Day 10: 09-30-09 @ Black Sheep Cafe - Springfield, Illinois

Invasions Of The Mind came out exactly one year ago today, so we played the album from start to finish. No songs from Punch The Clock, no covers, just tracks 1 through 11 in order. I can say that 1 year later I still love it. I still listen to it every once in a while and get excited all over again. I always think about what the 15 year old version of myself would think if I went back in time and told him that this is what he would eventually write. I am certain that I would probably cry from joy. I know all this, but something about my personality prevents me from enjoying what I have, and causes me to only focus on the negative. I wish that I could just be happy with where I'm at.
The set went well aside from Joe's guitar breaking during "The Silence", and 2 microphones breaking throughout the set. Robert set his video camera up in the back of the room, and filmed another angle with his phone. The video from his phone came out better, but the memory ran out right at the end of "2 Whole Minutes Under Water". We plan on splicing the 2 angles together and adding it as a bonus feature to a DVD that we intend to make out of this tour. The DVD will probably be the best performances of each song that we play throughout the tour interlaced with interviews, random footage, etc. It will probably just be something we'll put out ourselves, and burn copies to sell for 5 dollars or something.
After the set I talked to Matt on the phone for a while, it's always good/funny to hear from him. After I got off the phone we headed to Keith's friends' place in St. Louis where we did laundry and went to sleep.

Day 09: 09-29-09 @ Murphy Arts Center - Indianapolis, Indiana

After driving for 6 hours and constantly being on the brink of a panic attack, we arrived at the venue. Keith's friends brought us some food including cupcakes which were awesome. Before we played, Joe and I walked around the area for a bit discussing the future of the band, we do this most nights. Our set was slightly awkward due to the lighting and high stage, but I felt as if I did alright. Joe thought we played like absolute shit. I did notice a few mistakes during the set, but I always assume that no one notices besides the 5 of us.

We got offered what I think is a good tour opportunity during the middle of December. I would just say who it's with, but God knows you can't do that. Why? I have no idea, probably because people love that little time frame where they can say "I know something you don't know". As I've stated many times before, I hate that so much.

After the set Joe and I walked around and talked about how much it sucks missing someone back home. Once the walk was over though, he seemed to be in a better mood. Strange concept: talking with me put someone in a GOOD mood? There must be some catch I'm missing here.
Oh by the way, tonight we sold 10 dollars in merch. Embarrassing.

Day 08: 09-28-09 @ Shriners Building - Whitesburg, KY

We've played this place once before. The first time we played here, we covered Bullet with Butterfly Wings. I forget who was playing drums for us at the time. The promoter got us pizza and after we ate we went for a walk up this mountain road where 2 dogs started following us. All types of vehicles were speeding around the bends and the dogs kept going into the street, so we had to hold onto them every time a car/truck drove by. On our way back I slipped and fucked up my knee a little. It didn't hurt that bad, but it left a pretty big bruise. I think I'm more upset that it slightly weakened the knee of my new pants. Oh well.
We played a pretty good set and there were a handful of people singing along the whole time. We also decided to debut our cover of Samhain's "Black Dream" tonight. It was a lot of fun.
We finally got all of our new merch straightened out and it will be arriving at the promoter's house for Friday's show on Thursday. I'm really eager to see how well the new shirt does. It seemed to get a pretty positive reaction online and from all the other people who have seen it, so I think it will do alright. Oh and speaking of merch, tonight's total was 78 dollars.
I'm really glad Robert came on this tour for a few reasons. Aside from just being great to have around, he definitely puts more enthusiasm into being our merch guy than we ever expected. He has also been taking a lot of pictures (as you can see in my previous entries from this tour), and he has been filming a handful of our sets as well. This is already shaping up to be a pretty well documented tour, and we're only on week #2.

Day 07: 09-27-09 @ Warsaw Arena - Cincinnati, OH

Last night we drove to Alex's house, which was only an hour and a half from today's show. We stopped at Whole Foods and I got a muffin and some cookies. After that we stopped at

Guitar Center, then headed out on the drive. The drive seemed to take forever, even though it was pretty short.

Before we played, Joe and I tried to finish writing this song that we've been working on, but all we came up with was a lead for one of the parts. It was technically a productive writing session, but it didn't feel very productive because we were both pretty stumped, and I just wasn't very enthusiastic.
When we got onstage they turned the lights off, but in a bad way: the stage lights were off, but the crowd was illuminated. This made it pretty uncomfortable, and I had a really hard time getting into the set.

I think that along with every update, I'm going to include the amount of money we took in each night from merch sales. Tonight we sold 50 dollars in merch. I'm doing this because of how unbelievably bad we do every single night. It seems like every other band brings in hundreds every night, and we can barely break 50 on a good night. This may be partially due to the fact that we still haven't got our new (and in my opinion, GOOD) merch shipped to us yet, but I sent out a shipping address for it today, and we should have it by Thursday or Friday.

I feel like people might be under the impression that we are kind of popular, but I don't think that's the case at all. I mean yes, we have a modest fan base, but really when it comes down to it, most nights on tour we are playing to either people who have never heard us/heard of us, or people who have heard us, don't like us, and are there for the other bands. I'd say that on tour we get a good reaction maybe once a week. So if you are thinking that we go in front of hundreds of people singing along every night, and make tons of money on t-shirt and album sales, I just want to clarify that this is almost never the case. I'd say that Charleston, South Carolina is the only place where that happens, and it's amazing.

I'm done complaining now. There are far worse situations that I could be in, and I should be grateful for the things that I DO have, but EVERYONE, including yourself, complains about things when they know very well that there are always people somewhere on Earth that are in far worse situations, and have a lot more to complain about than you do. This is human nature though. No matter how good you have it, or how bad you have it, you're gonna find something to complain about, and you're always going to get stuck on the 1 negative thing that 1 person said, as opposed to the many positive things that many people said.

Day 6: 09-26-09 @ Beachland Ballroom - Cleveland, OH

As a whole, this was probably the best night so far. I say as a whole because it didn't feel as good as last night, but we got a great reaction, and we played pretty well. Joe and I walked around for a bit, but it was way to rainy and wet out, so we went back to the club. The club owner got mad that we were late when in fact we still got there before the show even started AND we weren't even the opening band. He turned out to be pretty nice though because he bought Dan and I food from the bar when he didn't have to. Overall, a good day.

Day 5: 09-25-09 @ American Legion - New Berlin, PA (Part 02: Photos by Michael Shearer)

Day 5: 09-25-09 @ American Legion - New Berlin, PA

Tonight's show had quite a few interruptions, but out of all the shows so far, this one felt the best for me personally. There was just something about the energy I was putting into the set that made it a very cathartic experience. Something happened with Keith's drum set during our intro that prevented us from going straight into Hunter Red, which really killed the vibe, then Dan broke a string during Hunter Red. The rest of the set went fine from what I can remember. Robert joined me on vocals for a Bad Religion cover.

We were supposed to have promo pictures taken before the show, but it didn't happen for some reason. After the show, we realized that we couldn't stay where we thought we could, so we had to search for a place to stay. Michael, the promoter for the show, hooked us up with his friend, so we started driving, only to realize when we got there, that there was a miscommunication involving the whereabouts of the kid's house. So basically, I got confused and caused us to drive 45 minutes the wrong way, only to have to turn right back around. 1 and a half hours of pointless driving...way to go Tank.