USA '23 Tour Blog
Never too late to remember
Hey! Long time no post — I’ve just finished another month on tour with Remember Sports and I kept some pretty decent notes and pics that I’m in the process of writing up into a tour blog, mostly so I can remember what I did when I’m old and gray. I’m going to be writing these up in the coming days from the comfort of home, so stay tuned…
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Kansas City
First show of tour and also first of two weeks with LA band Goon opening. Carmen, Catherine, and Jack are driving from Philly with all of the gear while I fly from Boston to Kansas City. Extremely lucky for me honestly, that’s a helluva drive. They do it in 2 days, my flight takes 2.5 hours. Sorry! I grab a shuttle from the airport to the hotel and arrive to find C, C, & J lounging in the hotel room, already in full tour mode. Carmen and I go for a run in the 93 degree heat and then jump in the pool to cool off. Jack spills coffee on his new white shorts…a bad omen? We’ll see.
The gig is at a vaguely DIY style bar called Farewell. It’s actually less of a “do-it-yourself” situation and more of a “nobody does it” thing though truth be told, I’d probably hang out at this kind of place if I lived in town. I don’t though and I’m a 36 year old baby who likes to have a drum monitor and AC. There isn’t really a sound person actually paying attention to the gig or anyone to help us gather or bearings. There’s doesn’t seem to be any water available. Because there’s no drum wedge, which we can’t play our finale song “Out Loud”, which is fine, I suppose. Also the temperature outside hits 95 and the AC is woefully unready to keep the packed room cool.
Our set is very rough and ready — we have had no rehearsals since the US run in May. Before the set, Carmen and I make a big joke out of pretending that her guitar is not in her hard case to try to scare Catherine and Jack — Carmen claims to have not opened it since packing up at the end of last tour — and I briefly scare myself into thinking it might actually not be in there….but it is. We make it through our set, completely soaked with sweat. Afterwards, I sell a bunch of merch to a ton of sweaty kids from Missouri who are so psyched to be there. It makes me feel a little better. Back to hotel to watch Guy Fieri and pass out in the blasting AC.
GREEN ROOM RATING: 0/10 — No green room here. There’s a little equipment storage area that also doubles as the bathroom line, pretty much worst case scenario.
Denver
We have a driving day to get here, it’s a 9 hour ride and we do it with very few stops. We’re staying at Karyn and Tuck’s beautiful house in Lakewood, CO. They’re C&C’s pals and are delightful people. They get us stoned and serve us delivious homemade supper and I have the thought that it’s way too early in tour to be treated this well, we’ll need this hospitality so much more in 3 weeks. Still, I am thankful as I drift off to sleep in a bed that I have to myself. In the morning, I go for a run and get caught in a hailstorm. Bad omen????
Jack gently suggests that we get a rehearsal space in Denver and practice a little bit. He is 100% right, we were pretty sloppy last night. We drive into town to a little hourly spot to practice. It’s threatening rain but we make it inside with our gear and work out the kinks, as well as learn a few new old songs. These guys have been playing together for over 10 years but I am relatively new to playing this music, so there is still a lot of back catalog for me to learn.
The gig is at Hi Dive, where I’ve played before with Ava Luna. Sold out, nice! I kill some time post soundcheck/pre show buying tees at the best Goodwill I’ve ever been to. I go to a park and drink a soda and watch the sunset. I’m trying to minimize the time I spend in the club since I know I basically will be living in these places for a month.
The show itself is great, Goon sounds huge. Unlike the previous night, there’s a real sound system and with their more involved keyboard setup, it does them a lot of good. We also play much better than in Kansas City. The crowd is pretty rowdy, it’s a Friday crazy night. Jaclyn and Justin come to the gig and I’m so happy to see them, though can barely find the space to catch up in the overfilled bar. We get donuts after the gig and I wolf down a cream filled chocolate donut that I feel I’ve earned.
GREEN ROOM RATING: 5/10 — Spacious but gross basement green room. They give us a ton of Liquid Death cans but nothing else. There’s tons of amazing graffiti with band name food puns e.g. “Food Fighters, Jon Bon Bon Bon, The Meatles, etc.”
Salt Lake City
In my experience, this is the strangest city in the United States by a long shot, though to be fair, I only ever come through on tour for one night at a time. The vibes are absolutely alien to me, SLC is where I usually feel the furthest from home. I once had the worst burrito of my life in Salt Lake City in 2014 (coincidentally had the best one of my life on that same tour in San Diego but that’s another story). Our gig is at The Beehive, which is a vegan diner with a venue in the back.
This night is dominated by the fact that I get sick before the gig due to a combination of a slightly questionable dinner, a cocktail, dehydration, heat, and elevation. I puke my brains out until just before set time. I make a note of the emergency exit behind the drums in case I need to do any mid-set booting…thankfully, it doesn’t come to this. I don’t feel like I play very well but I don’t think anyone in the crowd notices or cares. I apologize to C&C&J who are very kind about my suboptimal night. I make a mental note to drink 10x more water than I think I need moving forward and I look forward to descending to lower elevation. We get McDonalds after the gig and Carmen accidentally gets a Grimace shake, which tastes like shit.
GREEN ROOM RATING: 0/10 — Doesn’t exist. Nowhere to go. Just the nightmare scenario…all musicians deserve at MINIMUM a place they can go to get away from the bar/crowd/stage. Most of us truly don’t need too much…just a place to sit down that’s out of view of the general public.
Boise
On the way out of SLC, we stop at a cafe to grab some coffee and, perhaps still mentally recovering from vacating my insides the day before, I absentmindedly leave Carmen’s keys on a table at the cafe. We now only have only one set of van keys for the rest of tour and it is my fault. I have to credit the others for not getting too (openly) angry with me for this — I think they’re assuaged by the fact that I’m able to locate the keys via a very kind cafe worker and have them shipped to San Francisco for us to pick up later in the tour. Tour is like an RPG and we are now playing it.
Boise itself is a delightful city, I have lots of fond memories of playing Neurolux and Treefort over the years. Our gig is at the El Korah Shrine, which is a historic old building that’s a former headquarters for the Shriners of Boise. I honestly have no idea what that means but the place is straight out of a movie — wood paneling everywhere and most certainly haunted by what I deem to be friendly ghosts.
Before the gig, I decide to rent a Lime scooter and scoot to a Whole Foods a few miles away for a healthy snack — I run into Carmen, who independently has decided to do the exact same thing. We eat mediocre overpriced prepared food at the store and then scoot back to the venue.
The gig is probably the most sparsely attended one of tour but also one of the most fun — it’s the first set where I feel powerful behind the kit and not simply like I’m trying to keep pace. I watch Goon from sidestage and swoon. What a good band, this is Julian music. We take some photos with this lady at the bar at the end of the night that I’ll probably never see and I feel like I would like to stay here and come back to the Shrine the next night and the next night and the next night…we hang with Goon for a while after our set and then go back to the hotel. I sleep very hard.
GREEN ROOM RATING: 9/10 — This is god tier stuff, there’s an entire huge room off to the side of the stage that’s probably as big as the venue itself. We set up a little gaming area and all play Zelda on our switches, then we run laps and do pushups before set time. The building may be old but the HVAC is certainly new and is absolutely blasting. Bury me in this green room.
