Thursday, September 22
Had a really fun gig at Naked Lounge tonight. I had talked with Russ Rankin awhile back about us playing a Sacto show together and was able to out this together, along with my pal Steve Price. I was a bit nervous because I knew were up against a couple of big shows (Cute Lepers at Luigi’s; local Buddy Holly tribute at Harlows), on top of the fact that there was a hardcore show going on in the building next door to Naked, but we pulled in a decent crowd and the show was really fun.
Steve opened. It was his first solo show ever and i thought he pulled off a really fun, very endearing set.
Russ came on next and like Steve, played an electric guitar through an amp for his ‘acoustic’ set. He did very well. Great songs, great voice, great set.
I was stoked to get to play with my buddy Brent Wiggans on drums again. He’s a good dude and drummer and he’s one of those guys who plays so intuitively, it’s scary. I had a lot of fun playing but could tell that my brain was elsewhere at various points, mainly just the fact that I’m going to Philly and playing with 7Secs this weekend.
Friday, September 23
I was happy I didn’t have an early flight out of town like I always do. I got up and drove Al and he car into the shop to have some repairs done and then we drove me to the airport for my 2pm flight.
I didn’t get great sleep last night so I managed to sneak in some snoozing on the flight to Chicago. Once in Chicago, i had just enough time to grab a snack and a Gatorade before catching my flight to Philly. We were delayed by almost an hour so I wasn’t sure where the boys would be at the airport (as they were flying in from Reno) when i got in. We managed to find each other and found the shuttle bus that got us to out hotel which was maybe 5 minutes away.
The Aloft hotel is pretty cool and VERY European, or even Japanese, in it’s overall feel. Steve and Bobby took one room, Troy and I in the other and we commenced to goofing around, eating pizza, watching yet another Lockup marathon on MSNBC and resting up for our big day tomorrow.
Saturday, September 24
We knew our set time was around 5:40pm so we didn’t rush getting over to Festival Pier at Penn’s Landing, the site where this year’s Riot Fest East was taking place. Not because we didn’t want to see the bands who played early but mostly because of the Philly humidity.
We ended up taking a cab over and the second we hopped out of the cab, people, fans came up and talked to us. It was pretty fucking great hearing some of the wonderful things people were saying to us. You tell yourself that stuff like that doesn’t really matter but, it does. It definitely does, especially at this stage of our ‘career’.
We checked in with the festival people, got our passes and meal tickets and almost immediately, ran into longtime friends Cliff and Maria Hopkins. It’s ALWAYS great to see these 2 and it instantly put me in a great mood.
I caught big chunks of Weston’s and Samiam’s sets (both really good) before heading over to the tent stage to start stretching and preparing for our set. Along the way, ran into various old East Coast pals, as well as Kate Hiltz (Bouncing Souls’ amazing go-to human), Chuck Ragan (Hot Water Music), Jason Navarro (Suicide Machines and Mike & Dan (current Heels/former Pagan Babies).
The tent filled up impressively and, by the time we hit the stage, had become one gigantic drippy sauna. I don’t know how many people we played in front of because I’ve never been good at guessing that but it was in the thousands! The response we got the second we hit the stage was pretty mind-blowing and touching, I must say.
We knew we had 30 minutes to play so we banged through it and didn’t do a whole lot of talking in between. The energy and enthusiasm of the huge crowd was excellent, especially considering the punishing heat and humidity. I LOVED this show. Probably my favorite ones in YEARS. No kidding.
Watched sets by Naked Raygun, Suicide Machines, Plow United, Hot Water Music, Dead Milkman and X before making my way to the massive main stage area and finding a great spot to watch The Descendents, directly behind Bill Stevenson on the mammoth main stage. Everybody turned in EXCELLENT sets (Hot Water, particularly) but I have to admit, seeing The Descendents, after many years of not getting to, and all of their fans (pretty much EVERYBODY, including EVERY band member from bands that played and some (Rise Against) who didn’t, gave me slight goosebumps. The crowd seemed to have tripled in size by the time they took the stage. The band played a solidly fantastic, hour-long set and everyone had smiles and rocked to pretty much every song.
After it was all over, Cliff and Maria kindly offered to give us a ride back to our hotel in their mini-van and, after gathering our stuff, we made our way through the large crowd, stopping for pics, autographs and friendly chit-chat. It took us about an hour to even get out of the pier parking lot. We got back to the hotel around midnight, all of us still abuzz from the evening’s excellence.
I knew my flight left at 6 the next morning (with Steve, Troy and Bobby’s leaving an hour later) so I figured it made more sense to just stay up all night and catch the 4:30am shuttle to the airport. It was tough but I did it.
Sunday, September 25
On the first leg of my trip home (Philly to Dallas), I ended up in a window seat at the very back of what looked and seemed like an older MD-80 plane, with the extremely loud and noisy engine sitting right up against my window. The thing rattled and vibrated my brains so much, I was becoming nauseous and slightly dizzy-feeling during the 3 plus hour flight. It was a huge relief when I was able to get an aisle seat at the front of the plane on my flight from Dallas to Sacramento.
I got into Sacto just before noon and Al (with our dogs Lulu and Hank in tow) picked me up and dropped me off at my car which was parked at the gym where she works. I drove home in the hot sun, got home, kissed my cat Gigi and before really getting a chance to think about the amazing Philly trip, I fell to the bed and crashed out for hours and hours.
Thank you Philadelphia, Riot Fest people and everyone who made our weekend so near-perfect.
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