tour diary – sunday 03.23 – providence, ri
the ride up to providence sucked. there were 11 of us, defiance, ohio, our friends, and the good good. that, combined with ryan and chad getting us lost in new jersey and running into nyc traffic meant that the ride was excruciating. there were some good parts though. we all got into that punch-drunk fatigued state eventually. there was a point where we all sang songs together which was nice. another high point was when the back seat of the van was turned into a bathroom when mindy and natalja had to go with no hopes of stopping amidst the clogged freeways around new york city. they used a blanket for privacy and filled up a big plastic cup whose top was inverted as a makeshift funnel. will then proceeded to throw the urine out the door. we were all amazed when natalja filled up nearly two of the giant cups.
we eventually got to providence and the show and things got started. some band from boston played and they were pretty good and the good good were awesome. then we played and things didn’t go so well. maybe it was the van ride and the fatigue, maybe it was an off night, but we played pretty shitty and things didn’t sound very good. will got really upset when a girl he had known in dayton and not seen in years laughed and left in the middle of the set. she wasn’t alone. it was pretty bad. but i don’t think it was that bad. it didn’t upset me. i don’t really care whether or not people like my band. what matters to me is that people at least respect me and think that the way i interact with people is generally positive. unfortunately, i think at this show, the two got confused, and the fact that the providence kids didn’t really like the show too much put many of us in really bad moods which made a lot of other interactions with people really negative. a lot of people got a really bad impression of providence, which i don’t think is really fair because i had a really good time there and people were really nice when i travelled through with ryan, mikeal, and brian in the fall. i wish that we could have just put the show behind us and tried to enjoy ourselves because i think our time in providence would have turned out much better. i appologize to anybody who i was sort of short with or rude to that day and i’m sure other people feel the same way. sometimes it’s hard to put things in perspective. people were nice enough to do a show for us and give us a place to stay, and i feel that many of us, myself included didn’t really articulate our appreciation of that.
at least “anton bordman” was good. bass and drums playing interesting sounding hardcore with intelligent lyrics. i was glad that i got the chance to see them, and mikeal was even more excited because they’re one of his favorite bands.
the evening turned out to be even more of a disappointment for will, bz, and mikeal who went to see the dancing jesus and were denied any hint of abnormality. the next morning wasn’t much better. will, who had been by far the most vocal about hating providence, to the point where i was getting pretty annoyed, was told that he “looked stupid” by some kid and we went to a diner that had tofu scrambler which was kind of cool but some gnarled old guy from the town told will to get out and “not let the door hit you on the ass on your way out.” we were all glad to leave to head to new york. i wasn’t so much dissappointed with my experience in providence, just that other people had such a bad time.
i actually like the city a lot. one reason is that it’s old, and it feels old. it has that gnarled, spooky, maritime feel to it that boston does, and i like that a lot. also a strong ethnic italian-american and portuguese american population which is a refreshing departure from the homogenization of some of the midwest. mikeal and i walked around a little trying to find a place to make duplicate keys for the mutant, we found this hardware store manned by two generations of hardware-guys. you could tell that these guys had been doing hardware all their lives and that many of the other customers were regulars who had spent countless hours amongst the dusty shelves of nuts, bolts, and paint. they spoke with a thick accent, half new-england, half italian tough guy. it was interesting and different. it’s nice that tour affords the opportunity to travel, and even if it’s expierienced only in really small chunks, the opportunity to see that some sense of history or some subtulties to american culture, call it a melting pot or whatever, still exist.