Alright, lots of catching up to be done. I’ve been excusing myself from the blogging because I was working on my website, and now that it’s finished and updated, it’s time to try to remember what I’ve done the last several days. I’ll do my best to keep you all frequently updated from here on out.
So, when I last left you, we were in San Francisco. We played at the Regency Ballroom which was a beautiful old building. The crew was great and there were (thankfully) plenty of hands to help us load and unload as there were lots of stairs between the stage and the bus.
After sound check/first rehearsal with Ethan, we had a dinner break and me and Eman found some crepes at a nearby restaurant which were phenomenal.
The first show went great and (supposedly) James Hetfield showed up, of all people, haha. Afterwards, we got back on the road down to LA, where we just came from. We drove all night and in the morning we were being dropped off at home, so we were able to take a quick nap in our own beds before driving ourselves to the venue in the afternoon.
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The Cerritos PAC is a beautiful venue and we had an absolutely blast playing there, I wish all venues could be this nice and welcoming and well equipped. The entire staff was friendly and inviting, my only complaint was the chicken we were served for dinner that got me sick… fortunately it wasn’t until after the show but it still made for a quite unpleasant following Sunday. Luckily I was sick at home and not on the road and I had my wonderful mother there to help me recover and Monday morning I felt all better again and ready to get back on the road at 4am.
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Monday and tuesday were very long driving days on the 1200 miles from Cerritos to Seattle. We stopped overnight in Red Bluff on Monday night in a Hampton Inn where the pleasant lady working the front desk that night allowed us to connect our Playstation 3 to the lobby TV and play games for a couple hours.
Here we are watching Best of SNL: Chris Farley on the lobby TV.
We also had a pretty good dinner at El Burrito Bandito. Which we were told is ‘just like Chipotle’ but really is only like Chipotle in that they make burritos (read: not really).
Tuesday we made it to Portland and spent the night in a dirty Red Lion Inn near the airport where we were at least able to get the hotel shuttle to drive us to the nearby Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner.
Wednesday morning we drove up to Seattle and checked in to our very nice hotel and then went straight to the venue: Benaroya Hall, where the Seattle Symphony plays. The show was a small one (which we knew Seattle and Portland would be our smallest of the tour), which was ok as we used them as opportunities to try a few things out before the bigger shows coming up. We fortunately had some time to walk around Seattle a little bit and stopped by the first Starbucks.
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Now finally this morning, we woke up and drove form Seattle to Portland and arrived at the Aladdin theater and unloaded/setup/sound checked then me and Eman walked around hunting for dinner and found The Original Hotcake and Steakhouse where I had a Fried Egg Sandwich that was a nice reminder of home.
The show went well considering the videos weren’t working up until the last few minutes before the show. But the small crowd there loved the show and we were able to get out of there quickly as we needed to get on the road for another long drive from Portland to Denver.
Which brings you all to my current situation, on the bus, right now in Burley, Idaho, drove all night, and driving all day tomorrow to get to Denver.
