September 6th. Minneapolis, MN

The first exposure I get of Minnesota is hazily climbing out of the van just a few miles into the state from South Dakota. What first hits me is the warm humid wind that envelopes me all around in the vacant gas station parking lot, it was not at all what I had expected. For myself our trip to Minneapolis is the first of a few musical pilgrimages for Minneapolis is where one of my favorite musical influences were bred, raised and died. I can only imagine Paul, Tommy, Bob and Chris in 1984 wearing ratty jeans and flannel shirts wandering around the rainy streets of the Twin Cities most likely drunk and alternating between Kiss covers and playing songs that inhabit my post high school life. (for a better overview I can only highly recommend Portland's own Colin Meloy's 33 & 1/3 book on the Mat's classic Let It Be)
Yet for everyone else in the band the Mat's are not the focal point of this journey .
Within 15 minutes of pulling into the Minneapolis we see the sculpture garden with the giant spoon and cherry and the Walker Art Center and are warmly welcomed into an apartment building that is infested with almost entirely musicians. The level of hospitality we encounter is rare and is always welcomed and very much appreciates. Our host takes us on a tour of his building leading up to a grown up rooftop play area complete with home-wired stereo and movie theater. That gives us a gorgeous view of the Twin Cities skyline. He tells us that the neighborhood that we are playing at is known as "Currytown" due to its large eastern African immigrant population from Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia I wonder if the residents refer to it as such, I tend to believe that they do not.
When arriving at the venue I realized that the Triple rock has possibly the friendliest staff I have ever encountered at any rock club I've ever played. The show was was a double header with a touring package of post-hardcore emo bands with merchandise displays larger than their equipment and then our 21 plus at 10:00. The opening band was an exercise in jerkiness (read www.localcut.com for more info) After we loaded up in the rain and made our way to the next town...Marquette MI.
----Carlos

So the positives. The club was amazing. Punk rock mecca for me, it has been a place that i have wanted to play for a really long time. The rooftop at the place we stayed was fantastic, the people we stayed with were so welcoming and funny. The rain in the city was ridiculous that night and it forced us to stay inside and drink. We did. That coupled with number of technical problems I managed to play one of the worst shows of my life that night and then throw a fit when the van wasn't loaded properly. Baby time in deed. But no big deal tomorrows another night. -Aaron