I GET SCHOOLED BY A FRENCH SELF CHECKOUT

                I woke up still sick in Montpellier.  We went to the French grocery store around the corner from our hotel for lunch/breakfast.  It was really crowded and all the lines were long.  I got some food including a couple of apples and got in line for the self checkout.

                Now, somehow I managed to butcher the use of this self checkout machine in every way possible.  The scanner didn’t work and I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong, but then someone pointed out a second bar code scanner on the side that thankfully worked.  Then, when I tried to buy the apples the damn machine switched over to French, which (even after all our time here) is still next to impossible for me to read.  I finally just pushed some buttons and I’m pretty sure I grossly overpaid for those apples.  Then I forgot to put them on the “paid for” part so the screen locked up.  After that I couldn’t figure out how to use the credit card machine, so I finally just paid in cash.  By this point, I was beet red and the line was out of control and full of angry French people with the exception of two pretty girls directly in line behind me who thought the whole thing was hysterical.  I looked like the biggest idiot ever. 

                The drive to Barberaz that day was really pretty and quickly made me forget my embarrassment.  We drove through the French Alps which was quite a sight.  When we finally arrived at the club it was in an industrial section of town at the foot of a mountain.  The beer selection was really extensive and they had a wide variety of Belgian ales of tap, none of which were under 8% alcohol.  We started drinking early and we had several hours to go before our set, so by the time dinner was served we were all pretty wrecked.  The show was ok, but relatively uneventful.  We kept forgetting that we were no longer in Spain and would often slip into speaking Spanish with people.  For the record French people do not like it when you speak anything other than French to them. 

After our set we drove up the mountain to stay with the promoter at their giant old home at the top of a mountain.  Now… we were following a woman who had been drinking since we got to the venue (a solid 8 hours ago), AND we were driving a giant van, AND Marco is a pretty bad driver, AND these mountain roads were very steep and narrow.  All this added up to a very irritated Marco yelling at this woman in Italian.  Thankfully she didn’t understand and took it very well, but it was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.  I was able to catch some of it on video and posted it to my facebook page, but sadly I didn’t get all of it.

                When we got there we were shown to the guest house we would be staying in and then invited to the main house for drinks.  We all sat around the kitchen table drinking and smoking and communicating what little we could.  We were there with four people.  They were all a bit weird.  Nice, but weird nonetheless.  The one woman seemed straight out of the Addams Family or a Tim Burton movie.  She reminded me of a very unattractive Helena Bonham Carter. 

                The view was amazing when we woke up the next morning.  We were on the top of a mountain, surrounded by farmland, with more of the Alps in the distance.  It was a great way to start the day.  We piled into the Sprinter and made our way to Strasbourg for a night off before Holland.  Our evening was uneventful and the next day we walked around the downtown area taking pictures and exploring the Notre Dame Cathedral there, which was really beautiful but was probably the most commercialized and touristy of all the ones we’ve have been to so far.  Afterwards we got back in the van and headed back to Germany for a show in Miltenburg.

                

THE HOME STRETCH

Well, we have hit the stretch of tour where everyone is ready to get home.  This certainly isn’t unusual or a bad thing.  It’s not that we aren’t having lots of fun still; it just seems to be the natural cycle of tours.  When they start it’s always too much fun. Late nights and drunken shenanigans are most common when a tour starts because everyone is excited about leaving home and getting out on the road.  Then, after a while you settle into a routine and it becomes sort of mechanical.  There are still late night shenanigans, but they are usually milder and tend to be reserved for weekend shows.  This lasts until the final week of tour when everyone gets antsy.  We won’t be as friendly and talkative with people at shows; opting instead for more antisocial activities or at least ones that only include familiar faces.  This is especially the case with me right now, but I think that’s exacerbated by my current state of sickness and the frustration that can come with not speaking the language of the audience.  People start missing everyone back home and conversations in the van start more and more with “Man, when I get home I can’t wait to…..” 

Touring can be extremely isolating.  As anyone who has read this blog knows, tours are repetitive and boring.  Eating, sleeping, and riding in a car take up the vast majority of your time.  The only guaranteed interruption from the tedium is the 45-90 minutes that we get to be onstage.  You can only hope that cool people show up and that you get to have some interesting conversation, or that an opportunity for a cool new experience will present itself.  This does happen quite often, which is one of the many reasons I love touring.  I have gotten to do some cool shit in my life that many people only get to read about.  No one can take that away from me.  The problem is that so much goes on, and so much of it is hard to explain, that it becomes difficult to share these experiences with family and friends. 

