We Are The Union – 4th ROAD BLOG from their Summer Tour with I Call Fives

The punk/ska band, We Are The Union, from the Detriot, MI area is currently on their summer tour with I Call Fives, Handguns and The Story So Far. On this tour, the band will be writing periodic updates for your reading pleasure. The first of those updates is available after the break.

Saturday, June 18th
Tampa, FL
Day 9

We got in to Tampa way too early to check in to our hotel, so we went to get the oil changed in the van. While that was happening, we went to the mall adjacent to the oil change place and tried to entertain ourselves. This happens on tour a lot. Mostly it’s just the air conditioning that we like, to be honest.
Once the oil was done we headed to our hotel and checked in. Some of the dudes went to the beach to hang, I decided to stay back and wait for our good friend Christina and her friends. They drove up from the Boca Raton/West Palm area to hang out and come to the show. Ridiculous.
When they showed up, I hopped in the car with them and we went to get some food. Obviously we went to Moe’s because there’s no better choice than Moe’s.
We finished eating and headed back to the hotel to meet up with everybody, and we drove to the venue.
Transitions is one of our favorite venues to play. We always have solid shows there and have had a lot of support over the years. It’s a pretty awesome feeling.
After the show, we went to Taco Bus, which is a bus that serves tacos and various other things, and hung out at the hotel with the South Floridians.

Monday, June 19th
Gainesville, FL
Day 10

We checked out and found a Denny’s for breakfast/goodbyes with Christina and her crew. We forgot that going to Denny’s at 11am on Father’s day might not have been a good idea. Oh well, we had fun and it was a nice way to send our friends off.
After Denny’s, we went to Susannah from Paper + Plastick’s house in Gainesville to hang and pick up more copies of Great Leaps Forward from the repress they just did. We made a quick stop at Volta on the way for some coffee. Volta is a magical, magical coffee shop. I would live in Gainesville just for steady access to that place.
After a solid hour or so of enjoying the air conditioning at Susannah’s, it was time to head to 1982 for the show. Well, actually it was way past time to head there, but I’m an idiot and read the info wrong.
Our longtime BFFs A Loss For Words were in town recording their new record, and they came out to the show to hang out. We love seeing those guys.
A bunch of us went to Karma Cream down the street for vegan ice cream after the show. That place is amazing. Second only to Lula’s in New York City for frozen vegan sweets. I highly recommend the peach cobbler flavor. Once we had our fill of that, we went back to Susannah’s for a slumber party with A Loss For Words.

Tuesday, June 20th
Jacksonville, FL
Day 11

Susannah invited us to come check out the Paper + Plastick warehouse today. That place is pretty awesome! We signed some records for contests and headed to the Less Than Jake warehouse to bother our friends Brian Forst (he’s the one who saved me from blowing my amp up!) and Matt Yonker. They were hard at work getting LTJ’s gear ready for Warped, and we were determined to derail that. And we did.
It was pretty awesome for me, as a huge LTJ fan, to hang out in the room they practice in. If that band didn’t exist, this band wouldn’t exist. In fact, I probably wouldn’t be in a band at all.
As we were about to leave, Chris showed up to call us things I won’t repeat here and tell us that the laundry hanging off the back of our trailer was both a first for him, and either classy or trashy. I can’t remember.
When we got to Jacksonville, it was well over 100 degrees outside and humid as hell. It was one of those days where you step outside and you’re immediately covered in sweat. The show was, of course, in a warehouse which meant it was even hotter in there than it was outside. By the end of the set it was all I could do to sing and play guitar, I couldn’t move at all. Out of shape.
We went to Denny’s after the show (why the hell do we go there so often?) and then headed to Rory’s for some much needed sleep. Rory was the promoter for this show and the Tampa show two days before. He’s been putting on awesome shows for us since we started touring, as well.

Wednesday, June 21st
Augusta, GA
Day 12

We woke up late because I, again, read the tour book wrong. We rushed out of Rory’s house and started the drive to Sector 7G.
We rolled up and loaded in. I didn’t even realize that the Brad putting the show on was Brad from Veara until he told me. I’m an asshole. We miss those guys!
This awesome band called Mudbrute played. Those guys are really passionate about equality and open-mindedness.
We stayed with our friend Tyler. He is a genius with a camera. Check out a video he just did for Stuck Lucky here –http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php … p;comments
He has a scorpion and a tarantula. That’s pretty rad, if you ask me.

Thursday, June 22nd
Nashville, TN
Day 13

This was one of the weirder days I’ve experienced on tour.
We woke up and drove to The End to load in. The sound guy told us to load in our gear because he had to leave and lock the venue but he’d be back at doors. This sounded sketchy to us, so we said we’d rather just load in at doors if that was the way it was going to go.
It turned out Swingin Utters was playing across the street and, in addition to that, there was no promoter working on our show, the venue itself had booked the show. Thus, no promotion had been done.
Despite all that, we still had several people drive in from Cincinnati and there was a small group of people there from Nashville for our show before doors opened. The club owner asked Jake from Handuns how many people were there for the show, and he said there were probably 6 or 7, which was about right. The guy then says “sorry guys I’m just gonna blow this one off,” locks the venue and leaves.
Great.
We spent the next couple hours in the parking lot selling merch to people who came up hoping to come to the show and apologizing for the lack of show. After that, we went to downtown Nashville to be berated with cheesy country music for several hours.
We decided to drive through the night to Louisville, OH.

Friday, June 23rd
Louisville, OH
Day 14

I woke up to the distinct smell of cow shit and quickly realized we were at the venue.
We decided that hanging out there for the next 6 hours until load in was a bad idea, so we found a mall in the GPS and headed there.
The good news was the mall was directly next to a cici’s pizza buffet. The bad news was it was easily the worst mall I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
After an excruciating several hours spent at Cici’s and the mall, we headed back to the venue.
The show itself was pretty uneventful, and as it was only about 3 1/2 hours from home, we decided to sleep in our own beds that night. We loaded out and started the drive.

Saturday, June 24th
Lansing, MI
Day 15

We had all the wrong info for this show and ended up showing up pretty much right when we were supposed to play. Whoops.
Our set was fun though, Mac’s is an awesome venue and we love playing there.
After the show we all headed home again. Playing your home state in the middle of a tour is a strange experience, but definitely not a bad one.

Reed
We Are The Union