This was the first morning that I actually felt really good waking up, perhaps a full night’s sleep without any interruptions (I forgot to mention that Patrick and I had shared a bed at Ken’s place). We stopped so I could send some faxes and so Mike could mail some CD’s. We also had some coffee at a café and while it was the first espresso in a while, it was less than stellar. I’ll give a full report on the coffee blog. It was a nice relaxing ride over to the venue, it was only a 4 hour drive but unfortunately we arrived a little early. We weren’t sure what to do, and we happened to be next to a gigantic purple-diamond studded building (which you can view on our videos). To kill some time we decided to go into the movie theatre and hope that they had some video games; which of course they did. Mike was playing this awesome sword fighting game and I thought it would be appropriate to video him doing so (there is a little video) but we got reprimanded by the manager for using a video camera… we were really performing some covert reconnaissance on the venue for some future purpose (yet to be determined, of course). Travis and Pat got yelled at by this old guy who was demanding tickets from everyone who walked through the door and generally acting pretty creepy. I played a Star Wars game and got my ass kicked. I was flying an X-Wing trying to destroy Tie Fighters and ultimately, the Death Star… The Imperial Forces ended up giving me the ultimate smackdown. I was intrigued by the sword fighting game Mike played, I ended up helping Mike shoot down some airport terrorists, but again, I got my ass kicked, since I suck at video games.
The Pit was an interesting place; it looked like it may have been an old warehouse of some sort at one point in time. We later found out that it was an indoor amusement park, kind of like Good Time Emporium in Medford MA (complete with go-carts, video games, etc). The live room was huge, with a really big stage complete with a light show. We also learned that the lead singer from Stabbing Westward had played there a few months ago so the venue had at least a few big names there at some point. The venue had hooked us up with some free finger food and free well drinks for the evening; that was the first time all tour we’ve been offered that. Because the room was so large; even the relatively decent amount of people who came to the show (mostly for Love and a Sidearm) it seemed like there was a lot of empty space; almost like playing in an airplane hangar. I was also a little concerned, since the first group bailed on the show and never even called to cancel and I have to admit, that really drives me crazy. The Mirror Stage ended up going on first and helped bring the people up to the front of the stage and that helped quite a bit. I really felt bad for Love and a Sidearm and especially Jay, who had put the show together and put his band on the bill when he had trouble finding other groups to fill the bill. Their bass player (who goes to the local University down the street) was contractually obligated to perform in the pit orchestra for the school’s performance of Bye Bye Birdie. Unfortunately, he was supposed to be let loose at 9:30 (just making their set) but ended up arriving at around 10:15 being able to play only the last 3 songs. I think they were really looking forward to bringing the Rock, but it’s fairly difficult when bass is a big part of your sound. I know they were really upset/pissed off/annoyed, but I thought the remaining members of the band did an admirable job of fighting through…. I mostly sympathize because the rest of The Motion Sick ended up doing two gigs last fall without me because I was at a funeral and they battled through.
After the show we and three of the members of Love and a Sidearm (Jay, Nick, and —-) went to Denny’s for some late night eats.. Jay is a funny funny man; he and Patrick have a similar sense of humor, and they traded barbs for much of our time there. I had some chicken fingers with this viscous form of Tabasco sauce and Travis had this creation of a burger that had hash browns, an egg, and cheese sauce on it; I felt my arteries hardening just looking at it. Jay kicked it up a notch though but getting bacon on his.
Jay had promised a place for us to stay, and his house it was. We headed over and hung out with him and his roommate Jason who was also really cool. Most of us traded of playing Guitar Hero (again; reminding me that I totally suck at video games) and after Mike fixed Jay’s wireless router, we were totally rocking the wireless internets. After some blog posting and email checking, we went to bed. Oh and they had a cat named Jax (I believe). He was cute, but had no tail 🙁