1. Bull In The Wild
2. Attica
3. Hell Or High Water
4. Hurricane

Torino, Italy…was a whirlwind. Here are a few highlights: I miraculously managed to park our sweet Euro van into the tightest space imaginable.

Greg showed us his favorite monuments.

I hung out with my new Italian friends Valentina, Claudio & Stefania.

These sweet & gracious folks wanted to take us out after the show but sadly, we had to start our 10 hour haul to Vienna, Austria, as we had a show the next evening.

Torino to Vienna goes a little something like this: 3 cappuccinos around 2:20am, 3 Champions in the van (Greg on driving duty, Josh our fearless navigator & me on sleeping duty in the back). Boys = drive, drive, drive. Me = sleep, sleep, sleep. 3 hours later I wake up startled as the van doesn’t seem to be moving & then I come to the realization that the boys have parked us for a night of van sleeping. Not something that we usually do but given the circumstances something that had to happen.

We’re woken up around 8:30am by a parking lot packed with Italian tourists yelling at, or rather, talking very loudly to one another. The 10 hour drive to Vienna continues & we’re all beyond exhausted & achey from last nights van sleep.

The perk of this drive was a stop at the most amazing “truck stop” ever somewhere in Austria. I’ve got to give a massive shout out to Germany & Austria for having the best food stops off of the highways. In America when we tour we actually lose weight because the food on the road is so awful but touring in Europe is turning out to be the polar opposite. In these parts, rest stop food in general is usually very good & the pre-show meal usually involves someone’s relative making you a complete, homemade dinner. This stop was the best of the tour thus far. I’m gonna go ahead and say it was borderline gourmet. The view was incredible as well.

We played at the Arena in Vienna to a small but dedicated crowd. The venue also offered on site accommodations but we already had a hotel booked for the evening. Our hotel was the polar opposite of what you’re seeing here – our hotel rocked it.

The next day I drove us to Prague where we had our first day off in 6 days. To say that Prague is a cool city is an understatement & an insult. It’s an epic, old, beautiful, amazing, romantic, special place. We took the train down to the city center, grabbed food by the water, crossed Charles Bridge & then proceeded to the Prague Cathedral which blew our minds. To say that we all had an incredible day is also an understatement & an insult. We had one of those epic, enchanting & wow-to-be-alive-out-in-the-world days.

The show the next night in Prague was with the Manchester band Airship. Super nice guys. Again the venue staff were all great & super sweet. They made us dinner, treated us to drinks & gave us these great Budvar glasses. The audience was also very warm & gracious. Can’t wait to get back to Prague again soon!

Off to Beilefeld, Germany now. Everyone we’ve talked to about this town says that they’ve heard of it but that they don’t believe that it exists. It’s our Dark Crystal of this tour…the city that doesn’t exist but alas, we’re off at 170km per hour to find it! Gotta love the pace & unspoken mechanics of the Autobahn.

Until next time…xo, m

Read Chapter Two

Uli and ECC, a force to be reckoned with

People from our label came down from Hamburg and it was one of our last nights with the Get Up Kids so we felt like we need had to do a little bit of a hang afterward. We lasted till 2 am before sleeping for a few hours and stumbling through the German pre-dawn darkness back to the van and onto the autobahn.

Thirteen not-so-fun hours later and with a major hassle at the border, here we are in Switzerland. Even though the hard asses at customs gave us a very bad first impression, we found it to be such a beautiful country with kind and hospitable people and ended up having a blast at the show. Thank you to everyone at Galvanik in Zug for being so incredible.

Now we’re off to Italy, the three of us all hanging out the windows of the van (some while driving: Melissa) trying to get a little bit of the Swiss countryside on our cameras before everything in our minds get fuzzy again.

nice view... drive from Zug to Torino

And the good news of the crazy drive day was I passed my 103 mph personal best by hitting 108, and cars were still jamming past us.

Zoom Zoom.

…greg

Chapter One Chapter Three

Gutentag.

As I write this Greg is doing 103 mph on the autobahn headed to Stuttgart.

We arrived in Frankfurt on the 21st after an uneventful 11 hour flight from Los Angeles. Our first night was spent in the quaint town of Hoyhenesburg. We needed to acclimate ourselves to the time difference, which meant bellying up to the bar and powering through. It was a good night filled with deliriously memorable conversation.
Our first show was in Köln where we met The Get Up Kids, who we will be touring through Germany with. Really nice guys from middle America. Show was good. The people over here are ridiculously polite and very patient with their non German-speaking visitors.
The following morning we headed to Hamburg for the Reeperbahn Festival. We heard “Attca” on the radio during the drive, did a radio interview in an old WWII bunker and performed on a talk show called “Ray’s Reeperbahn Review“. The show was shot in a theater with a set that looked like the ‘Price is Right’. Ray Cokes, an English MTV something or other, was the host. Really charming fellow. Funny. Sometimes those things can be uncomfortable but he made it very natural. Thanks Ray.
Our show in Hamburg was at capacity with a line out the door. We left it on the stage. Played our asses off. Really special gig.
We partied the rest of the night at some club with free booze, had a doner, called it a night.
We drove to Frankfurt the next morning for Saturday’s gig. I don’t remember too much from this day to be completely honest.
Driving through Germany is quite nice. The roads are pristine. The terrain reminds me of where the Appalachians cut through Pennsylvania. The trees are about to show their colors. Really great time to be here. We are seeing alot of this beautiful country mostly because our GPS is a vengeful shrew with her own agenda and completely indifferent to our situation. She hates us.
Frankfurt show was good but didn’t hold a candle to our Munich show. We tore the lid off that place. Destroyed it. Great crowd, good energy in the room.
We didn’t get over to Oktoberfest, I know, I know, were not happy about it either, but we had to make tracks.

Were off to Stuttgart, happy and healthy. We are making inspired noise with nothing to lose and everything to gain.

J
Chapter Two

We got the chance to rip out four great live videos thanks to the cool peeps at www.jaminthevan.com. Catch them all here

New video for “Bull In The Wild” directed by our good friend James Weir and shot at one of our favorite spots Barbara’s downtown. Amazingly enough it was done in one take.