West Side Toury (El Paso, TX - 04/26/10)
Finally, a 45-minute drive to the next venue. I know I mention “the drives” pretty often but it’s such a huge part of what we do. We are constantly in motion, on our way to the next venue, the next town. On average we spend about 5 hours each day in the van we know as Patrick. That’s a lot.
A huge water tower flaunting the slogan, “Jesus Lives”, welcomed us to El Paso. It was a very cool change of scenery. We could see the border to Mexico as we drove in, lined with a massive fence that screamed “keep out”.
Pulling up to the venue was a little disheartening… this was the third venue in a row that we’ve played that didn’t have a stage. I should back up a little bit though.
Today when we woke up, we started rehearsing at the venue we were at the night before. It was a great opportunity, one that I wish we could get every tour. All the ideas for new songs are pumping through you everyday buy you don’t get a good opportunity to work them out as a band except for the one time that you play the song that night. So with the ideas flowing after a week of touring, we got to spend a few hours working them out. I think it showed last night. We were tight, but it was kind of like reading off of a cue card… it’s not really in our hearts yet.
After the show we sold a minimal amount of merch but what we were really after was a place to stay. Both bands announced from the stage that we needed a place to crash but no luck whatsoever. Winter Sounds made their way to the next city and we decided to try our luck with the Wallmart parking lot. A lot of other trucker and RV’s had the same idea. We parked, put up the shades, got in our sleeping bags and….. didn’t really sleep. Not sure I’ve felt this homeless in a long time.
Josh
