DAY ONE
It happens every now and then while on tour. You’ll do a show which simply blows you away and was nothing like you expected. As we load into the car and get ready to leave Chicago, we enter in the co-ordinates of Macomb (a City NOBODY we talked to in Chicago had heard of) into the GPS unit and discover that it’s going to take 5+ hours just to drive there. Since we had to come back to Chicago after the show, we were kinda a bit nervous…worried if driving 10+ hours out of the way just to play a house party would make sense (and the giant fuel cost). We fretted for a while, decided in the end that drive, schmive we just wanted to party, we left on our way…and it ended up being the best decision of the tour.
Again, like on the west coast, I instructed our GPS to stay off the highways and instead take the shortest route (through the small towns), doing this way, you save a little on petrol costs, get to see a much more awesome part of the country, but add on another 20-30 mins to a days travel.
We drove through some incredible towns today, classic white picket fence, flag waving, “go troops!” little townships with names like Good Hope, Prairie City etc…
We get to Macomb around 7pm to discover a student town STRAIGHT out of the movies. We head down West Adams street towards the venue. Now, you have GOT to see this street to believe it. I am not exaggerating when I say that every single house on the street was full of students and every single one was partying. There were classic frat houses proudly adorned with their greek letters, there were students sitting on couches on their roofs, there were people playing table tennis on their lawns, dozens of BBQs. I was totally rapt, I’d stepped into a scene from Revenge of the Nerds/Animal House and I was lovin’ it.
I was too nervous too take a photo with all the jocks outside, but took this after the party finished.
The guys start freaking out thinking that we were playing some sort of jock ridden keg party. I laugh and tell them not to worry as we stumble upon tonights destination, an awesome house with a basement that hosts partys every weekend. The venue is called the Day Old Basement and it’s a kick ass place.
Before the show we take a cruise around this amazing street and decide to crash a couple of frat parties. Nervously we head out, haha, man, American students are so cliché, I swear this was straight out of a movie, there is no need for me to describe it…just go and rent out National Lampoon’s Animal House.
The party we crashed
We get back to the venue and find it crankin’ with the 2 dozen or so people who are there dancing to locals “Meat Burger”. Over the Atlantic leap on stage following them and go off! This show was absolutely killer and people were going crazy, when they finished people were going nuts and demanding that we stay around for another day, some quick decisions are made, a venue was found and since our brakes pads were wearing down and we had some repairs to get done in Macomb anyway…we hing around.
After the show we actually go to the loft we get asked to play the next night to crash out, but not without stopping at the supermarket on the way to pick up 5 large pizzas for $10 (read previous post about cheap junk food). Our host Adam has a two Pizza Pizzazz’s, gotta be the coolest machine out. A video below shows how it works, but basically you shove the pizza in, which twirls around and cooks it to perfection in around 12 mins..
Video of a Pizza Pizzazz in action
Need to get one of these into NZ somehow.
We crash out Marae styles on the loft floor.
DAY TWO
I take the car to a mechanic to have the brakes looked at…this is turning out to be the one thing we hear about America that is turning out to be false, as again the repair is made quickly and only cost $100 (in my experience of van repairs….this is depressingly what I consider cheap).
We spend the day checking out Macomb, which really there isn’t much to see, its basically a main town square and that’s all. We check out a few record shops and over the course of the day run into several people who were at the show the night before (love small towns), we spend most of the day driving around laughing at the ridiculous students who start partying at around 3pm in the afternoon.
Adam our host getting ready for his graduation ceremony
Over the Atlantic follow a band of wild Mexicans called Los Cos Corones, these guys were mental, sorta At the Drive in meets QOTSA, but with tons of metal licks and crazy screaming. By the time this 8 piece band, which had a bass player running through (I kid you not) 3 bass amps stacked on top of each other…ridiculous, they had pretty much burnt out the PA. The mic was giving Nik electric shocks and you could barely hear anything. Bummed out bigtime since the audience was like 4 times the size of the previous night, and pretty much everyone from the night before was there (and brought their friends) and we didn’t want to disappoint. After about 2-3 songs OTA realise that the PA ain’t gonna get any better and just start singing only a few lines in each song, and just jamming out the songs, its one of those situations where you think its gonna be the worst ever, but due to the crowd being awesome and up for it, the gig basically cranked and people went nuts with members of the crowd leaping up and hugging the band after they finished.
I got some sweet video from this show that I’ll try and upload when i can…
Very ironic, that technically the worst show on the tour where there were no vocals and none of the band could hear each other so were making heaps of mistakes turns out to be our favourite show so far! Mental house partys in small towns, you just can’t beat ‘em.
Macomb totally know how to bring the party. I am informed that Macomb were voted the 27th best party town in all of the US. I can see why.
After the party fades we crash out again on the floor of the loft, however this time are joined by half a dozen randoms from the party. Will from Thought Creature came along to the party as well, and crashed out with us:
In the morning, Adam our hosts partner makes everyone a classic American breakfast of “Biscuits and Gravy”, probably the most hideous looking breakfast I’ve ever seen. The taste was pretty interesting too, I think It’s gonna take some getting used to.