Relating tour to others back home is hard to do, so when I am asked broad questions like “How was tour?” I almost always reply with “It was a lot of fun.” Or “It was really good.”  It almost seems like an answer you would get from someone trying to blow you off, right? The problem is that I don’t know where to start.  How do you sum up a month spent on another continent playing music?  I mean, I LOVE talking and specifically telling stories (especially over beer or coffee), but that takes a whole evening and even then you’re only getting tiny snippets of the larger picture.  Plus, I want to hear what I missed while I was gone.

The fact is that it’s often months of your life going by without the most important people in your life. No matter how hard you try, you can never relate that period as well as if it had been a shared experience.  This was a big problem for me and Jessica when we were together.  As I got to experience more and more, she slowly came to see it as something that she had been left out of and eventually it was a struggle for her to be happy for me.  I was trying to share my experiences with her the best I could, but she started to become less and less interested.  In her eyes I was living a life that she had no part in.  As time went on, this turned into bitterness and a rift that would help lead to our divorce. 

Thankfully, I have wonderful friends and family who have helped me out all these years in every way imaginable.  My parents and sister have been unbelievably supportive and have always seemed genuinely thrilled to hear about anything cool that I’ve gotten to see or do on the road. They are always interested in what progress the band is making or what recording session stuff I’ve worked on. The same goes for my friends really.  I’ve been fortunate enough to be surrounded by amazing people in my life.  They are the reason why I’m even writing this blog.  I figured it might help me describe such a unique experience to them.  It will be easier to elaborate in person at the kitchen table guzzling coffee the way that we Corbins love to do, but at the very least this has been my honest attempt at keeping them involved in my day to day life.  I don’t ever want to be regarded as an absentee son, brother, friend, or significant other again.

As for my list of stuff I want to do when I get back home, I personally can’t wait to see all my friends and spend at least one week night drinking with them at Big Boss.  Most of my friends are musicians so Mondays and Tuesdays seem to be the nights to get together since no one has gigs.  Of course, I want to see my family and have some of my mothers cooking.  I’m looking forward to tormenting their cats and watching some Food Network in the living room.  I want to go out drinking with my sister and be obnoxious enough to be an embarrassment to the family (we have this down to a science when we get together). This can be combined with getting ridiculous with Rachel Mills, followed by late night nachos at The Raleigh Times.  If Alternate George (George’s alter ego when inebriated) and Danny Johnson show up there will be a 3 am Cookout stop as well on the way home. The list of people I want to see is entirely too long to even list in all actuality. 

I can’t wait to sleep in my own bed or at least sleep in American hotel beds which are WAY bigger and better than the ones here in Europe.  The same goes for the showers. I’m looking forward to big, clean American showers with good soap, shampoo, AND conditioner.  I’d also like a haircut.  I can’t wait to do some cooking and get back on a healthy eating routine.  I can’t wait to get back into the gym.  These thirty days have been the longest break from exercise I’ve had in over three years and it’s slowly driving me insane.  I’ll have to make a conscience effort to not over do it my first week back and injure myself. 

I’m looking forward to practicing bass also.  This might sound weird, since I’m specifically over here to play bass, but on tour I don’t get to actually get in some good practice time.  I want to work on my fretless and upright chops.  The band has been throwing around ideas for a two week tour of small listening rooms and performing an all acoustic set, which I would really look forward to if it happens.  It would be nice for people to see us in another light and it would certainly keep things interesting for us. 

I realize that this post didn’t really inform anyone of the day to day activities of tour, but maybe it provides some insight to the internal aspects of touring.  Maybe I’m just homesick and needed to vent a little?  Either way I’m excited about the last few days of touring AND getting home.  One thing I’ve learned about being on the road is that this lifestyle will make you miserable if you lose the ability to appreciate both. 

WHO SAYS BEER ISN'T GOOD FOR YOU WHEN YOU HAVE THE FLU?

                Because of our frolic on the beach in the morning we were late getting to our show in Orihuela that night.  Marco assures us that it will be fine though.  He has worked with the promoter before and says he is a cool guy.  When we arrive I almost think we are at the wrong place. It’s a beautiful theater located in the heart of downtown.  Its big backstage area allowed for several Spinal Tap moments with each of us clamoring to find our way to the bathrooms, the stage, or the bar. 

