Satellite Sky’s – 1st ROAD BLOG from 2015 Southwest U.S. Tour

The Aussie brother/sister duo, Satellite Sky, is currently on their U.S tour of the Southwestern states, including stops at SXSW. While they’re on this tour, they will be doing an exclusive blog for our site. You can check out the first blog, with photos, after the break.

Blog #1 ‘Watch out for Sweepers’

March madness has begun. We hit the road last Tuesday, arriving in Phoenix after a quick 6 hour run down the 10 freeway.

Talk about surreal environments to play a gig in! As we entered the venue in the arts district, there was a life drawing class going on. This carried on throughout our entire show.

Added to this was the pungent paint fumes filling the venue from a graffiti artist outside. Mixed with the lack of food in our systems, (sometimes a cliff bar and half a sandwich just doesn’t do the trick) the gig felt like we were in a television looking out into someone’s weird LSD trip. I didn’t mind the view, although I’m pretty sure Pete would have preferred a female life drawing model. We dedicated ‘Every Time’ to the model, as the lyrics include ‘life drawing lady’ and was inspired by another surreal gig a few years back in Houston.

After the gig, we ventured out to a friends place to crash for the night. Throughout the drive, there were several digital signs on the freeway saying ‘watch out for sweepers’. We have no idea what that meant. Was it the large semi-trailer creeping up next to us, staying in our blind spot and then creeping forward and back, or was it something else? If anyone reading this can shed some light on this term, please feel free to let us know.

The next morning before heading to Flagstaff, our always hospitable friend decided to pull out the BBQ smoker for breakfast. Being Australian, we can never say no to some good BBQ. Definitely the breakfast of champions! To reciprocate, we made them toast with vegemite which was politely accepted but we’re pretty sure no one likes Vegemite except Aussies.

Flagstaff is amazing! Not only is it at 7000 feet elevation which gives a lightheaded feeling and alcohol tends to affect you a lot quicker, but we also love playing there. The owner of the venue really looks after us.

They accommodate us in their hotel which happens to be a renown historic place for being haunted. We have stayed their several times and even when with people who don’t believe in supernatural happenings, weird things have gone down. This time was no exception.

Our tour manager was in the next room to us and had closed the window and when he woke up later that night, it was open and freezing in his room. We have many stories from previous tours here but will save that for another blog. :)

After a rockin’ show at high altitude, Pete was enjoying a quiet drink at the bar, it may have been the excitement of playing, the altitude, or the fresh air, or a combination but my decision to not drink on this tour went straight out the window. I ordered an Irish Whisky, which is completely out of my nature. The bartender promptly poured a full glass for me, no ice. Pete was dumbfounded, or suitably impressed!

As the night went on, let’s just say, things definitely escalated! It may be best for Pete to recount those events as things got a little hazy for me!

The cure for a large night on tour is definitely a strong coffee and some greasy food, which the owner of the venue provided us with before hitting the road for 6 hours to Santa Fe.

We love meeting up with rockin’ local bands, who also happen to be great people. We really enjoyed Santa Fe. We made some new fans and drove to Albuquerque to stay with one of the other band members. Being in an independent band, it is always great to stay with other band members or friends along the way. It’s much better than hotels, as you have the opportunity to hang out and get to know the locals.

The next morning, we hit the road for a long drive of around 8 hours to San Angelo, Texas. Being Friday the 13th, it  was quite apt that we passed through Roswell, half expecting to see Alien spacecraft to appear at any moment. There were also some crazy looking small towns that we certainly did not want to stop at for a toilet break. I highly recommend filling up gas when you have the opportunity and emptying your bladders when given a clean bathroom stop!

You know you’re in Texas when you are suddenly surrounded by massive pickup trucks on the highway and Texan flags everywhere. We played at one of San Angelo’s only live music venues and had the locals dancing up a storm. Texans definitely like their rock n’ roll!

On nights where we need to stay at a hotel, we are usually on a small budget so don’t have the luxury of staying in 5-star accommodations. The particular hotel we chose on this occasion was great…if you like showers that don’t drain, weird smelling carpets, and all sorts of weird noises coming from adjoining rooms. San Angelo is becoming well known for it’s increased Hydraulic Fracking of land and we definitely found this quite concerning on an environmental level for the residents. However, it appears this boom in energy production has also coincided with crappy hotels increasing their rates to ridiculous amounts!

It is now day 5 of the tour and we just arrived in Fort Worth. Stay tuned for the next blog!

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