Rivers Monroe – 1st ROAD BLOG from Vans Warped Tour 2015

The pop/punk band, Rivers Monroe, is currently on the holy grail of summer tours, the Vans Warped Tour. While they’re on the tour, they will be doing an exclusive blog for us. You can check out the first entry, with photos, after the break.

Greetings from the road aRMy! We just finished our first 9 days of the Vans Warped Tour, all in a row, from West Palm, Florida all the way up to Hartford, Connecticut!

So here is how it went down:
We show up in Florida, the night before our first date and drop Kevin off at Disney World so that he can pick up a Mickey Mouse hat. Hat in our happy little drummer’s hand, we make our way to the venue at about 6 AM. 6 AM is a mysterious time that none of us had seen in about 5 years, but it was oddly nice, quiet and calming. We pound some coffee (Kirby just eats the grinds), suit up in our tour promotion gear, chain up our alien and touring guitar player (Christian “Rookie” Orellana), and hit the entrance to meet new fans.

We spend about 3 hours there before the gates open, and by the time they do, hundreds of people have heard our music and many of them own our just released album “Smart Girls” on CD, the only physical copies in the universe. After we make our way to our merch tent and stand out in the sun in our space suits and pull in fans to listen to the lead single “Satellite.” There is much rejoicing.

As the day wanes, the heat begins to take its toll but we stick it out until show time. When we take the stage, what could have been a crowd of strangers (or no one!) was now a sea of familiar faces of people we had met throughout the day. It was amazing!

After the show, we spent a few hours with our new friends/family as the Vans Warped Tour grounds eventually emptied at around 9 PM. We shower quickly and head over to the BBQ where all the bands go to unwind, drink beer and enjoy the slightly cooler temperatures.

This same process happens every day. We wake at 6, work through 9, drive 2-11 hours and do it again. It is a bit like boot camp for bands, but due to the miraculous nature of coffee and the inspiration we feel from meeting so many new and wonderful people, we make it out every morning. Sleep is for the dead! Normally we would complain by such conditions, but it is such an amazing experience, we would be fools to not appreciate every moment of it.

Gradually we became friends with the other bands and Warped employees, especially with the incredibly talented line-up on the Ernie Ball stage on which we play. Bob and Kelly run our sound every day like pros, making us sound as good as we ever have day after day. Bands like Stacked Like Pancakes, Relapse Symphony and Boy Meets World slowly become our friends and we work to cross promote. And of course, we meet more and more loyal supporters, some of which we had known through social media for years, but had not yet met in person.

Every day has been a gift, and we fought through our sleepiness to make the most of every single one. Finally, after nine days straight, we have a much needed day off on which we could write this blog. We all slept for 14 hours straight and are actually on our way to see a movie and do laundry! Tomorrow we pick it up again in Mansfield, MA. We are recouped and ready to meet more lifetime friends, family and fans.

Keep up with the band on Facebook and Twitter!