September 21, 2012

On Tour with All-American Rejects

It's not everyday your friends' band passes through your city on tour! On Friday evening we went to the Best Buy Theater to see the All-American Rejects play a show for the very first time. After the show, I went home, packed a suitcase and hopped onto their bus for a week-long adventure as a tour-stowaway!

Friday, September 21st

matt — Matt getting ready to walk on stage!

I've known these guys for a few years but it was the first time I'd ever seen them play a show!

ellen, hans, quinn — Quinn, Hans & Ellen.

matt — Nothing better than seeing your friends on stage doing what they love.

After the show, I ran home, picked up my backpack and then found the band's bus parked behind the venue.

GOING ON TOUR! "Real men don't get the earth to help carry their luggage, mate! They carry it themselves."

peep show ˆ tour ˆ video

See you in a week, New York!

Saturday, September 22nd

The next morning, I woke up confused and disoriented on the lounge couch. After getting my bearings, I realized that we were parked right behind Fenway park in the midst of a baseball game.

I went inside the venue to find the showers and watched everyone set up for a while.

tyson — Tyson chatting out the window to some fans who had arrived early.

fatty, henry, marina — Later that afternoon, I walked a few blocks down the street to visit Fatty, Marina & Henry!

henry, marina — Marina & Henry playing.

matt — Later that evening, Fatty and I went to see the show together.

fatty — Great to see this guy!

The show was awesome.

tyson — Tyson climbed up the wall over to the balcony railing.

fatty, matt — Post-show food, drinks and catch-up.

fatty, me — Afterwards, I said farewell to Dave...

...and then boarded the bus a little before midnight. After we hit the road headed for Baltimore, I surveyed my home for the next week. All of the bunks on both buses were full, so I was crashing on the couch in the front lounge. Which meant that most of my evenings were spent...

...falling asleep to some double-feature DVD (Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure AND Bogus Journey on one disc! No Barchester Chronicles, unfortunately).

jon danovic — ...and sitting around with this guy having late-night talks about life. (Later in night, while I was sound asleep, the bus driver had to brake quickly and it caused the fruit basket Jon is resting his arm on to fall upon my head!)

Sunday, September 23rd

Woke up in Baltimore for the first time in my life.

Wandered around the downtown area.

tyson — Met up with some people that Tyson knew in town and had a few afternoon drinks.

tyson — After, we did a little more skateboard exploration...

...around the waterfront.

Still had some time to kill, so a few of us headed over to check out the awesome (and unfortunately, now-closed) National Pinball Museum! After checking out some of the older games...

...I headed upstairs to have a serious pinball reunion with some old favorites. (Twilight Zone, Addam's Family AND FunHouse! So good!)

matt — After I came back to the bus and caught on on the interwebs while Matt practiced.

nate, sean f — Had a shower in the venue and saw a poster for the 3OH!3 tour that I'd just seen in Red Rocks!. Hi, guys!

matt — So much you can learn about tour-life in this photo! Candles, Chinese food, toothbrushing & man-stretching!

I had gone from never seen the Rejects play live to seeing them play three shows in three days.

I really enjoyed watching the show from a different vantage point each evening.

mike k, tyson — It was really impressive to watch the bands put on such high energy shows night after night.

nick w, tyson — I was exhausted after just 2 days of being on tour and I didn't even have a job to do!

One minute there's a band playing and a crowd of screaming people...

...and then minutes later, the venue is empty and the crew already has everything packed away. I loved watching the procession of humans with purpose each night. This may sound weird but watching groups of people do tasks like this makes it easier for me to love bugs.

After the show we went to a nearby bar for a few drinks and then it was time to head back to the bus.

matt — The band had the next day in Charlotte off and Matt had to leave to play another gig so he told me I could have his bunk for the night. I slept like a baby.

Monday, September 24th

On Monday I met up with Kim for lunch in Charlotte.

That night, Mike and I went to see Sleepwalk With Me. (Meredith and I were in the midst of breaking up and I remember this movie hitting really close to home at the time).

After the movie, Mike and I were walking past tall, glass office building when we heard something hit one of the windowpanes high above. A few moments later, a beautiful bird fell from the sky and landed on the sidewalk a few feet in front of us with a soft thud.

I knelt down and saw he was bleeding out out of his bright yellow beak and gasping to breathe. It's always shocking when you're put in the position of caring for something that is suddenly not long for this world. Even just a bird! He was in pain, but could clearly tell that we meant him no harm and let me flip him onto his side and pet his belly softly. After he had passed, we picked him up off the sidewalk and placed him in some nearby bushes. I didn't even think to take a photo but I can still see his brown wings and white and brown speckled belly.

We walked over to a bar called Dixie's to find everyone playing Jenga on the back patio.

Group game where the loser has to buy all the players a drink.

scott c — Inside, they had karaoke! Scott on the mic.

tyson — Tyson went with Dylan.

After the bar closed, Gravy and I went back to the buses...

...grabbed some skateboards...

gravy, me — ...and spent the next FOUR HOURS downhill speed-skating a recently-paved 1.5 mile stretch of road over and over again.

We didn't see a single car the entire time. It was like having our very own mountain. (If any Charlotte locals are curious, start at N Church St and W 7th Street, then follow the hill making a left on N. Caldwell Street. Make sure not to eat shit going over the railroad tracks with tiny wheels when you're going 35mph!)

Self portrait snapped after my last run of the evening 5:09am. This was a really magical night. Despite being in the middle of a breakup and feeling really scared and unsure about the future, everything that was on my mind dropped away and I felt happy and unburdened.

