UK Tour Day 2. There’s Ice On The Road And The GPS Has It Out For Us.

Dec. 2 was one of the best days we’ve ever had as a band.  It marks the time we played our first international gig.  People in a country other than the one we call home got to watch us perform our songs.  It’s hard to describe how exciting this is for us.  

The Prince Albert is a two level pub/music club that was thankfully only 10 minutes away from our hotel.  We got there and predictably had to load into the venue through a different door than they’d usually have us come in.  We had the massive amounts of ice and snow that covered the loading door to thank for this.  As a matter of fact, we have massive amounts of snow and ice to thank for a lot that happened last night, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

So we got our gear in, sound checked, shivered a bunch and spent a lot of time sitting in front of the pub’s fireplace.

The gig was great - the crowd was into it and very warm when we got off stage.  We sold our very first CD in Europe and took a photo with the gentleman who bought it.  Jesse fired through his set and it made us feel like we were back home, watching him at the Bowery Electric.  We’re excited to continue on this tour and see how both we and Jesse adapt to each new crowd/city/etc…

But Dec. 2 was also one of the scarier days we’ve had as a band.  As we made the simple, 10 minute trek back to our hotel our GPS decided to send us up some roads that became less horizontal than we would have liked them to be.  One particular hill quickly became our enemy as we tried to climb it, only to find our wheels slipping, locking up and whipping in wrong directions.  We tried accelerating to get up and over.  We tried cardboard under the wheels.  We tried pushing the van.  Nothing was working and there was a vague sense of doom cast over the whole scenario.  For a minute we thought we might have to just leave our van and come back for it in the morning.  Who knows if we would have had any better luck then.

Finally we decided to drive down a one way street the wrong way, pray there were no cars coming, and make our way around the hill a safer way.  Doing so showed us that there was a much easier, flatter path to our beds.   Doing so also showed us that our GPS was sending us out of our way to get to the hotel.  Which leads us to a very dark conclusion: our GPS is trying to murder us.  

We made it back to the hotel, sat down and let out a collective sigh of relief which was heard by a couple of gentleman at the lobby bar.  A Mr. Chris Glen and a Mr. Chris Slade, both seasoned touring musicians in town for a rehearsal and a gig, proceeded to comfort us with their company and stories (some inspiring, some terrifying) about life in bands.  These guys have been around, done amazing things and have played in some very notable bands.  We’re grateful to have met them because without all the laughs they gave us we might not have shaken off the icy hill experience.  Chris and Chris - thank you.

And now we’re on our way to our second gig in Sheffield.  We’ve left a few hours early so that we can drive slowly and carefully.  And the whole way we’re going to keep a knife to the GPS’s throat.  

-Keith