It has been a bout 3 weeks since you have seen a blog for me, forever I know, as I am sure you all have been checking back every day and when you saw the blog was written by Marcus, you didn’t even read it. But fear no more, I am hear to wrap this up, so get out your reading glasses.

I joined back up with the crew for the last 2 dates in San Diego and Los Angeles. For once there is no rain or heat for me to bitch about, it was as nice as SoCal weather can be expected to be, and completely earthquake free. I have to give a shout out to our amazing crew for the last 2 days, Aisha, Mario (the author for Scenes from the Streets, make sure to read those on here!), Amy, Metal Mike, Kate, and that one guy that works for me…o yeah, Matt.

I don’t want this blog to focus on the last days, yeah they were great, we had tones of bands come over, tons of fans came and hung out, and we had a great time, but I want to focus on the post Warped life. Being out for 2 months is not an easy thing. So while Marcus is back home in IL working and going to school already, and Matt is hanging out in Hollywood and on the beaches of SoCal, I am here in the office, grinding, getting ready for our fall “The Atticus Tour” with Finch, blessthefall, and a slew of other great bands.

There are certain things that need to be done after tour, it just doesn’t end. We need to count and clean all of our equipment and get it ready for storage until our next event. If you noticed this year we got a new road case the size of a small car, and it was no easy task getting this thing places. So at 5am the day after the last Warped be got up to take the case back down to San Diego from LA>



The whole time was a white knuckle ride at 70mph worrying about it somehow coming unattached and rolling down I-5.



We eventually got the beast to the warehouse. After it took 8 full grown men to lift it onto the loading dock, after we emptied it!





After a long day of lifting, counting, cleaning, and loading we did what any regular person would do…go get tattoos.







But being at home means more than being in one city, it means you get things back that you took for granted. Things that you never really think about until they are gone. Like a refrigerator.



A Bed.



Power Outlets.



A Shower.



I would say toilet paper, but looks like we are out of that here too..



And this guy.



And now that I am at home, and my crew is gone, I can post some random pictures they left on my camera while they were on tour.

ADTR



Bayside



A big fish of some sorts…



Marcus in his bunk, no idea why he took this.



Ummmmm….



Marcus again..



Matt



Everyone is tuckered out after warped tour!



AND THAT FOLKS….IS ALL! Thanks so much for chilling with us in person and on the web through this 2 month journey.

Make sure you all come out to see us this October and November on “The Atticus Tour”!

Hippie-ville USA was our stop today. Oh, you don’t understand my lingo? You don’t catch my drift? I’m obviously speaking of Portland, OR. The only unfortunate part about all of this is that the annual hippie fest was also being held this weekend in Portland, so none of them came out to Warped Tour to try to sell us homemade ponchos or hemp necklaces. My entire fall collection of clothing was depending on these guys coming out and hooking me up! Now I’m screwed for clothes, and all my hippie friends back home are going to cast me aside as some hipster kid. Thanks a lot, Portland!

We had some superb extra help today as the band Across the Sun came out and helped at the tent. These are hometown dudes here to Portland, so it seemed like every few minutes kids were walking up and asking ” are you _____ from Across the Sun?” Pretty rad to see kids super stoked on these guys. They are also one of 35 bands that are on our new Atticus Compilation CD, which, speaking of, is actually about to be sold out of by the time we hit our last date in LA later on this week. Kids were eating up the fact that a band on the cd was in our tent with us, so this contributed to some overly anxious cd purchases. Big thanks to Across the Sun for stopping in and helping us out today!

Across the Sun myspace – www.myspace.com/acrossthesun

Aside from having one full time bad ass band in tent with us today, we also had some bands on the actual tour stop in including InnerPartySystem and In This Moment. 2 of the 3 bands are on the compilation! Majority rules! Anyways, more super excited fans for more super excellent bands. Dudes and dudette were signing autographs all over the place!

We set up in front of the Hurley stage today, so as Gallows were playing I ran over and took a quick pic of them getting down and dirty like they usually do.

Oh, and didnt you hear?

From here, the tour starts its final week. 2 days off in Northern California, and then a slow descent down the Pacific Coast towards LA!

It should be mandatory for any concert goer to attend at least one show at either Red Rocks in Colorado, or The Gorge here in Washington. Any sort of natural venue like this automatically makes the show 25 times better because the musician whole heartedly enjoys his/her surroundings. They have to. Even if you’re not a total outdoors type person, the scenery is almost overwhelming. Trying to imagine that somebody thought about how great of a venue for music this would be was awesome. I give the owner of this place much respect for making it was it is today. Simply amazing. Pretty much every well known, major band that has toured has come through here. The list is insane.

