Weekend Wrap up 4/28/14

The Metal Grill in Wisconsin

Chicago as seen from the road, on our way to Cudahy, Wisconsin.

Well, we had a killer time this weekend, playing two killer shows in the Midwest.

We departed New York at around 1:30 PM on April 24 and proceeded to spend close to three hours in standstill traffic—stuck in NY City trying to get through the Holland Tunnel.  We finally made it through and proceeded to our first destination, a cigar warehouse in Pennsylvania. After that and a raucous dinner at Perkins, we settled in for a very long drive to Wisconsin. We arrived at our destination, the Metal Grill in Cudahy, Wisconsin around 3:00 PM on April 25.

We were greeted by the show's promoter Randy, who led us to our backroom.  We were completely exhausted, but that didn't stop us from cracking open a bottle of Wild Turkey and having some cigars to celebrate our arrival.

Our time was spent hanging out with both old and new friends and preparing for the show. We hit the stage around 12:30. The crowd was tired, a little bit drunk and worn out, but immediately came to life as we began diving into our set.

Our bassist into some technical problems, but they were quickly cleared up.

Overall it was a great show and the crowd was truly appreciative of our set. We spent the rest of the night drinking, smoking stogies and, taking pictures with fans and generally having a blast.

After a few hours of shut, we packed back into the van and headed to Mishawaka, Indiana. This town is a beautiful example of small town America, with a nice clean Main Street, plenty of mom and pop stores, and architecture right out of the 1930s.  It was a sleepy little town and we didn't expect much of a show, but as we sat outside, enjoying the weather, we noticed that people kept trickling into the club. By the time we went on there was a healthy crowd of IB fans as well as fans who had never heard of us.

We played one of the best sets we've ever done in a long time and the crowd kept the pit going the whole time. By the time we did our encore, the place was a steaming mess of bodies.

After a few hours of hanging out, we were back in the van, speeding towards home. At around 2:00 AM, we stopped for a bathroom break. And due to our exhaustion, our driver left the keys in the van. When the band proceeded to exit the van, they locked the door. Boom! We now had a problem. The keys were locked in the Van. Fortunately, the band has an AAA membership for things like this and a repair shop quickly came out to the scene and got us going again.

Overall a great trip with some great time and a lot of killer bands.