The Steers and Beers Tour Diary, Summer 2006, Featuring From a Second Story Window (Ohio), Cattle Decapitation (San Diego), Misery Index (Baltimore), Animosity (San Francisco), and Job For a Cowboy (by Jason)

June 11. Asbury Park NJ. We drove up to New Jersey today to start the tour with an appearance at the "Show of the Summer" fest, unaware that we were supposed to play at 2:50 in the afternoon. We arrived with about a half hour to spare, as Despised Icon was just getting ready to go on, and we were right after them. Technically it was our first day of the tour, because we missed the previous show for the same reason- we had no word on what time we were supposed to play, or that the Fest even started that early...either way we rolled into Asbury park New Jersey and right away I remembered how this was no longer Springsteen's summer playground- no its in a more post-apocalyptic form these days, but supposedly 'revitalizing' (usually a code word for yuppi-fication). Either way we played and it was a blast, saw some old friends and started to get into shape...our merch girl for six shows also showed up later that day, Jess (from Fighting Dogs!) seems very cool as well...

June 12. Near Wilkes Barre PA. Left Asbury Park about 2pm, and had a beautiful drive over the countryside of northeastern Pennsylvania, rolling hills, mountains, and exploding green forests- to arrive in another town just north of Wilkes Barre. It was the actual first date of the tour with the four other bands and my first chance to talk to some of the guys and actually check them out. Its Job For a Cowboy (Phoenix), From a Second Story Window (Ohio), Cattle Decapitation (San Diego), and Animosity (San Francisco)...everyone is excited and pretty chill, so it should be a blast...the show was ok, supposedly some kid in the local scene shot himself that day, and it "hurt the draw". Sucks if true, but there were still about 75 people.

June 13. Boston, MA. Drove up to Boston, today, the drive was longer than we thought, took about 7 hours through God's country and a brief stop for coffee (got to have the coffee). When we arrived at the place (some Brazilian nightclub north of the city!?), we found a slight commotion as the promoter changed the contract two days prior, altering the guarantee. Shit like this always happens on tour, and the business side of playing music is always an ugly necessity. Eventually things worked out and all the bands played to a solid crowd of nearly 200. We opted to just chill after the show so we went back to our old Masshole buddy Josh's house, and watched "Team America"...wow thats a winner.

June 14. Hampden, CONN. Today we drive to Connecticut, pretty short one, its pouring rain outside as I type this, and we are relaxed and in good spirits...more soon.

June 15. Last night was strange, we played the Elk's Lodge in Hampden, Conn. Good turnout, maybe 200-250 kids. Most of them seemed like they were there only because they were seeking something 'to do' (i.e. hang out with friends, chill on a summer night somewhere), as only a percentage of the crowd actually was watching the bands at any given time...overall not much fun, but we played well, and ended up getting a hotel room in town along with the Cattle Decap guys, as we are only an hour and half from New York City, where we play tonight at CBGB's.

June 16. NYC: Last night at CBGB's was a blast, but it was not without its 'ups and downs'. First, parking for 5 bands, 4 who have trailers (we are the lone band with no trailer) in the Bowery is insane. We had to juggle around to make it work, and then we found out that Job For A Cowboy's van was broken into earlier that day, in broad daylight. They got off with a lot of stuff, and the cops never came. Lame start to the NYC experience! The show started about 7 pm, and the crowd was animated from the get-go. We had a blistering set, but unfortunately someone got knocked out. Hope they are feeling better today. Anyways, after the show we split out with our good friends from NYC, including Farley, Troy from Cattledecap, Satu, Samantha, Carley and several others, and headed a few blocks over to this bar called Manitoba's. We were there for a bit, but Adam and Samantha got kicked out for smuggling beers in ;), however before we left, I turn around and the guy from Saturday Night Live (Jimmy Fallon) is standing there offering me cheeseballs from a HUGE jar. So, I'm like 'ok, I'll take some cheeseballs,' Five minutes later we are walking out and this other girl we are with Priscilla snags Fallon's cheeseballs (which he left sitting at his table) and we head out. So we are in the bar across the street eating his cheeseballs and drinking til roughly 3 am, when we all moved back over to Brooklyn to continue at Sam and Susie's place.....

