summer tour 2018 - days 1 - 4
welp tumblr i am back again with a new tour recap!!! people liked this last time so here i am i guess
this tour recap is mostly for my own reasons. there’s something different about documenting something life-changing and important to yourself on a social media site you’ll probably be subject to visiting again without trying, as opposed to writing it by hand which hurts after a while or in a word document that you’ll never open.
my band with sails ahead just embarked on our longest tour ever. 11 shows, no off days. we somehow still got sleep, ate well (and went broke for it), and didn’t get sick. it wasn’t perfect every night, but it was still rewarding even in the smallest possible ways.
i decided to recap this across several posts as an easier way to read everything instead of one long one that would serve as a painful, arduous read. so here are days 1-4.
our tour kicked off in asbury, so we were home for our first day. it was sort of difficult to get in the mindset for tour but once destination dimension arrived i was good.
in asbury i always passed this storage trailer-looking building with palm trees all around it. it turns out it’s called outpost city, and it’s an oasis for touring musicians to come hang out while on the road. it’s invite-only (i think?? PLEASE check me), and we were contacted a week before tour started to go check it out. i already promised work i was going to work a full day my last day but hooooly we could not turn this down. this place had a lounge area, a small demo studio, free wifi, and a general store with product placed in there by brands that you could grab FOR FREE. as long as we tagged the brands on all of our social media the stuff was ours. we spent a few hours there before the brewery show and it was really fun. i had to do work the whole time as a result of leaving work early haha, but i still enjoyed it a lot.
Photo: Julie Yi Photography
the brewery show was awesome. i didn’t play the greatest set so i was super bummed haha, at least i don’t think, but we had a great turnout. the line-up was awesome and we got to see a lot of friends. sound was amazing and as always the brewery is just the coolest venue. really grateful we could finally play here. i was so glad people showed up early to see destination dimension so that they at least had a crowd. a lot of my friends cared about making it in time for them which was nice of them. it was incredibly weird to have ryan watch us while another drummer was playing with us, we all felt so bad. we were so distraught leading up to this tour about him not joining us due to his carpal tunnel, but we had no choice. our friend and fill-in drummer matt shindle killed it and the show made us excited for the rest of the run. i think i said a cool and inspiring thing that made everyone yell very excitedly but then i followed it up with some lame shit so it ruined the moment lmao.
Photo: Julie Yi Photography
i returned back to my house in brick with destination dimension and jeremiah came with so that we had one more night together before i left. i was feeling a little better about leaving but i wouldn’t actually be excited until we were finally in the van.
after waking up mad early on like 5 hours of sleep only, i got ready to leave as julie was dropped off at my house to drive up to bandago together. i cried as jeremiah said goodbye to me because i’m a big dumb baby and never ever spend time apart from him haha.
the drive to virginia took forever. i was so exhausted but for some reason it was impossible to sleep in the van. and then i led us to the wrong holiday inn; our actual hotel was so far that we just had to check in late and go straight to the show. the vfw was actually a pretty cool spot. it was nice to be in falls church again; the last time i was there was when i was a kid and my aunt and uncle lived in an apartment way before they had my cousins.
Photo: Julie Yi Photography - us with pulses, destination dimension and a couple members of timberbrooke!
turnout wasn’t huge at all (a pattern that would repeat itself lmao) but all of the bands were super nice. of course, we were extremely stoked to play with pulses. i felt bad because i kept screwing up faces, names and bands at first but it ended up being fine. our friends said i played more confidently this show than the night before but it didn’t feel like that. i felt like i sounded like shit and i looked like an idiot lmao. on stage, there’s actually a million things going through my head while i’m singing. i almost wanted to throw the microphone at one point but can’t do that!!! i also apparently sounded better but i still have issues believing people when they say i sang well, because people lie to other musicians all the time and tell them they’re great just to be polite. i warm up before every show and do diaphragm exercises but if my throat fucking feels like shit from my allergies and tight and dry there’s nothing i can do. the humidifier doesn’t help. there’s not a day where i don’t practice. i wish my body wasn’t so unforgiving haha.
well the korean BBQ spot next door was cool lmao and there was a dog at the show. our hotel room was nice but the furniture was so oddly arranged. it was difficult to make room for the air mattresses but we made it work. i shouldn’t talk though because hotel rooms on tour are a luxury haha.
the drive to greensboro was just a little stressful because of the torrential downpour, and a car accident happened right in front of us at one point lmao. but mostly, the drive was so serene and beautiful. we drove through the blue ridge mountains and listened to the new anthony green album. this is what i love about touring, getting to see these beautiful sights. i think i almost cried hahaha.
we arrived to greensboro and the block we were on for the gig had some sick spots. we got vegetarian food at this place called boba house. the food was incredible. and then the venue, new york pizza, had $3 craft beer!!! insane. i didn’t drink the last tour and i said i wouldn’t this time but i remembered we were going to be in a position to try some region-specific foods and beers, so i let myself have a sunshine gose from birdsong brewery after our set. it was soooo good. yeah funny thing was, i actually drank A LOT this tour. last tour i was super sheepish about it, but this time i was going to be in too many new places to not try local beers. it didn’t affect me as much as i thought it would but i believe it still did to *some*extent. i also couldn’t resist the touch tunes juke box and helped myself to playing santana again like the last tour hahaha.
the turnout was decent but everyone the headlining band brought (and the band themselves) stood outside for every band. at one point joe went outside as we were about to go on and yelled at everyone saying “hey guys we drove a long way to play the show come inside” i was mortified lmao. sadly, you cannot make people care about you, they have to show interest on their own. BUT, obviously he was saying what we were all thinking. listening to a band play from outside the venue does not always mean you are paying attention to the bands. they didn’t even come inside for one single song for any band. if you can’t make the people you bring stay for the bands, fine, but why play the show at all if you don’t care about the touring bands?
