8th
GEOFF GARLOCK TIME MACHINE CONTINUE
This is another poster from the High on Fire/Panthers/Mono/Coliseum tour, for our show in Minneapolis at the First Avenue. Wait you ask? am I talking about the very same First Avenue that was Prince’s home club, and is featured in “Purple Rain”? Am I saying in the grand spirit of it all it’s almost like I shared a stage with Morris Day and the Time? Yes. That is exactly what I was saying.
So what do I remember about this show? Well for one thing the Jonas Brothers and/or Miley Cyrus were playing the Minneapolis Enormadome across the street the same night so there was an insane amount of pre pubescent girls and Mothers who should know better walking around. I remember that even though it was right downtown I walked around for a long time with Chris Maggio from Coliseum trying to find food and ended up finding nothing and eating possibly a tamale they were selling at the club. I remember that it was suprisingly packed even though we were competing with Between the Buried and Me/Horse the Band on the same night(but some of the dudes from Horse the Band came over to watch us play).
But most of all I remember a sense of abject dread. The dread of realizing that 1.)we were coming to the end of the tour soon enough with only a couple dates left and knowing that most likely we would call the band quits after this tour and most importantly that 2.) our next show was two days after in Vancouver BC. Yes that is right. Canada. and we were only about halfway through America. This is one of the downsides of touring with a bigger band. No one loves those drives. That is two days of driving. and I mean two days straight. Im pretty sure even with non stop driving we still made it to Vancouver right before the show. But that type of drive is much easier for the headliner…who is in a bus…and have drivers that can drive through the night while you sleep in your bunk. Not to mention you are making headliner money so having a couple days off is a nice rest that doesn’t eat into your budget as much.
on the other hand there is Panthers. When you are only making a couple hundred a night if you are lucky. Not to mention not selling as much merch because you are the headliner and gas is rising in cost, any day off you are just hemorrhaging money. It just is what it is. And nothing is worse than sitting in a van for 2 days straight, that you are driving, knowing that you are also basically paying for that experience. You really do get to become one with the smells of the van and how uncomfortable you are with people being next to you for long stretches of time and have to really focus on achieving a zen like state of bliss staring out a window. for two days straight. on a diet of chips and soda. and Combos..ohhh blessed blessed Combos.
