saturday, february 9

we were meaning to get a relatively early start, didn't quite work out that way though. the previous day had been jam-packed with last-minute details and tying up loose ends before heading out. jason, our manager, arrived around 10 pm and i met him at the airport and we rented our minivan. we managed to get a sienna again, which is really awesome, it's the perfect-size touring vehicle for us.

the idea of this touring lineup was that since the duke was unable to come along with us, we asked alex (aka crème brulée) to come along with us and fill in, and his band, boy in static, could open. so he brought his bandmate kenji (who didn't have a funny freezepop name yet), and then we figured hey, kenji is a genius, he should totally join our lineup too, filling in on "drums" for a couple of songs. (of course, kenji being such a genius, he caught on so quickly that by the end of the tour, he was onstage with us for the entire set.)

so anyway, crème brulée and kenji arrived at our house that morning, and everyone but me went out to breakfast, i stayed behind and finished packing and spent a few more minutes snuggling with my favorite puppy. this is really the worst part of touring for me, saying goodbye to little simon. he'll have a good time this week visiting with his puppy cousin, but still. i miss him!

then we did some major cramming-stuff-into-the-van (jason really gets the credit for that) and set out for NJ (which jason also gets credit for). we hit some snowstorms on the way, but actually made relatively decent time, considering. we rolled in to the loop lounge around 6:30, it seemed like a decent place, and had a neat fishtank. we did some soundchecking and then went “"backstage" (the basement) and ate some pizza and salad, and then got changed in some big vault where they keep their liquor.

boy in static went on at 8:30ish and it was the first time i'd heard some of the new songs, and i was way into it. our set was an ok start to the tour, it was not the hugest crowd we'd ever played to, but then again, we were not expecting it to be, it being somewhere in the middle of new jersey, so that was ok. the folks were pretty fun, anyway. before we busted out “"the final countdown" for our encore, there were some folks yelling for it, and as we've been playing it fairly regularly at shows lately, i figured they'd seen some footage on YouTube or something. But no, talking to them afterwards, turns out they were just randomly yelling for final countdown! which i guess proves its awesomeness, somehow.

anyway, we stuck around for a while and then packed the van back up and got on the road, as it was still relatively early, and we figured we could spend a few hours on the road before turning in for the night. we did end up spending a few hours on the road, although unfortunately it was standing still in traffic. it had gotten really foggy and there was a many-car pileup in front of us, so we didn't move for about 45 minutes, and by the time we finally got thru it, we figured that was a good time to call it a night, as it was still pretty foggy and icy. (as it turns out, touring the upper midwest in february is a pretty stupid idea.)

so we finally found a hotel and it was way more expensive than the billboard advertised, but whatever, it was warm and there were beds.

that's us, in the back. pic by jason.