Photo: Julie Yi Photography
chris, the vocalist of destination dimension, was a huge huge help to me on tour. he gave me really great honest criticism and it helped me work on some bad habits i have while performing. i know i’m a big baby and all but i can take critique and i wish more of my musician friends were more honest with me. it shows they care because they don’t let me blindly wander around just repeating the same awful habits. for the first time i also wore both earplugs in while singing but it only lasted two songs. i know it’s foolish to not wear them, but i cannot stand how i sound with earplugs in, it fucks me up just as bad. i used to use earasers but i was sick of pissing away $40 everytime i lost them. and i’m not capable of not misplacing something, i know i’ll lose them again. i wasn’t too happy with my performance this show either but the people watching us were cool and attentive. wes was so kind to hook the show up for us, and we loved the dudes in impersona. really fantastic band.
later that night shindle realized he left his laptop charger at the venue. we were using his laptop for interludes and his click tracks. it was too late to go back so we decided we’d go back in the morning before leaving to go back to charleston. but sadly the venue didn’t have it and we absolutely had to move on to the next city. i felt so bad. however we were able to make our tracks still work on my personal laptop that i brought.
charleston was a little rough lmao, but still fun. as always we arrived just in time to check in to our hotel, get food and pull up to the venue for load in. we stayed at a holiday inn, and we were hoping since it was a hotel that the room would be nice and big but it wasn’t. the beds were huge though. after checking in we noted that a counter service-type grits restaurant was across the parking lot. i was going to try to only buy one meal per show day but it looked like the next day i’d be buying grits for breakfast haha.
it was an insanely hot day. in fact, the hottest day on tour. it was bad. it was at least 90 degrees or more out especially with the humidity but whatever, we were heading to the venue soon so we would hopefully find relief there. something i was ABSOLUTELY adamant about was that we ate cookout. for anyone who doesn’t know, cookout is a chain based in the south that serves southern food and super cheap, filling meals. you can get a “tray” which is like one main meat or dish, two sides and a drink for $5.29. the tour package met there to eat before load in. stopping made us late, but there was no way in hell we weren’t going and i was making sure of that lmao. and it was worth being a lil late i think, i think everyone liked it. santino bought twice the amount of the tray he ordered hahaha.
so we finally get to the venue, which is tua lingua - and
we had zero idea this place had no central air. i had no idea the place didn’t have it!!! but otherwise the venue was a very sick spot. like out of the blue in cambridge (rip), but much much bigger. they had numerous amazing art pieces, a dark room and an interactive bubble exhibit. the staff was very nice. we did our best to play the best set we could with the heat. at certain points it was even cooler outside the building because the hot air just wasn’t moving out. we almost cut our set short out of fear of not being able to handle the heat but we made it through. we also had to play without our tracks but that was fine. a couple people named jesse and fianna came to the show because they heard about it from the hemisphere facebook group!! so awesome. zacoma also made us a custom copy of their CD based off our tour marketing it was so fucking sweet of them!! i don’t have the photo of it otherwise i would have shared it but when i get it i’ll post it. them and hollow notes made the show a great one, i highly recommend both bands. i bet tua lingua is sooo sick to play in cooler weather just not in the summer haha.
photo credit: julie yi photography LOOK AT HOW SWEATY I AM.
because the show ended massively early (THE DREAM), i suggested going to the charleston waterfront since we had time to explore! santino was wary because the poor guy was starving, but he agreed to spending 30 minutes of walking around. so the tour package drove out to the waterfront/rainbow row and we walked around for a while. it was sooooo beautiful out, i was so happy to see the town again. a guy jumped in the pineapple fountain as we were dipping our feet in to dig for change and he was in there for an hour HAHA. we also ended up staying an hour because we were having so much fun. there was another fountain nearby you could actually walk through. maybe it wasn’t actually allowed but there were no signs so whoops!! we went from just sticking our hands in the jets to santino and jaime sticking their whole fucking heads in i was screaming laughing hahaha. it was a very happy and pure moment.
on this tour i learned a lot of new things about santino, one of which is that he apparently really likes milk LMFAO. and we had to like run around to try to find somewhere open that would have milk and cookies but everyone settled for taco bell. we went back to the hotel to watch aggretsuko but netflix kept glitching and the screen would black out whenever subs were on the screen i was so pissed. but we enjoyed a very wonderful night of going to bed early.
