The U.S.A. Tour Part 1 (Tulsa, Fayetteville, Nashville, St. Louis, Minneapolis)
I’m going to try for a recap here.. I’m very sleep deprived so I apologize in advance for any rambling.. but basically, we have the first 5 shows under our belt now and so far things are going well on the road through the U.S.A. We are riding together with fellow label mate band I:Scintilla and they are all really great people which works out since we are stuck in a big van together for the next 3 months. To kick off this tour, I got my merchandise of a whole whack of “Hearts For Bullets” finally in my hand which is pretty much like Christmas for me to have the finished packaged product in my hand after 2 years of hard work on it.

First stop Tulsa (OK) where we met up with my drummer Mike who flew in from Seattle and also with the Cruxshadows who we hadn’t seen for a year and a half so it was nice to see the familiar faces and the new people who are all so nice and adorable! The show in Tulsa had a much bigger venue than we played last time and there was quite a large crowd for our debut show on this tour. It was great to see some familiar faces there and we were happy to talk with so many people after the show too.

Second was Fayetteville (AK) with a smaller, but really swank venue with a great back room for us bands to chill out in. This was also the first show I can ever remember where the meal provided to us was sushi and Thai – my absolute favourites! I wouldn’t really expect to get that all the time of course, so when I do, it was greatly welcomed!

Next was on to Nashville (TN) where we played the same venue we did last time around which made me happy since I remembered where a really awesome coffee shop was just near there and I got my first latte of the tour. Being a caffeine freak, this was a much needed discovery for me. Believe it or not, we have not found one Starbucks near the venues we’ve been playing at yet! Hah. Anyways, the crowd was great for us there this time around too and we were happy to have gotten back there.

The fourth stop so far was St. Louis (MO), a place I’d never played before and after some technical glitches from the sound guy got worked out after our first track (sorry everyone), the show went well and people were dancing (so that’s always a good sign!) and everyone we talked to after the show were all forgiving of the glitches. Since we had our first day off after this show, I:scintilla and us took the chance to celebrate a bit with some drinks and dancing after the show and met some very interesting people that night too. Great looking venue too.

Minneapolis (MN) came next and completely blew me away. We played a great set, the band has found our groove and we are becoming a cohesive machine onstage. The venue was crazy nice and large. Last time we played this city, it was colder than Antarctica so this warm weather was a welcome change… also, I found an awesome café and had a vanilla latte. Small comforts really make your day on the road.

So, all in all, the tour is going over well. We are still breaking in our new keyboardist Jeff who is ramping up quickly and getting used to tour life on the road with us. He’s doing just fine though and has been a good addition to the line up and a very good roadie (poor guy). The new tracks we are playing in the set are going over so well too. I honestly wish we could play the full new CD on this tour since I’m so excited about them, but of course, we have to accommodate the older songs still too and we only have so much time in a set! I am thinking of a small set change to work in another one of the new tracks but we’ll see ;)

Chicago tomorrow night is next. This is I:Scintilla’s home town so we currently have a bit of down time to chill with them, do laundry and probably go to a club called Neo tonight! I’ll update again shortly and hopefully with pictures next time.

Jennifer