Dispatches: The Flatliners: Episode 3

The Flatliners, hot on the heels of the release of Cavalcade, recently made their way across Canada with Broadway Calls and Cobra Skulls. The band has agreed to drop in and give us some dispatches, the third of which we bring you tonight.You can click Read More for the dispatch.

April 20, 2010 - St Catharines, ON:
420! Our very own Cheech & Chong (Paul & Jon) love this day with all their
hearts. I won't lie, the rest of us don't mind it either, although this is
the first year I haven't dabbled the day of in a long, long time. A few
gnarly throat problems at the beginning of this monster tour forced me into
the thought that maybe I shouldn't smoke as much weed on tour if we're out
for a while. Probably for the best, so this 420 I just drank instead.
Before the show we showed our California resident buds (Cobra Skulls) some
actually good, authentic Mexican food in Canada. That's hard to come by
folks, and it got the nod of approval of the Cobras. Even though eating a
ton of delicious Mexican food and then hopping around on stage usually
isn't much fun, the show in St Catharines was pretty rad. Especially for a
Tuesday. Our buddies The Snips came out to hang, and Ricky brought us some
custom PWC back patches so we can finally become the dangerous street gang
we've always wanted to become. Look out city streets, we're gonna drink
cheap beer and keep to ourselves! Thanks Rick!

Since I had to drive after the show in St Catharines, I didn't start
drinking until much later. Barty from The Snips and myself drank a bottle
of Jagermeister way too quick, and the night was off. Of course leading me
to waking up the next day feeling the worst I've felt all tour probably.
We'd had another Flats/Broadway/Cobras slumber party at Party Barty's
house, so we all headed to this nearby diner for "breakfast." Hey, if you
order breakfast food, and its your first meal of the day, even if its 3 PM,
that's still breakfast. After almost hurling up my breakfast a few times
and watching Cobras' tour dog Bella freak out at the sound of wheels on
pavement when people were skateboarding in the parking lot, we made the
ridiculously short drive to Hamilton - 48 km.

April 21, 2010 - Hamilton, ON:
What can you say about Hamilton? Its a dingy looking place and it smells
like shit all the time. But the shows are always so fucking incredible, its
ridiculous! Aside from washing our dirty van, and in the process really
pissing off our tour manager Dorian, it was a pretty uneventful day. This
mid-week show was something to write home about though. god Damn. Cobras
were awesome as always, and Broadway Calls I think had the best, most
interactive crowd they've had all tour. Everyone was stoked to play - even
after a bunch of glasses were smashed on the stage immediately before we
rung out our first note. The broken glass became a metaphor for Hamilton
and its shows, without a doubt. It seemed like there were a lot of "bros"
in the crowd tonight. I suppose when they enter the room of a show it
becomes imperative for them to remove their shirts and stand in the front
row. You should've seen the security guards on stage tonight though, making
sure no one cut themselves on the broken glass, and seeing to it that our
microphones weren't sent to a smashing halt on our teeth. I know a lot of
kids hate security guards and whatever, but these guys were cool and
holding it down. It got pretty out of hand at some points, and this guy
Mitch (who's got a massive Great Awake tattoo) cut his hand open on the
glass and proceeded to wipe it all over Luke from Cobra Skull's cymbals.
Probably by accident. We played "Count Your Bruises" off our new record
tonight for Mitch, the bloody handed bandit. We had never played it live
before. I think we pulled off a B- performance of it, but hey… When a guy
with a HUGE tattoo depicting your band's artwork on his chest asks you to
play a song, you play that fucking song.

After the really, really hot show, Luke asked me if I knew the guy who's
hand got cut open. I told him I did. He asked me if I could help him find
the guy so he could clean all of the blood off his shit. Luke said "Man,
there's a lot of blood on my ride cymbal right now. And its a lot of blood
that isn't mine." People of Hamilton accuse of us hating their city, and
its true. We're not fans of the city itself. But our fans in the Hammer are
something else man. Holy shit. They always show us an awesome time, and
always know how to have a good time themselves. Cheers to the Hammer for
making this Wednesday unreal.

April 22, 2010 - Toronto, ON:
I knew today would be a cluster fuck. As fun as hometown shows are,
there's always a bunch of stress and nonsense that comes with it. I slept
in my own bed last night for the first time in like 8 weeks. Holy shit I
could have slept forever. Once I reluctantly woke up, Scott and I headed
downtown early to do an interview with Alan Cross (voice of The Ongoing
History of New Music - a rad radio show and comprehensive guide to the
music world throughout many generations) and to perform "Carry the Banner"
acoustic. Even though I didn't have a single drink last night I feel super
hung over. Somehow I always manage to get sick the last week of a really
long tour. I think my body senses its almost the end. The interview went
well, and despite feeling like my head was going to explode, the acoustic
song turned out good too. Talking to Alan Cross is a trip because the guy
has heard everything, and seems to know everything. If you don't know the
name, look him up. He'll surely educate you on musical things you didn't
even know about. (you can hear the song here

It seemed like once we got to the venue we did a thousand interviews. One
of which prominently featured the Cobra's dog. We somehow found time to
restring our guitars, set our gear up and soundcheck before this open-bar
pre-party that Jagermeister was throwing started up. These guys know how to
throw a party, and apparently we're a real band now because they made us an
ice sculpture with our name on it to pour your drink through. Yup. An ice
sculpture. I couldn't believe my eyes at first, but after I did the first
shot of the night (REPRESENT) at 6 PM, the booze began to flow and
everything was cool. I will say that starting to drink liquor at 6 PM is
probably a bad idea when: A) its free, and B) you play at 10:30. Oh well.
Hometown show! The night gets pretty blurry very fast, and that included
the first half of our set. I don't really remember catching up with some
friends and seeing some people that I did. Drunk as hell. At some point
though, I sobered up something fierce on stage. I'm not sure if it was us
trying to break up a few fights that went down during the set, or if I was
just sweating out all the booze I'd had earlier, but at some point I just
wasn't drunk anymore. I've heard of people drinking themselves sober, but
this was not the case. Either way, it was probably a good thing I sobered
up because then I was really able to enjoy the show. It was a lot of fun
being home for the first time in 2+ months and having a lot of folks come
out to the show. Thank you everyone in Toronto for always having our backs
and showing us love. Its incredible.

After the show, my Mom - for the first time ever - hung out in our
backstage room with us for a while. We all gave her sweaty hugs while we
caught up with friends and family. These were sober catch-ups mind you,
because the show was so damn hot. Once we were loaded out, we headed to
Smokes Poutinerie to get some greasy ass food and then we hit the road.
Tour continues…