So many shows, so many fans

I somehow screwed up the formatting of this entry after it was all typed out, so sorry if it's hard to read :(

At some point on some day One-Eyed Doll played a show at Aftershock in Merrium, KS.  This is where Kim was actually shocked last tour and had to cut her set short.  Luckily nothing like that happened this time.

When we got there people were talking about how one of the opening acts was a rap group. They were saying they fit the style of the show over all, and I was really interested in hearing them.  They had a bit of an Eminem sound to them, but they were really good rappers and their backing music was cool.  I don’t know if they really fit the rock/metal style of the show, but they were still entertaining.  For one of the songs Vaughn got up on stage and did some improv on the drum set along with them.  It was really cool.  After the show one of the guys was talking to me about it.  He really liked how awesome is was to have live music, and he’s been wanting to do something like that for a while now.  I really wish I could remember the group’s name!  I’ll have to look it up when I have more time.

The other opening bands were awesome as well, and many of them were OED fans.  There were band members wearing OED shirts, and someone said one of them was playing with a OED guitar strap.  Stuff like that is awesome.  Some of the local openers just get on the show to play, but so far a lot of openers have been fans wanting to play at a OED show.  I think it was Determyned from the other night that found out the week before that OED was playing and last minute got on the show. 

I can’t remember if I actually got around to writing it or not, but this was also the same venue were I think a girl was scamming us.  Well, she was there again this time and seemed completely different.  She was super nice and didn’t try to get anything for free.  So maybe I was wrong about her :)

At this show Kim did one of her songs were she needed a volunteer from the audience up on stage.  After that song, she told whoever wanted to come on stage to come on up, then she played Battle On.  It was crazy!  There were some cool videos of it posted on their Facebook page.  If I can find them again, I’ll try posting links.  After Battle On, Kim kept everyone on stage for another song, and they got a few more people, including me, up on stage.  I think by this time there were more people on stage then in the audience, but everyone was having so much fun. I was worried getting up on stage with everyone because I hadn’t had a shower that morning, but everyone on stage smelled worse than I did from moshing in the pit and being on stage the song before :)  Over all is was another super fun show.

Everyone partying on stage for "Battle On"

Terrible lighting, but me and super cute fan Amber

VIPs Michael, Bill, Tony, Billy from the club and Amber - we'll see Tony again in Iowa!

The next day we were in St. Louis, MO/Sauget, IL.  Best part of this show, there were so many people there!  I was all set up, doors had opened, but it was going to be a bit before the show started, so I decided to organize my shirt tubs because they had become a mess of shirt thrown in over the past few days.  Wrong night to do that because everyone kept coming up to talk to me.  And I’m by no means complaining.  It’s the best part of coming on tour.  I’d rather have no down time and everything be a mess then be organized, bored, and have no fans at the show.  There were so many familiar faces I’m not even going to try to name you all.  And I also really enjoyed meeting some new people.

Notice the Unicorn on Jr's drum

What are you doing Snork?  Stop taking pictures and get back to the merch table

After the show I was talking to fans as they were waiting to see Kim.  I found out one of them was an Opera singer.  I put him on the spot and told him to sing me something, not actually expecting him to do so.  But he totally stepped up and serenaded me while waiting in line :D  Thank you again.

That night we had 14 (!!!!!) VIPs.  We could barely fit everyone in the RV.  Most were pre-orders, which meant they all got to hear a lot of acoustic songs.

Nice picture

Silly picture

Tough picture

Josh's sweet tattoo

Our crew! <3

Next, we were back in Newport, KY/Cincinnati, OH.  This was our first show with Psychostick and Wild Throne!  :D  The locals, Wild Throne, and I were setting up merch before PS got there, but we left them a big spot in the middle.  Then PS got there and Moose, who runs their merch, wanted the space at the end so they had a bit more space.  I scooted all of my stuff down which was no big deal.  At one point Moose made the comment “I’m kind of a merch nazi” to which I was immediately like:

I’ve very particular about my set up.  I’m used to big headliners trying to screw us over.  In the end, because I’m nice (and apparently adorable), I will a lot of the time end up with an even better spot because I refuse to be shoved in a little corner some where.  Don’t get me wrong, I try to make due with whatever space I’m given, but if there’s a chance I can be somewhere other than a 2ft square next to the bathroom in some dark hallway way far away from the show, I will hold out until they let me set up somewhere else.  I don’t think that’s going to be the case with this tour.  Moose seems pretty cool and they have their usual set up which doesn’t take up a ton of room.  We’ve done a few more shows with them, and there has been no fighting for merch space between any of the bands. :)

While setting up the guy came around to give use wrist bands.  They were just plain neon orange and he was writing “band” on them.  The guy was asking if he should write band on mine, or merch, etc.  I told him mine could just say awesome.

Thank you Thompson House worker for making my night just a little more amazing.

There was also a seafood festival going on right down the road, which I missed because I was at my table all night, but Jason and Vaughn brought me this insanely delicious “puff” The picture does not do it justice.

