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Apr 25, 2011 By Michele Yamamoto

Touring is a funny thing. A funny thing that not many people get to experience. You spend 90% of the day preparing for 40 minutes on stage, six to eight hours in a van, four or so hours in a venue passing time, and (if your lucky) eight hours of sleep a night. All for those 40 minutes on stage. So you'd think when you get home for a week from being on the road for two months, the last thing you want to do is think about touring. The first few days you jam pack your schedule of all things fun. Seeing three movies in a day, getting out to the golf course, and making the rounds hanging out with all the friends you haven't seen in a few months. Yet after a day or two you have to start preparing for the next round on the road. For me, it starts even way before we get home.

Speaking for myself and the rest of the guys, we are constantly obsessed with making our show the best it can be, always better than the last, and finding all those little ways to improve on what we already have put together. Night after night, thinking about what we can do to take a show to another plateau. Whether it be the new pedal you need to get to make your keyboard sound a little better, a road case that’s lightweight and perfectly countered to your amp so you don't have back problems every night, or even just a bit more at-home practice, it all needs to get done in that one week. We've become quite productive at managing our time since we started touring about a year ago. Since last summer, we've never had more than two weeks between tours. In those two-week increments, we made another record, Luc played drums on another band’s record, and I even managed to get in a few rounds of golf below my handicap! But still we must prepare.

Our live member, Jonathan lives in New Orleans, so we have to fly him out before every tour. Giving us usually just a day to practice before we leave. In the week prior to his arrival, I gathered up all the new equipment on the list I had made during the last tour. A few new pedals, some new cases, and a fully refreshed mind and body ready for the next jaunt. I picked up Jonathan late Thursday morning and we immediately went to my new favorite eatery in my neighborhood, Berlin Currywurst. After some amazing sausage and fries we settled into my home studio and started putting together the gear, tuning things up, making sure everything was in tip-top shape. We toasted the night over a few beers and countless episodes of Ghost Adventures before retiring to sleep. The next day we got in our usual cram session of practice. Reworking old songs, learning a few new ones from our next record, and generally getting back into the rhythm, re-discovering the muscle memory. The next morning I woke up early to go to a pub and watch Chelsea FC demolish West Brom while I scarfed down my last favorite meal before we left—Beans & Toast and beer. I stuck around to watch Manchester United lose their game, which made me even more happy, and awaited Luc's return from his girlfriend’s apartment where he had spent the night. After he got back, we packed up the van and headed out.

 

At the end of the drive day we were all quite hungry and decided to seek out our favorite culinary institution on tour, Jimmy John's or as I like to call it "James Jonathan's" (tricks the mind into thinking I'm eating something other than fast food). After stopping at a few franchises that were closed we gave up and found a hotel. That's about all there is to report for the drive days, as they are about as boring as you can imagine. Though we did find a James Jonathan's the next day!

We are now en route to our first show of the tour in Kansas City. From there, we will play a few more headlining shows and visit the famed Daytrotter studios before meeting up with our tour mates, The Submarines, for a show in New York. And as this log has gone on way too long, I'll leave you with a few pictures and report back before New York!

- Xander

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