So the final entry in this, whirlwind, 10 day endeavor.
We woke up in San Rafael and ready to hit the road. Oddly not hitting a Denny's this particular morning. We knew we had a really long drive ahead of us. Some 380 miles to go.
We hit the strange back roads and opted not to stop to eat until he got to I-5. What I did find odd that there was a Six Flags out there in Vallejo. I had no idea this one even existed. We came around an odd hill and low and behold just on the other side was a hidden theme park. It looked like a lot of fun. But pressed for time, no roller coasters for us.
We ended up back on I-5 just south of Redding and we were all pretty hungry by this point. So the first thing we see. Jack In The Box. Lee and his sensitive stomach and odd eating habits, opted not to eat anything right then. With a quick bite in our bellies it was back on the road.
As we were a ways up the road I got a call from my wife who said she had checked Johnny B's calender and we weren't listed on it. Seemed weird but we weren't worried too much. Wes attempted to call the club, but there was no answer.
Doug, a bit road weary, I could tell, was a little nervous about us not being on the calender. Wes found another website that we were listed as playing. We had stopped in Weed for a quick break from driving and Doug told us that if the show wasn't going to happen he wouldn't mind driving all the way up to Portland that night. I thought this idea was total lunacy and told him as much. And onward we went toward Medford.
We rolled into Medford roughly around 5pm. We didn't make to bad of time. We located Johnny B's, which wasn't open yet. We parked off to the side of the road and proceed to argue as to what our next action should be. Actually more accurately, Doug and Wes started bickering back and forth. Lee smoothed the situation over quickly and calmly, which I found really impressive. The compromise was that we would leave around 9am the next morning and stay in Medford show or no show.
Medford is kind of a cool little small town. We easily found our way around and figured out the lay of the land very quickly. We back tracked toward the freeway and checked into the ever trusty Motel 6. Wes again tried to call the club to no avail. Still not open.
We hopped in the car and swing by yet again. It's only a mile from the hotel to the club, so it was a quick jaunt. We all decided we were hungry so we swung over to a place called Trophy's. The clientele was an interesting array of twitchy tweakers and bar regulars. We ordered up the standard bar fair; french dip, burgers and the like. We finished up eating and Wes tried yet again to call the club. Still nothing.
We swung by there one last time at around 7pm. The owner was rushing into to open up. Obviously running late he was frantic to get things open. We chatted with him and apparently I dropped the ball on this one. He was wanting a confirmation call a week before the show which I never made. He said we could do an opening slot if we still wanted to play. We took it.
After a short stop to visit Lee's niece and drop off a little care package of a WCG tshirt and CD we headed back over to the club to load in and set up. Everyone there was actually really nice. We met with the other bands; The Hollowbodys, Bloody Mess and The Harrington Saints. All of them really cool folks and had no problem with us being on the bill. The fellas from The Harrington Saints realized we played their home town (Oakland) the night before and wondered who we played with. We told them the stories of the guy who lit his junk on fire. They new of this gimmicky little band and said they had played with them not too long ago. They were equally disturbed by the spectacle of it all.
We got ourselves set up and chatted with some fella who was going to film the whole show. No idea where that video may be yet. Anyway, Johnny B's as a club is very cool little joint. Very rockabilly oriented in decor. We went on to play our set and knowing it was our last show of the tour we went all out and played one of our best of the entire tour. We made use of every inch of the small stage. We got a really great response from the crowd on hand, as well as from the other bands. Who all stated we probably shouldn't have opened.
We quickly tore down and the Hollowbodys got all set up. They were definitely more rockabilly driven. I got stuck outside babysitting our gear while I waited for Doug to get the trailer unlocked. But he was on the phone with his wife giving her a run down of how our set went. He finally got off and we loaded the trailer. I got back inside to watch the Hollowbodys last few songs. Then A Bloody Mess went on. Which oddly is the exact same band as the Hollowbodys just with a different singer and a slightly more glam rock style. The singer of a Bloody Mess proclaimed he was a "Dive Bar Rockstar." Both bands were very cool in 2 vastly different ways.
We had sold out of pretty much everything at this point. We had a few tank tops and CDs left. That was it. Yet I was still sitting there at our merch table. I didn't want to sit there anymore so I got up to watch the show. Doug asked me if I wanted to pack it up so no one would steal anything. I told him screw it. We're on our last day and if people wanted that stuff bad enough to steal it, more power to them. At least they wanted more of us.
The Harrington Saints got all set up. These guys were big. I mean they were just big fellas. Shaking their hands, they baseball mitts for hands. They started in playing and we were all hooked. One of the best bands we played with all throughout the tour. They were sort of a hybrid of Sick Of It All meets Drop Kick Murphys. A chanty Oi punk vibe about them. It was awesome. We told them when they got done with their set anytime, anywhere they ever wanted to play together again we'd be down.
A great finale show to the tour. Awesome bands, awesome crowd. Just a good night in general. We had a few more beers at the bar and realizing it was close to last call we knew we had to get to a convenience store quickly. We got there just at the stroke of 2am. The guy at the counter was nice enough to let us know that he thinks his clock might be fast. We walked out and noticed another band that appeared to be on tour gassing up. Lee approached them as a kindred spirit. Come to find out these these guys, who couldn't have been over 20, were all complete douches. As we walked up to talk to them one of them held up his spiffy little backstage laminate in front of Lee's face. I can't really remember the name of their band, but it was something stupid and sounded like cheesy death metal. Either way they were dicks and thought awfully highly of themselves. Even now, as I write this, it's causing a visceral reaction in me and I want to comment further, but I'll refrain.
Anyway, we got back to the hotel and Wes and Lee decide they were going to walk to Jack In The Box and see if Wes couldn't accomplish what he had the night before of walking through the drive thru. I guess, however they didn't even get out of the parking lot when they heard someone holler. It was a couple of the guys from The Harrington Saints. They picked them up and gave a ride to Jack In The Box. Like I said, really cool guys. Wes and Lee got back with a myriad of J in the B food. Much of which we couldn't finish off.
After eating Doug was fading quickly. So Wes, Lee and I moved over to their room. We sat up and had a few more beers and watched Gnarls Barkley on PBS. Once again that rockstar life! I decide it was time for me to hit the hay too. So I went back to the other room and crashed while Wes and Lee stayed up hoping that we wouldn't wake up at 9am.
But we did get up at 9am. Surprisingly Wes and Lee were up too. Well, with a little prodding from Doug. We all got ready and hoped to be back in Seattle by around 5pm or so. At least that was the plan. We got up the road a bit and had our final Denny's round table. I realized at this point, at least in my opinion, we had really hit our stride and if the tour was longer we would have had no trouble going on. But alas it was not to be. We were heading home. We got to Portland and ran into traffic. All the way through Portland on across the Washington border. We kept hitting traffic jam after traffic jam. Through the Nisqually Basin. Then another 15 mile back up just north of there. Wes had apparently seen some guy with no teeth driving next to us and started working on his "No teeth face." He would look at me at random times with this weird look on his face like he was trying to eat his upper lip. We finally rolled into Seattle just short of 8pm. We got to the studio and unloaded our gear. We parted ways, sweaty, stinky and tired. But we had done it... We had played 7 shows in 10 days covering the span of over 2500 miles without killing each other. We brought our music to the masses up and down the I-5 corridor. And would I do it again? Oh hell yeah!
adam
wcg
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