Cleveland

In the van, driving towards Cleveland now. We have about an hour to go. The load in tonight is late, around eight thirty, so we've got plenty of time to kill. Surprsingly enough, the guys want to go shopping.  

Woke up this morning and lay in bed watching the news for an hour or so. Hurricane Irene is looking like she's going to be a big fucking storm. I'm really starting to worry about Jen. She's flying in on Friday night. For a start I'm worried about her flight being cancelled and then if she does get in, she's going to be on her own at the hotel in Manhattan when the storm hits on Saturday night. I'm sure she'll be ok but the thought of her being there on her own if it gets bad scares the shit out of me.

Matt's been taking calls this afternoon from different people involved with the show on Sunday. As it looks right now, the show is very much in danger of being cancelled. There's not much you can do about a fucking hurricane! If it doesn't get cancelled then I guess we're going to be driving into the city on Sunday afternoon in some pretty interesting weather...There really doesn't seem to be a good way around this right now. All we can do is stay in touch with the people in New York and keep our eyes on the news.

We just pulled out of a service station, have about an hour to Cleveland. Jon is chuffed, he just saw a poster advertising some sort of burger that had the slogan, “Nobody high fives after eating tofu!” Jon thinks it's the best thing he's seen all tour.

Later:

Sitting by the merch table, second band of the night are about to go on. The mood is somewhat sombre as we try to figure out exactly what we're going to do this weekend, everyone just constantly keeping checks on the news about Hurricane Irene. As of now, Jen's flight is still secheduled with her landing in New York tomorrow at two pm. All I know is that however things work out, whether we travel straight to New York before they close the city down, or whether we travel up to Syracuse, I want to be with my wife. It all depends on what happens tomorrow when the storm hits the east coast, and what's going to happen with Johan and Andy's flights on Monday. If they have to be at the airport to await a new flight then we don't have much choice but to travel to New York after the Pittsburgh show tomorrow. Hell of a way for this tour to end.

There are a lot of people at the venue tonight anyway, and Masakari are playing next. Going to get myself a beer and try and enjoy tonight at least. Decision time for us us tomorrow, not a lot we can do about it right now.

Later still:

Strange night. The show itself was really good, but throughout the entire set I found myself thinking about this weekend, about Jenny coming in on her flight, about how we're going to sort out this mess once she gets here. It's looking like a real shitstorm is about to unleash on New York City.

The toilet situation at this venue was not ideal either. First off, the men's toilet had no door on the cubicle (what the fuck is that about really?), and then the toilet was broken anyway. I really needed to shit and decided to chance the women's. I walk in and I'm faced with two cubicles, both with doors, but neither of them has a lock or indeed a door handle. I choose the cubicle furthest in and sit down. The fucking door swings open so I have to go about my business using one hand to hold on to the door, which for good measure is only about three foot high. Just as I drop my load, someone else comes into the room and sits down in the cubicle beside me. Fuck. My shit stinks too. This is akward. I wait it out for a while but the girl in the cubicle beside me seems to be going nowhere. I have to get out of here. I pull up my kecks, whilst trying to keep the door from swinging open, and then go to leave. As I do the girl in the cubicle beside me is doing the exact same thing. Fucking embarrasing! The girl kind startles and I go, “Whoa, sorry!” like a complete fucking geek. I rush to leave but then decide to wait around and apologise for scaring her. She's actually really cool about it. I just sort of shoot off and hide somewhere after that. Is the concept of a funcitoning toilet door completely beyond comprehension in this fucking country?

I've heard a lot about how the Cleveland punk and hardcore scene is special. Jon told me about the time they played here on a previous tour with 9 Shocks Terror, about the crowd being brutal. When we loaded in earlier the girl working the sound asked us if we wanted to set up on the floor. The room itself was pretty cool, with a high stage at the one end and a big skateboard ramp at the other. Matt had warned us to take the stage, so we did, although I was thinking that it could have been fun to brave the floor.

After watching Masakari though, I understood why Matt told us to play on the stage. Three songs in, and the place just erupts. I'm stood by the side wall on a long bench, watching the show and a surge of about twenty people hurtle towards me and then hit the ground hard. They get picked up, but from there it just escalates. The singer from Masakari, Tony, is right in the middle of it all. Next thing I see, there is a large, plastic rubbish bin being thrown around aimlessly. Just I'm starting to think that somebody could really get hurt, Tony puts the bin over his head and shoulders and charges at the crowd, getting the shit beat out of him as he does so. The rest of their show carries on in the same fashion and how the band escape without any injury is totally beyond me.

Our show must have seemed pretty tame in comparison, although it was a lot of fun all the same. The lights up on the stage were shining brightly into my eyes, so I couldn't really see much of what the crowd was doing, but I could sense it. There were a load of people hanging off the front of the stage, at times they were up on stage with us. Within the first couple of blocks the stage had been drenched in beer, making it almost impossible to keep a footing. I found myself with my feet rigidly keeping a grip on the floor, whilst still trying to play as I normally would . It wasn't easy. Between each block of songs there was a lot noise, people shouting for old songs, people shouting at us that they'd been waiting a long time to see us.

In different circumstances I would have been really buzzing with this show...

After we played and packed down, we hung out with a lot of people at the merch table. The Masakari guys offered us their place to stay, which we were happy to take, but with Paul, the owner of the bar handing out the extra drink tickets, we hung out for a couple of hours, drinking pints of Cleveland's finest ale. I felt like I really needed it.

We got back to the Masakari house around two am. and sat on the front porch with Joe, their guitarist, for another couple of hours, drinking beer and shooting the breeze. At one point I get up to go to the toilet and find Jon in there, looking lost. I ask him what's up and he tells me he's having trouble with flushing the toilet. I tell him to move out of the way and let me fix it. For a long time at work we had problems with the toilet in the bar and after months of dealing with it, I now consider myself quite the expert with a plunger. I lift the toilet seat and reel back in horror at the sight of a bowl of brown, sludgy shit that is on the verge of overflowing. Jon stands there with a guilty little smirk on his face. The two of us go about ridding the house of this filfth for the next five minutes or so.

Quite literally a shitty way to end a strange day.