June 16 (cont.). Poughkeepsie(?) New York. A bit upstate from NYC, maybe about 2 hours. We played this bar on the mainstreet of this quaint little town, and it seemed a bit odd from the start. We got there early, were chilling in the van, yet we would hear random people screaming and cursing on the street, and everyone seemed pissed off that they had to live, or be in 'Poughkeepsie'. The show started late and ran late, we got a lukewarm response from the predominately young, hardcore audience. In fact in was very lame, we got the fuck out of Poughkeepise pretty fast afterwards.

June 17. Kent, Ohio. Home of Kent State University, we again arrived very early about 1 pm, for what turned out to be an all day fest. All day fests SUCK. they always are overly ambitious, tiring endeavors that pack too many bands on. There were some cool local acts though, and after a bit I wandered around the old town and checked out some restaraunts and small stores. Kent has that hip college town vibe, and I guess its a nice place to be, but kind of one dimensional. We bolted later that night after yet another passive response from a predominantly young crowd that could care less about us. We went back to our good friend Jo's house and ate manicotti and crashed.

June 18. Grand Rapids, Michigan. Arrived to a packed house, maybe 300 people outside, its father's day and this space/club called "Skeletones" was the only thing going in the mostly deserted downtown area of Grand Rapids. Everyone had a great show, we got up and flattened ourselves and had a blast. We even played an impromptu Terrorizer cover (you know which one), and it also turns out that our hometown buds in Magrudergrind played the same town the night before. It was a great show overall, and we split out later on to go to Kalamazoo to stay with a friend of Adam's from Illinois who had relocated up there. We had some beers and relaxed before crashing out late.

June 19. Indianapolis, IN. Great place called the Emerson Theater, well, not really the Theater itself (its kind of run down), but the bar around the corner is a lot of fun, a small homely joint that reminds me a lot of my watering hole in Mt. Pleasant (Washington DC) known as the Raven. It was another packed show, at least 300-350 people, and we played fairly well to a solid response. Our good friend Jerod from The Dream is Dead stopped by and we hung out for a bit, then rolled back to his place where we watched a movie (Metal: A Headbanger's Journey) before crashing.

June 20. Des Moines, Iowa, best show of the tour for us so far, as far as the solidity of our performance. Another packed house of maybe 280 people, great venue, great sound, great food. Unfortunately we have a 500+ mile journey to Oklahoma City after the show, so we had to split out. We ended up going to IHOP for a bite with the guys in Animosity for a while before driving, where I got a vegetarian omlet, and it was enough food for 3 people. If you ever go to IHOP just get one order and split it, cause the servings are stupidly oversized. The drive was not bad thereafter, stopped south of Kansas City at a Truckstop and slept for a good 5 hours, before resuming south to Okie-land.

June 21. Oklahoma City. We pulled up and the show was in this industrial area outside downtown. There was a noticeable number of homeless and/or street people about, but that seems to be the situation in almost every city we play (if you go to the right areas, but it always seems to be the area where the club is!). It was also the hottest day of the tour and we were roasting pretty hard outside the "Glastnost" 'space', cause it was not really a club, just a long room. We have decided to not use the AC in the van at all, to save gas, and the engine through the desert and southwest dates. The show was pretty good, nothing great, but we met some cool people who drove several hours to see us play, only to arrive as we finished our last song!

June 22. Fort Worth. Tex. Its getting sickly hot now, and humid, you walk outside and you are covered in sweat in a few minutes. This show was in a HUGE theater called the Riglea, with a 200 foot ceiling, which I hate....high ceilings are just not workable with blast beats! The show was packed out though, and we went to an afterparty with the Cowboy and Animosity guys out in the 'burbs. We crashed there until about 7 am when someone at the house woke up and started screaming repeatedly "who drank my whiskey!!!" "who drank MY 40$ BOTTLE OF WHISKEY!!!"....at which point, we grabbed our shit and got the hell out of there before all hell broke loose....I hope she found out who drank her whiskey.

