| Andrew's Tour Diary- November 2001 Page 2 |
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| Elbows McGhee behind the wheel. |
| 11/14/2001: Cleveland, OH. Last night’s show was at a club called Speak in Tongues. Not much of a turn out, unless you count the bums that came in. But more on them later. Didn’t end up going to the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame. Instead, we went straight to the club and tried to find some food. My Dad warned me about Cleveland. The part of town we were in was pretty shady. I remember driving by one house where some kids were outside hanging out, and they flipped us off. Everyone had a chip on their shoulder. Pretty intense. After searching long and hard and having several run-ins with the locals, we found a place to eat. The Pavers hung out in their RV and ate peanut butter sandwiches. We ended up at this way creepy diner called Steve’s or something like that. It was run by a dysfunctional family. The woman making soup was coughing into it, the guy taking orders was messing up left and right, and the woman doing the cooking was . . . scary. The only thing I dared to eat was a plate of fries. Got out of there as quick as possible. While I was there, Brian from the Unknown, the other band on the bill, called me. He said he’d put us and the Pavers up for the night and asked if we would want some food. Of course! After load-in, it’s determined that the Unknown will headline and we’ll go on first, with the Pavers in the middle. While we’re setting up, this bum that looks like Ted Nugent crossed with Charles Manson comes in and asks when we’re playing. Brent tells him when we’re going on and he says he’ll come back. We don’t think much else of it. So, we go on, and Ted Manson shows up just in time to catch our whole set. He rocks out and headbangs while we’re playing. We played a better set than the last show, and kept in the tradition of a cover as the closer. This time, we played Motorhead’s “Ace of Spades” and dedicated it to the Pavers. After we played, I went over to visit Colleen, who was on tour with us selling the Pavers merch and ours, too. Ted Manson had started hanging out over there, but he took off to watch the Pavers set. Of course, they played an amazing set. I watched a few songs of the Unknown’s set. They were great. Very melodic and energetic. When I went back to the merch booth, Ted Manson was over there and had a Reno Divorce button over each breast on his shirt. Then he’d headbang for us. You could see all kinds of bugs and shit flying out of his hair. Then, he took a Reno Divorce sticker and stuck it on his shirt. His buddy was with him, too. Then, he took another Reno Divorce button and pierced his ear with it. This kinda freaked us out, and he saw that, so he started to headbang for us some more to make us laugh. Then, he started to undo his pants. Mark, the Pavers’ bass player, was there and just started yelling “No!” and telling the guy to leave. “Give me one more beer.” We were out of beer. We finally got rid of him, though, after Mark practically threatened to kick his ass. After the show, we followed Brian from the Unknown to his house. He spoiled us with a ton of sleeping space, beer, pop, French bread pizzas, and good tunes. Tony disappeared with some girl he’d met at the show. When we woke up the next morning, Brian had English muffins, coffee, and tea for us. Later, he made us burgers. What a cool guy. He totally took care of us, and told us stories about when the Unknown toured the UK recently. Well, we didn’t want to leave, but we had a few hours of driving to do before Kalamazoo, MI, which is where tonight’s show is. We’re about an hour outside of Kalamazoo right now. Supposedly, the show is in a basement. Kalamazoo is a college town, so it should be pretty cool. (Click here for pictures from Cleveland) |