                We played with a Spanish band called Logan who were very nice, played very Spanish music, and spoke very little English.  They sounded good in sound check and I wanted to stick around to see their set, but we had to go get dinner.  It was another tapas place with lots of wine and the only notable thing I ate that I really enjoyed was the main course of cuddlefish.  I had never had it before and it was excellent.

                We went back to the auditorium, caught a bit of the openers set, drank some pre show beers, and played a really good set to a lot of people. They were seated people though, which is always weird for me unless I’m playing background music at a restaurant.  Afterwards, we talked with the band a little and took a really awkward group photo with them while trying to convey that we were going to the promoters bar afterwards if they wanted to join us.

                Now, our hotel is walking distance to both the auditorium and the bar and I’m very, very sick.  I should go back and go to bed, right? I didn’t get any sleep the night before, so that would be the smart thing to do, but I don’t do it. I go out with Kevin and we stay out talking to a group of people our age who were at the show and recognized us.  The bartender kept giving us free beer and the night just flew by.  As the hours passed I talked so much Spanglish that by four thirty in the morning my voice was gone and I could barely stand up.  Kevin wasn’t in much better shape.  We stumbled back to the hotel. 

                Why did I do this?  Because I’m stubborn, that’s why.  I had already made up my mind that it was Friday night in a foreign country and I was going to have a good time come hell or high water.  It’s a character flaw really, and one that my ex-wife hated in particular.  Once I make up my mind that I’m doing something almost nothing can dissuade me.  That’s what I hate about being sick. It’s not the discomfort, (although that sucks) but it’s that it makes me alter my plans and keeps me from doing what I want to do.  I’ve always ignored illness because I would just rather brush it aside as if I just can’t be bothered with it.  One time I had ingrown toenails as a kid for over a year because I wouldn’t tell my mom about it since I knew this would result in a trip to the doctor.  I’m not scared of doctors, it just irks me to HAVE to go see one.  She finally asked why all my socks had blood on them and almost fainted when I showed her my feet. 

                So, I woke up feeling like absolute death on Saturday.  Not so much from a hangover, but mostly from party rocking too hard while sick.  The whole ride to Barcelona Kevin and I were miserable.

Barcelona itself was beautiful.  Driving through it you could see lots of cool art and architecture. We played a typical rock club and the crowd was a lot of fun.  The best part of the evening for me was getting to see some familiar faces.  Whit’s girlfriend and her family were in town on vacation and it just so happened to be her birthday.  I know Whit had been looking forward to exploring Barcelona with her since we left America and I was really happy for him.  Bj and I also had a friend of ours named Mikey from Raleigh come to the show that had been living here for several weeks.  He is a super cool dude and always a lot of fun.

It was great to see everyone even though I was feeling like crap.  Mikey invited us to go out with some Finnish friends that he had, and as much as I wanted to go; I just couldn’t.  We were all beat, but at this point I’m starting to think I have the flu.  We drove to our hotel which was about twenty minutes outside of town and crashed. 

                I slept until two in the afternoon.  When I say that I “slept” I mean that I tossed, turned, coughed, and got up to blow my nose for twelve hours.  I’m sure I was a joy to room with. We got up and went to a Chinese buffet that had some awesome seafood.  Then I went back to bed for six hours, got up, walked to McDonalds, and went right back to bed. That was my Sunday in Barcelona. Sad.

                Today I woke up fully convinced that I have the flu and that I may be dying.  On our way out of town we stopped to get lunch and I popped into a pharmacy to get some meds.  I must have picked some weird holistic medicine place because all they had was stupid natural stuff. I tried to convey to the woman that I had the flu and she gave me all sorts of root extracts and other bullshit. I need something that will make me trip my balls off if I take too much of it.  I want something synthesized in a lab.  I want something heavy duty.  I want some Tussin. 

                We take a detour after crossing into France to see another Cathedral.  At this point I am too sick to give a shit about any cathedral, but I do think it’s very funny that in the brief time we were there Bj got shushed by one old lady and Ryan got told to take off his hat by another.  We are American Tourist D-bags.  On the bright side, while I was there I found another pharmacy and got some legit meds.  I’m hoping they work. 

                We made it to our stopping point in Montpellier for the night and I pumped myself full of my new medicine.  I’ve basically wasted two days of being in Europe because I got sidelined by the flu.  Not cool. Hopefully I wake up tomorrow and feel better for our show in France.