June 23. Houston, TX. Now this place 'Java Jazz' has some character, its an all ages space in a strip mall next to a pawn shop. It was again close to a 100 degrees and humid as the Amazon outside, where the bands were congregating behind the club and drinking beer. Then a cop pulled around, and we thought we were going to get a drinking in public speech/citation, but instead he asked '...you got one for me?'....cool cop. The show was the largest of the tour, something around 680 paid, and it was again a huge push from Cowboy and their large (and very young) following. We did ok, had fun, rocked out, and split out to Taco Cabana for a midnight snack with the guys from Second Story.

June 24.San Antonio, TX. This is one of the numerous so called 'festival shows' on this tour, which actually comes as a result of three tours all being the same area or city on the same night, and so the promoter ups the ticket price and puts everyone on at the same place (rather than having them compete against each other). So we had the Soilent Green tour, the Bane tour, and our tour (about 12 bands in all plus locals) all converging on the White Rabbit for a massive gathering of hardcore and metal. I would say however the hardcore won hands down, as the 'metal' bands got the stares and the glares and the 'hardcore' bands got the cheers. Well at least it SEEMED that way. It was fun anyway, but I won't need to hear a breakdown for a looong time.

June 25. Corpus Christi. TX. Wow pulling up to this town is a site to behold, miles and miles of oil refineries and industrial processing plants, and strip mall after bloody strip mall, where you guessed it, the show was at a place called The Ballroom, in a strip mall....and it was HUGE. I guess they have Tejano concerts there, and other functions, and everywhere we went Espanol was to be heard (should have taken Spanish in school). The show was fun however, and we packed up and split soon after we played for a the 12 hour journey across the entire state of Texas to El Paso.

June 26. El Paso. We survived the drive and pulled up to the club that afternoon, called 'Chics', which was an actual 'real club', and although the sound system was kind of blown, it was one of our best shows. We changed the set up and added 'Defector' which injected some punch to the set as well. El Paso, by the way, is right across the river from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, so we could see it driving along highway 10, where the demarkation line is the Rio Grande, and the fiction of what the 'border' actually is can be seen in all its stark separation. The idea that money and goods flow freely across, while the people are neatly divided and kept out, is the 'logical' absurdity that defines the local culture and its position as a international meeting point where capitalist relations unfold. Ahh what a moral and humane system! One city in essence (El Paso and Juarez), separated by an imaginary line yet governed by the same economics that keep one half in operational poverty and one half in (relative) prosperity. A 'Tale of Two Cities' indeed...

June 27. Phoenix, AZ. Wow. This show was one of a kind. But before I get to that I must comment on the 106 degree heat, which leaves an east coast kid like myself a little baffled as to why anyone would ever want to live in the desert? I am told the winter is nice, but the heat is suffocating, just suffocating. Anyways, the show was in a nice place called the Brickhouse theater, and there were a good amount of people. Then, it soon became apparent that the crowd was either 1. A group of deaf students who were dropped off at the show 2) Extras from a George Romero zombie flick, who were still in 'character' or 3) the heat actually does get to the locals and makes them so lethargic they just do not realize there is a live metal band performing 5 feet in front of there faces, going apeshit for their entertainment. So, no offence Phoenix, but Animosity played, and we played to a statue garden. So when Cattle Decap followed us they performed their priceless set, sitting down in chairs and text messaging on their cell phones! Pure comedy, the VH1 storytellers Cattle Decap set was classic, and hopefully the video will make it out somewhere someday. After the show we rolled and went to our good friend Ryan's house where we watched Cattle's set again!

June 28, Anaheim, CA. Yet another packed out show. We drove through sickly hot (as usual) southern California desert wasteland to arrive a bit late at the old Chain Reaction in Anaheim. We rolled in and played THE hottest set of the tour, meaning inside humidity and temperature had to be about 125 and no oxygen. Shane from Phobia stopped by and we rolled with him back to Costa Mesa to chill at his place where we watched some British crime drama called 'Layer Cake'. We were just beaten from the heat and needed to crash.

