Another long update here. I thought I'd have the internet more often during this trip, but it seems to be about every 2 or 3 days.
After Houston, we drove over to San Antonio, home of the Alamo. We were driving through downtown San Antonio looking for a parking place and getting pumped to see the Alamo, when suddenly I thought I saw like a miniature version of the legendary military landmark.
"Wait, IS THAT THE ALAMO??" It was. The Alamo was barely more noticeable than a parking place. It's way smaller than we expected, and it's sort of just buried into the downtown area. Still, we went in there and checked it out because it was free. It was pretty interesting, but definitely less entertaining than we expected. Scott wanted to get extremely drunk later that night and go back to the Alamo so that he could write a song called "Can't Remember The Alamo." Pretty brilliant if you ask me.
Anthony's brother Andrew lives in Texas so he came to hang out with us and see the show. In the few hours we still had to kill before going to the venue, we wandered around the Riverwalk, which was AWESOME. That place was way cooler than the Alamo. Seems like a great place for San Antonioans to just go hang out with friends. Andrew even bought food for me, Ryan and Anthony. The other guys were in a bar so they missed out. Luckily for Cody, by missing out on free food he was able to take part in something else exciting. That's about all I can say about that.
We played in an awesome little punk rock venue called the Ten Eleven. It was owned by a friend of one of our bandfriends down there, Altus. It was tiny, and had dicks drawn on the walls, and had skateboard decks hanging everywhere. Our kind of place. We played with some pretty sweet local punk bands there.
The Sharks played a great set, and everything was going well during our set until........... my amp stopped working. The piece of shit kept cutting out randomly, and almost nothing pisses me off more than stuff like that. If I suck because I'm not playing well, I can live with that. But if I suck because my equipment is letting me down it really tears me apart because I felt like we were playing a really good show until it started cutting out. It kept happening on and off during the last few songs until it totally gave out during the bridge of our last song, Modern Day. Add that to the fact that, yes, my voice WAS completely thrashed, and I had given up on actually playing things the "right way."
By that time I was entering a violent rage, so I decided to just go wild. I took off my guitar and threw it on the ground. (Lightly.) More of a toss than a throw. Of course right when it got on the ground it started working again, so I just grabbed the mic and started running around the little stage yelling "WE'RE ALL JUST WAITING AROUND FOR A BETTER DAY" (the lyrics to the song) while my guitar just gave this crazy feedback. Soon enough Scott had the other mic and was doing the same thing, and I was on the ground strumming the open strings of my guitar, which was still just laying on the ground. Hopefully you can get a mental image of that because it was pretty funny. In a blinding rage kind of way. It was very cathartic. Haha
I don't know if people really liked us that night. I'll choose to blame it on the amp and not on our songs or my crazy antics.
Best part of the night: Someone pulled out a gun! While the last band was playing, I was out back getting some fresh air when suddenly a group of like 15 people sprinted out the back door, knocked down a fence, and got the hell out of there.
"Huh?" I said.
Someone else ran out after them, and told us that a dude had just pulled out a gun in a dispute over some ex girlfriend who was now dating another guy. I breathed a sigh of relief to find out he wasn't pulling the gun out because he didn't like our band. So the police came and arrested the guy, and the huge group of people fleeing the scene came back. Oh yeah, the band was playing the entire time. Awesome. The moral of the story is this: Sometimes when people get pissed, they make a fool out of themselves by flailing around a stage yelling and violently strumming open strings of a guitar. Other times, an angry person can make a fool out of themselves by pulling out a gun and threatening a bunch of people. Choose the right person to piss off.
After sleeping on a hard floor in the apartment of Josh and Steph from the band Altus (thank you very much), we hit the road for Austin. It was a really short drive so that was nice. We got to Austin around 12 or 1 pm and had WAY too much time to waste before going to the show. I found a free local newspaper that had an ad for Headhunters (the venue) and it had a schedule for our show. The Sharks - 11 pm. Hot From Far - 12 am. That's a lot of time to kill for a bunch of dudes who are tired and have nowhere to go.
First we went on a wild goose chase for a music store. We walked for at least a mile in the 102 degree heat looking for this place and we never found it. Luckily there was a record store so we browsed for awhile. Ryan is a vinyl junkie so he was in heaven. Scott found a vinyl version of the Foxboro Hot Tubs album, which is one of his favorite bands, so he also ended up in heaven. I found an empty corner of the store to lay down, and I think if I would've fallen asleep there I, too, would have gone to heaven.
After walking back to our original spot we ate at this barbeque place called Stubbs that was right across the street from the venue. It was incredible. Also, we just happened to notice that JENNY LEWIS was playing a show there that night. I'm a huge fan so I was pumped. I already had visions of the two of us meeting that night and falling in love. (Spoiler alert - Unfortunately that never happened.)
So we wandered around for about 4-5 more hours into different weird shops and those of us who were of age went into some bars (sadly that doesn't include me.) Finally around like 7 or 8 o clock the venue opened their doors. The show didn't even start until 10, but we were all so exhausted that we just hung out inside until then. The place was sweet. There was one stage inside by the bar, and another one on a little outdoor patio area in the back. It was a pretty eclectic lineup. There were 8 bands playing, 4 inside 4 outside. Most of the bands were like old school hard punk rock, but the very first band to play was like white kids around our age playing weed-themed dub reggae with Jamaican accents. Then the very last band was sort of a hippie jam band. I commend Headhunters for putting on a show with such diverse styles. It definitely kept things interesting.
Also, a follow up to the Jenny Lewis part of this story, she sounded awesome. She was playing at an outdoor stage, so we went out by the fence and listened for awhile. She played in Omaha on the night of our first show of the tour, so it was nice to be able to hear some of her songs since I missed out last time.
Us and the Sharks both played pretty solid sets. It was hard because both of our bands played on the inside stage while a sweet band was playing on the outside stage, so it was.... "spacious" inside. The people who watched us seemed to enjoy it though. The bartender and sound guy really liked us too, so that was encouraging.
We couldn't find a place to crash for the night, so we took the plunge and got a Motel 8. Cam's friend Ryan came in from San Antonio and he was planning on getting a room anyway, so it worked out perfectly. It was around 2 am by the time we got there, and I was SO wiped out. We had to get up at 9 in order to go on another epic drive and make it to the next show on time, so that didn't leave much time for sleep. I didn't care though. It was easily the best sleep I've had all tour. It was so awesome to sleep in a bed.
Now we're headed back to Will Rogers Land, AKA Claremore, Oklahoma, to play another show with The Last Slice. I can't believe we're already heading back there. The time is starting to run together. I gotta enjoy this tour while I still can.
-Joe
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