GOODBYE SPAIN, HELLO FLU

                Because of our frolic on the beach in the morning we were late getting to our show in Orihuela that night.  Marco assures us that it will be fine though.  He has worked with the promoter before and says he is a cool guy.  When we arrive I almost think we are at the wrong place. It’s a beautiful theater located in the heart of downtown.  Its big backstage area allowed for several Spinal Tap moments with each of us clamoring to find our way to the bathrooms, the stage, or the bar. 

                We played with a Spanish band called Logan who were very nice, played very Spanish music, and spoke very little English.  They sounded good in sound check and I wanted to stick around to see their set, but we had to go get dinner.  It was another tapas place with lots of wine and the only notable thing I ate that I really enjoyed was the main course of cuddlefish.  I had never had it before and it was excellent.

                We went back to the auditorium, caught a bit of the openers set, drank some pre show beers, and played a really good set to a lot of people. They were seated people though, which is always weird for me unless I’m playing background music at a restaurant.  Afterwards, we talked with the band a little and took a really awkward group photo with them while trying to convey that we were going to the promoters bar afterwards if they wanted to join us.

                Now, our hotel is walking distance to both the auditorium and the bar and I’m very, very sick.  I should go back and go to bed, right? I didn’t get any sleep the night before, so that would be the smart thing to do, but I don’t do it. I go out with Kevin and we stay out talking to a group of people our age who were at the show and recognized us.  The bartender kept giving us free beer and the night just flew by.  As the hours passed I talked so much Spanglish that by four thirty in the morning my voice was gone and I could barely stand up.  Kevin wasn’t in much better shape.  We stumbled back to the hotel. 

                Why did I do this?  Because I’m stubborn, that’s why.  I had already made up my mind that it was Friday night in a foreign country and I was going to have a good time come hell or high water.  It’s a character flaw really, and one that my ex-wife hated in particular.  Once I make up my mind that I’m doing something almost nothing can dissuade me.  That’s what I hate about being sick. It’s not the discomfort, (although that sucks) but it’s that it makes me alter my plans and keeps me from doing what I want to do.  I’ve always ignored illness because I would just rather brush it aside as if I just can’t be bothered with it.  One time I had ingrown toenails as a kid for over a year because I wouldn’t tell my mom about it since I knew this would result in a trip to the doctor.  I’m not scared of doctors, it just irks me to HAVE to go see one.  She finally asked why all my socks had blood on them and almost fainted when I showed her my feet. 

                So, I woke up feeling like absolute death on Saturday.  Not so much from a hangover, but mostly from party rocking too hard while sick.  The whole ride to Barcelona Kevin and I were miserable.

Barcelona itself was beautiful.  Driving through it you could see lots of cool art and architecture. We played a typical rock club and the crowd was a lot of fun.  The best part of the evening for me was getting to see some familiar faces.  Whit’s girlfriend and her family were in town on vacation and it just so happened to be her birthday.  I know Whit had been looking forward to exploring Barcelona with her since we left America and I was really happy for him.  Bj and I also had a friend of ours named Mikey from Raleigh come to the show that had been living here for several weeks.  He is a super cool dude and always a lot of fun.

It was great to see everyone even though I was feeling like crap.  Mickey invited us to go out with some Finnish friends that he had, and as much as I wanted to go; I just couldn’t.  We were all beat, but at this point I’m starting to think I have the flu.  We drove to our hotel which was about twenty minutes outside of town and crashed. 

                I slept until two in the afternoon.  When I say that I “slept” I mean that I tossed, turned, coughed, and got up to blow my nose for twelve hours.  I’m sure I was a joy to room with. We got up and went to a Chinese buffet that had some awesome seafood.  Then I went back to bed for six hours, got up, walked to McDonalds, and went right back to bed. That was my Sunday in Barcelona. Sad.

                Today I woke up fully convinced that I have the flu and that I may be dying.  On our way out of town we stopped to get lunch and I popped into a pharmacy to get some meds.  I must have picked some weird holistic medicine place because all they had was stupid natural stuff. I tried to convey to the woman that I had the flu and she gave me all sorts of root extracts and other bullshit. I need something that will make me trip my balls off if I take too much of it.  I want something synthesized in a lab.  I want something heavy duty.  I want some Tussin. 

