I'm a little bit late on posting about all of this stuff but whatever it happens. We just got back from Alaska about a week ago and a half ago. It was fucking rad. Those last two shows up there marked the end of our U.S. tour. Alaska is a lot more wild then I had expected it to be. It was something like 3 degrees the whole time we were there. I was literally wearing 10 layers the whole weekend.
The first show of that weekend was at a place called The Downstairs in Anchorage. I had no idea what to expect when we showed up at the place but it ended up being a pretty sweet show. This band SHE opened up the gig. It was their first show and they fucking destroyed. It was sick. I believe they are recording their demo soon so keep your eyes open for that shit. The singer of SHE was also our driver for the weekend. He was a real wild man. I swear he was fucked up the whole weekend. Whenever we drank a beer/hit the blunt or anything like that he would do it twice. He must of had a hard time driving. It was pretty wild and probably really unsafe but who cares we had a blast with that guy. KORRUPTURE also played the show and they shredded. I was standing on the side of the stage watching them with my jaw dropped to the floor the whole time. All of those dudes are super good at what they do and you could tell. Hella metal all the time. They also happen to be some of the best people on this earth. They let us stay at their house for the weekend and took really good care of us. I can't wait to hang with them again. THE SCURVIES played next and had the place slammin around and going wild. Some kids were telling us how hyped they were to see them play because they live in Fairbanks. Which is pretty far away so they barely ever play the area. They were rocking. By the time it was our turn to play the place had filled out pretty well. There was a cool stage at the spot. Everything seemed to be set up for a good gig but I still had no idea what to expect. From the first note to the the last note of the set people were flying everywhere. It was fucking sick. If I find any photos/videos from this show I will post them up here. It seemed like kids from Alaska have been waiting for a hardcore show to happen or something. The place was raging. People were on stage a lot of the time. A good portion of the set was spent singing from the drum riser. We played a bunch of songs that we did not play on the rest of the U.S. tour which was cool. We figure'd if we are going to travel up to Alaska to play some shows we might as well play A LOT of songs. People up there seem generally stoked on punk/hardcore which is hard to find a lot of places. There is def something growing up there in that area. It may not be crazy huge right now but it is definitely bubbling hard.
After the show we packed up all of our shit and loaded it out into the hellish 5 degree weather that was going down. After that we made our way over to a cozy little house on the other side of town where some sort of house party/show was going on. It was rad. Everyone there was super cool to us. There were some real deal Alaskan Mountain men partying hard. It was hard. Alaskan house parties are wild. SHE played another set in the basement of the house. It was their 2nd show and it was twice as good this time around. The ceiling was ripped down while they were playing. Whenever the ceiling comes down you know its a good time. After that we went back to the KORRUPTURE house and passed the fuck out.
We had big plans to wake up early the next day and go see glaciers and all of this wild shit but we ended up sleeping in way too late. Which wasn't a big deal because we still had another day(Sunday) to do all of that stuff. Saturday was spent hanging around the house trying to stay warm and entertaining ourselves on games of tetris. Around 6 o clock we made our way over to Wasilla. The show that Saturday was at a place called Make A Scene. We got there kind of early. There was an acoustic show going on before ours. Garrett and I caught the last few songs of this older mans set. He was actually really good. The show in Wasilla was rad too. There was no stage and the venue was about half of the size of the venue on Friday. Kids packed it in and slammed around. SHE/KORRUPTURE and THE SCURVIES all played again. They all killed it again. Here are some pictures from that show:
After the show we went out to stay at our friends cabin in the middle of the woods. He said it would be a great way to experience Alaska. He was right. I have never seen anything like that place before. It was right on the edge of a huge frozen lake. I saw some wild moose around there and the person who drove us to the house took us to do crazy doughnuts in the ice. Here is a picture of our friends back porch the morning after we stayed there:
Here is a picture of a bear hanging on our friends wall at his cabin:
After having a good breakfast and running around on the snowy frozen lake all morning we headed out on our Alaskan adventure. We drove up some crazy mountain. 2 dudes ate some mushrooms and tripped the whole time in white out conditions. I had a handle of whiskey to myself for the whole ride. It was a crazy set up. We were driving down a two lane highway up the side of a mountain. Everywhere around us looked like it was straight out of national geographic or a postcard or something. Here is a picture from the truck while we were driving around:
We stopped off the side of the road to take a piss somewhere at this frozen lake on our drive around. Out of nowhere two mountain men came out of the woods with guns. The informed us that they were looking for rabbits to get for tonights dinner. They also told us that it was going to be dark any minute so we should probably head back down the mountain before its impossible to get out. We listened to them and made our way back to Anchorage. I was way too drunk by the time we got back to the house. I passed out the second I walked in the door. I slept for a few hours. Then I was woken up for moose burritos. Our friends dad had moose meat and made burritos out of it. It was fucking gnarly. MOOSE BURRITOS? What the fuck is up with that. I also had some reigndeer sausage which was also pretty weird but oh well I had to do it. We were in Alaska. Shit like that happens in Alaska. After our moose dinner we packed up our shit and got dropped off at the airport. We had a redeye flight from Alaska to Seattle. We got into Seattle around 6 AM. Right when we landed I had to sprint over to my connecting flight down to San Francisco. I caught that and got into SF around 10 AM. My friend picked me up in the city and dropped me off at my house in the city of trees(ssssaaaccrraaammeennttooo).
Coming home from tour is really fucking weird. It always feels the same. I figured after doing this so many times I SHOULD be used to this feeling by now but I am not. It is next level weird to feel more at home in the van than your actual house. I think the main thing that sends me into a mind fuck when I am home is the fact that... on tour you travel hundreds of miles each day. You are always on the move. Shit is constantly changing around you. New faces and new places. When you are home it is the complete opposite. Everything is the same every fucking day. When I'm home I feel like I'm trapped within a 500 mile radius. Which seems pretty big I guess but it really doesn't feel right when you're used to being on the constant prowl. This tour we just finished was a 44 day rager. The tour was 44 days but I think we played around 48 sets. It was a fucking gnarly tour. We did a bunch of wild shit on this tour from flooding basements in Indiana to playing 3 shows in 1 day in NYC. Shout outs to all of the promoters who helped us out on this tour and to anyone who let us crash on their floors/do their drugs/drink their beers/borrow their gear etc... it is so much more appreciated than you will probably ever know. We will have more tour dates coming SOON. U.S. Tours/Australian Tours/European tours/Japan tours etc.... We will be playing EVERYWHERE in 2009. We won't be playing very many shows this month at all. We are playing this Saturday in Oakland. You should come out if you are in the area. It is our last show of the year. Other than that it's time to hang around the area for the holidays. Hopefully we will be seeing all of you soon... I'm sure we will.
Fuck I just realized I uploaded the photos wrong. Click on them to see em full size.
GP The Beast forever.
-Lee
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