Update #2

The first night of tour was…the first night of tour, so naturally the first MORNING of tour was a little hard to wake up and take. But we were in beautiful Will-Remise, Switzerland and the scenery more than makes up for that. Well, the scenery during the drive. The venue itself was next to some abandoned train tracks. Some real gnarly post-apocalyptic Mad Max looking dudes were BBQ-ing on the tracks. What kind of science fiction gumbo were you guys making? Please e-mail any recipes. The show was sold out and pretty insane for all involved. Andrew got a wicked noise bleed the first song in but he toughed it out.

The show in Vienna…wow. I'm not sure where to start. First of all, the show was awesome, and dudes came from all over the place. There was one dude in particular though who was being "that dude" who spent probably as much time on stage during our set as I did, dancing around, shouting "Sneeeee! Sneeeee!" into the microphones, executing questionable stagedives…you know, the usual. We played at the Arena where we've played the last few times we've been in Austria, but this time we were in the big room. This tour is funny because we've been rotating the line-up each night, and every band is so good live (in my opinion) that when they're in the zone and really doing it, no other band on the lineup can touch them. So everyone is afraid to follow each other, ha. At least it's comforting that everyone has the same concern.

Bane absolutely blew the place up. You can tell how good a Bane set is by how absolutely fucking wild Zach goes. He's a dangerous man.

There isn't much about Bane I can say that over a decades worth of zines, websites and word-of-mouth haven't already covered. The first time I saw them I was an excited teenager at one of my first real hardcore shows. They killed it, I had never seen anything like it. I even broke my Nightmare Before Christmas wrist-watch whilst getting extreme. Three years later, a little wiser and one watch poorer, they played one of the best sets Minneapolis has ever hosted and I told Bedard that his band was a big part of why I was so involved in this mess called hardcore. And years after that, they're still here, doing what they do completely out of love for the game. They are the peacekeepers and the guaranteed spectacle of every show they play. They are probably the mortal enemy of every sound guy and stage manager there ever was, but that's none of my business.

I'm feeling lazy during the day because there's just too many friends hanging out at night, so no one wants to sleep. Hopefully I can catch my second wind and actually do some exploring this week. Not that hanging out in venues all day checking out dick graffiti isn't fulfilling, I just don't want to waste the trip. If anybody in Haarlem wants to do any exploring, get at us.

Take care of yourselves and come say hello if you're at a show!

Quote of the day, Ryan from Outbreak during their Vienna set: "Everybody move up…..No? Fuck you then."