Day 6

I woke up and decided that breakfast for the band was in order again. I used what was left over from yesterday to make a eggs, potato, and bell pepper scramble, and more French toast. The band was asleep when I started making it, so I assumed only a few members would be wanting some, but everyone woke up and thankfully I made enough for everybody. The band was surprised how I could just lie down on the floor and be asleep in 5 minutes, and that I was lucky to be able to sleep so easily and soundly. Ryan needed to be in Oregon to deal with insurance for the car accident a few days prior. He needed to be there by 5, so we needed to leave pretty fast. I tried to do all the dishes, but people were already packed and ready to go, so I did the most that I could and then hurried to pack up everything, hoping to remember everything.

It was a lengthy drive back to Portland, where we were playing again tonight, and I spent most of the time in the van trying to make up the days I hadn't yet logged in the journal. It's hard to write in the journal when there are other things to do, and I usually try to write in the van or when there's nothing to do at the place we're crashing. So while we were at a cool place like Chris', it was pretty difficult to be motivated to write in or to concentrate on the journal. But I caught up a little bit, but at the same time I seem to write a lot so I was still not caught up.

We got to Portland just in time for Ryan to make it to the DMV. There was a little bit of chaos when Ryan couldn't find the papers he needed and we needed to find them in the messy van while we were double parked in the middle of downtown Portland, but everything got sorted out, and Peter, John, Brendan and I waited across the street at Starbucks. After the whole DMV thing is done we go and find some food. The band wants Panda, but there is almost nothing that I can eat there, so I head over to Quizno's across the way. I bring my food back to Panda Express and the manager actually gives me shit for bring in my food and sitting at the table with the rest of the band who has bought food. Jerk. We kill a bit of time there and Ryan gets a call from Middagh who says that we'll be playing with Big D And The Kid's Table at the Plea For Peace show in December. Cool, it'll probably be the first bigger show that I'll play, so that's a little exciting. We need to leave to go to The Know, the bar where we're playing, so we do.

The Know is a smallish place, it has a decent sized stage, and the floor area is small so it'll force people to not be so spread out, which is always good. It's also extremely dark, maybe 2-3 light bulbs lighting up the entire room. We show up fairly early, so we check our email and hang around. The bartender gives me 4 drink tickets per person, good for a beer each, so I suddenly find myself in possession of 20 beers worth of tickets that I don't know what I'm going to do with. I remember that I got to use the tickets last time at the snack bar for food, so I ask the bartender if we can use the tickets for the bar food menu. She gives me a weird look and says “Uh… I guess. We have small microwave pizzas and bigger ones like Tombstones.” Sweet. I told Ryan about it and he thought it was sweet as well. Ryan ordered a Tombstone pizza later on, and the bartender told him that no band has ever used drink tickets for food. Well, we're a hungry fucking band. My back has also been absolutely killing me from sitting in the van all day and then having a super wide power stance on stage. It got so bad that even walking around hurt a little, let alone unloading gear.

Danger Death Ray was playing with us tonight. They opened for us at my first Plea For Peace show, and I saw them again when they crashed at Danny's place for the night in San Jose. So it was good seeing them again, they showed up and I said hello to all of them. I like them, and I got their CDs in San Jose, so it was good knowing that I would enjoy one of the other bands tonight. The first band tonight was an acoustic duo, and it was getting towards the time they were supposed to start and they were nowhere to be seen. Ryan Death Ray was letting me use his bass amp tonight, and while we were getting it out of their van, he told me that the acoustic duo were notorious for being a little bit flakey.

They finally get there, and then proceed to take the longest setup that I've ever seen a band take ever. They had one of their friends do sound, and it was instantaneously obvious that he hadn't a clue what he was doing. They couldn't get the mics to work, and Ryan (who is a professional sound engineer) finally went up to fix it. The sound guy fucked with the levels for what seemed like forever, and did things that I could not understand at all, like tell the band to not put their guitar's soundholes next to the mic, and then wonder why he couldn't hear the guitars at all. Then they couldn't get the monitors working, and we and Danger Death Ray were starting to get a little bit impatient, because it was 9:15 and they were supposed to start at 9, and the show had to be over at 11. Dave Death Ray started yelling at them “People having been playing acoustic guitar and singing for hundreds of years without monitors. You're playing an acoustic set. You don't need monitors.” They never got the monitors working and finally started. Their soundguy was messing with the levels the whole time, and both of them switched from singing with their mouths on the mics to singing 3 feet away every 10 seconds, so it went from inaudible to feedback just as frequently. The lead guy bitched about not having monitors between every song, and we were glad when they finally finished.

We were running out of time, so we decided to share gear all our gear with Danger Death Ray to save time on setup. My bass has lived in the trailer this whole tour, and it's been really cold in the North West, so my bass has suffered and as a result, the neck was a little weird and there was an enormously noticeable buzz after the 5th fret on any string. We got our stuff together asap, and went into our set. Another good show tonight, the crowd got really into it, so we played Blitzkrieg Bop at the end of the set and people went nuts for that song like usual. It always seems a little weird playing that staple punk cover, but the crowds always lose their shit over it, and it's a lot of fun to chant “Hey Ho Let's Go” with the crowd. Some guy jumped on stage and sang most of it with us, something that I usually hate when people do, but everyone was going crazy, so I guess it fit in.

We jumped offstage and Danger Death Ray jumped onstage. Ryan said we made some diehard fans tonight, and I was hanging out at the merch table while a few people were telling us how much they liked us, so that was good. I like positive reinforcement, and when people tell me I do a good job, no matter how drunk they might be. Danger Death Ray was having bass troubles, and eventually Ryan Death Ray asked me if he could borrow my bass. I said “No problem” and handed it to him. He thought his amp was acting funky, and he said his tuner wasn't working, so he tried to fix it while Dave played a Lifetime cover. They finally got it all together and started their set off with “Silly Little Smile,” one of my favorites by them. I thought they sounded fine, but they seemed a bit distraught at the technical difficulties and the time constraints. In my opinion it was a good set, even Ryan (who usually doesn't censor himself at all about shitty bands) said that they were good, so that made me happy to see some love go their way.

The bar wasn't charging cover, something that they said that they would do, so the bartender decided to give us a little money out of her tip jar to help us out, which I thought was a little too much, but I wasn't there when that went down. We loaded up the van and headed to the Zombie House, home of Danger Death Ray, to stay the night. Danny said that their place was big, and she wasn't kidding. There were 3 couches in the living room, and I took the smallest one that no one else wanted to take, because I'm used to sleeping in a ball. It actually reminded me a bit of Colson's couch. I caught up a bit more in the tour journal, and then handed Ryan the computer to play his video games, and went to bed.