UTIOG Tour - Detroit to Florida

Lately I feel like all of these entries are beginning with my standard apology – sorry for the infrequent updates. Things have been hectic but fun on tour. This is our first legitimate national touring experience, and god damn are we getting an education.

The northeastern dates were an absolute blast – Detroit, Lansing, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Boston, Philly. We were opening for Under the Influence of Giants and Young Love, with occasional appearances by Play Radio Play who we joined up with later full time. Not the most gargantuan shows we’ve ever played, but great venues and great audiences of music lovers. We’re meeting lots of people and getting out in some cities that we’ve never seen.

The bands are great, and sonically right up our alley. It’s the next level of professionalism and killer stage shows. I enjoyed rocking out every night to Under the Influence of Giants (UTIOG) and Young Love. And they like to party. It can be tough keeping up with their tour bus with our zigzag tour routing, they drive through the night and we do our best to keep up but we made it work and still had time to bond.

Then things got complicated.

After an awesome Boston show, the Giants had to pull off the tour for an undetermined amount of time due to a family emergency, and Young Love had to do the same. That left only us and Play Radio Play for the rest of the tour.

We had a few days off in Philly to take care of some business, which was nice. I caught up on some backing vocals, and we traded in our Ford Expedition and trailer for a sweet new van. Despite the lack of headliners, our Philly show was amazing. We were so thrilled by the great turnout and want to thank everyone for schlepping out to the North Star to rock out with us. We had such a great time, and played our first real, unplanned encore. We were completely unprepared, but it made us feel like rockstars. Thanks again to everyone from Philly / NJ / DE for making it out! We’ll remember it forever.

The next day, our van wasn’t ready until 3pm and we had to leave for Boston late. Leaving with the trailer, we realized the van didn’t have the proper hitch height and had to turn back, reacquire the Expedition, reattach the trailer, and run like hell for Boston. We barely made it, but the show was great. We saw a bunch of our D.C. friends and got loaded with some hot moms in the parking lot. We didn’t make the Virginia Beach show, unfortunately, because corrective work on the van took too long. We made it to the venue on time to play, but the club didn’t want to have us load in late despite PRP’s accommodating offer to let us share all their stuff. Oh well.

In the Southeast, we’re driving a lot, and sleeping little. But the crowds have been awesome. Charlotte and the ATL were amazing shows where we met many fine Americans. Play Radio Play cleans up around there, and put on a great show.

So now we’re in Florida by ourselves, as PRP are at the Cornerstone festival. Mikey Hynes is keeping us in very high spirits. Its tough finding space and privacy to do the backing vocals, but here and there we’re able to set up in weird places – our new friend Aaron’s bedroom, our van in a parking lot, 20 minutes in a hotel room. Trying to save money, we tried sleeping in the car today between 7am and noon in Florida heat. It was generally unsatisfying. And sticky. If we do that we’ll have to do it at night.

So there’s the update. We’ll try to be on top of it in the future.

See you soon,
Matt