June 29, Hollywood, CA. Finally we pull into the Whiskey about 5 pm and unload. This club is notorious for its shady dealings with bands and making them pay a 20% merch cut to the club, which is in fact an LA-wide policy that has extended its greedy tentacles across the nation to even more horrible places like the House of Blues (ClearChannel!!) where the bullshit (and illegal) policy of taking merch percentages for Compact discs even (see BB Kings New York) has been established! So we were wary of the staff, who seemed cool enough though, cause we slipped out without paying anything. Sparky and I hit happy hour in West Hollywood with our old friend Ashley, and shortly thereafter played a nice set to an enthusiastic crowd, afterwhich we hit up the Rainbow room down the street and met up with our recent tour mates Raymond and Christian from Fear Factory. Later we rolled back to Raymond's and crashed out in Recita where he and Adam played Halo into the wee hours.

June 30, Ventura, CA. This suburban town about 50 miles west of LA was quiet, chill, and lazy. The show was at the Alpine Skate park, where a load kids showed up early to see all the bands, one of which included a young Swedish band from Gothenburg that relocated to Ventura! Welcome to America, and have fun being a local band and dealing with Hollywood's pay-to-play shit... at least the weather is nice. Anyways, show was fun, if long, then we rolled back to the farm-like homestead of the Encoma guys (who played second) in Oxnard, where we had a bonfire, and chatted late with them and their friends about life and everything in between. The night was clear and cool, and I walked away a bit staring at the stars, and thinking of the song "California Stars" by Wilco/Billy Bragg and remembered looking at the same stars two years ago from Port Antonio, Jamaica, where I had the best time of my life.

July 1, Bakersfield, CA. This city lies much more inland, and as we drove away from the coast the weather became noticably dryer and hotter once more. Misery Index has never played in these parts of Cali, and we did not know what to expect. The show was packed with hundreds in the hot basement of a pizza joint downtown, and we threw out to a bunch of kids who didn't appear (overall) to know us, yet thrashed along anyway. Afterwards we went to an afterparty with the Animosity and JFAC guys, where along the way we hit a sobriety checkpoint. I was driving, had nothing to drink and was fine, yet the cop gave me a test anyways (the 'follow my finger' one), which convinced him enough and we continued on. The party was relaxed enough (it was a gated community called "Legends" ha ha!! See last show of tour in Columbia...) except a guy showed up later who picked a fight with the merch guy Chris (from Animosity), and as they were rolling on the ground, Sparky and Adam moved in quickly and broke them up. The vibe was destroyed however, and everyone rolled.

July 2, Fresno, CA. This place was ok, all the bands actually arrived pretty early, and we made a 'covered wagon' enclosure with the vans in the back parking lot, where we had a mini-tailgate party before the show. The area around the place was desolate and degraded. Fresno just gave me a bad vibe from the start, as we stopped off briefly at a Pilot truck stop where the men's room was virtually painted with racist graffiti that had obviously been there for a while (meaning the owners/manger did not give a damn), sporting all kinds of bullshit. Lame.

July 3/4 San Francisco, CA . San Francisco is amazing. I love this town, beautiful, just beautiful. We rolled in early that afternoon to the POUND club, best in the city it seems, just very relaxed with a great setup. We saw many old friends (Pete from Benumb, back from Iraq!) and had a great show, what else can be said, no drama needed, the Animosity guys are from SF, and their vocalist Leo's place in the Mission district is astounding. ALSO, we ended up having the next day off, our first in 22 days or something insane like that, and after I got up early to see the Italy-Germany world cup match, we went to a pool party out in the hills past Oakland somewhere, hung out, made some food, and had some drinks. Afterwards we all cruised back to Leo's house to watch the fireworks from the hill above his pad, where you can see all of the city in 360 degree glory. Now this is a city I can get used to, I could live here, and I think I will someday, so damn the earthquakes!

July 5, Sacramento,CA . Last date of our week long + Cali adventure, and I was a bit tired from all the 'relaxing' of the previous days, if you know what I mean. So I walked away from the venue right after we arrived and hung out alone at a coffee shop for a few hours til things got rolling. I got in a lot of good reading on my book, but still haven't seen a newspaper in days (weeks?), but that can wait, I am not ready to dive into the mediated world again just yet...or at least the print form 'interpretation' of reality. After a while I got some Mexican food and walked back to the club where we had a pretty cool show, if I do say so.

