Due to an aligning of planets, I was allowed to accompany the boys for
their whirl-wind-weekend tour.
Day 1:
Mike and I started off Friday morning by getting up at 7:00 to pack and
get ready. Several Soy Lattes and a trip to the store for supplies later
and we were on our way to meet the van. The van had just gotten new tires
(who would let us hooligans break them in? Thanks Patrick’s Sister!),
which led to stories of the last time Mike and I tried to go on a road
trip in a car with new tires (The tires and the car decided to go their
separate ways). It was a long ride to Essex, which involved serious
conversations of death by diarrhea (Thanks to Ana for bringing the science
and for showing up the boys on the poop talk). I won’t say much about
Essex, except that no one had much good to say about Essex. After the
band played, I locked myself in the van to take a nap. I was awakened to
go meet the best waiter I have ever had. Our friend had me in hysterics
when he said “I saw my grandmother in a bikini.” That is my new favorite
exclamation. We then found a hotel and got a few precious hours sleep.
Day 2:
After Travis got back from dropping Ana off, we headed to Philly for some
lunch. After some wandering around, Mike and I decided to go to an
uber-hip/yuppie restaurant that served me a vegan “Big Mac”. It has been 15
years since I’ve had a big mac, but this was pretty convincing. Almost
disgustingly so, but cool all the same. After this we tracked Travis and
Patrick to some barstools where Patrick proceeded to dazzle me (and the
eaves-dropping bartender) with his theories on back pain; needless to say,
I think we were seconds from being booted out the door. From there we
continued on to Morristown, to New Jerseys “Only espresso and Hookah bar.”
The Motion Sick played a tone-downed, extra-long set. I had a few seconds
of awesome rock drumming to “Every Rose has its Thorn” while Travis
checked the sound levels. I think I can safely say that everyone was
blown away by my awesomeness. Travis, you better watch your back.
Sometime amidst all of this, Patrick made a discovery of epic proportions.
He has found that as long as you are doing the robot you can say what you
really want/insult people, and it will be okay. Ask him to demonstrate
next time you see him. Thanks to our local guides (Rachel and John), we
then explored the town. After patronizing another diner and being waited
on by the kid from Knocked Up, we were brought back to the comfort of
Gary’s home. Thanks so much again to Gary for putting us up, treating us
to breakfast and a few guffaw-inducing stories.
Day 3:
This was my first time in New Jersey and I certainly did not see the
armpit that everyone talks about. In fact we lounged around all day and
didn’t get on the road to NYC until mid-afternoon. Once in New York, we
met up with Matt who accompanied me on my quest for caffeine. This show
had an interesting set of music- Massey was on first, who played drums,
synth, and sang all at once. Did anyone else catch a Trent Reznor vibe to
the music? (Note to editor, that’s you Mike- if you think I’m crazy for
saying TR then just go ahead and take that out for me). Up next was The
Newspeak Ensemble, which is a sort of Political Modern Classical Composer
Troupe, led by my dear friend and Ex-band mate (in our Blitzkriegbliss http://www.blitzkriegbliss.com days with Mike) David T. Little. They started off with a more “rock” vibe doing up some Massey tunes, then did some other pieces including a work by David, his Love song to Oil, which was pretty awesome. The electric
violin with distortion made my day. They finished up with their pièce de résistance, “War Pigs” by Black Sabbath. Next up was The Motion Sick, who
were happily re-united with bass. They cruised through their set, barely
stopping to breathe and rocked harder than I’ve seen them do in some time.
A fitting end for the tour. We stopped off for a snack at Two Boots Pizza with
Ken, who then led us to the magical place where vegan whoopie pies live.
Patrick, Ken, and I partook of the whoopie pies and we’ll never be the same
again. Though I cannot totally claim the whoopie pie responsible, I was
magically transported back in my bed by 5:00 am Monday morning.
Out,
Sophia Bliss