Goodbye Texas!

Since we were in Kim, Junior and Mike's hometown Monday night, I feel it's the perfect time to talk about what an amazing group of people I'm traveling with. I help unload everything, then work on setting up the table. Then I spend almost the rest of the night behind the table. Everyone else has their own things to do to get ready, but they always make sure I'm taken care of. They bring me coffee and food. Stop by to see if I need anything. Take over for a bit so I can take a bathroom break. Make quick trips back to the vehicle for back-ups if I'm selling out of something. If there are a lot of opening bands, sometimes Junior will even take over for a while and I'll go hang out in the green room. I'm really fortunate to have such a caring, thoughtful group of friends to be on tour with <3

As I mentioned, we were in Austin, OED's hometown where everyone has already heard them and owns all of their stuff. Not only that, but it was a Monday AND the day after the huge music festival South by Southwest (SXSW). We weren't sure if anyone was even going to show up. Junior warned me that last tour their hometown was the worst night for merch sales. Well, the place was pretty full, and there were a lot of OED fans there. It was a great crowd in general, and I doubled what they did in sales last time they played there. I even managed to talk Mike into buying his girlfriend a shirt, with an employee discount of course. I got to meet a few local fans, including some names I recognize from online, and Andy who was on tour with them the first time I saw OED and Otep play was there. It was cool being in their home town where pretty much everyone already knows them.

Dirty Dog's super classy logo...

One of the openers, Exilia was the opener from Longview as well. I really enjoyed them the first night but didn't catch their name, and I'm glad they were back again that night. They're from Italy and currently doing a US tour. They even played at SXSW. You should go to their page, give them some love, and check them out if they're playing anywhere near you.

If any of you have seen OED live, you know Kim likes to put on a show with hats and characters. She has a big tub of stuff, and she'll put little things in it that she sometimes throws out into the audience. Sometimes before “Be My Friend” she'll throw out a fake severed limb. At one show, she threw out a severed foot. That same night was the night Otep broke her foot. A few shows later she threw out her last foot. That show was the show the drummer cut his foot open. Before the Longview show we found a costume shop that had limbs and Junior bought another foot and a leg severed at the knee. Kim threw out the leg at the Austin show. During the show Otep's bassist Erik blew out his knee. It's an old football injury, but now we're paranoid that we've cursed Otep. We have one severed foot left, and Otep has one uninjured band member left. You'd better watch out Ari!

After the show, like most nights, Mike gave me his phone to charge while he loads. It's tough because at some point I have to pack up my extension cords. This night there happened to be an extra cord lying around, so I plugged it into that and packed up my stuff. Apparently it was an Otep cord they weren't using, and later Nosage went to pack it up. He yanked it, knocking Mike's phone off the table and cracking the screen. Other than that it works fine, but I feel terrible. Junior's cracked his screen before, and I guess it's easy to get replaced. Since it was broken in my care, I'll probably pay for it whether or not Mike lets me. You can chip in to if you feel so inclined. Go to the OED donationpage and donate whatever you feel you can afford. Put in the comments “Melinda sucks, Fix Mike's Phone!”

We have had several fans buy us dinner, offer us a place to sleep, wanting to buy us drinks, bringing us gifts and making sure we're taken care of. It's so awesome. After this show when everything was done and packed us, I took advantage of the fact that one of Kim's fans had connections at the bar and worked for Deep Eddy Vodka. He hooked me up with a shot of vodka and club soda. It was really good vodka! And of course, it hasn't made it's way to California yet. Boo!

We had a ton of VIPs after the show! We went to a little tea and coffee place, then rode around in the limo listening to unreleased OED songs. It was good times.

Look!  I'm in the VIP instructions!

 At a gas station on our next drive, Kim bought me a super cute bunny hat! Sadly, I don't have a picture yet. I'm sure someone will get one when I wear it sometime. Also! My Bettie Page shirt turned up a few shows ago! I'm hoping that means my bag of chokers will too.

Tuesday night was Houston. Super awesome fans Paul and Liz were already there when we got there to help load in. Liz helped me set up, and even helped a ton with the merch table. It was nice to have someone to have dance parties with too.  Liz is also an Emilie Autumn fan and has been her live!  At a show she was at she was losing her voice, but still did 6 encores.  At the end she played harpsichord for them while the audience sang. *jealous*

The walls were lined with this stuff!

Couch in the women's restroom

Liz and Paul!!!!

 From the merch table I had a great view of the show, but it was terrible for pictures.  I think Otep was the only one that had enough light for them to turn out.

After the show Otep came back behind the merch tables for pictures and signing, like she does every night.  I was standing out of her way while she was getting situated when she turned to me and said "I see you back here rocking out with us every night."  At which point I think to myself 'OHMYGOD!!!  OHMYGOD!!!  OTEP IS TALKING TO ME!  Don'tsaysomethingstupid Don'tsaysomethingstupid'  I managed to get out something to the effect of "I've been a fan since 2002 so this tour is extra awesome for me"  She said something about it being her 10 year anniversary and fist bumped me, then when on to her signings.  :D :D :D  Made my week.

Erik - guitarist for Otep, Shaun - drummer from PMB, Justin - drummer for Otep, Jimmy - guitarist PMB

Our next show was only a couple of hours away, so we got a hotel room for the night.  Yay for real bed and shower!  Even if it is only for 5-6 hours of sleep or less.  We stopped at Brewed Awakening for coffee and some morning treats.  It's a super cute, locally owned coffee shop.  You should check it out if you're in the area.  They have a great "Captain Americano" shirt too Kim and Mike got pictures of.  Speaking of which, you should check out Mike's blog.  He gets lots of awesome pictures of the shows from where he is.

Wednesday night's show was in Beaumont, TX.  We actually got to this one early enough to get everything set up with out rushing, and Kim and Junior went to run errands while Mike and I hung out.

I'm starting to get a feel for the crowd.  You can tell when everyone's drunk early on, and no one's very friendly or wants to talk that it's not going to be a very good night for merch.  People LOVED the show, but everyone wants to spend their money on alcohol instead of shirts or CDs.  I think this was our lowest show yet.  But I knew we'd have good days and bad days.  Merch was set up right next to the stage, so I got a good side view of the whole show, but again, it was too dark for pictures.  No VIPs for the night, and a long drive ahead of us, so we took off pretty much right after the show.  We did make a quick stop at a Flying J's with a Denny's in it to get some food.  Our waitress Jasmin had the most pleasant, sunny disposition!  She was amazing.  Junior went out to the limo to check on Kim who wasn't feeling well, and she got super stressed out that his food was going to get cold.  She eventually packaged it up to-go for him just in case.  She took super great care of us, and the cook even came out at one point to apologize because she had screwed something up.  The only thing is I think they accidentally made my Bacon-less Avocado Wrap with Bacon and just took it off so they wouldn't have to remake it AGAIN.  It tasted bacony-y and I picked a few little pieces of bacon out of it.  But, it was late, I didn't want to make a big deal out of if, and I hadn't really eaten anything all day.  So I ate it and tried not to think about it.  My stomach has been feeling awful all day :(  It might not be just that though.  I've also been taking a lot of stuff to deal with this cough, and my eating schedules all out of whack, so you never know.  But if you're ever at the Flying J's near Houston, you should eat at Denny's if Jasmine is working :)

Mike's dress code photo from Longview

The limo is my live-in closet.

Well, we're somewhere in Florida now.  Today was a "day off" but I'll have to write about that some other time.  I have e-mails to respond to, blogs to read, and merch girl stuff to update!