Aaahhhhhh, being on the road. I am sitting at a Laughing Planet Cafe in Eugene, OR right now having just gormandised a Che Guevara burrito. I guess I didn’t quite gormandise it, but I did rather enjoy it, and haven’t had one since last time we came through Portland. Side note: Laughing Planet is the shit, and the Che Guevara burrito rules. If they opened some Laughing Planet locations in SD, or even more specifically in my hometown of Encinitas, it would probably be the most popular restaurant there. Anywho, I’m at Laughing Planet and now I’m eating a chocolate cookie that has way too much butter in it, and finally finding some time to blog again. Being on the road is pretty gnarly as far as how much is going on, how much energy is exerted, how awkward sleeping arrangements can be, how late you stay up, how much work it is lifting, moving, setting up and tearing down our gear, how much time is spent sitting in a van driving, and how much PCP is injected into your face every morning by a complete stranger speaking Portuguese. Well, maybe not the last one for Inspired Flight, but I’ve heard stories… Touring is awesome though, despite the toll it takes on one’s body. We are on the road this run with a new female vocalist named Miss Erica Dee, and she is fo sheezy Deezy to say the least. We’re having a great time with her and she is adding something really cool to the iF sound. Eric’s girlfriend, Abby, is also on this run with us, and she has been super helpful and lots of fun, and creates a good even balance of male-female energy that is making the tour great so far. And what’s really cool about this tour is that somehow everything seems to be working out just right, starting with randomly stopping our first night at Avila Hot Springs to camp, and scoping Avila Beach the next day before our Santa Cruz show. I had never been to or even heard of Avila Beach, but it’s so cool! I urge you to check it out if you are ever on the road traveling California along the 101. I am now in Eugene because we ended up doing somewhat of a last-minute house party in Eugene last night, and we play the Celebration Eugene festival with Emancipator tomorrow. The house party was dope, and we played in a small room packed with enthusiastic people loving and dancing to our stuff, and there was a really legit LED lighting system behind us going off to our music, and the room was so hot from the bodies and the summer weather that Eric and I ended up performing nearly our whole set with our shirts off! Playing shirtless is definitely not how iF rolls, but it was cool to just not care and rock it like that in this crowded, stuffy house party environment. Our tour so far has been a lot of fun with a mixture of show experiences that kind of breakdown as follows:
Santa Cruz: We played Moe’s Alley. Not very many people but the people there knew who we were and were super stoked off of us. We had some super fans come out which was a real treat, and one of the first times that has happened, if not the first, and we sold a lot of merch and had a lot of fun playing for people dancing hard to our set.
San Francisco: We played The Independent opening for The Coup. The venue was really cool and we had a big crowd to see us! The room was especially packed by the time we finished our set, and the crowd was very attentive and ultimately receptive to what we were doing. It was our biggest and best show in the bay area to date by far. Note to whom it may concern: pronouncing The Coup like “coop” to Boots’ face may result in feeling very stupid later when the rest of the night you hear everybody else, including Boots himself, refer to them as The Coup, like “coo.”
Arcata: We played Humbrews with my brother’s group, Area Sound. The turnout wasn’t quite as packed as we had hoped, but there was still a great crowd with really big energy! The show was lots of fun, and the live band backing up Area Sound killed it!
Seattle: We played The White Rabbit. This is a really vibey, great little spot in the Fremont area of Seattle, which is a super cool neighborhood. Positives: Abby, Erica, and two of her friends, danced to our set, and my brother who just moved to Seattle came out. Also the sound guy was super cool. Negatives: 4 people came out to the show and paid. We made no money. Not even the headline act showed up or the person who was to host the night.
Eugene: We played a house party. It was crazy, sexy, cool. We rocked an hour set of just mashing up TLC. Or did we????
And next we play the big show with Emancipator at McDonald Theater, which is why we are really on the road at all right now, and which we are very excited for!
So that’s the tour so far, or at least the quick version anyway. We’ll get home late Monday night and then we’re playing a small local show at The Saloon in Encinitas, which is actually really fun to do. Life is good : ) This cookie is still crazy buttery. My laptop is about to die. I’m tired. Did I mention my whole mouth feels like a butter factory? But life is good…
-Chavez
