tour diary – saturday 03.29 – asheville, nc
ridiculously beautiful. john said that taking 441 through the mountains might even be a little faster and the views would be awesome, so that’s the road that we took from Athens into the nc mountains. it was definitely beautiful as we passed vista after vista and waterfall after waterfall. growing up in the appalachian mountains in pa, i like to say that i grew up near mountains, but looking out the car window over the nc landscape I realized that these were mountains.
ridiculously perilous. somehow bz always ends up driving away from a town named athens when conditions are dangerous. this time it wasn’t snow and ice, however, but the most windy narrow road ever. we pissed off the locals as we drove slowly up the mountain, and the mutant was making some strange noises and smells for a while. the twists and turns were making some in the van sick, and the slow going meant that the drive was taking much longer than the three and a half hours promised by mapquest. that and we had been lax in getting show info so we didn’t know how early we had to be at the show. so, between stressing out about being late for the show, being carsick, and being disappointed that our late arrival meant less time to catch up with old friends, we were a pretty grumpy lot.
we eventually rolled into asheville and the apartment of former sweet life kids katelynn and ryan. when we got in the door, it was like we were in columbus again. adam, michelle, and matt had taken adam’s parents car down from ohio. clare and brett had hitchhiked down*. so a good portion of our friends were hanging out and having a good time. we hung out and ate a delicious but hurried meal of sauted green beans before driving to the show at the secluded warren wilson college campus.
we had no idea where on the campus the show was, but we hoped that the campus was small enough that we could spot the other tour vans. we got to campus and there didn’t seem to be a soul around, but we found a flyer that seemed to indicate that there was indeed a show and that it started at 8 meaning that we were only a little late. we eventually got directions to the show space and it and after a few wrong turns a frightening low-speed collision with a brick wall, we found the place where the show was. as we pulled up, we were greeted by carter from “the dead hate the living” so it seemed like everything was cool.
the show was in a little coffee shop in the basement of a dorm, which seems like it would be pretty weird, but there were already a lot of kids at the show when we arrived and it seemed like a nice mixture of college kids and town kids. we played first and it was awesome to have not only our friends dancing and having a good time, but a lot of kids from Asheville. this was awesome because I was expecting the worst since this show was more of a hardcore show. there was some kid who even remembered us from our frightened first show in little rock on new years. despite the fact that that show was enough to make anybody a little hostile to our music, the kid said that he liked the show when I talked with him a little after the show. also there were two kids up front who I had never met before who were singing along which was confusing but totally awesome. even though we messed up the beginning of just about every song, it was still a really good show.
after we played, “the dead hate the living” played. they were a million times better than when we played with them in Richmond and seemed much more energized. the kids seemed to really like them and there was a big ol’ pit going on during their set. it was a good time.
after that, jason who said up the show’s band, “shovelfight” (aka “sink the fucker”) played. seeing the guys in the band, one would expect some crusty, agro hardcore, but what they played was awesome emotive hardcore with nice political lyrics. the kids went nuts. i thought they were really good, and they even put mikeal in a better mood. all the kids in the band were super nice too. they’re going on tour soon and if you get a chance to see these guys, do it!
finally, “asschapel” played. think of the a hardcore band with the most ridiculous over-the-top metal motifs one can imagine and that pretty much sums them up. shirtless long-haired singer jumping from atop the drums, double encores, and slayer covers, they had it all. it was so over-the-top that it could be completely disastrous, but it was totally awesome.
asheville seems to have an awesome punk scene with a lot of really nice kids. as jason said “asheville is all about fun”. this show was definitely the biggest one yet, and one of the most fun.
after the show we went back to katelynn and ryan’s where I finally got to check my e-mail. Jeremy cooked up some awesome tofu reubans while chad and ryan indulged in the riblet. I got to have a pretty long talk with katelynn and it was awesome to get to hang out with her since we always got along really well when we lived together at the sweet life. it’s always weird talking to her because she’s so sweet but her conversations are always coated with a hint of melancholy that makes me sort of sad. but she seemed to be doing pretty well and it was really good to get to see her and ryan again. i hung out for a while before falling asleep, but will and mikeal stayed up early into the morning. clare, the new master of amazing looking stick-and-poke tattoos gave will a cool f-hole tattoo on his wrist.
* while “shovelfight” was setting up, clare recounted her hitchhiking adventure to me and it wasn’t catastrophic or super eventful by any means but filled with some wild characters. i hope that either clare or brett will document their travels themselves, but I’ll just recount a brief summary because I think the stories are so good. they were pretty lucky getting rides the whole way down with only one long 3 hour wait. the rides included the nice twenty-something girl, the perky high schooler, and a few others, but the ones that remain in my memory from the story are “the creepazoid”, “the cool dad”, and “the crook”.
“the creepazoid” was their first ride and he took them across Columbus. the way clare recounted it, he was just sort of this typical moderately crazed, disheveled, overweight, middle-aged guy. when they got in the car, brett noticed some photos, and being a photo geek himself, asked the driver if he was into photography. he said yes, and he showed them some ridiculous pictures of his parents, etc. then came the kicker that was a definite high mark on the creepiness scale. he started talking about some girl that he was “going to marry, but she didn’t know it yet” and showed them a ton of pictures that he had taken of some hooters waitress looking completely creeped out.
the ride that clare and brett got to the ‘natti was labeled “the cool dad” by clare. not long into the ride he whipped out the weed and told clare and brett about his stash and his kid stealing from it and only pretending that he cared to appease his wife. apparently a joint was produced and things only got scary when beer was offered. I imagine beer + car + stranger driving is a rather anxious situation.
the ride that was by far the most memoreable, at least as the story was related to me was “the crook”. this was a long ride, and it sounds like the guy was kind of tweaking and crazy and super talkative, so it’s hard to piece together the whole story, but basically, the driver was a professional crook. apparently this was even obvious from the appearance of the guy as he was driving a slick (sleazy?) late model convertible with a ton of miles on it, driving it way too fast, and wearing those crazy sleazy sunglasses. a con, a drug smuggler, the kind of lowlife who goes from town to town seeking out his own kind to make a quick buck – the kind of crook that is a staple in noir films but that you’d never expect to meet in real life. so he told a ton of stories that, hearing them secondhand, are either blatantly lies or so ridiculous that they have to be true. here’s the quick summary: car crashes and the disappearance of a trunkful of cash, giving brett and clare a primer on identity theft, talking about plotting to kill his double-crossing lawyer, his grand (and lucrative) scheme to scam a popular chain of roadside eateries, and stealing planes (“it’s easier than stealing a car”) to smuggle drugs over the border. the funniest part is that he seemed to be trying to recruit new crooks amway style. he gave brett his contact info in case he knew of a “hacker” who could come up with a way to clean his credit history, and when it came up that clare had recently dropped out of college, the crook asked if she had considered becoming a crook and leading “the crooked life!” when he let them off, brett asked to take his picture as he had been doing with all the rides on their trip he declined saying, “no, it’s probably better that you don’t take my picture. but you’ll probably be able to get it in a post office somewhere.”