Rain, rain, go away

Wall in China Town, the picture is not as epic as it was

Tuesday the 19th we were in Chicago.

Some crazy round hive building with round windows

It rained, and may have even stormed a little over night.  While I enjoy the fact that I can count on it being sunny everyday in LA, I do miss epic thunderstorms and sitting on the porch watching lightning.  The venue we were at that day was Reggies.  It’s a really cool place.  The main floor is a bar/restaurant and has a small stage.  Upstairs there is a cool record store, and downstairs was the stage area we played at.  

They had these really cool painted buses out back. 

Merch was set up in the entry hallway area, which was a good spot, except I was directly across from the men’s room door.  Towards the beginning of the show the door wasn’t automatically closing.  So I’d be standing there, zoning out or looking around for people I knew, when next thing I knew, I could see directly into the men’s room.  Awkward.

Bumble bee graffiti in the women's room

Someone I did recognize was fan Jason, who was at a show in Joliet when we were at Mojo’s.  I thought he came to a few other shows, but apparently that was the only one.  The brief time I interacted with him apparently made him memorable enough though.  Jr recognized him too.  He gave me one of his CD’s that he keeps with him to give to awesome people, which made me all embarrassed and I’m pretty sure I was blushing. Even though I spend my nights dressed up like a bumble bee, dancing behind a table, talking to strangers and am super friendly, I’m actually pretty shy and awkward in real life. Anyways…  My computer doesn’t have a disk drive, so I’ll have to wait until I get home to listen to it, but in the meantime you should check out his band Zombie Apocalypse Now.

Super cute fan Miy and her mom made it to this show too! They couldn’t stay through Psychostick or be VIPs this time because school started the next day :(  But it was nice seeing them :)

Kim engulfed in fog

Unicorn Laser Kim

Special Helpers helping Kim remember the words to Recipe for Success

Another photo because Karl was hidden in the last

Kim being all awesome on the floor

Special Helpers teaching us to dance

I haven’t really had a chance to talk about the other bands we’re on tour with yet.  Mostly because we’re still getting into the groove of touring together.  That and I spend parts of their shows organizing and restocking merch, selling stuff, talking to fans, etc.  They’re all really great guys and very talented musicians.  Something came up and Wild Throne isn’t going to be on the tour as long as originally planned, but they’re awesome and I wish them the best of luck.  Plus, from what I’ve heard they’ve been touring pretty much all year.  So they could use a break.  They’ll be missed though.  If you like the silliness of One-Eyed Doll, be sure to stay for Psychostick.  They have goofy songs about dogs liking socks, beards, boobs, beer, tacos, the list goes on an on.  They even do this little spoof of Drowning Pool’s “Let the Bodies Hit the Floor” except it’s “I can Only Count to Four.”

Psychostick

Over all it was a good show and cool venue.  The only bad this about this place was one jerk security guy on a power trip.  I don’t know exactly what went on because a band was playing and it was loud.  Vaughn came in and showed the security guy his OED crew badge.  Apparently that wasn’t good enough for him or something, and he went off on Vaughn.  It looked like he was yelling at Vaughn, but Vaughn was just smiling.  I grabbed my phone and was going to call Jr as I went over to see what the issue was, but next thing I know they’re shaking hands and it looked like they worked it out.  Later though, the guy was complaining to Matty (aka Moose) about what happened.  Matty however defended Vaughn saying what this guy was claiming sounded out of character for him.  Then later, right after Psychosticks set, and fans had just gotten to the merch area to buy stuff and get pictures, he yells “Anyone not buying merch needs to go somewhere else!”  People hadn’t even had a chance to start buying merch.  Most band members, including Kim and Jr, weren’t even back to their tables yet.  Luckily after that I never saw him for the rest of the night and everyone else there was nice.

We had lots of cool VIPs that night.  Skitz was there!  We had a bunch of VIPs from previous shows this year, and we had a few new faces!  One VIP bought Kim and Jr awesome mugs from a tiki bar he goes to.

