October 4, 2013
... Gamblor... damn you. It's 2am... finally pulled myself from the casino across the road... excellent post show entertainment though... I must admit. This will be pretty short... well as short as one pass will allow since I need to get up in a few hours... boarder crossing tomorrow. I think everyone was up pretty early this morning... I was wide awake around 6:30am. I'm still sorta on Toronto time so while it's 2am here (right now), it's 5am in Toronto... and yes I'm sorta tired. I met up with Matt and Tim to grab breakfast at the buffet. Buffets are awesome. If you find a good one, you'll eat better AND eat less. Which sounds counterproductive but eating well is better than eating more. Quality over quantity... and the food here is really good! I spent most of the afternoon in my track pants, doing web stuff and prepping a few things for the show. It would've been nice to head across the road to the casino to kill some time but 1) that costs money and 2) I had a bunch of things to get through online. Even though I'm away from work, there's still lots of work to be done when you run your own business. If you neglect it, you're gonna have problems. Matt and I took another trip to the buffet for lunch... it's pricey (thank you food vouchers!) but again, it's totally worth it. They had a soft serve ice cream machine... it was painful not being able to do anything stupid (funny) with it. We headed over to the venue around 3pm. It was an hour drive... through shitty traffic. I think we almost missed our exits about 5 times, went through about 9 construction zones., and were almost taken out by vehicles changing lanes about 15 times. Felt like Toronto except there wasn't as much construction. (cough) So we're playing another casino. Apparently these places are like a chain or all under the same umbrella. We have been treated amazingly at the hotel and it was more of the same when we arrived at the venue. Speaking of when we arrived... nothing shrinks your coin purse like parking your forest green safari van between two tour buses with trailers. It's not a pissing contest... but it looks nice.... the tour buses... not the piss. (someone is doing it in the room next to me... I wish I was asleep right now.) ... back to the tour bus thing. I understand 100% it's a logistics thing over appearance thing. It makes sense to have a place for everyone (band and crew) to stay and travel. It's a place to sleep and relax a little to, from, before, and after shows. It doesn't make sense for us to have anything like that right now since it's just 5 guys and 0 crew... although it'd be awesome to have a driver and a guitar tech around. We were spoiled with Brad (Brad is the man!) back in June. Having an awesome tech around just made everything better... and as I've learned, better is better. So we arrived just after 4pm... our sound check was at 5:30... or whenever Papa Roach and Pop Evil are done... we know the ropes by now... and we're quick with sound check.. The venue was a pretty big theater... more suited for actual "theater". It was 88% seats... like actual "sit down" seats. This is fine for old guys like me... but it makes for a weird rock show at times... especially if the crowd is somewhat behaved and respectful. Skipping to the show... it was great Tim didn't have to do much convincing to get people out of there seats and down to the front of the stage. All it takes is a few folks to get the parade started. It's a rock show... go have fun people! We only had a 20 minute set tonight... which flew by. It's 5 tunes. It felt pretty good though. A couple hiccups but they're the type you iron out over breakfast the next morning. ... I gotta sleep soon... can't wait for breakfast! The crowd and staff seemed to really enjoy the set. It's often we meet people at the merch table who say they've never heard of Age Of Days before and really liked the set (picking up a cd and or a shirt)... while others mention we're one of the better opening acts they've seen in a while. I take that as a huge compliment. Oh... our dressing room was awesome too. Huge room, enough seating for everyone... snacks (ketchup chips!), drinks, fruit basket, showers, two toilet stalls! It was like having our own bus! (cough) It was a really nice room though... and honestly it's been a really kick ass start to this tour. There's a lot of driving coming up over the next couple weeks... but I think this is all really good for overall morale. We packed up, watched Pop Evil, and Papa Roach. Highlight for me was when Papa Roach played "Where Did The Angles Go"... it sounded ridiculous. I'm a tough critic... but they threw down on that song... I was laughing after at how ridiculous I thought it sounded... SOOO good. Post show, we settled up, then headed back to the hotel/casino. Plan was to bum around the casino for a bit to eat and also feed Gamblor. Matt won a bit today on slots after lunch... I think it took him all of 19 seconds to lose his $14.93 cents he really should've cashed out. ... but that's just my opinion. Oh I met up with TJ Moreau at the show as well. You might know the name (through my blogs) since we worked on a few songs last winter. He seemed pretty stoked to see the show and I'm glad he could make it out. He tagged along back to the casino to hang and chat... good times for sure! ... TJ and I were the last ones standing/sitting at the slots tonight I'm pretty sure as well. In short... we walked around, tried a few machines... I lost $10 in about 14 seconds. He lost $10 in about 3 minutes. ... we just couldn't find the right machines though. TJ pointed out the machines we should go to but two side by side weren't open... there was some girl (half in the bag) sitting there... giving us the eye. We were eying her too... but like... the "we want you... to leave" eye. I told TJ he should go hit on her, then hurt her feelings to she runs off all dramatically... he wouldn't go for it though. What a jerk. We walked around a bit longer, lost a bit more money then she finally left... thank you Gamblor! So we start playing these machines... $0.02 machines BUT you have to really up the anti to make it worth while odds wise. This might be all common knowledge to you... but I'm new to a lot of things normal adults do regularly or have already done. :-| ... so I'm down to my last little bit... I decide to just go for broke. Max bet. $$$. Yes! ... then I lose the rest of it. TJ cashes out what he has left, throws it over to me, then pops another $20 in the machine. I ask him if he's sure about 50 times... he insists. I keep rocking max bet... and then it happens. Some free spin/bonus thing. The machine is kinda going nuts... I'm laughing since it's sorta embarrassing at first but noise is going on everywhere around me... and I'm technically winning money. So the bonus thing goes on for a while, then it starts paying out all crazy... I think I was up $45 now (minus the $20 I spent and the $15 TJ threw at me. So I guess only $10. I rocked this for a while... got the bonus thing a bunch of times. Long story short(ened). I think I was up $145 at one point, cashed out at $101.83. I was thinking I'd cash out at a new hockey stick ($160) but then I decided $200 was my goal, but AFTER a certain time (1:30am) I'd cash out if I was about to dip below $100. TJ was on his last spin, went for broke with max bet... ended up cashing out $40 or something. It worked out pretty good in the end. Gambling isn't a good career choice but it was a fun hour of entertainment that's for sure. I'm off to bed... 7am alarm clock, breakfast for 7:45, van call for 8:45. I can do this. Wish us luck on our boarder crossing. May the rock Gods be smiling on us. - Mike
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Mike Langford - Official BlogBeing on both sides of the glass, I get the chance to wear many hats in the music industry. This is a place to share my thoughts, views, predictions, rants, stories and news! Categories
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