This a view from directly behind catering. Where we ate and enjoyed our food all day.

And then side shots of the stage looking up into the crowd with some background thrown in there.

And finally a shot looking down over all of production.

When Matt and I weren’t wondering around enjoying the pure beauty of this place, we had two fantastic signings with our boys in both You Me At Six and A Skylit Drive. We quickly pushed them out of the tent, and went back to sight seeing and taking pictures of everything. I actually rolled down the entire length of the hill. It was similar to what it might be like in going over the falls at Niagra Falls. This is my own personal guess; I have a feeling that falling over a waterfall in barrel might be a bit more intense, but this is a big hill. Questionable arguement.

Maybe the best part about all of this is that the Gorge is located in George, Washington. Get it? Do you? George……….Washington. Clever, clever, clever.

I’ve provided the Wikipedia page - “Check it Out” for the Gorge incase you’re wanting to learn a little bit more about this amazing venue. Obviously, everything on Wikipedia is pure and true, so tell all your friends!

Goodbye from the Gorge!

Still roaming the free land in Canada, we hit our very last stop of the north american baseball cap today in Vancouver. If you ever venture to the far west end of the US or Canada, do yourself a favor and stop by this city. Maybe it’s the fact that it’s such a melting pot of people, and that the University of British Columbia is here, but there is so much culture surrounding this place. Nice people everywhere, except maybe at the jail – might not be so nice there – but overall great Canadians here!

Lucky enough for us, the show took place on the edge of the university campus at what I think is some sort of sporting event field, though said sporting event is not for sure; soccer maybe? What sucks for the entire crew and fans that come out to this show is that there is an “upstairs” and “downstairs” to this place. So after you’ve moshed, hardcore stomped, or just plain stood around, you have to trek back up this huge hill in order to get to any other stage that is not the main stage. See attached photo (that I did not take; I cheated)

We had a good ole fashioned Canadian signing with our friends from Florida, A Day To Remember. It’s interesting to see the difference between their enormous crowds in the US, and then their not to huge crowds here in Canada. They said they’d never played Vancouver before this, so it kind of made sense. Alexisonfire kind of takes their place as the heavy band to watch on the tour, I think..

Back into the states we go tomorrow. Not going to lie – I’m glad to be out of moose country.

America, heck yea!

One of my favorite shows of the tour finally hit today – Denver, CO. To be honest, I don’t really know why I like this place so much, but I guess that’s really not overly important. Maybe it’s because the venue is the parking lot of Invesco Field, and since I’m a fan of the NFL, this makes me happy. Seriously, one of the nicest stadiums around! If you go to Denver, roll by this place and check it out. I’m also a fan of most of the people here. Nice a majority of the time, and actually care about good music. I mean, 3oh!3 is from here, so they know good music! “Do the Helen Keller and talk with your hips. Shush girl.”

Matt and I had a great time here today. Got to see, well hear, the bands on both the main stage and Hurley stage since we were right in between both of them. Oh, and we were set up by a little ditch/causeway area that when we arrived in the morning was filled with water. One of our set up guys – Danny – decided it would be a good idea to attempt to jump his beach comber bike over this water…not a good idea. He bunny hopped right into the water and flew directly over the handlebars of the bike. Luckily, one of our friends got it all on tape. As soon as it gets uploaded somewhere on the net, I will provide the link for it. Hilarious! Not even an hour later I watched another dude, whom tour manages one of the bands that signs with us, bite it, too! It was hilarious. Straight down over the handlebars. I laughed so hard I cried.

Denver also doesn’t like to put out trashcans for the their shows. They prefer that everyone just throw their stuff on the ground and then cleanup gets it at the end of the night. I wish I still had the pic I took in 2006 of all the trash around this place. It looks more like a landfill then anything else.. Way to go Denver! Who gives a shit about recycling, anyways!

In the midst of all my listening to bands, and watching people fly over their handlebars, We The Kings and also Attack Attack stopped by the booth to do some signings with us. Lines were out of control! Luckily we had a sweet security guard lady that did super great work and helped out tremendously. Matt just sits in the tent and stares at the bands while I do everything. (This is totally untrue as he does do work, but I enjoy making him feel like he does nothing.) Bet you wish you were here.

From here we head back into the baseball cap of America, Canada. This means that we get to hear “Eh?” after every word, and we also get to hang out with a bunch of sweet canucks. Hooray for 1 lane highways and forests that never end!

Marcus and the other guy with me