Tuesday, September 1st 2009
I wake up fairly early and start packing up the car for the four hour drive from Monterey, where I currently live, to Santa Barbara, where Easton currently lives and where we have a show in the evening! It's pretty easy to pack since we are playing acoustic these days. I throw my and Ray's acoustic guitars in my car and hit the road. Sadly Ray can't come to this show because it's on a Tuesday and he has to work. Me and Easton are pretty bummed because we are loving how the live show is sounding with Ray playing bass and adding some percussion. He is a pretty amazing bassist! Although we would've loved to have Ray play with us we're still super excited because we haven't played a show since we began our little break about two months ago. I think both Easton and I are really excited about getting back into the swing of things with the band and both really refreshed from the small break we took after the pretty intense writing, recording, mixing, mastering and release of Autumn in the Evening.
I make it down to Santa Barbara pretty quick, only stopping once for a Red Bull and a snack. I meet up with Easton at his new place of residence just as he's getting off of a short day of work. It feels great to be back in Santa Barbara! I haven't been down since the fourth of July which didn't turn out very good for me or my girlfriend when I ended up in the ER. Long story with a very uninteresting ending. I had a pinched nerve and half of my face went numb! Anyways I check out Easton's new pad which I realize I have been too before. We quickly head downtown to SOhO where we are supposed to soundcheck for the show. We show up at SOhO and meet some of the others who are playing that evening. While they are sound checking we take a walk down State Street which is awesome because the weather is beautiful. On the way we spot this guy. Both Easton and I have a good laugh at the lack of explanation for why he is in a window front on State Street. We grab a sandwich and head back to soundcheck.
Soundcheck goes quick as usual! Basically we level our acoustic guitars and play through half of Across the Water and The Psychologist. Sounds great! After we soundcheck we have an hour or two until the show starts so we swing back by Easton's house to pick up his housemate Paul. He is a cool guy with an even cooler accent! The three of us head back to the club where the show is about to begin. The first performer is Rachael Cantu. We both really love her set! Really incredible! We listen to the next two performers while we kick back a couple drinks courtesy of Paul before it's our turn to go on.
Our set goes great and a good number of Easton's friends from SB come out to watch. A newer untitled song sounds particularly awesome tonight. Luckily we chose to close our set with it! It is a really cool song and it has quickly become one of our favorite songs to play.
After our set we hang out for a while with a bunch of Easton's friends and they buy us a bunch of drinks. By this point it is obvious I'll be staying in Santa Barbara for the night! We head back to Easton's house with a bunch of his friends. We all hang out and play Third Eye Blind songs on our acoustic guitars until the cops get called on us. Woops!
I crash on Easton's couch for the night before having to wake up super early to head back up North in the morning. Over all it was a very short but awesome day in SB and an even better show. We have a bunch of shows lined up in the next two months and I am so excited about getting back into the swing of things D&S-wise! Thanks to all of Easton's (and my new) friends for coming out to the show! It was great!
