Road Notes 7: What to Expect When You're Not Expecting Anything

Hey folks, welcome back to the wonderfully wacky world of Lose Control. These last few days have been extremely eventful so get cozy and I'll get you filled in on the details. I'm attempting to make my posts a little more interactive with photos and videos so hopefully everything works! I believe we left off in Nebraska en route to the city of Kearny.

We arrived at Gillies Bar on Monday afternoon, and immediately we ran into one of the smallest of small world encounters. The new owner of the bar had actually travelled with Pat's previous band on Warped Tour, and he in fact was a fan of all three of our previous bands. He wasn't even aware that the three of us were in Lose Control because an outside promoter had booked the show. Just like that it switched from playing a dive bar in Kearney, Nebraska to fun times catching up with a friend. There were 6 bands on the bill that night and the place was absolutely packed. Again you just never know.

We stayed the night with Matt, the bar owner, at his place down the street and had a blast hanging with him, his wife, and their friends.  We fell asleep to a Dark Knight marathon and all of us would wake up at random parts of the night to catch a few minutes of the movie before returning to sleep. The next morning we woke up as it was starting over so we simply decided to watch the whole thing again. We were then faced with a 500 mile drive to Denver which we weren't necessarily looking forward to, but after a little bit of procrastination and a few games of Rummy 500, we hopped back in the tour-mobile and headed west.

We arrived in Denver after midnight and decided to take solace in a Walmart parking lot for the night. I don't know if you know this, but Walmart will allow just about anyone to sleep in their parking lot.  For most people that means nothing, but something to keep in mind if you ever find yourself in a jam. Anywho, the next day we ate at about our 12th Denny's of the tour, and then made our way to the local YMCA (also been extremely tour friendly) to lift weights and shower. After that we made our way to Herman's Hideaway, the venue for the evening. We got there early so we decided to see what all this legal marijuana talk was all about. Sure enough, every block or two around the venue were weed stores where anyone above the age of 21 can obtain ganja. You walk up, they check your ID, then you go into a room full of just about every form of THC product you can imagine. You select, you purchase, then you are on your way.

That night we were too stoned to perform… Ha! Totally kidding, we played fantastic that night. The venue was amazing too. We will definitely play there again. After the show we got some sleep near a park and I embarrassingly broke a very basic rule of touring. To preface, there are often times on the road when you're driving or parked somewhere that doesn't have a close restroom, where you are forced to pee in a bottle. If that situation arrises, never leave said bottle near your clean water bottle, or you might wake up in the middle of the night dying of thirst and accidentally take a swig of your own urine. I can assure you, it's a very low moment in life. What's saddest about it is that for a moment, especially not being a seasoned urine analyst, I was unclear as to whose pee it was so I frantically assessed the situation in a shear panic and once I discovered that it was indeed my own, I actually felt a little better. Having said that, we also keep mouthwash handy at all times and I'm at least happy that I didn't puke in the van.

Ok moving on, we found ourselves with another show the next night in the Denver area which left an entire day open. We learned that there was a mexican place in town called Illegal Pete's that was also "band-friendly" so after a game of Rummy 500 we made our way over there. They ended up giving us half off our meal and after applying online we received a voucher for a free dinner later that evening as well. That place is absolutely amazing, and we can't thank them enough. After we ate, we stayed there for a couple hours to wait out a rain storm, and then we decided to head to a nearby Dave and Busters to kill some time and play video games. Strangely enough, they were "band friendly" as well and gave us a bunch of extra game tokens. After a happy hour beer it was time to go spend an evening with Jesus.

Our gig that night was at a skatepark called Skatuary which also doubles as a religious center. We played the best we could amidst some sound issues and I did my best to cover up some of our curse words as to not offend anyone but it's pretty hard to replace the line "see you in hell" in our song "King of It All". In retrospect I probably could have said "heaven". Nonetheless nobody noticed and we got asked back, so no harm done. Plus, Pat got to relive some childhood glory on the half pipe.

After the show we claimed our free meal back at Illegal Pete's and then made our way to Pat's friend Ian's house who lives about an hour west into the mountains. The place was fantastic! He owns an acre of land that is surrounded my miles of National Forest. We were greeted by a pre-warmed hot tub and two open bedrooms for sleeping… Just what the doctor ordered after two nights in the van. Here is a view from the hot tub:

Some time during the night I had mentioned that I had never shot a gun before in my life. It's true, for some reason the opportunity has never presented itself and I'm not really the type of person to seek it out anyways. Sure enough, the next morning when I come downstairs and I'm standing on the deck overlooking the backyard, Ian comes to me and shows me his handgun then shows me how it works. He then says, "Welp that's really all there is to it, if you want to try it you can." Clearly the moment had presented itself so I took aim at a nearby target and boom!

After that we found ourselves faced with a 1000 mile drive to Reno, Nevada due to another show cancelation in Salt Lake City. So here we are, about 200 miles into the drive. Thanks for spending some time with us, one more Road Notes left. Check back soon!

-Jeff