                We take a detour after crossing into France to see another Cathedral.  At this point I am too sick to give a shit about any cathedral, but I do think it’s very funny that in the brief time we were there Bj got shushed by one old lady and Ryan got told to take off his hat by another.  We are American Tourist D-bags.  On the bright side, while I was there I found another pharmacy and got some legit meds.  I’m hoping they work. 

                We made it to our stopping point in Montpellier for the night and I pumped myself full of my new medicine.  I’ve basically wasted two days of being in Europe because I got sidelined by the flu.  Not cool. Hopefully I wake up tomorrow and feel better for our show in France.

TOPLESS BEACHES: NOT AS COOL AS ONE WOULD HOPE

                I had noticed the day before that if I walked down tranny hooker alley and took a right on the corner of Rape and Stab that there was a Starbucks.  That’s right. Good old American Starbucks.  Now to anyone who is poo pooing me right now, let me tell you that I have had a ton of good and pretentious espressos, cappuccinos, lattes, and French press coffee to boot.  Sometimes you just want to go get a quad venti cappuccino and face fuck yourself with it.  Try walking into any European coffee shop and tell them you want a cappuccino with four shots of espresso in it.  First of all, they won’t even have a big enough cup to put it in.  Secondly, they will immediately think you are a total douche bag (which is pretty much the case).  Marco gave me grief one time for ordering my coffee with dinner as opposed to afterwards for the love of god!  Only at Starbucks is this order totally acceptable and not (openly at least) frowned upon. 

                After my caffeine fix Marco picked us up and we all left for Estepona.  It’s a beautiful town right on the Mediterranean where many German and English people retire to.  I noticed lot of beautiful hillside condos overlooking giant golf courses on the way in.  It’s the first time that any of us have seen the Mediterranean and we actually got pretty excited about it.  This tour stop is as close as we will be to Africa and I was hoping to go see the rock of Gibraltar, but Marco says it’s too far. I’ll have to settle for hanging out on the beautiful beach instead.

                The venue was an over the top American style rock and roll bar named Louie Louie.  It had paintings of cartoonish looking hot rods all over the front of it.  The drivers all looked like various takes on a skinny Guy Fieri and the passengers were either other rockers playing guitars or big boobied ladies straight off a Big Johnson t shirt.  It was small, but had lots of character and was completely out of place in this resort town. It honestly would have fit in better in Myrtle Beach. 

                They fed us at a tapas bar right across the pedestrian-only street.  The first courses were potato salad and Russian salad.  I had never had Russian salad before.  It looked like potato salad, but was covered in roasted red and green peppers and had tuna in it too.  Then he brought out Paella! I was excited because not only was that the one thing I wanted to eat here, but I didn’t even have to pay for it.  It was really good.  I’m sure it would have been much better if I had it somewhere other than a tapas bar, but I can’t complain.  The next course was fried potatoes and pork chops.  We stuff ourselves and then went to the bars flat where bands stay.  It was a small apartment on top of the club that overlooked the pedestrian walk way and the tapas bar.  The exit was on the other side of the building and it opened right to their “boardwalk” and then onto the beach.  We couldn’t ask for better accommodations.

                The show was PACKED with lots of people! They sent shots to the stage, they were loud and drunk, and it reminded us of home.  There was even someone from Bristol there so we got to hear a southern accent for once.  As much fun as it was, I was really starting to feel bad so I went up to the flat.  I tried to fall asleep to the sounds of people hanging out in the street below, but I couldn’t.  It felt like a horse was sitting on my chest.  I just kept weezing and gurgling every time I tried to breathe.  I felt bad for the other guys because I was constantly coughing up a lung in the bathroom.  I think I finally fell asleep around five.

                I woke up still horribly sick.  Because it was so beautiful out I tried to go for a run on the beach.  After a half mile I gave up and turned around to walk back.  It was hot, I felt like shit, I couldn’t breath, and I had already seen way too many disgusting old women sunbathing topless in such a short distance.  We had seen some topless French sunbathers when we almost killed ourselves climbing over that dune, but this was different.  It was like a retirement community had broken out of their low security homes and were waiting for death on the beach or something.  I tried to go back to bed, but images of golf balls in tube socks haunted me.  When the rest of the guys woke up we went down to the beach and a couple of us got in the cold water.  I stuck my feet in which officially marks “swim in the Mediterranean” off of my bucket list. Score. We then packed up and got breakfast at the tapas place from the night before. I got octopus.  I’ve never had tentacles for breakfast so now I get to check two things off the bucket list in one day.  We say our goodbyes and leave for Orihuela.

