Today was a good day. We started out at around 12pm after a well-deserved long sleep. Breakfast was leftover burritos and a Clif Bar. We have lots of Clif Bars. Ask Matt. Anyhow, the drive to Portland was quick and uneventful, if a bit wet since the rain has invaded this otherwise unspeakably exquisite landscape. (I will soon run out of positive adjectives.) We stopped in downtown PDX to get some fog juice and other touring essentials and then headed to our destination, the Tonic Lounge, for scoping-out purposes.
Following a quick tour of the premises, we checked in at the ghetto-quaint Banfield Motel, where we discovered some questionable stains on the ceiling of our room. Sadly, it appears to be champagne and not blood from a grisly gangland hit. No cred there. After that it was off to meet Chris’s swell friend Peter, who took us to a nice little Vietnamese joint called Got Pho? for a tasty dinner. I highly recommend it – the proprietors are actually Vitenamese! And they have delicious bahn mi.
The Tonic is a nice venue with a big stage, great sound, and killer lights. Not as killer as our lights, mind you, but sweet none the less. And they have a secret entrance for performers! Much cred. The sound guy, Darren, was super-solid and allowed everyone to perform at the top of their game.
The opener, Josh Nielsen, was really nice and a great singer-songwriter. He’s got an Axl Rose kind of vibe to his voice. Our show tonight was very strong, and I even engaged in some stage antics like falling to the floor after the end of “Pieces.” This and more will be available on the limited-edition tour DVD. Our fog machine was at full force as well, though it did give us a false start at the beginning of the set. Drama! Fergie would not be proud. On The Tundra was awesome as always and made great use of the fog machine and lights, which we share with them because we are good kids who know how to share.
We are now back at the motel, waiting for Chris to arrive with the van so we can (joy!) load everthing into the room. Why? Because this motel has a rule that you can’t have guests in your room after 8pm. Classy.
Tomorrow: Olympia!
Comments are closed.