I wake up fairly early and before anybody else, and decide to go into the Pilot and the built in McDonald’s, because I know from my tech news that all Mickie D’s have free wifi now. I write in the tour journal for awhile. I get up and go to the bathroom and I hear over the intercom “Customer number 7, your shower is ready. Customer number 7, your shower is ready.” I think “they have showers here!?” I haven’t showered in a few days, and I was kind of gross. Sure enough, they did have showers, but I decided against it. They also had laundry, so I kept this in mind for future reference.
Brendan comes in eventually and tells me that we’re all about to head out, so I put my computer back in my bag and get in the van. We only had a short drive to Austin. Ryan is still not feeling well, and we pull up to a mall and Ryan sleeps in the van again. Peter and I are getting kinda sick of malls; we’re in fucking Austin, Texas, there’s got to be something to do. John is there to get a new phone charger because his is on the frizt. John talks to his mom and dad for at least an hour every day, no matter what. It’s kind of weird. The rest of the band calls it “Hola, Papa time” because he always answers the phone this way. We go in the mall and I give Danny a call and talk to her. John gets his charger and we walk around the mall a bit with me still on the phone. Eventually we leave because the mall sucks.
Ryan wants to sleep some more, so he offers to get a motel room early so he can sleep until the show. This is fine with us, and it guarantees a place for us to spend the night tonight as well. We find this fairly cheap motel, and Ryan gets us a double bed room. We head inside and I start writing in the tournal journal, and Peter and Brendan read their books (Peter is reading this series of trashy mystery novels, and Brendan is reading Macbeth), while Ryan takes a shower and gets some sleep. John is outside having “Hola Papa” time. I make myself some EZ Mac in the motel microwave. Eventually, we leave to head to the venue.
We’re playing at this place called “Red 7” in downtown Austin. We’re playing in Austin tomorrow night too, and we pass the bar we’re playing at on the way there. We get to the bar, and it’s this big red building. I hop out and go inside. It’s really cool, it’s a communist themed bar. It’s really big, too. They have a few pool tables and arcade games, and a bunch of drinks that are pretty funny. Like one called “The Eazy E” which is just a 32 of High Life in a brown paper bag. They have an indoor stage and an outdoor stage, and we’re playing on the indoor one because it’s cold out. I go outside to check it out later on, and it’s this huge stage and an area that could well accommodate at least 500 people. They also have a green room set up in the back where we could hang out, and it had a mini fridge with energy drinks and water we could help ourselves to. We didn’t really spend any time back there, but some of us grabbed a few drinks. We loaded in, and I found out that the pool tables were free, so I got a few games in with the guys before the first band started playing. They were that sort of Jawbreaker style whiney punk that I’m not the biggest fan of, so I went outside and talked to Danny. I was in downtown, and I looked around and it was actually pretty cool. There were venues everywhere, and all sorts of different types of people. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought I was in downtown SF.
After the first band gets done playing their set, Peter, Brendan, and I go out in search of food. I think Danny (or somebody) told me it was Mardi Gras today, so there were a ton of people with beads on and just people everywhere, in general. I don’t think people in SF really celebrate Mardi Gras, but I was in The South now, so it was a little bit more noticeable. We walk around, and we must have passed like 5 venues in the short walk we took. Punk clubs too, I noticed a few bands I had heard of on their calendars. We got food at this pizza truck, and this group of people came up to us dressed in medieval garb, and this lady dressed as a nun handed us a flyer for something called “Medieval Smut.” Okay. We head back to the bar.
I killed time until we were up. There were 5 bands playing tonight, and we were 4th. The first 3 bands were punk bands, or some offshoot of punk, and they at least could play their instruments properly and behaved like a real band. It’s depressing to have to point that out, because it’s a change from what this tour has been so far. We set up and start playing. Of course, we blow the power on the 2nd song. I like that we play insanely loud, and that usually we’re the only band that trips the circuit breaker. It’s kind of a testament to the energy that we like to display onstage. But, after the countless number of times that this has happened, it gets to be a little annoying, but it’s always funny.
We’re playing second to last, so a few people have already left, but we play to maybe 10-20 people. They all seem to like us, and some of them buy some merch. The sound in the monitors was really good, and we all agreed that it was the best we’ve played so far this tour. I think that we’re broken in and are in “tour mode” now, which is good. The final band goes on, and they’re like a grunge/alternative band that sounds a lot like Sound Garden. They weren’t half bad, and at the end of their set, Ryan said that that band was easily as good as Sound Garden.
We pack up and leave, and we get a decent amount for a Tuesday night. We didn’t make $100, but we’re in Austin another night, so we don’t have to buy gas tonight. We get some food somewhere and then head back to the motel room. We sit around and eventually go to bed.
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