A day off is a complete must. I never want there to be one while we’re booking the tour, but then once you’re out….I mean- I got 4 hours of sleep the first night. Not my fault. I blame the hot tub. But I thank the cops for making sure I remembered what time it is. Right around 3:45. But that’s Akron. That’s not what I came here to talk to you about.

I’m listening to The Hold Steady’s live disc “A Positive Rage” recorded @ Metro in Chicago by our good friend Chris Shepard of the Illustrious Chicago Recording Company. These were the first two Hold Steady shows I saw, and they were amazing. There’s a DVD too- I’m gonna wait to watch it on a real TV with speakers.

Sorry, I keep getting sidetracked. Aaaaaaanyways…last Sunday (7/12/09) we spent rolling around Brooklyn. Well, the first part was laundry and making breakfast and getting up slowly and doing band work. A lot of time in front of a screen, repacking the trailer….wearing cargo shorts and sandals…that sort of thing. Real rockstar stuff.

Then we rolled out on the 3 train to brooklyn. Well- first we swung by a sneaker store. I got two pairs of shoes. If you follow us on twitter (@cobaltandthehgs) there will be pictures at some point. I may even take one for this post. A first pair of Jordans is a thing to be celebrated.

One of two: first pair of Jordans. Shot of the other to follow later.

Garden State Parkway on Monday 7/13/09

We got in a bit early so we went and ordered Tortas at a Mexican restaurant. They weren’t half bad, but the Horchata was boring.
For a rock band, we’re pretty patient about partying. It’s not that we don’t. We do. We most certainly do. It’s just that we’d rather rock you than rock ourselves. That’s me anyway. Some people are built differently, and I envy them. But then I’m kind of the jealous type about that sort of stuff.
The Saint though- holy fuck. So many great acts have played there- Josh Ritter way back in the day…Incubus when they weren’t all huge…so that’s encouraging. We’ve never been to Asbury Park, we didn’t know anyone there, and that was scary. But the opener- Lost in Society- an underage punk band had a bit of a draw and some of them stuck around, a few of our people showed up. They were a lot of fun and put on a great show. There are pictures on twitter.
They have a great stage. And Billy, the soundguy, was AMAZING. Seriously. Superduper sound. He was great. and funny and easygoing. but mostly just cause he made us sound amazing. and SECRETLY they recorded video of the show. And audio. but we’ll get to that.
I want to thank Drew, the lights guy- he was attentive in a way a small band from Chicago that doesn’t have a huge draw or songs on the radio could never expect. He blew us away. Next time we’ll send him advance copies of the disc and bring a cake. Also- Randy the Hot Dog guy outside is a real charmer. He’s a good dude. Scott and Meg took really good care of us. Scott runs the place. He’s just a really good dude. If you’re in a band, and you read this- go to Asbury Park and play the Saint. Then go back, and play there again. And when you get huge and sell out some monstrous venue, invite the vips to an after-party there.
The video is layered, giving it an 80′s/90′s look which is suuuuper hot. I fucking loved it. And they have quite the sound and lights system there. Basically it was one of the best nights so far and it was more than we expected in every way.
Check out the video of the Wreckage from the show. It’s one of our new tunes.
http://www.youtube.com/cobaltandthehgs#play/all/uploads-all/0/J3G60gVsfQ0
That’s basically what it was like. Most of Lost in Society came up and joined us when we covered Ruby Soho…I could go on…but I feel like you get the idea.
and then we drank some and hung out. then we packed up and drove back to Brooklyn to sleep that night. That house in Brooklyn may be our New York City home base from now on. If they’ll have us. We need to get them something nice. Any ideas? Seriously- post about it.

