The Camaro Takes Nashvegas
I started this off the day after we left the warm neon glow and laid-back life of Nashville, but a horrendous hangover really put the kibosh on the part of my brain that handles blogging. Three shows later, here we are. To say I remember everything may not be true and to jaunt through a minute-by-minute recount of the events would cheapen it or be even more boring, so I'll start by saying that I can't wait to get back to that town with some time to kill. I'll also point out that sometimes you just have to be there.
The first night there was spent in a Super 8 in Hermitage. I guess some historical stuff went down here, but I was more interested in "Mexican Restaurant" and the Waffle House at the end of the driveway. I hadn't yet been to a Waffle House on this tour, but over the three days spent here I would make up for this transgression. The best part of this night was the battle I eventually won with the laundry machines--there's nothing quite like having a proper shower, meal, and rebooting your wardrobe while on tour. Plus, something exploded in my toiletry bag (and I've yet to identify the substance), so I could clean that mess up, too. It was a perfect stage-setting for the two nights of uppercuts I would deliver relentlessly on my liver and brain.
Bryn found a sweet dive called Shooter's around the corner, and I also got to explore Mexican Restaurant with its 40oz beer mug glory. After slamming some fish tanks of beer, a few of us conjured a cab out of the ground and rode into town.
The Broadway strip really was our playground that night. I declared a bar crawl that demanded a beer and a shot at every bar we could find--we lingered at some more than others, in which case a new beer and shot was purchased when the preceding beer was gone. It doesn't sound as awesome on paper, but in practice (and on a somewhat empty stomach), you really start seeing things in more dimensions pretty quickly.
Pretty much every bar had a cover band turning out pop-rock and pop-country standards. We heard "Wanted Dead or Alive" at every single bar we went to--one bar called Tootsie's Orchid Lounge had both bands in the house (one in front, one in a back room) playing it at the same time. Meanwhile, Bryn and I requested--no, demanded that every band we encountered play Eddie Money and Toto. I believe 80% of them complied in spite of themselves, and the remaining failures claimed not to know any songs by these fine musical pioneers.
Inspired by hearing so much "Wanted Dead or Alive," I drank until I got into the Spirit World and I was fairly convinced no one could see me. It was then that I started running through the then-rainy streets to groups of strangers, dropping to my knees, and screaming "KHAAANNN!" to the sky. As usual, we thought we were pretty funny and no one else did. I didn't hear too much about this until the next day when I couldn't figure out why my knees were bruised and bloody so badly. (My memory basically stopped short of this madman parade and picked-up again with me sitting in the Waffle House receiving the waffle for my All-star Breakfast Combo. I guess the taxi driver loved me.) I would also find out I did this three times to the guitarist from Evanescence and some other guy who told me earlier in the night he recorded with Mick Mars earlier that day. I guess I was impressed with the latter name-drop or something, whether it's true or not. Or something.
I'm happy to report that I still love Tequila and I hope we remain the best of friends forever more.
The next day started with a surpisingly meager hangover and the bulk of my pain was confined to my knees and throat from shouting and performacing semi-epic manuevers 30+ times. It was cleansed when I took a walk down to Broadway again while waiting for our perpetually-delayed load-in time at On the Rocks. Everything looked very different in the daylight, and that area's gilded nature really came to the surface. I do like Elvis, but man alive. Not that this was a bad thing at all--it just underlined why I had heard this place often referred to as "Nashvegas." I think this is when I found my one disappointment with this stop: I couldn't find a hatter to get a real, sweet hat. I found some killer $280 boots, but all of the hats within reach were cheap, plastic-y tourist hats. I wanted another crown.
The show went off well enough to a crowd that was very unsuspecting. It was very much like our first shows where we got up in front of people who were certainly engaged on a curiosity-type level but were won-over after a few songs. I spent a lot of time staring people down from the stage in the first half. I also got hit constantly with headstocks, drumsticks, and cymbals since the stage was really long, but really narrow due to the gear of the following bands. Marc Slaughter, a friend of the band's since the day we played together at Summerfest in 2007, was in the house to check out our show, along with his really cool lady Marie. If there was any doubt about what I wanted to do that night going into town, this show snuffed it out like a fire in R. Kelly's bed.
The group from the night before, plus a few more got dropped-off on Broadway again and started the night off with beers and shots (then beers and shots, then more beers and shots, etc.). At first it was going to be a light version of the previous night, but Bryn and I instantly enabled everyone. The plan was to crawl our way to the Wild Horse, which is a really sweet, large venue a block over to meet-up with Marc and Marie. When we arrived, we were struck by how amazing the venue really was inside, and Marc invited us back to check out the backstage. Junior Marvin of the Wailers was back there marinating, so we got to hang out for a bit before Junior had to go his way. Then we all set a course for Printer's Alley.
The first stop was a blues bar for a few songs from a cover band--when we asked if we could jam with their gear for a second with Marc on the mic, they were into the idea as long as we paid them $400. I think Bryn chucked them the bird and our legion marched out of there. Our gracious hosts Marc and Marie then bid us farewell--we'll see them again soon. Needless to say, moments later we found ourselves in a karaoke bar down a few doors where we Rick-rolled the joint with "Never Gonna Give You Up." The emcee girl running the thing was a real angel, but they shut the place down because we were a bunch of assholes. That may or may not be true, but we were more or less the only people there at 1:13am when they kicked "everyone" out and thanked us for coming by. You can't rock the Rick? You're no friend of mine.
We stumbled back down to Broadway and began retracing our steps from the night before. All new faces, all new people to terrorize and/or drink with. We managed to find a bar we didn't hit yet called the Stage, which would feature a band that was playing "Wanted Dead or Alive" as we walked in and would later deny us any Eddie Money or Toto (although this wouldn't stop Bryn and I from demanding it between every single song of their set). I did get them to play some Def Leppard, which I thought was a good effort on their part to get on our good graces.
A quick jump with the same taxi driver we'd been using since Go brought us back to Waffle House, where we observed some really shady characters and their shady behavior. When we got back to the band hotel rooms, we found one of them had left their door open and they were clearly asleep. We formed a plan to bust in there really loud, find Justin--our guest singer from North Carolina--and do something like sit an arm chair on him. Or, you know, at least jump on him and be really loud and obnoxious. Well, we kicked the door in and ran in howling, but then saw how cozy everyone was (except the TWO [!?] guys who were awaken by this calamity), and left the room to go pass out in our own.
The drive to Champaign, IL the next day was miserable and I couldn't look a beer in the eye if I had to. And, if beers had eyes.
Oh yeah--we wrote some new music for our upcoming album. I think Rod has a pic with a strange aspect ratio of me passed-out on a very smelly couch on the previous blog. That was probably the best sleep I got while in Nashville--go figure that it was with three guitars, a Doz, and some drums screaming at me for five hours.
I miss you, Nashville.