Born Ruffians Tour Diary # 2

I’m going to start this off with a bit of a tale – because it turns out I didn’t really know what we were in for when I sent my first blog entry from Calgary – things took a turn for the douchey.

Not the Calgary show itself. No no no. That show was a lot of fun (including the dance party after). There was a small incident however; one we’ve never encountered before, because our fans are usually (a.k.a. always) not the type to give us the finger, because hey, if you’re a fan of something, you generally don’t show your appreciation by giving that thing the finger. Unless if you’re a fan of Stone Cold Steve Austin like me.

Anyway, here’s the full silly story:

We were about halfway through our set when Luke accidentally unplugged his guitar, thus cutting the sound out at a crucial moment in the song. He fixed it pretty quickly, but once the song was over, in a fit of self-rage, he threw a roundhouse kick at the microphone stand, which tumbled over into the crowd.

At the time I didn’t think anything had happened, but one guy took the brunt of the mic in the head apparently, and his friend (not him) took it personally, because that’s what bros are for, right bros?! From then on in, he kept pushing the mic stand back at Luke and into his face, as well as using some rude hand gestures that I can’t describe on here in fear of my mom reading this.

At one point I saw Andy (who is a man that I have never seen show even the slightest sign of genuine anger towards another person), pointing and shouting something at this guy. I didn’t know what was up, but I knew something was wrong if Andy, earth’s kindest soul, was shouting expletives into a dude’s face.

Then came the last song, when the guy pushed the mic stand completely over when everything BUT the vocals were supposed to drop out, thus bringing the song to a complete halt. At this point, I now knew what was going on and went over to yell swear words at this guy along with Andy for derailing what was a really fun set. He was taken out, we somehow pieced the song back together and finished.

Then I went outside before the encore to see if the guy was out there, and I beat him mercilessly with my bare hands.

Not really. I did that thing where your voice quivers and you make vague threats then leave. I’m a true badass!

I apologize for the lack of pictures in Calgary – I was completely derailed by that guy pushing the mic. Please accept this David Wilcox video that we watched before our show in Chicago and I hope you will forgive us: 

We then moved on to Saskatoon, where we had a great show at Amigo’s (you can check out some really sweet photos from the show here). Good thing that guy got some pictures because I sure as heck didn’t. Still rattled from Calgary I suppose.

From there we spent several hours in the van getting to Winnipeg.

We literally rushed to get there, loaded in, played almost immediately (to a really fun crowd)

Then had to leave almost immediately (after packing up the van from ON TOP OF OF THE VAN!

because of a long drive we had to do the next day. We were so delirious that I thought the road was covered in snakes. Turns out it’s just tar. Yep. Tar. We also hit a wolf or coyote driving through the night. It was both sad and 100% terrifying. We’re a bunch of fragile little boys.

We then played in Minneapolis at the Turf Club, which had a strange juxtaposition of back rooms (is that the right using of that word? I’m just trying to sound like an educated man.) One room looked like this:

While the other looked like this:

You can safely assume we spent more time in the cool room playing piano and taking psychedelic pictures than we did chilling in the murder basement.

During the show a girl jumped up on stage during Moose Bruce and tried playing Luke’s guitar, then just awkwardly climbed back down. It was pretty hilarious. To me. Not so much her.

Then it was off to Chicago, but first we hit up Daytrotter where we and Young Rival both recorded sessions that will go up sometime in the near future.

The drive from Minneapolis to Rock Island (Daytrotter) to Chicago was our longest trip of the tour (woke up at 6:15, arrived at venue around 8:00 I think), and it also may have been the biggest payoff in terms of stir craziness accumulated in the van and awesomeness generated at the show. If that makes any sense at all. All I mean is that we had a crazy fun show that was even more awesome because of how long we sat still in the van on our way there.

The pace of tour can definitely be jarring sometimes, in a way that’s more funny than anything really. You sit still for fourteen hours, then IMMEDIATELY rock out as hard as humanly possible, get drunk, go to bed. It’s like baseball. Sit still for a long time then run to first base as fast as your body will allow you. The only difference is that when you tour with us nerds, no one gets to first base. :(

I think I’ll leave on a high note. We’re all hanging out in the bar in Allston as people are coming in – should be a sweaty one tonight. Hoo boy.

ruffian mitch