July 6, Portland, OR . Ah yes, the mecca of hardcore punk itself, Portland...we drove the 600 miles over night (missing a lot of the beautiful scenery I guess) but we did get a brief stop in Eugene, where Mark's old college friend Courtney is going to grad school. After crashing out at her house for a few hours we all rolled on to Portland, to play a place called ROCK AND ROLL PIZZA! ...and they did have some great pizza.... It was a cool place but the stage was waaay to high, and we were tired and the crowd was not feeling us....I think I would have rather played someone's basement with Hellshock! O well, at least our good friend Lauren showed up and after the show we went back to his lovely crib and watched Dawn of the Dead and had some minor political discussions....of which I hope we can have more...

July 7, Seattle, WA. Another great town I never get to see enough of! we rolled into Studio Seven late as there was massive traffic coming up through Olympia and Takoma....the show was one of the best of the tour for us however, and as much as I love you Seattle, I hope we have a day off for once in your town. We had to drive right after the show to Boise so another shitty overnighter, but after Boise we have a day off and will be camping out somewhere along the Snake river, where all the bands are going to chill together and get back to nature!

July 8, Boise, ID. Drove overnight through the mountains of eastern Oregon to reach Boise in early afternoon, where we hit the Record Exchange and picked up some music for the road...I bought the new Jesu album called "Silver" which I really like to listen to when I fall asleep for some reason. We then went over to the venue which is actually called the "Venue", where we ate some of the best food of the tour. It was an all ages show dominated primarily with the best of Boise's younger music lovers, with a mix of other freaks, some of which we partied with later that evening to the wee hours of a very hot night and even hotter morning...

July 9, DAY OFF, Three Island Crossing, State Park, Idaho. We met the other band's at Mountain Home, about 50 miles southeast of Boise, all stocked up on food and beer, and caravaned down the highway to Three Island State Park (known as a crossing point over the Snake River for the Oregon Trail settlers), where we more or less took the place over. We set up, and started cooking about 2pm in the shadow of some large cliffs opposite the river on the other side. It was a bonding moment, as all five bands (Us) Animosity, Job For a Cowboy, From a Second Story Window, and Cattle Decaptation were like this family of freaks laughing, swimming, and drinking for hours in the middle of nowhere, with no one around. It was a much needed respite from performing every night, and we basked in the moonlit atmosphere of mother nature.

July 10, Ogden, Utah. We all left camp about 11 am and made the three hour run down to Ogden, stopping briefly in Twin Falls to see the massive, scenic gorge just north of the city that the Snake river carved out over a hundred thousand years. Upon arriving in Ogden shortly thereafter, we found out the lineup was switched around and that we were playing first at 7pm. We did not mind it so much, except the decision to do that was made by the promoter THAT DAY, so people who were coming to see us missed us as they showed up too late...sorry friends, and as beautiful as Utah is geographically, it has a strange vibe that I really did not like, something about Utah is different...but I was only there one day so I am sure there must be more to it(!?)....skiing? either way we split out in disgust, right after we played, and drove to Colorado.

July 11, Colorado Springs, CO. Long drive ends in a stop at Mosh Pit records, before going over to the Black Sheep, which I played actually for the first time in 1996, when it was called Pure Energy. It was hard to relax and enjoy everything though as in the back of my head I knew that we would have to drive again right after the show to Omaha, NE, another 600 mile overnight run.

July 12, Omaha, NE. We showed up early in this Omaha suburb called 'Papillion' and found the Cattle Decap guys waiting around as well. However, and conveniantly enough, there was a bowling alley right next to the theater we were playing that night, and we had 2 hours to kill, so the game was on: Misery vs. Cattle in 'Kingpin' style...we got it going and the match was heated from the start with Troy from Cattle nailing a strike right out of the gate. But thanks to a late comeback from the Index, we took them by 9 pins in the end. The show was ok for a midweek date in Omaha, where we never have played, in this or any other band, so we took it for what it was worth, and I made the 6 hour drive to Columbia, MO, which was a hard one to make as I was tired as all hell, and the coffee and energy drinks just were not doing shit.

