Hello friends,
It's Rymo here again with my post tour / end of the year wrap up. The last few months have absolutely flown by and all of a sudden the holidaze are upon us again. Where does the time go? More appropriately, time DOES fly when you are having fun traveling, performing and hanging out with your friends. I'll look back on our last run with the Aggrolites and beyond. This tour took us on a whirlwind pace across the US and over to the Netherlands, covering over 15,000 miles in 15 days (daze). Pretty nuts. Lots of great shows and time zones and climates and airplanes and...you get the picture. We started in Aspen, CO at the Belly Up. Though the snow season had yet to begin, we had a sold out show, and got to see the Aggrolites perform. They killed it as they did every single night. On to the Ogden Theater in Denver. Night 2. Another solid sold out show. Definitely cool outside with thin air. I feel like this show was one of the best performances of the tour. The band was totally focused and the song selection was on. We had some of our friends from the Denver Broncos there to rep. On to Omaha, NE. We have graduated from the downstairs sweat room to the venue upstairs. Find some decent food around the spot and spend the day at the hotel. We partied with the A-lite boys into the night and put some sauce down! BUZZIN'! Next stop Lawrence, KS at the Liberty Hall. I had a cup of coffee in the morning at this great little cafe down the street from the venue. The place had a cereal bar. Classic. You can order up to three cereals with different toppings and choice of milk too. Cool. I had some life cereal with bananas and soy milk and a huge cup of caffeine. Lawrence is great because it's a college town, and the club is on the strip with food and shop options. I found a great trail and ran for an hour to get the blood pumping. We had another solid show and then did the usual liver and kidney damage with the A-lites. Yes, we have a fun job. I pinch myself sometimes. What? I do. On to Milwaukee. The Rave has been good to us over the years. We have been going there often over the years and this visit was our biggest yet. We sold over 2,000 tickets. The crowd was going off and I feel like we delivered a high energy set. The room is a bit of an echo chamber. High ceilings and non sound absorbing materials make for a sometimes difficult sound experience. The hotel across the street is called the Ambassador and is infamous from the days of Jeffrey Dahmer, who used to live there. It's been totally overhauled and has great food and a good gym (most hotels don't).
The sets have been a rotation of the oldest to the newest including the stuff in between. Most nights we did officer, ese loco, collie man, i would do 4 u, mellow moods, i don't wanna hear it, wize man, comb 4 my dome, stone saga, jet plane, babylon reggae into babylon punk, delroy/digital, 2am, runnin' with a gun, the way you move, if this world were mine and more... Less often we did ocean, serious man, fat spliffs, metal militia, violence and more....
After a two day break we continued on to Columbus, OH. We did the Newport Music Hall. Dela and I found this burger spot that was awesome. Old style cheezburgers and hand made fries. I felt like a bloated mess when we walked back to the venue. It's hard to play drums when you are full and feel like a blimp. It's like running a marathon after a steak dinner! Not gonna happen. Next stop Cleveland, OH. The House of Blues has always been good to us. And fortunately for us there's an awesome irish pub right next door. That means after the show, guinness pints will be had! By the dozen. On to NYC. Always one of our favorite places to play. You can walk for 5 minutes and choose from 20 restaurants of various kinds. Some of the guys have friends and family there too, so there's usually a good after party. We played Terminal 5, a club right on the waterfront in midtown Manhattan on west 57th St. This club is essentially a newer and slightly smaller and cleaner version of the Roseland theater. On to Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel in Providence. Last time we played here was Halloween 08 to a mad house crowd. This show was as crowded but a bit more tame. Caddy corner from Lupo's is a great pub/restaurant called Murphy's. Literally the best corned beef reuben I have ever had. Amazing food. For our last U.S. show of the tour, we hooked up with 311 in Atlantic City, NJ. We played a hall called the Borgata Event Center. It was slammin! We played for about 45 minutes and then gave the stage to 311. I was stoked to have some time chatting with Chad Sexton their drummer. We were talking shop for a bit and hanging out. He's a cool dude and great drummer. I watched most of the show from the side of the stage. I had a few beers and went to the employee diner for a lite dinner. We headed off to our hotel in Newark and prepped for a flight to Amsterdam. 7 flight hours later and now 6 forward in time zone changes, our heads were spinning! We were picked up by the Lemon Haze mobile at 6 am. Everyone scattered and did their own thing that day. I slept all day. Woke up at 9pm and started walking to find some dinner. I met the boys at the Melkweg Club, where we were playing the following night. We watched Yellowman crush it. Not only was the band dope, but Yellow was dropping wisdom and consciousness and positivity and love. It was amazing. My first Yellow experience. I went to the other room and saw Gomez play for a bit too. They were cool. They covered a Zeppelin tune called Bron y aur, a more obscure tune. Definitely fun. I met the boys at a coffee shop on harlemserstraat later and that's about all I remember from that night...
The flight home was brutal. 8 hours to Detroit, only to get rolled by CBP. Our friends and yours, CUSTOMS BORDER PATROL! It sucked. Without mentioning names and going in to detail, we got f'd. Several searches and citations later, we sat fuming at the bar by our departure gate to SD. I was exhausted and talking to myself "almost home, must...stay....calm....you...can...do....it...." Straight into thanksgiving!
Thursday, December 10th Kyle, Dela and I did Loveline with Dr. Drew on KROQ in LA. He's a cool guy, very smart and a strong presence. We got some waaaaaay out calls. I think KROQ has an archive. Listen and laugh...or cry...or just laugh. We had a blast. A few days later, as in the day before yesterday, we played KROQ's Almost Acoustic Christmas show. It was awesome. Amazing line ups both nights. We played on night two. We did a 30 minute set, and toward the end brought our friend Beardo up to join us for the blowout rendition of his tune '24 hour party', youtube it. Muse, 311, The Bravery and others were there on our night. The night before had AFI, Alice in Chains and others. COOL!!!
And that's where it ends...for now! We are home for the holidaze and hope you can be too. Stoopid had an amazing year, and I'm stoked to be along for the ride. Lift your glasses up... a toast to the future! 2010's looking good.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Slightly Stoopid!
Rymo, Kyle, Miles, OG, C-money, Dela, and Crew
