The last one is always the toughest to write. I'm already at home, showered, in my bedclothes, unable to sleep, and in a completely different world. The van is parked comfortably outside and I probably won't set foot in my cramped metal and former home it for at least a week. Everyone else is in repose on their own beds, sleeping in some comfort for the first time in weeks. But comfort be damned, we've gotta finish this bad boy; so here goes.

Once we woke up yesterday morning, Jamie, being the amazing hostess she always is, made an excellent breakfast (she's got an Etsy store you should check out, btw: http://www.etsy.com/shop/theejamieleigh). Coffee, scrambled eggs, and french toast. We didn't have to make it to Brooklyn till later on, and it wasn't too far—two hours (three with traffic, according to Google)—so we took advantage and lounged around the house. The drive itself wasn't that bad, either. It was once we got into the City the trouble started. And by trouble, I really mean stress. With the traffic that hit us, it took us two hours to travel less than ten miles to our destination. We were moving so slow I was able to briefly get WiFi signal in the car (most notably, someone who named their network Old Gregg's Mangina).

Once we were able to get off the highway, everything was a blur. We got to our friend Michael Morgan's place with just enough time to run upstairs, change clothes, drop off our bags, and head over to the club. Spike Hill is located on a pretty busy one-way street with nowhere to really pull over and load out. We found a temporary spot next to a fire department standpipe that gave us enough room to unload gear. Avoided running into people. Ran back to the car and spent twenty minutes looking for parking. By the time we raced back to the club, Heavybirds already started their set.

(After last night and the experience at CMJ I can safely say any fantasies I may have harbored about moving to New York have been quashed. I love the city. I love visiting. The L.E.S. in particular is my jam. But if I moved there I'd probably die of a stroke within ten minutes.)

Anyway, it was our first time seeing Heavybirds. As previously mentioned, we've known Ryan for quite some time since our days playing in the Worcester scene regularly. Heavybirds is a stark contrast to what he was doing with The Ferns. I loved it. They were doing some really cool things with just a guitar, a cello, and a few effects pedals. We were on immediately after them and the mental RPMs were still high. The stage was a bit cramped while we were getting everything on there. Dinged my head against a speaker I didn't see while fussing with my amp (this is on top of my rib still hurting with certain movements). The set was tight as ever, and Tom from Radio America even came up to do some backing vocals on Backs To The Wall. I was really impressed with El Jezel. Their drummer's awesome, and they played a badass cover of Maps.

Radio America had a bunch of new material they've been working on and I loved it. Hilariously enough, Tom borrowed my Les Paul after popping a string. Shortly thereafter, he managed to cut a finger. He must've hit a vein or something, because he bled all over the guitar. I think everyone else was more horrified than I was about it; this week's has been all about injuries. I have to change the strings on it anyway.

We saw a lot of people we hadn't seen in a while. Strangely enough, I bumped into my buddy Shane who now lives in New York (I went to middle school with the guy in Miami and haven't seen him in years; check out his photography at http://www.shaneperez.com/). Kelly McRae was there—she played with us in Boston in January of '08 when we debuted a bunch of songs off of Fan The Fury. Mark from Fugitive Souls (ex-Shapes) was there and we had a long chat about touring. Delighted to see recent New York transplant Jon Schmidt there! (Jon, if you recall, was drumming for us through May of this past year and played on the third leg of the tour). It was awesome to see him, and we all played catch-up. I dunno, there were a lot of people there and I was happy to see them all.

Back at Michael's place we grabbed a few late-night microwavable snacks. Like an idiot I tried to eat it before it cooled and totally burned my left hand. This brings the total tally of injuries to the left side of my body on this tour to three. We stayed up for a bit talking about some tour stories and stuff. A lot of funny shit has gone down.

The ride back home today didn't even feel like we were going home. We were just driving off to another gig. We stopped off in Norwalk, CT to fill our empty bellies with some food. Watching The Big Lebowski off the laptop anesthetized us to the unbearable drive through Connecticut. It was weird dropping everyone off at their house. It always is, though. I wouldn't be surprised if we meet up on Monday to drive around the block for six hours.

So what now? This is the first time in years we're without any shows booked or planned. Everyone's going to take a few weeks off at the very least to be human. Jen and I have a record to finish with Dan before all this madness starts up again.

There are a lot of people that need to be thanked for helping us make all of this happen (and continue to happen); people I'd rather specifically thank when I'm not sleep deprived and have full use of my mental faculties.

For the moment, I'll keep my sentimentality brief. To everyone that's come out to a show, bought a CD, helped us out of the many jams we seem to find ourselves in, given us advice, fixed our gear, played shows with us, given us new gadgets to play with, encouraged us, and generally taken a chance on us: please know we think the world of you.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you for singing along.

Thank you for enabling us.

Cheers,
Henry

Labels: tourdiary