July 13, St. Louis, MO. This was the 'local' show for Mark and Adam, so it was great to see some familiar faces in our second 'hometown'. We played the 'new' Creepy Crawl, which was ok, but lacking the character and crustiness of the legendary 'old' Creepy Crawl. Needless to say it was a rager, as old friends and new faces collided in front of the stage and sent the PA stack crashing down at one point. After the show we all rolled over to Mark's friend's house, where we met up with his hometown crew and relaxed in his hot tub until the early hours.

July 14, Chicago, IL. This was a tough day to get through, as we got a very late start for Chicago, and ultimately showed up right as doors were opening at 7 pm. It was a stressful load-in up 3 flights of stairs, but the place (The Logan Auditorium) was the perfect size and had great sound. Every band shredded well to a packed house of about 400 and everything went fine until Second Story's last song, when the hardcore 'king of the mountain' pile-on at the end sent the clueless security crew into a frenzy and started pulling people off left and right. They turned on the lights and cut the PA and even punched a few kids in the face who were apparently giving them shit. It was an ignoble end to a great show, and I am surprised it did not escalate into a full blown brawl and destruction match. But things relaxed a bit after some cops showed up, so we packed our things and headed out with Second Story, Animosity, and JFAC to an open house party in the city where we stayed up for a bit longer.

July 15, South of Detroit, MI. Quick drive over to the Detroit area led us to this clothing store that apparently had a concert hall in the back. Indeed it did and a pretty nice one at that. However, the scenester contigent was pretty high and we were not sure how many of the kids would give a fuck about a grinding death metal band like us. Well, we never got a chance to impress them! It was an all day fest and the people were piling in consistently, so the room became packed quite fast (not too mention sticky hot), and band after band pummeled the crowd leading up to Job For a Cowboy's set about 7:30. We were suppose to play right after them, so we started getting our gear out and setting up behind the stage. At this point two events unfolded: Supposedly a group of kids showed up just to hate on JFAC so they started flicking them off and throwing shit at them as soon as they started playing, this led to a few fights down front, which may or may not have brought the police in, who promptly called for the show to be shut down due to "overcapacity". The cops were complete assholes and kicked everyone out, including the band members who still had merch and equipment inside. It was a disaster all around and we could not wait to get the hell out of this place, so we headed out promptly for Cleveland.

July 16, Cleveland, OH. The FASSW guys actually helped get us on this gig they already had booked through Peabodies in downtown Cleveland, their hometown sort of, and well, it was a rough one, one of those shows where we maybe should have just enjoyed it as a day off. The crowd was along the lines of Phoenix, but not that bad, just a bit sparse and passive and I could not see one person there that I recognized or might have been there for us. So we played an admittedly lackluster set, after which we were so dead set on going home for our off day we packed up and rolled out fast to make it back to Maryland by morning.

July 17, Day off at home! A sweet day all around. Went by mom's for some home cooking, slept, then chilled out and watched Meirelles' "City of God". Speaking of which, as depressing as the film can be, was very well made, I really cared for the entire murderous lot of them, and when one begins to understand Brazil's position in the global pecking order, and how their forced modernization plans of the seventies and beyond left many of its poor to fend for themselves, you can view the film with the knowledge that social conditions and poverty are at the root of all such crime, and nothing has really changed...

July 18, Philadelphia, PA. We drove up to Philly with plenty of time to spare, this time taking Kate along to help with the merch. Tonight was at the First Unitarian Church, known historically as a great spot for shows, as well as for its crushing, sweaty heat in the summer. A storm rolled through outside, unleashing heavy winds, rain and thunder. Inside we felt very welcome, as did all the bands, raging through our sets to the apparent joy of both metal and hardcore kids. Now, with these next three 'east coast' dates, we did see a schism erupt each night between the hardcore and metal kids, as the 'dancing' techniques of each tend to turn them against each other unecessarily. The 'kung fu spin kickers' take up a lot of space when they go off, and I only have a problem with it when people who want to get up front and thrash are forced to the back. Fortunately tonight it was a happy separation and we did not see and conflicts....but Baltimore was a bit different...

