Wrapping up the first leg

Be Afraid.

We wrapped up the first leg of the tour 2 nights ago in Chicago, at what I can only say was

one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I don't have the proper words to describe

how incredible this last month has been. As I write this from my hotel in L.A., I'm basically

blind, deaf, exhausted and post heatstroke, but even still, it was awesome.

View from my bunk, featuring tour guru Janet.

After Forecastle, we headed to Baltimore to play The Ram's Head Live, which was one of the weirdest rooms I've ever played it, it's basically four balconies high. We tried to go up on the high balcony at one point during the show to watch Bad City, but we were turned away because we didn't have bracelets. We had our all access laminates, and were literally signing autographs in front of the security personnel, but because we didn't have paper bracelets, we couldn't get up. So that was kinda lame. The show was great, we could barely hear anything on stage, but the energy was great, and Baltimore is probably now one of my favorite cities. It was in Baltimore where Nicole and I went to "Paddle the Dragon." Namely, this dragon:

So that was cool. Next stop was Virginia. Yet another beautiful city. We stayed in the Jefferson Hotel, which is a beautiful place, and also pretty much the Haunted Mansion. The first thing you see in the lobby is a giant statue of Thomas Jefferson glaring. Thomas Jefferson is also surrounded by alligators. Extremely welcoming. Nicole and I went and walked through the VCU campus nearby and grabbed some delicious diner food before walking back to the hotel to swim and then go back out for Ethiopian food with the guys from Kill Hannah. The next day I walked the same way to pick up some Chipotle before heading to the NorVa, and I saw the most hilariously awesome thing in the park. I didn't have my camera which was really upsetting. I saw a big group of VCU kids LARPing. For those of you who don't know what that is, google it, and you'll know why I was so excited.

Fun fact about venues in Virginia: they apparently all have hot tubs in the dressing room. We got to the National and Kat and Nicole almost lost their minds. We thought having a pool table was pretty cool too. The NorVa was twice as crazy, we had our own basketball court and ping pong table, where I demolished this guy:

My awesome drum tech Brad, being bummed that I smoked him at Ping Pong.

Next stop was North and South Carolina. In North Carolina I was lucky enough to get a tour of the Ludwig drum factory in Monroe. It was mind melting, they still use 60's/70's machinery to make their drums, and the process is truly amazing to watch. Going step by step through the building of the shells to the finishing of the wood, it's more science, math and engineering than I could've imagined. That night we played the Fillmore in Charlotte, what a great crowd. It was an awesome, awesome show.

The next night was Charleston, I'd been excited about this stop on the tour for a while. We pulled into the club and as soon as we arrived we knew this place was gonna be a toasty one. It wasn't til I saw Kill Hannah's drummer paul wringing his shirt out behind the venue that I knew just how ridiculous it was gonna be. We played an awesome show, between slamming entire bottles of water in 30 second intervals just to keep it together. It was a great time, and Charleston is a beautiful place. The most exciting thing about our trip through Charleston, however, was this:

Friggin' Delicious.

Jeff had been prepping us the entire tour for our first visit to a Waffle House, and we were

all extremely excited. However, none of us were prepared for just how delicious these

waffles were going to be. To summarize, I was served incredible waffles by a guy with dreadlocks whose

name was, ironically, "Dread", and then went to sleep and woke up in Orlando. What a good night.

The Myth, The Man, The Legend: Jeff Schroeder, 3:00 A.M. Waffle Champion.

The Next day we arrived in Orlando, where we enjoyed a beautiful poolside cabana before going to Disneyworld for the day. We went to the Animal Kingdom during the day and the Magic Kingdom in the evening. I got absolutely soaked on the river ride at Animal Kingdom, it poured rain on top of the standard soaking, I looked pretty darn ridiculous.

Awesome, Wet Socks.

After our relaxing day in Disney, we played the House of Blues in Orlando, which was awesome. Bad City's vocalist Josh came down with something that screwed up his throat, but it didn't seem to phase him at all as they came out white hot as always. At soundcheck, a guy in the back yelled up to the stage in a heavy jersey-ish accent "HEY, WHO'S THE KID ON THE DRUMS?" Billy responded by telling them I was Vinnie Appice's son, and the guy freaked out and just started pacing and "NO WAY, NO WAY."

Our other two Florida shows were equally fantastic, it's just really generally relaxing in Florida. I mean how can you not be relaxed when this is the view from your hotel:

SO RELAXED!!!!!!!!

Hanging out with Bad City at Czar's in Tampa.

We spent a great day in Nashville, enjoying the shops and getting dinner at this nice little

restaurant near the hotel. Nicole and I went and saw Inception, which the guys from KH and BC

said was a total brain bender. Tip: when you're tour tired and jet lagged, it's about 400 times

harder to comprehend that movie. I had to go back to the hotel and watch a bunch of

Squidbillies just to calm my brain back down.

Nicole being a Cool Cat. GET IT?!?!?!?!?!? HA!

All the relaxation in the world, however, could not have prepared us for our show in Knoxville. Fun Fact: Knoxville looks nothing like you would assume, it actually looks a little more like this:

A temperate day in scenic Knoxville.

All jokes aside though, it was so damn hot none of us could believe we were going to try and play a show. There were a couple of moments I was about to just fall off the back of my throne and pass out. The A.C. in the venue was broken as well, so it was a sweatfest. That being said, easily one of the best audiences of the tour. We had an awesome time playing for you, and we were amazed how energetic you were in the heat. Kudos to you, Hellville, Tennessee.

