So I guess we haven’t talked since Boston. That’s sad huh? Well we’ve missed y’all too. Well Boston was killer. Great crowd that really seemed to be hanging on tight to all 3 bands. We ended the night with Us, Dawn and her band, the Isbell’s, 2/3 of Son Volt and Josh Ritter all doing “Ooh La La.” Damn good fun. We load out and prepare to celebrate a bit only to watch our bus and all of our gear get stolen. Driven right away. We’re stranded in the freezing cold with no coats, no wallets or money, no ids,NOTHING. I spend the next 8 hours trying to negotiate to get our gear back from a digruntled ex-employee and not get the damn cops involved. We get about 20 minutes sleep before renting a mini van and trying to get to NYC. Quite a task with no cash. Luckily our ‘old pal’ decides to let us get our gear back and we decide to rent a Uhaul to prevent any further complications with the old bus. NYC went well. Great seeing all the Ryko folks. They’re really more like family than record biz people and dammit we like that. Finished up and headed through the snow to DC. 9:30 Club is just the best. Might’ve been the best night of the tour for all three bands at one show. Found killer late night Chinese and hit the hotel. Charlottesville was a new club for us but the response was wonderful. Thanks to everyone there for giving us a place to look forward to coming back to. Post show headed back to Nashville to return our mama-taxi and moving van. This week we opted for the ol’ 15 passenger van and Uhaul trailer. Great night in Columbia SC on Tuesday. At least the music part anyhow. Our lovely Uhaul sliding door won’t open or close. Or if you wanna be positive it WILL do a little of both. We finally get it ‘fixed’ and get to the hotel for about two hours sleep before the odd trans gendered latino sling blade fucker at the front desk starts calling us at 10 to check out when we’ve got a 1 o’clock check out. Bad start to a worse day. We then get 100 miles from Athens and the rental van breaks down. I call the rental guy and he asks me the standard laundry list of questions. Yes, no, yes, no, etc. He proceeds to tell me that the fuel indicator usually reads about 1/4 of a tank off. OOOOOOHHHH!! Well that would’ve been nice to know beforehand. Oh well, we call AAA. They’ll be there in 20 minutes. An hour and 45 minutes later they get there after getting lost TWICE!! Get gas and get our asses to the Georgia Theater. Hurrying like hell to get loaded in and Blade’s bass head and my amp roll down a ramp and smash my hand against a wall. PERFECT!! I’m pissed and hurt but we get our shit together for a mini-soundcheck. Ok, go to 5 StarDay Cafe because hopefully turnip greens will help. Dawn said she had a rough night on stage and the second we walked onstage we knew why. The sound fucking sucked ass. Constant feedback through the entire first song. We play it off and try to get back on track. It gets progressively WORSE through the whole set. We pride ourselves on being a band that can kind of rise above any situation but this one really got us. We sucked. I was mortified. I hate it for the fans that pay their hard earned money to see us and the best we can give them is a C grade show. It’s insulting!! Not to mention people seeing us for the first time that think that we might just be the worst band ever. The club tried to be nice and apologize but that just didn’t work. We all went to bed defeated. I got about an hour and a half sleep and got to the van at 6:30 to leave for a noon radio performance in Knoxville. I just couldn’t do it. So I decide to email Doug my manager to let him know. He’s in LA and I don’t wanna wake him up again at 3am with this shit. Of course in this comedy of errors he doesn’t get the email. The station is PISSED!! Understably so. We cancelled once before right after my son was born and here we go cancelling again. And of course it never happens when its the half-ass bullshit college station that can’t pronounce my name. It happens when it’s this killer americana station that helped our album make the top 10. And our promotions girl Leslie who has worked her ass off to get this station involved and convinced people who said our record would not work, she got them to pay attention and now I’m fucking her over too! So goddam I’m hoping this shit turns the fuck around. So here’s one more reason to come to the shows it’s either gonna be a mother fucker of a show or you’ll be able to say you saw the last show before my nervous breakdown. I feel like I should be on TMZ if they followed people without money or commercial success. It would be easier at times if we could fake this but we can’t. Here’s hoping for a few rays of sunshine and a couple hours sleep!!
Comments:
3/20/2008 By: joe williams
Yeah, the sound was bad at the Ga Theatre, but you admit you did a mini soundcheck, and you were a total bitch about it onstage. That did it for me Will Hoge. I will never give a shit about you again because you acted like a whiney bitch. It was a moment of intensity,,, you had to do something about the feedback, but your approach showed your character, and your character sucks.
3/7/2008 By: Stephan
P.S. good catch with the mic stand
3/7/2008 By: Stephan
Sounds like you got your hands full man! Although there’s a ton of drama goin’ on you still seem to be able to rock the house! Cleveland was killer (drove from Pittsburgh just to see it). Looking forward bigtime to Club Cafe in the ‘Burgh cuz it’s such an amazing venue to hear you guys at! Keep up the rock n’ roll and don’t let bad spirits get you down!
3/5/2008 By: Kim
Will- saw you play in Columbia, and despite all the trouble you say you’d had, you were amazing and I had a blast! I can’t wait to see you play again. I became an even bigger fan of yours after I saw you live!
3/3/2008 By: Matt
Awesome show saturday in Nashville! I brought two friends that had never been to one of your shows before and both of them loved it. I can’t wait for the next show!
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