July 19, Baltimore, MD. Hometown show! Perhaps we play here a bit too much, hell i think we must have played the Ottobar like 25 times since 2002, but its Sparky and Adam's part time workplace so its even more of a homecoming when we get to play there on a national tour. This being the 'mixed bill' tour it is, a variable number of hardcore/metalcore/whatevercore types where all bundled up together down front and sure enough the schisms erupted over dance-mosh what have you. The guys in Cattle were even getting a little irritated and Travis unleashed his fury in fine form, not necessarily over the dancing but over scene politics and a fight that occured last time they were out here. Overall, the night was fun and we went out to eat with the Cattle guys over at the Paper Moon Diner, then went over to former roadie Jess' apartment to crash out and leave from her place to New York in the morning.

You Tube Video from show= Meet Reality

You Tube Video from show= Exception to the Ruled

July 20, Centereach, NY (Long Island). This was yet yet yet yet another all day fest....seems like something promoters love to do in the high volume summer touring season, and since our five-band strong package is so diverse and ready made for such radical displays of promotional superfluity, we basked in all the fest-glory we could stand! Now, New York, and Long Island in particular are known for the brutality of the pits and hardcore kids really go crazy, so we were both happy and encouraged that a large group came down in front of the stage to thrash out up close, and the kung fu kids (most of the time) stayed to the back, and everyone was happy. On the way out of town we stopped by Full Force Studios where we hung out a bit with Joe (Suffocations's soundguy) and he played the new album for us....as elder statesman Chris Pervelis used to say...AMAZING!!! Then a horrid overnight drive to Erie, PA...woo hoo!

July 21, Erie, PA. This was yet yet yet yet yet yet yet another all day fest. BUT this one was kind of cool cause we ran into Leon and Danny (from Phobia) and got to see their new band jam. Called "Intronaut", its more of a heavy, sludgy, slightly proggy venture that should please fans of Mastodon, Isis, or Swarm of the Lotus. I got the album "Void" and its impeccable. Also playing were Century and Mouth of the Architect, who were equally crushing. The show for us however was lackluster and just one of those shows where we did not want to play. Sorry if there were any disappointed fans, but the blatant lack of energy, the dead vibes, and simply Erie all made us want to just curl up and sleep in a corner. It happens once or twice on 6 week tour, as any band will attest, and honestly knowing we had to drive to Milwaukee right after just did not help.

July 22, West Bend, WI. The Robot Mosh fest!!! And mosharific it was, but once more we felt good not really having any breakdowns, as it forced people to either watch us for what we are, or just leave. We arrived early enough to tailgate out back, cook up some bocaburgers, and have some beers with friends from other bands and the area. It was great to also finally see Sleep Terror live, just astouding! So we(and all the bands!) played the last show of the tour with all of our hearts, and it was magic. Stagedivers raced by onto raging friends up front, and we even had Frank from Animosity come up and play "Pulling Out The Nails" with us. Afterwards we said our tearful goodbyes to our touring brothers of the last 6 weeks, took some photos, then headed out to Columbia, MO. to play a show and drop off Adam and Mark in their homeland

July 23, Columbia, MO. This was a looong day. We arrived earlier outside St. Louis after the overnight drive, stopped by Mark's dads house and went out on the lake behind his home for lunch and a swim. It was a scorcher, but it seems nearly everywhere in this country its blazing hot these days. We rolled over to Columbia (about and hour and a half west of St. Louis) for the last load in of the tour. This show was with Unmerciful (from Topeka, ex-Origin) and Legend (local shredders), and it was small (given college is out there now) but a lot of fun. The beer was free at the bar so we started early with the last night's celebrations, and we ended up taking the festivities into the next morning. Needless to say the 18 hour drive back to Baltimore that Sparky and I had to share was the most difficult of the tour. I arrived home at 7 the following morning and promptly went to sleep for the next 10 hours.......so when does the next tour start!!???