We then drove to Pittsburgh, which was the longest drive of the whole tour. I got my ass kicked by the heat, and felt a little under the weather, so I went to sleep and woke up when we hit a truck stop outside pittsburgh. Coincidentally, it was also probably the set of deliverance. I was pleased when we drove far enough away to stop hearing banjos. (Speaking of Banjos, the picture at the top is from Gruhn's guitar shop in Nashville, amazing guitars.) I had no idea how pretty Pittsburgh is, though Kat's summary of the city cracked me up. She said it was "Muggy", but not the humid kind, more like the "get mugged" kind. We drove up to venue and soundchecked, and then Nicole and I found a Cupcake place that was open and I got my brownie on. The venue was really cool, it was an old converted church, had a cool, eery feeling to it.

The next day we rolled into New York City, which I was really excited about. I had a photo shoot that day for Drum! magazine, and then from there went to an amazing dinner at Blue Hill Restaurant with Kat, where she worked when she lived in NYC. The next day was busy busy busy as we drove from interview to interview, and then played one of the best shows of my life at Terminal 5. It was unreal! The crowd was fantastic and the bands played amazingly. The only bummer was that it was the last night with our amazing friends in Bad City. They lit the place up with one of the best shows that venue will ever see, they were on fire. Those guys are going to conquer the world, Nicole and I joked about how if they knew how totally crazy about those guys the whole band is, they'd be totally creeped out. If they come to your town, see them, it's an experience. We got back to the hotel and got about .000047 minutes of sleep before getting to the airport to travel to Chicago. We went to the studio to round up gear for the evening, and then drove over to the Metro.

What magical night. The crowd was amazing, the bands played great, and the cause was such a good one, it was fantastic that we got to help. I will never forget our 1979 singalong, it was one of the most vivid moments I've ever experienced, and a fantastic way to wrap up what has been an unreal month. We had such a great experience this whole month, it was sad that we had to part ways with our great friends in Kill Hannah, those guys are truly phenomenal human beings, and an amazing band to boot. All in all, what an amazing time.

I'll leave you guys with this video, we fly out to Singapore on Monday, cant wait to get this show back on the road!

-Mike

Wrapping up week 1

Playing Forecastle, easily the craziest thing ever.

So we've been on the road now for about a week, and I have to say I'm having the greatest time of my life. The crowd's have been unreal. I haven't actually ever seen crowd surfing, but every night, we were treated to the most rowdy, incredible audiences I've ever seen.

Grand Rapids was unreal. The crowd was going bonkers the whole show, apparently a couple guys got thrown out for pissing on people. I mean listen, I'm not condoning it, I'm just saying that if that's not rock n' roll, I don't know what is. It's electric, the feeling that comes from playing a show like that. A fan that came out that night had come to the show like a week after having brain surgery, it was amazing. From Grand Rapids we came back into Ohio for another night in Columbus, with yet another crazy crowd. It was wild!

Our dressing room in Columbus, Ohio

From there we left for Louisville for the Forecastle festival. I'd never been to Louisville

before, and I have to say it's easily one of the prettiest cities I've ever been to. Our hotel was

super cool, it was over a museum with a lot of cool art in the lobby (which at first was really

confusing, imagine you're jumping off a bus at three in the morning to get into your hotel and

instead you walk into an art museum). My favorite part was these guys:

There were a bunch of these little plastic penguins throughout the hotel, and you just moved them around wherever you wanted. Jeff ended up taking one into his room at one point. I thought it was hilarious. We also got a chance to go by the Louisville slugger museum and stand in front of the world's tallest baseball bat.

After meandering around Louisville for the day, we went to the waterfront for the festival. I was getting super antsy, this being my first festival and all. We got there in time to watch DEVO and catch a bit of We Were Promised Jetpacks before we had to come back to our dressing room. It was our Front of House guy's birthday, so we all had a cake and sang for him before the show, which calmed my nerves for a second. Then it was time to head out.

It was unreal, there were so many people you couldn't even see them all. It was a bit of a

weird adjustment because with no sound check, you don't know what you're going to hear when

you get out there. Between the lights, the shower of glowsticks and the paper lanterns flying in the air during

Tonight, Tonight, It was the most crazy, vivid moment of my entire musical life. We had an amazing

time, I was so amped up after the show I could barely sleep.

Now we're into our second week, I'll have more pics/audio from the tour soon!

-Mike

Cleveland

Me and Mr. Huxtable at the Ohio Airport

Hey guys. Sorry I haven't updated this sucker yet. I didn't get many pictures from yesterday's show at the House of Blues, but there will definitely be video and pictures from the road soon.

We landed in cleveland a few mornings ago, I'd never been to Ohio before, I had no idea how insanely humid it is out here. We rode from the airport out to the venue so we could do a little tech rehearsal and get some final things tuned and ready before our show the next day. Rehearsing under the lights is definitely a shock to the system, I could barely see my hands in front of my face sometimes.

We got there the next afternoon, got to meet the guys from Kill Hannah and Bad City (awesome guys, both bands) and rehearse a bit before we opened the doors to the sound check party, which went great. It's a nice way to warm up, and we really enjoyed getting the chance to play the new songs for people. We hung out a bit in the dressing rooms watching the world cup game until Bad City went on. To anyone who hasn't heard or seen this band play, do yourself a favor and check them out now. They were by far one of the tightest, truly rock n' roll bands I've ever had the privilege of seeing. After an awesome electro-rock set by Kill Hannah, we took the stage. It was really overwhelming initially, the amount of people in the room, my adrenaline went through the roof. I feel like we went out and played a pretty good set, I was having one of the best times I've ever had. A huge thanks to everyone who came out.

Things are going really well so far, we arrived Grand Rapids this morning. See everybody tomorrow night at the Orbit Room!

-Mike