One of the openers was Escape the Silence who opened for us on both the Otep tour and Mushroomhead tour. It’s always nice coming to the area and getting to see them.  They may be metal, and incredibly badass on stage, but they’re super nice people off stage. Always a pleasure to see you guys!

There was also a band from Australia that’s currently touring around the US.  I didn’t get to talk to them that much, but they seemed like sweet guys as well.  They got to talk to the band and rest of the crew more, and it sounds like Kim is trying to get them to play at the Austin show! So hopefully we’ll see them again.

This show also had so many familiar faces.  I’m not even going to try to list you all because I know I’m going to forget someone.  There were also these adorable fans who wanted their picture taken with me *blushes*

Notice the awesome Dr. Who fez on the left

There were also a couple of really young girls there to see Kimberly.  I’m pretty sure I have diabetes now from all the sweet, cuteness I saw that night.  I’m sure I’ve said it before and I’ll say it a million more times before tour is over, but One-Eyed Doll really does have the greatest fans!

Sweet lighting courtesy of Damian

Special helpers

Another party on stage, I have video somewhere

Vaughn is a dragon!

This night we had so many VIPs I lost count, and there was no way they were all going to fit in the RV.  Luckily the club let us hang out in the balcony area for the acoustic show.  Unfortunately the law states that everyone has to be out by 2:30, and we had so many VIPs we weren’t done in time, so we moved out to the yard.  We had a little cellphone campfire we set up, and they played under the stars.  It was amazing!

Random other-ness from the night:

As you can sort of see from a picture above, I was wearing fairy wings, bright blue fishnets, and a glittery skirt at this show.  Someone asked me if they force me to dress like this.  That’s a big NOPE!  Most of the stuff I wear on tour I had from before I started touring with OED.  I have quite the collection of fun leggings, wings, skirts, boots, etc.  It just so happens that my wardrobe works out perfectly for touring with this band :)

While I was packing up, a guy from the venue was sweeping the floor.  He said we had the cleanest merch area and thanked us.  Go us! :)

One of the bartenders told me I have a cute nose.  This is not the first time on tour someone has told me they like me nose. It’s an unusual compliment, but I’ll take it :)

Cory's sweet tattoo!

The day after that we were in the middle of nowhere, Beckley, WV at a fun little bar called Muncheez.  Unfortunately, the venue sold tickets in advance advertising it as all ages, then the day before changed it to 18+ so they could keep their license to sell alcohol.  Now, I understand that they are a business and they probably make more money off of alcohol sales then underage ticket sales, but if you want to sell alcohol, don’t pre-sell tickets to underaged kids.  And if you change last minute, you’d better work out something for those kids that already spent money and arranged their lives to be at that show.  Luckily Kim and Jr found out the day before and put out a notice that if you had already bought tickets and couldn’t get in, they would do a private meet and greet and small acoustic set for them before the show.  They also suggested trying to get their money back from the club, but I’m not sure if anyone was able too.

The club also double booked our tour package and Alien Ant Farm’s tour package for that same night.  One of the bands from the other package didn’t play this show, but the other one, Kaleido, was from Detroit!  They were really awesome and I bought a sweet shirt from them.  I’ll have to get a picture of it sometime.  It has this cool drawing of a girl on it, and she has hair that’s yellow at the top fading down to red (just like mine is now).

We’re also still getting fed, even though we’re not headlining anymore, which is great!  Unfortunately, backwoods West Virginia isn’t the most vegetarian friendly place.  They had a whole bunch of chicken salads and stuff, a chef salad, tuna salad, etc then at the very bottom a “garden salad.” I figured that would be a safe option.  Nope.  Garden in WV means covered in bacon :(  I ate the big pieces of peppers off the top (yummy!) and picked through the lettuce.  Then, after the show Jason ordered me a quesadilla that I shared with everyone.  That luckily just had cheese and black beans inside.

Robert (who you may know as the famous “Wheelchair Man” from the “Airplane Man”  remix), Ellen and Milo were at this show.  I don’t think I’ve seen Robert or Ellen since the Otep tour, which is sad because they’re such sweet people. Milo is one of the few people that has one of the OED dinosaur hats I sew.  Hopefully some day they’ll be available at the merch table or in the OED store online.

Jr with hair!

Milo in a pretty cool OED Dinosaur hat

This bar was so small that our fog machine set off the smoke alarms and they had to turn them off.  Oops…  And that was with one of them not working.  The one that was kept making these sweet mushroom clouds of fog.  I wish I could have gotten a picture.