Kim's is a skeleton mermaid

After the VIP acoustic set, we went outside to take a group picture and have Kim and Jr sign anything people wanted signed.  Well, in the truck parked a row over from us, there was a couple most likely having sex in their car.  Awkward. Again.  We went over to the other end of the parking lot of pictures while they got dressed.

Gotta get a picture of Kim giving Skitz hair at every VIP

The VIP party ended with our VIPs helping us move the trailer.  The night before, when there weren’t many cars parked in the back alley, Jr backed the trailer into a parking spot, then we parked the RV in another spot because we were too long to fit all together.  After the show, there were a ton of cars still parked back there, and there was no way to back the RV up to the trailer with them there.  So our VIPs helped move the trailer into the driving part of the alley.  As soon as we got it there, and Jr went to back the RV up to it, someone parked on the other side of the trailer wanted to get out, and we had blocked him in.  At first he was mad, but Kim talked to him and kept him happy while we spend forever trying to back the RV up.  In situations like this, it helps to let people know you’re a person too.  So many instances, such as road rage, people are just faceless cars, which is why people get so mad.  But when you personally talk to them, it’s easier to remind them that there’s a person attached.  We got all hooked up said some quick goodbyes, gave the guy waiting a CD and some stickers as a thank you, and got out of there ASAP.

Next, we were in Milwaukee, WI.  Load in was super early at 2.  We were actually all loaded in and set up before any of the other bands got there.  This was another cool venue, the Rave, with so many different floors and areas I didn’t get to explore everywhere.  I will say, the one bathroom I used was the nicest club bathroom I have ever seen.  Because load in was so early, we had time afterward to just hang out and relax.  We also had time to go across the street to the hotel for some food and wifi.

Fancy Bruschetta in a martini glass, and Jr

"Baja" nachos and Kim's tenderloin salad in the background

Josh was at this show again :)  He came and hung out with me at the merch table :)  There was also a cute fan girl that had been waiting 4 years to see OED live and meet Kimberly.  She was so excited to be there.

There are some cool rainbow effects that our LED backdrop does.  I haven’t been able to get a good picture of it yet, but these are pretty decent.

In honor of Josh’s birthday, Kim played “Battle On” as he requested.  As in the past, Kim had fans come up on stage to be ghouls, slimy things, dread monsters, etc and battle.  This is the first time they actually battled.  In the past they just danced around and moshed.  It was awesome seeing them actually battle for a change! People we’re even pretending to die when they were killed.  Thank you awesome fans!

Dread monster

The cute dragon in the middle has been waiting 4 years for this!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOSH!!!!

The crowd was super responsive too!  Sometime’s when Kim talks to the crowd they don’t really answer, or it’s just one person yelling back all the time.  The crowd was great!  Kim was also being all super sexy on guitar that night.

Kim, talking into a severed hand

Kim putting on her pope hat

Jr playing in the pope hat

Kim was telling me this venue has a cool greenroom.  She said it’s like a harem with sheets draped everywhere, couches and pillows.  During Psychostick’s set Jr took me down to check it out.  It was so cool!  Not only was it like Kim described, but they have cool lights and lava lamps everywhere.  I hung out there for a while, but no pictures for you :P

This same night they had another show going on downstairs.  Towards the end of Psychostick I could hear really loud music so I went down to check it out.  There was some sort of epic metal show going on.

Josh was our only VIP that night, so it was a cool, laid back VIP hang out instead of an acoustic show.  We all piled into the rental car Josh’s mom let him borrow, which he made the mistake of letting Jr drive.  Jr and Damian sat in front, Kim, Vaughn and Josh sat in the back, and I rolled around in the hatchback/trunk area :D  We went to a Greek place for some food. I really wanted Spinach pie but they were out :(  So I got a greek salad and a veggie pita, which ended up being a greek salad on pita bread.  It was good, but every thing was soaked in waaaaay too much dressing.

