Ever since our summer tour ended roughly two-and-a-half months ago, each of us in the band has often been asked some form of the following 5 questions:
- “Dude! What was tour like?” or
- “What crazy shit did you guys do on tour” or
- “How much money did you guys make on tour?” (We actually have a response for this one: “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”) or
- “I can’t believe Jacob is still in a band with you assholes.” (ok, so it hasn’t been all questions since the end of tour…) or
- “How many lovely young women did you court while on your Rock n’ Roll tour?” (give or take a few words on this one…)
For the most part, we haven’t been able to answer any of these questions, and because of this people probably think we went on the lamest tour in the glorious history of Rock n’ Roll. But despite what people may believe, we have been unable to properly answer these types of questions because every time someone brings up the word “tour” around one of us, too many memories immediately come flooding into our brains that cannot be immediately processed. How can you succinctly sum up the best two-and-a-half weeks of your existence? You can’t.
And for this reason, I am going to take you through everything that happened on tour (except for the things that I have vowed to take to the grave with me and have permanently deleted from my memory for the betterment of Await Rescue and all of our future endeavors) date by date, city by city.
Set aside some time for this. It is not going to be quick and dirty, but it will be well worth it.
If you don't want to read any further, this about sums it up...
8/7 Show 1: EP Release Show at The Middle East Upstairs, Cambridge, MA:
Yes! Things got started off great at the Middle East Upstairs. It was a killer show and a ton of people came out to celebrate the release of our latest EP (“Hold the Ground”) and the kickoff of our tour. Crazy Pete Deluca and John Soldano manned the door and made sure everyone who walked into the show got a download card of our EP and a sticker. The one or two people who for one reason or another politely declined the card or sticker got the finger by these two hooligans as soon as they turned their back. Never turn your back to Crazy Pete…
It was a perfect evening.
The only thing that wasn’t 100% perfect about this evening was that some of our friends actually got turned away at the door because the show was sold out. The doorman obviously didn’t realize who Joe Mac was… But hey, now we won’t be lying to people when we tell them to get to our shows early because they may sell out.
We rocked pretty hard that night and have a review to prove it, so suck it if you don’t believe us (thank you Nick Grieco!): http://playgroundboston.com/2009/08/19/show-review-await-rescue-ep-release-party-with-highfire-skyline-and-sincerely-the-management/#more-2823
8/8 Show 2: The Boulder Coffee Co., Rochester, NY:
Our first “real” show of the tour got off to a bit of a tumultuous start. We hit some brutal traffic, found out that the McDonalds on the Mass Pike do not have Dollar Menu Cheeseburgers (that took a nice dent out of our McDonalds’ gift card… None of us ever thought we would be haggling with a McDonalds’ drive-thru employee over $1 Cheeseburgers on the first day of tour, but sometimes you need to stand up for what’s right), and Johnny got into it with an old guy at a gas station.
Proof that we actually went on tour!
While waiting for Greazy to return to car from inside the gas station, an old guy took exception to the fact that we were parked at a pump and essentially taking up 2 pumps due to our trailer. However! The old dude was able to fuel up at the pump behind us. I watched his old ass.
Anyways, we didn’t think Greaze (whose turn it was to drive) was going to take that long in the gas station and there was no one else fueling up, so we just sat at the pump and waited. This pissed the old dude off, who at this point had already fueled up and parked his car elsewhere, to the point that he came up to Johnny (sitting shotgun) and yelled “You can’t park here! You’re very discourteous!” Johnny explained the situation, but the old dude kept yapping away. He honestly must’ve said discourteous 10+ times in the first 15 seconds of his rambling attack, so Jacob and I were dying laughing in the backseat and scrambling around trying to find my camera to film the only person in America to actually use the word “discourteous”.
Johnny argues back and forth with the old guy (who at this point is irate because he realizes that Johnny doesn’t give a shit) until it ended in this classic exchange…
Old Guy: “YOU’RE THE MOST DISCOURTEOUS PEOPLE I HAVE EVER MET!”
Johnny: “I don’t know about that… I mean terrorists are pretty discourteous.” (Touche!)
Old Guy while pointing finger and walking away: “YOU’RE DISCOURTEOUS!”
Johnny: “You’re disgusting.” (BOOM! FACIAL!)
…Classy
We showed up to our first show late, but it didn’t matter. The venue was really cool about it, and within 0.4 secs of arriving at Boulder Coffee Co., the dudes from the band “Surprise! Surprise!” had already invited us to crash at their place and party with them afterwards. I firmly believe, that the only reason they were so nice right off the bat though is because they felt bad for us and thought we wouldn’t survive on the road once they saw how shit-tastically packed our trailer was. We must’ve looked like absolute amateurs, but by the end of the tour, we had an entire system for loading and unloading the trailer. I would challenge any other band with the same amount of gear to challenge Greazilla to a trailer packing contest. Fucking do it! You won’t…
I woke up in Rochester with this staring at me. Thanks Surprise Surprise!
This concludes part 1. Part 2 will take us from Charleston, WV to Athens, GA and will be filled with stories of a standup comedian with Asperger’s, a pimp and his unruly employee, and a joyride at 4am with “Will-Camino”. Stay Tuned.
Yup... We played a lot of football on tour.
Await Rescue 