The bar also had weird bathrooms.  It was a 2 stall but had shower curtains instead of doors. Just a random observation for those of you not at the show. Another random observation, between bands that sound guy had a rock station from Pandora playing, but while Alien Ant Farm was setting up, their sound guy was playing Weird Al, which was awesome :)

We ended up packing up during AAF so we could get the VIP party underway.  This VIP party was going to be at Robert’s hotel. They had talked to the night manager on the phone ahead of time, and he said it was ok if we had the acoustic show in the breakfast area.  Unfortunately they checked in, and discovered that there was a guest’s room right next to that area :(  We started the show outside in a far corner of the parking lot, thinking we’d be ok over there.  It was sprinkling a bit, there were bats flying around overhead, but as always, it was a lot of fun. At the end of the first song the night manager came over saying someone on the 3rd floor had called saying they could hear us.  He was super nice about it though.  He said he couldn’t even hear us when he came outside, and he wanted us to be able to have fun, but obviously someone could hear us since they called. The song that they had played had drum in it, so we promised to not use it and be quieter.  He seemed ok with that. Kim sang an a cappella song and they played one with an acoustic guitar and vocals only.  As far as we know there were no more complaints.  We had to cut it a bit short and run inside though because it started raining a bit harder.

The VIP party moved to Robert, Ellen and Milo’s hotel room, where we did introductions and hung out.  It was fun.  They even had an array of food and drinks for us!  They are SOOOOOO nice :)  After that party, they sent us with all of the leftover food.  Did I mention how nice and amazing they are?

VIP party in the hotel room!!!!

Sunday we were in South Bend, IN.  We got there a little bit early, so Jr, Vaughn, Damian and I got some sushi while Kim got some extra sleep.  We went to a fancy little place called Whoochi.  Usually all the fancy rolls have seafood in them, so I’ll just stick with a cucumber roll or vegetable roll, but this place had one called Jade Dragon.  It had a couple of types of mushrooms, seaweed salad, and was topped with avocado.

Damian got something that came with sauce they lit on fire!

For this show we were at this same little bar, Cheers, as on the Otep tour. Joel Doll was there again.  If you remember my blog from that tour, we made a OED tile for their ceiling.  It was just a little thing in the corner because Nosaj was going to do something cool for Otep on the rest.  Well, they never did and the tile was still there, so we doodled on the rest.

The center doodle of Kimberly was done by this awesome artist Dennis (check him out here).  You may have seen some of his presents to Kim on the OED facebook page.  He also makes these cool “Zombie toes” that he gave me one of.  It’s currently on my backpack.  Thank you again Dennis!

In addition to Joel, Karl, Brad, Indiana Mike and David were all at this show too.  Doors opened really early that night, so I was loading in and setting up and I feel like I didn’t get to talk to anyone much :(  Then we were busy loading out (in the rain) so I missed most of the VIP party :(

Merch at this show was off to the side, but near-ish the stage.  I thought I was going to have a really great view of the show.  But as soon as OED went on everyone crowded forward and I couldn’t see much.  I did run up a few times and got some pictures.

At one point the drums suddenly sounded weird, then next thing I new Kim was handing Jr a drumstick.  Apparently Jr had dropped it, it bounced off a cymbal or something, ricocheted off and hit Kim in the butt.  Jr got a new stick, then Kim picked up the other so Jr threw one out into the crowd.  It was all chaotic, but they kept going.  That’s how you know the show’s real and not just pre-recorded.  Stuff happens, and they’re real musicians working with what’s going on.  Does that make sense?

At this show during “Be My Friend” for the “choose your religion” part, instead of the usual “Amen” or “Hail Satan,” Kim had the audience choose between Unicorns and Dragons.

I think some people still yelled "hail satan"

Kim also got half the crowd up on stage again, this time for “I love my little bus”

Blurry montage of people on stage

As always, the show was a ton of fun.  It was WAAAAY too hot in there though.  I personally drank about 5 bottles of water, one mixed with Emergen-C, then chugged another one of 2 after load out.  I also had to stand out on the back smoking patio a few times so I didn’t pass out.  It was raining a few times when I went out, but it felt sooooo nice :)

Vaughn’s mom and uncle stopped by this show too!  She’s originally from South Bend, but lives in Grand Rapids now.  She seemed to enjoy the show, especially Wild Throne.  Vaughn was saying the last music project he had sounded similar to WT and he thought she’d like them.  There’s a chance she might drive out to the Chicago show Tuesday to see us :)

The crew again

Monday was an awesome, much needed, day off.  Jr drove straight to this auto place where they checked out the RV and gave it a tune up :)  Hopefully that means we’ll have no problems the rest of the tour.  We slept in and hung out while they were working on that.  Before I got up Damian had a friend that lives in Chicago come pick him up.  He spent the day hanging out with her.

It was so nice to have a laid back day to just chill.  I even got a not rushed shower!  It’s been a few days since I’ve had a chance to shower in general *eww!*  It was also the first time since I was picked up that I was able to wash my hair.

After everyone was up and the RV was done we headed to Sam Ash’s down the road.  Jr and Vaughn played in there forever while I worked on this blog and some other stuff.  Then we walked down the street and stuffed ourselves full of Pho and various other delicious Asian foods. And tea. And smoothes. :)  We were all so stuffed we had to go back to the RV for a nap. Later that night we headed to the club where were ended up parking for the night.  It was right down the road from China Town.  We wandered over there but most places were closed :(  We did get some epic Chinese food at a place that's open until 4am.  Then it was back to the bus for the night.  Despite having a train running over head, I think we all slept super well since we weren't moving.

And that brings us more or less to today :)  Gotta get back to work now!  See ya!