Nightmare and the Cat – ROAD BLOG from “U.S. Tour with Bastille”

Samuel and Django Stewart, from the band, Nightmare and the Cat, just finished up their U.S. tour supporting Bastille. While they were on this tour, they wrote a blog and took some pictures for you to check out. You can check out the blog and photos, after the break.

Sam –
It all started in San Diego on September 15th. We drove up from LA that day in our rented sprinter van, her name is Esmerelda. She’s quite a pretty lady. The venue was the House of Blues which is a really nice place. We arrived during Bastille’s soundcheck and got a good taste of what they sound like. Little Daylight arrived shortly after us and we all introduced ourselves in the shared green room. They were all really chilled out, nice people.

The show was awesome. Such an amazing crowd (all ages crowds are the best) and the energy in the room was unbelievable! We watched both Little Daylight and Bastille’s sets, which were really good, before heading back to LA.

The next show was at the El Rey Theatre, one of our favorite LA venues. We were really excited to play that room as we’ve all seen many great shows there, in fact we had just seen The Breeders there a couple weeks earlier. Although LA crowds can be notoriously stiff, it was a really fun show and the room looked incredible from the stage.

We left early the next morning for San Francisco and arrived just in the nick of time for sound check… which was a pretty rough one to say the least. Despite the sketchy sound check, the show went great and we had an awesome time. We left after Bastille’s set and drove overnight to Portland for the next show.

After that, we drove further up the coast to Spike’s parents farm in Washington. Their place is beautiful and they have a lot of animals which was really nice to be around. Mr and Mrs Phillips were kind enough to put us up for two nights after the Portland and Seattle shows. Both gigs were probably the most rock n roll of the tour due to the small stages and really energetic crowds.

The band and our tour manager flew to Chicago the day after the Seattle gig and enjoyed an evening off while our more than reliable driver / merch-man, Kubes, drove our van in record time to meet us at the venue for sound check the next day. It was another great show and afterwards we went for late night hot-dogs from the world famous Weiner Circle. It’s quite a unique experience as the staff shout insults and curse at you but it’s hilarious and delicious. We recommend the $20 chocolate shake… spoiler alert! It is not your average milkshake.

The next morning it was off to Toronto. we were both excited and slightly nervous as we’d never been to Canada before and had heard some horror stories about being turned around at the border. Luckily, we had no trouble getting through at all and we arrived in Toronto with some time to walk around and explore.

On our walk through the city, we saw an old man enjoying some public fellatio in a park in broad daylight, which was slightly disturbing… but other than that, we liked Toronto, we think. One thing we’re sure of is that we definitely like the people in Toronto. The audience was amazing that night, and it was probably the largest venue of the whole tour.

Django is gonna take over now…

Django –
So we decided to drive to NY after we had packed up the van that night… Bad idea! The other two bands we were touring with hung out the whole night and slept in squishy beds, then breezed it back to NY the next day. We drove through the darkness, all trying to sleep sitting up. We got pretty lost and ended up in a mini vegas on Niagara falls driving in circles and laughing like maniacs. Then came boarder patrol… I had misplaced my green card and Sam’s passport got flagged as suspicious. We all finally made it back into the US exhausted from it all and while the majority of us slept, Scotty, Kubes (the driver) and I stayed up and took bets on the sunrise…

We arrived in NY the following morning with red stingy eyes and dry raspy throats and went straight to a meeting. It went surprisingly well considering how tired we were and then we all went our separate ways about the town catching up with friends.

The following day we reunited at the Music Hall of Williamsburg for one of our best shows of the whole tour. The crowd was epic and we played our set from start to finish with the fire that the road had been fueling. We joined little Daylight at a bar near by and continued to get smashed and took bets on whether our tour driver would get lucky… needless to say, he did.

Two days later we were all in Philadelphia for the first time. Our tour manager Alex took us to get classic Philly cheese steaks from Pat’s and Gino’s, then we drove up to the famous ‘Rocky Steps’ where Sam, Spike and Scotty raced to the top. Scotty won and Claire and I took pleasure in watching from the sidelines.

That night we played at my favorite venue of the whole tour, it’s called Union Transfer and it is beautiful. It looks like a ballroom merged with a church and it has great art hanging all over the walls.

The following night we carried out our last show of the tour at the legendary Bowery Ballroom.

It was pretty bitter sweet as we didn’t want it to end, but at the same time, everyone was relieved to be going home. Tyler from the Neon Trees joined us to hang out and watch the set which was really very sweet of him. We all hung out in our green room after we played, which was actually more of a green curtain dividing a couch from the upstairs bar.

We wanted to let loose as soon as we were done but were kindly asked to join Bastille on the stage for “Pompeii”, their closing song.

Afterwards, the three bands drank whisky all night. Things went blurry, naughtiness happened and kisses were exchanged. One person, who will remain nameless spent the night in the bar sleeping on the bathroom floor hugging the toilet. I on the other hand went to a diner, lost my wallet and got picked up later by Esmerelda and her crew.

The next morning, I awoke with “the fear” as one would call it in England, alcohol still creating quite an unbalanced swirl in my brain but we had one hour to get to a music / cooking show that our friends were shooting in Brooklyn where we were to be their first guests. We arrived thirty minutes late but we made it! We performed a couple acoustic songs and ate delicious food on camera, then had to leave to play a secret show in Brooklyn.

We arrived at this tiny little coffee shop where a questionable character stumbled out and offered us drugs. We politely declined before discovering that he was the manager of this classy establishment.

That night, the sweaty little venue was packed and we played an intimate farewell set for about 100 fans and friends. After enjoying a couple congratulatory burgers and beers, we fucked off into the night, giddy at the thought of returning to our own beds on the west coast.

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