APPARENTLY "RAPEY" ISN'T A WORD. #ITSHOULDBE

                Being sick on tour absolutely sucks.  When you tour as much as I do then it’s bound to happen.  We have all had our bouts of illness while on the road and it’s never fun.  One time Ryan developed some kind of cist on his tail bone that made him look like he was growing a tail.  It was the size of an egg and was excruciatingly painful for him.  He could barely walk and certainly couldn’t sit down.  None of us had health insurance at the time and when it just kept getting worse he was really close to letting me lance it open with a razor blade.   Thankfully his family doctor agreed to see him “on the down low” so to speak and removed it for him free of charge.  I was kind of disappointed that I wasn’t going to get to try my hand at third world surgery, but I knew it was for the best.

                I woke up in A Coruña feeling tried and lazy.  I just figured it was the coffee moonshine in combination with late nights, three weeks of no exercise, and my horrible diet here in Europe.  We had a long drive to Madrid that day so I said “fuck it” and made every gas station candy isle my bitch that day.  We stopped at a lot of gas stations…

                Madrid is a beautiful city.  The downtown area reminded me a little of New York, but certainly not as big.  There were lots of lights, ads, and a general hustle and bustle to it that I really enjoy.  We also noticed an abundance of beautiful Spanish women.  We enjoyed that too.  At least we were relatively sure they were pretty. You can lose your bearings on that sort of thing after three weeks of being cooped up in a van with five other smelly guys.

                The club was the Wurlitzer ballroom.  They really were being overly gracious when they tacked on the whole “ballroom” thing.  It was a dirty rock club that was perfect for us.  The promoter was a gregarious guy with a really unique accent.  I had noticed a place that had Paella across the street.  One of the things I wanted to do in Spain was to eat some really authentic Paella.  I’ve had it once or twice, but I really wanted to try authentic Paella in Spain.  He tells me never to get it at a place that says PAELLA anywhere out front, and he says I should probably get it when I get back to the shore.  I was expecting that answer.  I thanked him and we had our old stand by (the Gyro) for dinner.

                We stayed at the Hostel Tokio, which was walking distance from the club.  I for one was hoping that it would be in the Asian part of town based on the name; however that was not the case.  The entrance was a discreet iron-clad door on a side street that should have been named the Spanish translation of “tranny hooker alley,” because that’s what it was.  As we walked in to this creepy old building I was sure that this was it… We had met our doom.  This had to be the point where all along we find out this tour is a sham and Marco is selling us into sexual slavery.  We trudged up some stairs to what I’m convinced is going to be some sort of rapey sex dungeon.  Surprisingly, when the door opened there was a sweet old Spanish lady sitting behind a desk in a well lit, clean, and nicely furnished lobby.  Inside the Hostel wasn’t sketchy at all.  Appearances can be deceiving here in Madrid. 

                The show was similar to the past few nights.  Small club, small but really enthusiastic crowd, and genuinely great people...  I continued to feel worse and worse though.  My stomach hurt from all the shit I ate, my chest was starting to become congested, sinus pressure, headache, and oh yeah my eye starts hurting.  Needless to say, after the show I made the trek back to tranny hooker alley and went to bed early.

                When I work up I knew for a fact I was sick.  All the symptoms of the prior night were compounded and there is no denying that I have an eye infection. Awesome.  Today is gonna rule.

AA GOES TO CHURCH.

                Our Monday night was spent in the port city of Vigo, Spain.  It reminds me a little of San Francisco.  The narrow streets, extremely steep hills, and confusing traffic patterns are not only part of the resemblance, but they are also a huge source of frustration for Marco as he tries to navigate them with our Sprinter.  Marco finally just parks it on a curb (this seems to be a common practice in Europe) between the club and our hotel, which are conveniently only a block away from each other. 

                The bed and breakfast that we are staying at isn’t open when we get there and neither is the club.  In fact, nothing is open.  The whole block seems to be shut down.  Most spaces are occupied by bars that won’t open until later in the evening.  I’ve learned that Spaniards are even more of night owls than I had always thought.  The cities really don’t come alive until well into the evening.  I walked around a little bit, trying to get to higher ground for better views of the harbor until the club opened.

