We had an eventful first leg of our August tour with Silian Rail!
Friday's tour kick off party at Satellite reaffirmed our belief that we have the best fans anywhere. We felt the love, and so did Silian Rail and our label-mates Future Ghost, who opened the show. Man, can't wait for the Future Ghost record!!
Saturday's highlights included a 4 hour, traffic marathon to get to San Diego. At one point just outside of Oceanside an accident had slowed our movement to roughtly .24 MPH and after 20 minutes of agreeing that the ocean looked beautiful, we were so bored we started taking bets on how many times the woman in the Sentra in front of us would put her hair up in a ponytail. She kept doing this thing over and over where she would straighten her thin dark hair, bunch it together with on fist, tie the scrunchie, adjust bangs in the mirror, then when it wasn't right, take the hair out of the ponytail and restart the whole process. I must admit to losing interest after about 10 minutes of this routine, but apparently this woman went at it for quite some time.
As always when we travel to SD, we ate dinner at Pizza Port in Solana Beach. It was nice to be treating 3 newbies to the experience and I do believe they enjoyed their pie. I got baffled by a fork dispenser then mocked by the wait staff, but other than that, good times. On our return to our tour van, the Ron Beez, we got yelled at by a drunk woman who was upset that Dan didn't know the number of a cab company in San Diego even though he was from Los Angeles. But, you know, they were wasted sitting in puddles of their own vomit trying to get home to their nine year old kid, and we've all been there, right, so fuck us. (Yeah, didn't make a whole lot of sense at the time to us either, especially considering Heather was trying to look up a San Diego cab company on her phone when the woman waved her off so she could curse Dan out.)
Tin Can Alehouse is now my official favorite venue in San Diego. Sure, Soda Bar's sound is better, but the room is awkwardly proportioned so that half the audience is almost in a different area code. Casbah has the obvious edge as it's been around forever and is well known to touring bands. But with all their separate rooms and smoking patios, a smaller touring band like Summer Darling would have a tough time keeping the audience in one place. There's no place to hide at Tin Can, and the crowd though modest was enthusiastically pressed to the stage.
Another shout out goes to Kelsey, who not only owns Tin Can, but books it, bartends at it, and runs the sound! Incredible!! And to the drunk guy who left his CD, we still have it even though you payed for it.
Sunday at Detroit bar was notable for a number of reasons, not the least of which were the stellar sound and satisfying set by Two Guns (who played their incredibly catchy new record in its entirety), and seeing the members of California Condors (download their record for free right now--their song "What Did You Do?" is one of my favorites this year). Mike, who likes his ladies with a little sass, fell in love with the bartender, Courtney. Not only is she smoking hot, she pulled out the halls of justice on a kid attempting to defraud another patron of over 200 dollars. When the young man wouldn't return the stolen credit card and ID in question, Courtney leapt over the bar and clocked him in the face! The bouncer had to come to the felon's rescue at which time, Courtney called the cops. And that was our cue to leave.
On the way back to LA, Mike and I witnessed a massive fire in Santa Ana; it looked like something had exploded in a residential neighborhood.
Friday it's off to Chico, Saturday is Portland, and Sunday is Seattle. We hope to see you out and about!!
