Tour Days: 5, 6, and 7 (i think?)

So blogging on the road isn't as easy for me as I thought it would be. I don't have my own computer, so I'm left to borrow others and we obviously don't have the internet in the van, and so it's a real tricky situation. But my dedication to this webspace is unyielding, and just as the tour continues on, so must the words about the tour.

Some people wonder what it's like to tour. Well I have only been on the road for a little less than a week, so I'm no expert, but here is kind of a summary of what happens. We wake up, we get a little coffee and breakfast, and then we drive. Some days we drive for 6.5 hours. Some days we drive for 13 hours. Today we only drove for 4.5 hours, which is partially why I'm able to type this. (We are hanging out at Justin's parents house. Tonight at our Denton show, the parents of Justin, Michael and me will all be in attendance. Family affair!). Most days when we arrive in the city we are going to, it's already time or we're late for soundcheck, so we head straight to the venue, no time for sightseeing. We often get dinners provided once we're there, though not always. We eat and have a few drinks. Then we set up our equipment and, if we're lucky, get a sound check which may or may not be what our levels are actually like once the show starts. Then we sit around and wait. People start showing up. Andy plays his good set. We hang out. An Horse plays their good set. We hang out. Then we set up, we play, we hang out for a little bit afterwards, and then we pack up and head straight to the hotel which is preferably in the direction of wherever we are playing the next day. It's all fun. I'm not complaining about it. I think before i left for tour maybe I expected to be meeting more people, but instead i've just met a few awesome people, who we luckily get to see every night, and then each night i meet one or two people that helped put the show together that are always fun to meet and maybe a couple people that came to see the show. When I'm selling merchandise before we play, nobody knows that im in the band so i dont talk to any bishop allen fans except to tell them "15 DOLLARS", and then when the show is over, 95% of the people have cleared out pretty much right away. So, in some ways, being the headliner means that I sorta miss out on the experience of talking to a bunch of people after the show, so my ego isn't allowed to burst through the roof like i was hoping, but, like i said, it's fun and i like it and i had a waffle this morning and it was delicious.

ANYWAYS, we left little rock on wednesday morning, happy as can be (see previous post). We drove to Norman, Oklahoma. It stormed. We played at the Opolis. Michael and I had some food at a sports bar on the sixth floor of some office building. The 3 bands all played pretty good shows. The owners of Opolis are from the band Starlight Mints, who Bishop Allen has toured with before, so that was good. I dunno, i was really feeling Chapel Hill, and i felt this show was maybe a little bit sluggish in comparison. Sluggish might not be the right word, but i'll stick with it.

We got a hotel in Norman, then yesterday we drove to Houston. We got to Rudyards. Hardly anybody came to the show. (it was a late notice situation, so we should just be happy anybody came at all i suppose.) I had a couple austin friends come. They were nice . Jagi, the promoter, was also nice. When this blog is all said and done, i want you to count how many times i say "fun" and "nice".

Got a hotel about 30 minutes away at like 3something in the morning. Got up at around 10, hit the road, and now we are here in Dallas.

Kind of a more boring, long-winded entry than usual, I suppose. But I will try to make the future ones more interesting. This one was more about setting the stage. Future days will be about the pyrotechnics going off on and around the stage.

On to Denton, Austin, and Califooooooooooornia!
keith