                Load in was gruesome.  Due to the narrow street situation we had to carry our gear up a steep hill for a city block and then up a flight of stairs into the club.  My speaker cabinet is the size of a refrigerator and the handle placement makes it twice as awkward than one.  It’s like wrestling with a grizzly bear every night.  We setup, sound checked, had a few beers, had some dinner, and then I walked down to the bed and breakfast to relax for a bit.

                When it was time for the show I walked back to the club and saw that we were going to be playing to what was probably the smallest group of the tour.  It was about as many people as we played to in Bilbao, but the room was much smaller so it at least felt better.  I looked around and guys had on shirts of bands that we liked on them.  I saw shirts from Drive by Truckers, Marah, and a few others.  It ended up being such a fun night!  The people that were there were so much fun.  They sang along, they danced, they requested songs, and overall just had such a great energy about them.  After the show I think almost every person bought a shirt and got us to sign it.  We took pictures and hung out.  It was so much fun.  I would rather play to small groups that really appreciate what we are doing than play to a larger group that doesn’t care.

                The next day we only had a two hour drive to A Coruña so we stopped on the way in Santiago de Compostela.  It’s a college town that also happens to have a giant cathedral that is said to house the remains of St. James (brother of Jesus/noted Muslim killer).  It was beautiful.  I took a lot of really bad pictures like a typical tourist as we walked all around the grounds and went into the cathedral.  The surrounding area had a lot of small seafood restaurants that had tank brimming with shellfish of all kinds.  Is it culturally insensitive to say that this interested me far more than the church? We killed about two hours and no one burst into flames upon entering the church.  I found some scaffolding and did some pull ups.  Not too shabby I suppose. Church was never my thing.

                After getting our culture for the day we finished our drive to A Coruña.  It’s a beautiful town that forms a semi circle around a bay.  In the center is a sandy beach and as you get closer to the open ocean the shoreline becomes more rocky and steep.  Our hotel is right on the bay by the western side of the sandy beach.  Even with our detour to see good old St. James we still had about two hours to kill before going to the club.  I should have gone running, but I just relaxed instead.

                A scary looking dude in a Johnny Cash shirt greeted us when we arrived.  His English is relatively good and he asks if we want something to drink.  When I ask for a coffee he starts laughing and giving me shit saying “This is rock and roll club, man.  No coffee… no chips…. No candy….  Hahaha” Well fuck it then; I guess I’ll have a beer.  After sound check he says if I like coffee then he has something for us.  He pulls out this big corked glass bottle with a thick black liquid in it that was obviously not bought in a store.  He tells us “This is some illegal shit man….”  What it turned out to be was a type of moonshine made from coffee.  He says it’s best to sip it and that it’s the worst hangover you can ever imagine.  I believe it.  The one tiny glass was not only sweet enough to make you want to immediately brush your teeth, but it was enough to make you instantly buzzed and warm all over.

                The promoter took us to dinner at a hamburger place.  I was excited to get some burgers over here since every night we have been in Spain chorizo has been on the menu.  I ordered the combination that read: hamberguesas, huevos, patatas, y ensalada.  I figured it would be two regular hamburgers, two eggs, French fries and a salad.  What I got was two hamburger patties (no bun), with two eggs, French fries, and lettuce, onion, and tomato on the side.  It was an odd combination, but it was good.  Afterwards, the promoter took us to a place that was definitely a gay bar for coffee.  No one in American Aquarium is homophobic at all so we had a good time, but you can only imagine how badly we stood out and some of the looks we got.  I know enough Spanish to know that we were the topic of conversation for everyone at the bar.

                The show was similar to the night before.  Small crowd, great people, and this was the second night in a row that people were singing along to new songs that you can only find on youtube.  One thing lots of people don’t realize is how good the bands view of is the crowd from onstage.  We can see a lot depending on the lighting and the size of the place.  Often times we are watching the crowd just as much as the crowd is watching us.  For whatever reason sometimes people will try to sing along when they obviously don’t know the words or will try to pick up on the chorus by the end of the song, but that was not the case this time.  Many of these people were actually singing songs that won’t be released until later this year.  It’s a good feeling.

                After the show I had some more of the coffee moonshine and beer until we went back to our hotel and went to bed.  I planned on getting up early and going for a run on the beach, but I stayed up too late and decided to sleep in instead.  So much for the beautiful scenery…  Next Blog post: Dear God I’m Getting Fat.