The Seaside Tavern in Stamford, CT on Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

Stamford is another one of those places where we have a killer place to stay. They have a trampoline and TWO DOGS. (we all love dogs.) It was kinda traffic-y on the way up. But not too bad, all things considered.
The Seaside Tavern has an old pro at the sound board. His name is Jay and he toured with B.B. King for 14 years. Hotmazing. He was way on top of stuff and laid back, but didn’t fuck around. It was too bad that it was 21 and over- we had some dissapointed fans up there, but the crowd was enthusiastic and a lot of fun.
But crazy thing: Jay works at the Carraige House, where Brian Humphrey used to work. So he knows Brian, which is awesome.
We also debuted (debut’d? i’m not what you’d call a “speller”) a new song called Lazarus. It’s hard as hell for me to sing, but it’s coming along. So if you ACTUALLY request it, we may play it for you on this tour. But it’s still fledgling.
But the show went well, what can I say?

Anyway, they’re telling me we gotta pack up and head out to the Clementon, NJ show we have tonight. We’re playing the Cherrywood. I haven’t told you about last night’s show in Philli, but it’ll have to wait, sorry. You probably got done reading like 3 paragraphs ago anyway. I’ll get to it.

And there there was the afterparty. Oh my god. We drove back to the Akron area- there was a hot tub and pbr talls…lots of swimsuits. Our hosts and their son, and a friend of ours that lives in the area all stayed up till 4 playing in the hot tub getting drunk and dehydrated (awesome idea for the first night of the tour, no?) Jack, the resident 4 year old of the house has more energy than all of us put together. Apparently we weren’t exactly mousy quiet ’cause first the neighbors showed up to warn us that that cops were coming (we’re pretty sure they are the ones who called them) and right after they left the cops showed up and told us to keep it down. not sorry.

Driving to Pittsburgh from Akron isn’t as bad as one might think. Thank god Pennsylvania is so picturesque ’cause it is long as FUCK.

I’ll let Mike tell you about our show at Club Cafe.

Driving from Pittsburgh to New York: they tell you it’s gonna be 6 and a half hours. But they don’t warn you about the fucking EPIC thunder & lightiing & rain and basically blind out the windshield storm you’ll have to drive through going like 20 miles an hour. most of the other cars were just straight up pulled over. we soldiered on. We’re like Patton’s Army. Only really nice.

So first we went to Flatbush in Brooklyn. Which is lovely. Trafficy, but lovely. And the place we’re staying is AMAZING. We walked in and they had dinner on the table. Dinner included steak, buttery mashed potatos. And guacamole and salad and some kind of fratata/quiche type thing that was delicious. We ate in like 10 minutes and jetted to the venue on the Lower East Side. Just as we pulled up, it started pouring- there was that rain storm that had been chasing us all day. So we got soaked but it was worth it. Matt and I found street parking. yessssssss. It’s almost as difficult as the search for the holy grail in Manhattan.

The show: ok, the show itself was fucking incredible. Tour is starting to do it’s thing- all the parts are starting to feel greased and slick and like they’re running at top performance. And it’s only the 3rd show. The sound guy (Harold? dammit, now I forget) was realy nice, but it was odd when 3 songs in he made us move one of our amps to the other side of the stage. But whatever, the hurdle didn’t even make us break stride. And it was wonderful to see all our friends- thanks for coming out to support and rock out with us. We’ll see you all again in two week at Union Hall in Brooklyn on the 25th.

Today’s a day off. We’re relaxing, repacking, doing laundry, that sort of thing. There will probably be a video blog that happens later in the day, hopefully. I think there may be a barbeque in the works for later. Tomorrow is Asbury Park, New Jersey. It kicks of 9 days of shows in a row. That will be a new record. Can’t party too hard or our voices will fall off. But good god damn we love being on tour.

Stay Tuned, next up I’ll tell you about Asbury Park, NJ [but here's some video from that show: http://bit.ly/kuU4E] and the Seaside Tavern in Stamford, CT.
Also, photos should be goin’ up on Flickr soon.

Cobalt & the Hired Guns having a PRETTY good time.

pretty sure we’re actively tickling each other at the moment of this photograph.

[photos credited to barry brecheisin. bbphoto.com]