The next day we were in Minneapolis, MN.   It was a short drive so we got to a Walmart in the area and parked for the night.  I woke up early so I stopped into Walmart to grab a few things (I pretty much only shop at Walmart on tour).  *Warning: potentially boring girl talk coming up* A much needed thing was black eyeshadow. I started tour with a thing of black eyeshadow.  It was pretty old.  The case had broken so I had to hair-tie it together to keep it closed.  Half of the little cake of eyeshadow was missing-it most likely broke and was thrown out.  Then at the beginning of this tour, the top half of the case broke in half, and eventually the last half of eyeshadow broke into a million little pieces.  As long as I was careful, it was still useable and still closable.  I figured it was time to invest in a new one though since this is what I was dealing with:

This is a nightmare on the road

Later, we met a guy at the Mall of America so Jr could buy some more lasers for the stage.  I think we have 6 now!  On the way, the rice cooker, which was full of rice soaking in water, slid off the counter and made a huge, really smelly, mess.  I managed to get most of the rice cleaned up, and luckily we had a box of baking soda to soak up the water and the smell.  Kimberly, who was sleeping through the whole incident, was the one stuck vacuuming up the baking soda.  Something I learned years ago; Boys aren’t very clean, and if you want your living space to be neat and tidy, you usually have to do it yourself.  After buying the laser, we hung out at the mall.

Unfortunately, most of the time there was spent trying to get Vaughn a phone, which he still does not have, and getting lunch.  My first trip to the Mall of America was pretty lame.  The Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory didn’t even have the frozen cheesecake on a stick!!!  I did have a Founder’s Porter while waiting for Jr’s food.  I miss Michigan beer :( 

The venue we were at that night, First Avenue, is owned by Prince and Purple Rain was shot there.  There is a big main stage where OED has played before, but this night we were in the little side stage area.  It was really cool because it was a small room that felt more like a basement at a house party.

The sound guy, Cody, was also amazing!  He was super nice and came around and introduced himself to everyone.  He even put up with me climbing up on top of stools that were resting on top of the ledge and running around like a hyperactive bumble bee.  He was great as a sound guy too.  During the bands’ sets he’d come out into the audience to make sure it sounded good from the audience’s POV.  I’ve NEVER seen a sound guy do that. Hopefully we can request him again if OED plays there again.  He also had this super sweet shirt he was wearing.  I wish I had gotten a picture with him, but I thought that might be weird.

First photo of Wild Throne

Because the room was so small, merch was pretty close to the stage even though it was along a back wall. Also, the area in front of the stage was a couple of steps down, so I had a good view of the stage over everyone’s heads.  But, as always, OED took the stage, the area in front of it was packed, and people were standing in the back area.  I couldn’t see quite as well (I still got to enjoy the show though) and I had to stand on a ledge and zoom in to get any pictures.

Special Helpers

Kimberly's a unicorn, so put your little rock n roll hooves in the little rock n roll air

There was also some crazy guitar malfunction during “I Love My Little Bus.”  Things got all crazy for a second and Kim had to quickly switch out guitars, but everyone had fun.  It also bring back my point about it being a live show.  You never know what’s going to happen.

During “Fight” at the end of the set, if you’ve seen them live before, you know there’s a part where Kim headbangs in much a way that her hair flies around in a circle to the music.  There were 2 long haired guys up front by the stage who started doing it along with her.  For a while, even after she stopped, all I could see was hair swinging around in circles in front of the stage.

Wild Throne dancing the Hokey Pokey with Psychostick

We had lots of fun VIPs that night.  They got a couple of songs into the acoustic show, when we had to leave the club’s parking area.  So we had a “Move the RV” VIP party, then a “Take turns watching for police as we park the the Taxi area” VIP party for the rest of the songs.  One VIP pre-order requested “I am a Viking” which was epic acoustic!!!!  Damian and Jr liked it so much they’re considering playing it at every VIP party from here out.  Don’t get your hopes up though, there may be a lot of pre-order requests to get through. After all of the songs were done, it became a “Drive the VIPs back to the parking ramp and quickly kick them out while we’re blocking a lane of traffic” VIP party.  :)

Friday we were in Eau Claire, WI.  I think the bar was called Hipps, but we were playing in the outside area.  This was my first outdoors show!  It was cool, but I don’t miss the midwest humidity or mosquitos.  Despite my bumble bee outfit, the bugs apparently couldn’t tell I was one of them because they kept attacking me all night.  One cool looking moth guy kept trying to live in my tutu.  He’d climb up between the top and second layer, and I’d get him out, only to have him fly in somewhere else.

