23rd Apr 2008
tour day 28
Our show in Minneapolis was at The Hexagon Bar.
It was a pretty good show, but had a kind of weird vibe. There was a decent crowd but nobody showed any particular interest while we played. Regardless, we ended up selling some stuff and had a few friends there to see us. We played with our friends Now Now Every Children who shared the bill with us last time were were in Minneapolis. They are really young but incredibly mature and awesome. Think of a really mellow Eisley if you’ve heard them… lady lead singer with very low key pop songs.
We also played with The Mood Swings and The Has Beens, both of which were very nice and let us take $100 for gas out of the bar money. Anyway, we stayed with my good friend Jen that I’ve known since fourth grade. She and her boyfriend were awesome and made us veggie burgers the next day - we planned on grilling, but didn’t have enough time to buy a grill, assemble it, and heat up the coals in time. The frying pan did an excellent job.
That night we played at The Annex in Madison. We played for a bunch of people, but didn’t sell too much in terms of merch. I think most people were holding out for Enon who were the headliners for the night. We had a handful of returning friends and fans so that was nice.
We got to hang out with our friend Alex along with his other friends. He’s a resident at a hospital and we constantly ask him a barrage of questions about what he does - his simple answer is that it’s just like Scrubs, but that leads to questions like: “Do you have constant inner dialogue and thought bubbles pop up over your head?” Poor Alex has to put up with our nonsense. He also happens to be the guy who made our super sweet tour poster, so he’s pretty much awesome. We stayed at his house and watched some Arrested Development before hitting the hay. We’re about a quarter of the way through season 2 now… it’s getting so good, I love it.
We got to sleep late on Monday morning and head to Chicago a little bit early to avoid traffic. We met up with our good friend Matt who is one of Wyatt’s best friends. We had dinner and went to the free zoo but unfortunately it was closed. Hopefully next time we can go earlier and get a zoo visit in.
Matt, his girlfriend Ellen, and their friend met up with us later at Quencher’s where we were playing. It’s an awesome bar with tons of beers from all over the world and they treat bands really well. When we sound checked we were having some amp problems which isn’t a surprise after playing around 26 shows almost in a row. My speaker cable got bent up against a wall at a previous show and finally died, but fortunately I was able to borrow one from the sound guy. Something is also up with Aaron’s amp, which we thought was also a speaker cable issue, but still have yet to figure it out for sure. It cut out a few times during the set but he was able to fiddle with some things and jump back in.
Unfortunately the local band canceled so there wasn’t a huge crowd but about 15 people watched us, most of which who were there for the open mic night afterwards. Along with Matt and friends, Dee from Baltimore came and her awesome mom sent her along with new earplugs for us (she works at Etymotic Research). The most dedicated fan award goes to our new friend Luiz and his girlfriend Anna. They are from Brazil and he’s been listening to us since our first EP… back in the days of mp3.com. They happened to be traveling in Chicago the week we came to town. We were embarrassed that the night was so was sub-par in attendance/excitement but tried to put on our best show for them. Our friend Phil from Sybris also came and hung out with us for the remainder of the evening. Late at night a guy comes to the bar and walks around with hot homemade tamales that are $5 for 6 of them. Phil, being the awesome person he is, bought us two dozen cheese tamales and we chowed down - they were amazing.
That night we drove about an hour northwest to our friend Mike’s house. He’s in a band called Dorm Life who we met a few years back at a show in NC and have been keeping in touch with ever since. Anyway, Mike’s parents are some of the nicest people in the world. He works the graveyard shift and wasn’t even home, but his parents let us show up in the middle of the night anyway. They said they do it because they hope other people would do the same for his son while he’s touring. They not only put us up for two nights in a row, but also made us several incredible meals and let us do some laundry.
After getting a solid 10 hours of sleep, Katie and I took a walk around the neighborhood then went to the music store with Aaron and Sam (also from Dorm Life) to get new speaker cables. We came home and vegged around the house a little more before going to our show in Wonder Lake, IL. It was a nice short 30 minute drive to the EWL House. This place is dirty and smokey as any good punk rock show house should be and probably produced one of the most energetic sets on our tour. The other two bands Stop Yeah Go and our friends Dorm Life were awesome.
There was a slight hold up when cops came because of a noise complaint right before our set but eventually they left and we were able to play. I think it added to the excitement of the night because we only had a short time to set up and play (which ended up being way longer I think) because if the cops came back somebody was rumored to get arrested. About 50 people packed into the small basement and a dance party ensued. I think Katie’s fabricated exclamations to the crowd that they better dance because we almost got arrested helped. It was so much fun - it makes such a difference to play for people who actually have a good time and express that they enjoy the music. In addition to the fabulous dance party, everyone threw donations our way and bought a ton of merch.
We stayed with Mike’s parents for the second night, then left early this morning for our show in Cleveland. It’s our last semi-long drive (around 7 hours) and we’re only two days from home!
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