Day 12 – My Closest Friend The Atrium. The A-Tri-Um.

I have every NOFX song stuck in my head.  Not some.  All.  Why you ask?  Every club on the stop plays them before and between bands.  I love that band to death, its just one of those things that has become monotonous about touring that I didn’t expect.  Every morning we wake up, rush to get our shit in the van.  Do about 3 dummy checks (the first two are just practices) and get in the truck.  Two guys sleep in the back.  Ed mans the ship with a co-captain.  I sit behind the driver seat when I’m not sleeping with a co-joke captain to keep us occupied. We take turns giving each other shit about stupid things like decisions we made the night before and they turn into inside jokes that save our sanity.  We drive for hours falling in and out of conversations and stumble over Whiskey Tango merchandise in every nook and cranny of our vehicle.  Side story and explanation, back in Seattle one of the opening acts was a band called Whiskey Tango.  Very nice fellas and played a great show.  Afterwards, I believe the singer got a little tipsy or as I like to call it got all Boldtype on Seattle.  In the back lot when we were loading out, the singer starts giving us and Guttermouth merch.  Very nice.  Then he starts throwing us merch.  Ok?  Got one.  Then he just starts throwing it around the entire back lot like some kind of Seattle confetti party. CD’s, T-Shirts, Stickers. Whoa.  Might want to pump the brakes a little. So we take off and every single day since, we reach for something and instead of whatever we need (i.e. our own merch, a napkin, keys, you-fucking-name-it) out comes something of Whiskey Tango’s.  It was hysterical at first.  Then it got a little bizarre, but now it’s right back to being funny again. We’ve not actually worn one yet, but we have replaced our GPS system with a Whiskey Tango navigator, we paid for a meal in Whiskey Tango bucks and if a question ever arises, we consult our magic Whiskey Tango Ball. 

So we get into Casper on time today, early in fact and I walk in to talk to the owner.  I’ve apparently gone deaf.  I introduce myself “Hey Man.  Nice to Meet You”.  He says his name back and I say “Cool.  Great to meet you Kent.  What’s that?  Your name is Ken?  My bad.  And what’s your name?  Cool Brad nice to meet you.  Come again?  Oh Matt?”.  Jesus.  I need some coffee.  Ken is a great guy that has some great sound equipment.  Maybe best so far.  He’s got monitors everywhere including the side of the stage.  Pretty sick.  We sound check and have about an hour to kill.  The band goes splitsville.  I need a battery.  Jeff needs ninja supplies (I don’t know what he does or what he buys but it’s  seriously freaking me out).  Ed takes the sled to the hotel and I lose Drew and Manny somewhere altogether.  We rendezvous at the club and get ready for the show.  I’ve heard good things about Casper so I’m feeling pretty good about how the show is going to go.  First two bands are great and the kids are into it.  Right before we play, we see an old friend from Denver.  It’s crazy what seeing one familiar face can do for a band.  Pat and Sam, thank you so much.  It was great seeing you and thank you so much for your support.  We hit the stage and people are into it from the first song.  We’re getting better at pulling people closer to the stage.  We don’t have a lot of room to move around but we make the most of it.  Mike dives through the pit, finds a kid to high five and Drew finishes a song with his bass behind his back.  He’s like the Harlem Globetrotter of Basstown.  We close on 3 cheers to a packed and happy house.  I feel like we’re starting to really get the crowd warmed up for Guttermouth. 

After the show, I hit the merch booth with Mike and Drew.  Mike dons the Boldtype snuggie to great admiration.  Ed is working both booths and is starting to get so good behind there I think I would buy magic tonic from him off a wooden cart at a circus.  We’ve been signing a lot of stuff lately at shows, which we’re always cool with.  Cd’s, records, t-shirts, legs.  Yep. I said it.  Well, to clarify just one leg of one guy that requested.  He had both us and Guttermouth sign his leg and he was off to a tattoo shop to get it inked on.  Casper is my kind of town. 

So the show is over and we spend a couple of extra bucks on a hotel because it has a Hot Tub, or Jacuzzi, or Soak Machine, or “Cuze” as I like to call it.  As silly as that sounds, we’ve been on the hunt for a Cuze for three days now.  All fails.  Either it was closed, or broken or we just couldn’t afford it.  But not here.  Not in Casper.  The hotel centerpiece is a big atrium with tables, a lounge area, the Cuze, and a piano.  In other words, we just landed in party town, population us.  The catch is that all of the hotel rooms point to said atrium and it’s about 2am.  A drunk consensus leads to the idea that we can party at a whisper, but being that we just held our consensus meeting with our outside voices I’m not sure it’s going to happen.  Either Casper’s theme is tolerance or they sound proofed all of the rooms because we make it through without a single complaint.   Considering there was a piano, an acoustic guitar, a bottle of Jameson and Mike’s crazy cartwheel skills, that’s an amazing accomplishment.  We call it a morning and get some much needed rest before our later morning Cuze.   Thanks to our new friends and old friends in Casper and thanks for all the shoes…