Tuesday, September 25th

Every day the tour manager posts an info sheet so everyone knows where you are and what's going on!

I got off the bus to discover that it had left the parking lot we'd been parked in and relocated to the venue. Had to fire up my phone to figure out...

...where I was and where I could get something vegetarian-friendly to eat! Ended up at Pita Pit.

Went back to the bus for an afternoon design-review call...

dexter — ...and got some much needed dog-love from Dexter who napped next to me.

This video of the band warming up on the bus before their show in Charlotte is one of my favorite things from tour.

band ˆ best ˆ bus ˆ video ˆ matt ˆ scott c ˆ tyson

The venue was so packed I could only watch the show from the side-stage.

gaylor, jon danovic, mike k, nick w — I was on the bus after the show when the band all climbed around shouting with excitement. Jon explained that a one of their long-time fans had just given them a bag of presents and they were all giddy to find out what they'd each gotten.

tyson — Happier than a kid on Christmas.

gaylor, tyson — I like this photo because you can tell that Tyson is jumping up excitement as Chris is unwrapping.

We spent the evening at a nearby rooftop bar.

Word of caution for you northerns who find your way south of the line: Cornhole means something entirely different down here.

gravy, jon danovic, scott c — Foosballed until we had to go.

Wednesday, September 26th

Woke up in Atlanta on Wednesday. Set out to explore and find myself some vegetarian lunch. Big success with Dua Vietnamese Noodle shop. Mmmmm.

Went back to the bus for a quick nap and admired some of the gifts the band had received....

...along with other drawings that had been hung up.

gaylor — Wandered around the venue and watched the band soundcheck...

...and then walked over to the Atlanta Aquarium to check out their 6.3 million gallon saltwater exhibit.

The tank is amazing!

Here's a closer picture of one of their gorgeous whale sharks. (From their website: "Yushan, 13 feet 7 inches long, and Taroko, 15 feet and 4 inches long, were flown more than 8,000 miles on a specially configured 747 freighter aircraft (!!!) from Taipei, Taiwan, through Anchorage, Alaska, to Atlanta.")

Sawfish

Who's watching who?

Kabourophobia is the fear of crabs and lobsters.

After watching the crabs and shuddering, I was happy to move on to the more festive, coral tanks.

Weedy Sea Dragons!

Spent the most time watching the dolphins...

...and the beluga whales! They were my favorite. One of them kept swimming up to the window to look at us closely. It was so interesting to see the curiousity in his eyes. From wikipedia: "[Belugas] possesses a distinctive protuberance at the front of its head which houses an echolocation organ called the "melon" - which is why this species is affectionately referred to as melonheads!

After the aquarium I went back to the venue.

The Tabernacle has very cool floor diagrams backstage to help you find your way.

Had a solid dinner...

...then read in one of the green rooms.

Setlist for the evening's show.

Watched from the audience again. (Check out Nick and Mike's sweet, light-up guitars!)

me, tyson — Thanks to this guy for making my rock n' roll dreams come true!

matt, mike, mike k, nick w — After the show, we piled into a van to drive over to a restaurant that was still serving food.

Here is the group of people we came with to the bar.

Here is the rest of the bar. Haha.

Waiting for a ride back to the bus.

Thursday, September 27th

matt, scott c — On Thursday morning I woke up in...

...Nashville, my last stop on the tour. I'd booked a ticket to fly back to New York the next day.

matt — Grabbed some sandwiches with Matt for lunch.

It was really cool to be a fly-on-the-wall and see the behind-the-scenes ballet of lugged gear that goes into putting on a multi-band show in a different venue every day.

tyson — Watched Tyson make himself an awesome new pair of pinstriped pants with gaffer tape...

pant — ...and spray paint! Haha. A pair of black pants died on this spot (but some new striped pants were reborn!)

Watched my final show of the tour with their sound guy.

Got to see one last perspective.

Big open venue.

tyson — Tyson got his face-painted with a pirate eye-patch before the meet and greet.

Afterwards, we headed downtown to a bar on Broadway.

Place was packed!

matt — "SO THEN THE RABBI SAYS, 'THAT'LL TEACH YOU TO TICKLE A LLAMA!' "

Still going strong at 3am last call.

Ground hugs!

These girls (Natalie & Megan) were really funny. Instead of a flask, they'd stashed a HANDLE of tequila in their bag!

scott c, tyson — My second favorite photo from tour! Haha. Scotty's face as he's doing the "casual lean-in" makes me laugh so hard every time I look at it.

The lights of Nashville after the tour bus departed with out me. Thanks to everyone in the AAR family for having me and making me feel so welcome! I had such an awesome time. (In typical me fashion, I hadn't bothered to book a hotel in advance. Turns out there was a big convention in town so I sat on the curb here calling 15 different hotels at 5am trying to find a room).

Friday, September 28th

I had a bunch of time before my flight so I decided to take a walk across the tracks...

...back through downtown...

...to check out The First Center for the Visual Arts

The museum is located in the art deco-styled former post office of Nashville.

Strange, checkered column supporting the staircase.

My favorite thing there was Carrie Mae Weems' "From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried" (1995-96)

Strong stuff.

Maybe I'm just partial to the captioned-photo format, though.

Bumper sticker on my cab ride to the airport.

2 comments

kimberly heardjanuary 5, 2015
Ugh the poor birdy! I cried. At least it wasn't alone <3
anonfebruary 15, 2015
Seems like a difficult period to reminisce about, but it sure seems like you were surrounded by good friends. Hope that you and Meredith found the best possible outcomes for yourselves.