Ryan had his appointment at 7:30 in the morning, but I woke up at 7:15 and found that he hadn’t left yet. I thought that if he left now, he would still hit LA morning traffic and he wouldn’t get back until like noon. We had an 8 hour drive to Tucson, Arizona, so we needed to leave at 10 to make it out there at a reasonable time. I dozed back to sleep and when I woke up, Ryan had gone. I took a shower, the first one of the tour, and made myself some tortellini to pack as a lunch. Noey left, and I thanked him for letting us stay. He told us not to open the front door of the house, because it locked kinda funny, and also told us that the house was haunted and that he would hear footsteps in the hallways during the night. Glad he didn’t tell us about that last night. Ryan, by some miracle, got back at about 10ish, and we left at a reasonable hour.
We basically drove through the desert of California, and into Arizona, which is pretty much all desert. Saw some bitchin’ cacti, and saw some not-so-bitchin’ people who live in the middle of nowhere. People and things at gas stations in the middle of nowhere are creepy. One of those things is the National Guard’s “Patriot Chopper,” picture included, but this was just one of the things that I felt I could snap a picture of and not get punched in the face.
The drive was about as eventful as the scenery. Since we’re all dumbasses, we forgot about the time change and realized that we were going to be an hour later for the show. Ryan told John to drive like a mad man, and we basically started weaving in and out of cars and semis going 80-90mph in our van that has already had signs of car problems. I tried to not think about dying in the middle of nowhere.
We got there at 8:15ish, Arizona time, and had a little bit of trouble finding the place. We were playing at “The Living Room,” which I googled and found that it was a Christian youth community center. I decided to keep this from the rest of the band, to increase the chances of something hilarious happening. We drive up, and there’s a bunch of skater kids in front of the place, including this awesome kid who must have been 10 years old with an old style skateboard, a shaggy bleached Mohawk, and a JFA shirt. I hop out and talk to the people at the door. They’re a little peeved that we’re late, and say that we’d better hurry up and load in and set up, because we’re up next. I asked how much longer the band had before they we’re done with their set, and they said “Oh, they haven’t started yet.” I don’t really know why they were freaking out, we had plenty of time. We loaded in and John set up his drums and we were ready halfway through the band’s set. They were this band called Little Lungs, and I talked to the singer and they said that they were from Brooklyn on tour. Later, I found out from Danny that the girl I talked to was in Cheeky, a band that I like alright.
The guy running the show came up to me and asked that we play a short set, because they had to close down at 10. I said “No problem, we usually play a short set.” He said “How long?” and I said “Usually between 20-25 minutes” and he said “Try to keep it to 20.” I don’t really know why 10 o’clock is the latest they can go on a Friday night, but this guy was about to have a panic attack and I wasn’t going to be negative about it, so I said “sure, no problem.” We set up post-haste, and start playing, hoping that the kids outside will come in to see us, but for the time being we played for the other bands and the people who ran the club. Ryan broke his strap in the middle of the second song. Yes, his strap snapped in half. He switched guitars, and broke a string. John once again was playing like an asshole, but at the end of the set, Ryan said that he thought that we played better that night than the previous 2.
We loaded out and the final band played. I got to talk to Danny on the phone for the first time in the tour on the phone for a bit. After the band played, the lead singer of the band came out and talked to us for a bit. He was a cool guy, and said that he could hook us up with some food at the restaurant his girlfriend worked at. This was good news, and we head over to the Brooklyn Pizza Company (or some similar name). I thought that “hooking us up” would be free food, but it was like 20% off. We got a pizza, and it was good stuff. The “Sky Bar” next door to us was packed with people, and the live band that was playing was called “The Clam Tostada.” God damn it.
We told the guy “thanks” and he said he was sorry that he couldn’t offer us a place to stay. We said that that was fine, and we left to make the drive to Las Cruces, New Mexico instead of driving it all tomorrow. Most of the band slept while Ryan drove, and we pulled into this Pilot gas station in Lordsburg, New Mexico, right across the border. It was freezing outside; Google said that it was 34 degrees. It was warm in the van though. We threw our luggage in the trailer, made our beds in the van, and went to sleep.
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