Not the little guy that was trying to live on me, but another friend

At one point I was waiting to ask the bartender if I could steal a bar chair for Kim to do her signings in.  A girl told me I looked super cute and asked if I minded if she took a picture with me. She turned out to me the promoter’s wife.

This night’s sound guy was completely opposite of Cody the night before.  There was a point during Wild Throne's set that the vocals completely went out.  People kept looking back at the sound guy and he was busy looking down playing with buttons.  After it’d been like this for about half the song, someone went back and made the sound guy aware.  Then he finally hit some button and vocals were back.  I also saw him on the side of the stage playing with the light set up during One-Eyed Doll and Pyschostick.  Personally, I think sound at a concert is more important than the lights pointing slighting off center. No one was really hanging out in front of the stage during Wild Throne’s set, so I went and stood front and center and enjoyed the show.  I finally got a few other people to come to the front for the last song.

Yacob the Swedish ref made it to this show!  He was the one that did hand puppets with me during the Otep show.  That was the last time I saw him, so he had a lot of Swedish hugs to catch up on. Tim, our VIP from the night before, was also back at this show!

Tim's One-Eyed Doll Tattoo

Things at the merch table were pretty slow during OED so I went up to enjoy the show.  At one point Kim came off the stage and was playing in the crowd.  The promoter’s wife tired moving out of the way, but Kim chased after her and played all up against her.  Kim saw me in the audience and gave me a hug.  Unfortunately, because she knew I was down there, she made me come up on stage and dance to “Hoochie Mama.” Luckily I had some practice during “Nudie Bar” at the VIP party the night before.  Hmm…  Hoochie mama….  Nudie bar…  What’s Kim trying to say?  It was embarrassing but fun, and I think a bunch of people got pictures.  I’ll have to see if I can find some on facebook.

I watched part of Psychostick’s show, but I eventually had to leave the crowd because of people who were too drunk.  The crowd was really into the Psychostick show though.  They do this whole bit where they yell at each other to shut up, then start yelling at people in the crowd to shut up. I think this is the first show where people in the crowd shouted shut up back at them.  Shows are so much more fun with crowd interaction.  That’s why Kim does what she does.  Josh from PS was also wearing the totally awesome Plumes of Death shirt I gave him the day before.  It worked out perfectly because it’s cream colored and it was hot out.

We had 4 awesome VIPs.  Jacob and Tim were our returning VIPs and they brought along Morgan and Lisa, respectively.  Jacob made lefse that we all scarfed down during VIP introductions.  Mmm...

VIP selfie party!!!!

Jacob and a bumble bee

Morgan and a bumble bee

A bumble bee, Lisa and Tim

A weird looking bumble bee and Kim the Swedish ref

After a few songs we had to kick our VIPs out, get situated, then make the long drive to Bismarck, ND.  The tour was added somewhat last minute to the Rise Music Festival.  Wild Throne's time slot was something early like noon, so they actually left before Psychostick's set was over.  OED was supposed to play aroung 2, but merch set up was 9:30am.  We ended up getting there around 12:30.  It was pouring down rain, everything was muddy, there were no fan there, and no bands playing.  We waited around for a while to see what was going on.  They told us if we wanted to play in the rain we could.  Play to who, I have no idea.  But not wanting to risk getting electrocuted, Kim and Jr passed.  They also told us we could wait around for the rain to stop.  Yeah right...  So we took off and got some breakfast at this little diner (we passed a huge line for the Big Boy drive through.  Since when does Big Boy have a drive through, and why is it so popular?). We did some food/supply shopping, made a stop at Staples, and are currently chilling at Starbucks.  After posting this blog I may go back to the RV for a nap because I'm sleeeeeeeeeepy.  And tonight we'll probably head to our next stop,Williston, ND and sleep for the night so we can be ready for tomorrow.

My socks are still wet :(

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!