...and then it was all over

Well, we're home... We ended up driving straight back to Cleveland after our show on Saturday night in Chicago. The show was in a great little art space called Country Club Chicago that our friend Ed from Brilliante Records asked us to play. It was a nice place for the last show because it was really laid back in a nice atmosphere. My friend Karen came up from Indiana for the show, and four of us went out for Ukranian food before the show(my first time). Even the Borscht was tasty. It's easy to be skeptical of something with a name like that, but it was actually pretty good. My only complaint was that something from the meal kept sending air bubbles up my throat while I sang, but I guess that's a small price to pay for delicious food. So, like I said, we drove straight back after the show. Adam was the first to be dropped off at 7:30am, and I finally got home at 10:30, after unloading passengers, our equipment, and the trailer. Then I took a nice nap from noon until 9:30...





Let me back up and say that no matter how much I wanted to write more about California, it just didn't happen. But, luckily for us, our good friends Slings did a fine job of writing about it on their blog, so head over there to check it out...

Here are a few highlights from the last week or so of the tour...

Boise: Nolan let us stay at his Dad's house when he wasn't even going to be there. He called his Dad at midnight from the club to ask if we could stay over (keep in mind, we had all just met that night). Then he drew us a map on a napkin, gave us the passcode to the garage door, and told us to find a place to sleep and try not to wake his Dad up. That was pretty awesome. One of the highlights of that night was seeing the Less Than Jake "Hello Rockview" balloon shaped like a man hanging from his bedroom ceiling. Does anyone else know what I'm talking about? I used to have the same thing when I was in high school... He also had the Hippos foam hand, which was an added bonus.

Salt Lake City: The really drunk girl who forced us to dance to the first band while threatening to make everybody sit down during our set if we didn't get up there with her.

Denver: Staying with my cousins Sarah and Bob, who cooked us a delicious vegetable stew over rice. I also got to help chop the vegetables, which was pretty fun since we'd been eating in restaurants and not cooking for ourselves for weeks... Then the show was like a Cleveland reunion. My best friend from high school was there with a bunch of his friends, along with one of my coworkers who just moved out west. And Ryan from Sleeper Horse lived in Cleveland and used to play in a band with Sean, so we had a really good time catching up with everybody. Check out a review of this show here.

Lawrence: We played with some nice guys, but our bands didn't exactly mesh too well. All the kids at the show were up dancing and having fun during the first two bands. Then we went on stage... I think it took about five songs for almost everyone to leave... haha. It was pretty funny to see everyone just walk out. I guess they don't like pop music in Lawrence? :) I dunno... it made me laugh, though.

Omaha: Turned out that we were the only band playing because one band cancelled a while ago, and Baby Birds Don't Drink Milk had lots of car trouble on the way to the show... So we ended up playing to about 6 people, all of whom were very receptive. We met the nice fella who runs Omahype.com, and he posted a review here. Sadly, our friend Steve had to work super late that night, so he showed up about 30 seconds after we finished our set, but we stayed at his incredibly nice house that evening. He and his wife, Emily, made us some pizza and stayed up to talk until about 2 or 3 even though they both had to be up way too early. I think he gets the prize for best shower facilities on tour. Although, what's the deal with not having soap in the guest bathroom shower, man?!? Come on! I had to use Jared's shampoo all over...

Minneapolis: We played at a place called The Garage, which is a teen-run, city-owned youth center. My favorite part was the Soul Asylum quote painted on the wall next to the rules about moshing... "I want somebody to shove". Some of us wondered if the kids who went there these days knew who Soul Asylum was, but it's hard to say... The quote was from this song. I'm happy to say that I still own this album. We also played with some cool guys and gals in now, now every children, so all in all it was a good night.

Well, I guess that just about covers it. Thanks for reading all of this... and sorry we didn't update it more often. We'll post a bunch of photos from the tour in the next few days. Thank you to everyone who booked a show, helped promote, came to a show, let us sleep at their house, cooked us a meal, bought a CD, made a joke about bears (the animal, the football team, etc.), or gave us directions to the highway. See you next time!

-Charlie