We drive through the heat for 9 hours after 3 hours sleep the night before. It’s day six of a nine-day stretch complete with gigs each night, and the 5am wake-up call is hard hitting! Despite this, our memories of Charlotte are good as we’ve played here with Flogging Molly, Dropkick Murphy’s and on the Vans Warped Tour and it’s a gig with good presale tickets so we’re all excited.
The sun is shining and the venue is a great theatre style place. We meet up with our new friend Eric who provides yet another beautiful flagon filled with rum and spend time eating dinner with him – sorry we didn’t get photos done Eric – I think we were all whacked from the sleepless night – hope you made it to work ok!!
The gig was great and we totally felt the energy in the room. Thanks everyone for coming down. Amazing, amazing, amazing…the local opening band, Sinners and Saints were great too – in fact all of our local opening bands have been so great we’re planning on making a playlist so you can all have a listen to our favourite tracks.
Next day we’re off to Atlanta – not such a long drive so we’re all feeling better from some sleep. We haven’t played this town for over a year since we played with Flogging Molly, so we’re not expecting many to turn up, however, we do remember it being a great show when we were here so I’m looking forward to it. Also joining us are our German friends Pierre and Claus Morgenstern (the photographer who took the photo of me in a circle) come to see us on their tour of America Check out Claus’s blog here.
They take some great photos of us in a simulated photo booth session and then we do some band shots at the club.
Killing Kuddles open the night with a great set before Onward etc. take over the stage and give yet another wild and wonderful performance. Our friend, Nicole, who we met on Vans Warped Tour, also brings us a bag full of dairy free rum and ginger cookies, which last about 12 hours incidentally!
Our set was great, with everyone singing along to songs from ‘Forge and Flagon’ and some even singing along to tracks that will be on the upcoming album and then even other rarities like Merry Old Dance. Amazing! I was almost moved to tears! Then our young friend Andrew took to the stage and knocked our socks off with some amazing dance moves!
After the show, the Onward boys crack open a box of Fireworks and we all feel have a small party on the streets of Georgia before heading home for sleep before Huntsville where we’re not quite sure what to expect – other than the venue is a brewery so there’ll be plenty of BEER!
And we’re not wrong. There is P.L.E.N.T.Y of beer. The venue is a brewery with an amazing biergarten out the back.
It makes for a much needed break from dark clubs and everyone is very relaxed so we take it all in and it feels almost like a holiday in the nine day stint. Needless to say, the night turns into a biggie! Thanks Yellow Hammer Brewery for a fantastic night and a bloody good hotel with a swimming pool – be rude not to take part in some nighttime swimming!
Shit. I didn’t mean to have a hangover on the biggest day of the tour…yes people, it’s day nine and we’re heading to BONNAROOOOOOOOOOOO! There’s always a bit of stress getting into the festival but eventually we’re sorted and all our gear is dropped off at the stage.
There’s 20 minutes for lunch before a video interview with AltPress and a quick few beers in artist hospitality. We head to the stage where we’re horrified to see a load of chairs in the tent. We haven’t had a sit down gig in a long time! We move a load of chairs and still look on the small crowd a little worried…we take to stage as soon as the band on the main stage stop and all of a sudden there’s 250 to 300 people in the tent all bouncing and singing along. It’s amazing and gives us all such a buzz! There’s people there that saw us on the Vans Warped Tour, with Flogging Molly and Dropkicks and even someone from Fuji Rock festival in Japan was there…unbelievable.
Can’t believe we’re not staying to party but it’s a long drive to Philadelphia and we want to watch England play the world cup tomorrow as we’ve got a sweepstake going on – the possibility of winning this has got even me interested in the results!
