially sweet because we were also playing with Red City Radio and Captain, We’re Sinking.  The show went off a lot better than I expected (turnout-wise) and Scotty hooked us up with a ton of free beer.  Captain is the best band.  The show ended and we made our way back to Richmond.  Got there at like 5am.

Listen to Sundials and Timeshares, eat Waffle House.  Great tour.