We Are The Union – 7th 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 seventh of those updates is available after the break.

Monday, July 4th
Reno, NV
Day 25

Being the fourth of July, we had no show today. We had driven through the night, so we found a mall to kill some time before we could check in to our hotel. We booked rooms together with I Call Fives so we could up the punx with them.
When our room was ready, we went back to the luxurious Sands Regency to check in. The hotel is, like most hotels in Reno, also a casino. This spelled some serious trouble, or so I thought.
It turns out that Jeff Todd is a master of roulette (I didn’t realize you could be good at a game of chance), so I spent some of the evening watching him play. I bought in for $10 and lost it all within 30 seconds. That was enough gambling for me.
Later on in the night, we found a karaoke bar and promptly left said karaoke bar when we realized how horrifying a karaoke bar in Reno, NV truly was. We tried to walk “the strip,” but the strip in Reno is like three blocks long so we went back to our hotel to hit up the hotel diner for some food.

Monday, July 5th
Reno, NV part 2
Day 26

This was our second off day in a row. We woke up with every intention of driving to San Francisco to stay with our friend Cole, went to Whole Foods to get some lunch, and decided to book another room at the Sands and rage more in Reno with I Call Fives.
We drove back to the Sands, and checked back in to the same room we were in the night before.
Barney, Brandon and I had bought a bunch of stuff to grill when we were at Whole Foods after we decided we were going to stay another night, so we borrowed I Call Fives’ grill and went down to the river a block away from the hotel and grilled up some Tofurky sausages.
We went back to meet up with everyone else and I ended up watching Drew from I Call Fives win $350 in about a minute from playing penny slots. I thought about throwing a $20 into the machine because it seemed like it was just handing him money, but I decided against it. I’m not really much of a gambler.

Tuesday, July 6th
Santa Cruz, CA
Day 27

We got up and started the drive to Santa Cruz. Obviously we stopped at Del Taco on the way, because that’s what you do in California.
We rolled up to the venue on time for once and loaded in. This was the first day with The Story So Far and we were stoked to meet up with them.
The show was in a warehouse and it was HOT inside, but even though most people hadn’t heard of us, the room was packed for our whole set. I’ve said it before in this blog series, but it’s always an awesome feeling to play for people who’ve never heard your band before and feel like they’re actually interested. Given that we have a horn, a lot of people are “too cool” to check us out, and we love playing California because people here are way more open minded about their punk rock.
This being close to The Story So Far’s hometown, they killed it and people went nuts for them. They’re headlining the entire California run and proved tonight that they absolutely deserve that. Easily the strongest reaction of the night and, again, it was well-deserved.
After the show we drove to San Francisco to stay with our rocket scientist friend, Cole, in his Skynet apartment of the future. He rules. Science.

Wednesday, July 7th
Roseville, CA
Day 28

Weber and Benson spent the morning exploring San Francisco, while Jim Barney and I didn’t wake up in time to do much of anything cause we’re idiots. I did end up getting to eat at Peasant Pies before we left, because there was one right next to Cole’s apartment. If you’re ever in San Francisco, definitely check that place out. Lots of vegan stuff, lots of non-vegan stuff, plus they sell kombucha tea and anyone who knows me knows that I’m addicted to that stuff.
We drove to the venue and loaded in. We were stoked to play another city we’d never played, and it turned out some people actually knew us! Our set was really fun, and the pain in my ankle wasn’t as bad as the past few days, so I finally felt like I was able to move a little bit! That made a fun set even better.
Afterwards we got a hotel so we could all take showers and sleep comfortably.

Thursday, July 8th
Fresno, CA
Day 29

We arrived at the venue to find that it was right in the middle of a relatively terrifying neighborhood. The venue was really cool, though. It seems like a lot of people put a lot of effort into keeping that place up and running and that’s always awesome to see. The music community needs more people like the people who run the Chinatown Youth Center. We played on the floor in an effort to up the punx, and the punx was certainly upped.
After the set we got a hotel (two nights in a row, super rare for us!) and Del Taco. Duh.

Reed
We Are The Union