This is Nate!
This is Nate!
This is John!
This is Mark and Steve!
This is Chrissy, Joey and Dave!
This is Mark!
This is Kimmo and Jarko!
This is Albert and Jason!
So, there we were. Seven bands signed with the same record label, meeting for the first time, about to play the first show of our first tour and it starts with a line-up... of TONS of people!
Hi. My name is Mark Nicholas. I'm that goofy lookin' guy on the left in the Cosmicity picture up there. I was so psyched about the people lined up outside the club we were playing at in NYC (The Lion's Den), I ran outside and took some video. I video taped a lot. As a matter of fact, all the pictures you'll see here are taken from the video I shot on our tour. Oh, here's that line of people I keep talking about.
Anyway, the concert was awesome. It really was. People had not only heard of our various bands, but they knew our songs. They had our albums. And those who didn't came to our merchandise table and bought them!
Hmm. So far, you're not that interested, eh? I can tell. You want the dirt. You want the crazy behind-the-scenes stuff. You don't care how excited we were to be playing synthpop music for true fans of the genre, do you? FINE! If that's how you want it, I'll just give you the goods and be on my way. But the next time you want a web-based journal that details a ground-breaking synthpop tour, I'm gonna think twice before I do it. Then I'll just do it. I'm something of a pushover.
Okay okay. So, we played this great show in NYC, met all these great people, then we got on the road and headed for our next stop, Washington DC. Oh wait. No we didn't. Our tour van had a dead battery and, as we now know, it turns out that not only does no one in NYC actually own a car, cab drivers do not carry jumper cables either. Really, it's a long, rather sordid story that ends with us leaving the club at 4 am for a distant hotel. When we finally got there around 7 am or so, we were so messed up from lack of sleep that we decided not to check in and to just DRIVE ON to Washington DC. We got to DC and... wow, this is a long story. I'll cut it short and just tell you that, this began a trend of sleep deprevation that lasted throughout the entire tour.
So, despite being really tired and all of that stuff, we had an incredible show in DC. I think it was pretty much agreed between the different bands that this was the best show we played in terms of venue, crowd response and sales. Thanks to the Black Cat, our generous promoters and the fans in DC!
After our great experiences in DC (this is the part where I nudge Jason from Neuropa), we headed up to Northampton, MA. Along the way, we had an INCREDIBLE experience. We got to stop and eat at... hold on to your chair... Duchess. Now, none of us had ever experienced dining like this before, and I'm willing to guess we never will again.
Here's a little memento some lucky traveler took home.
But wait! There's more. The only female on our tour (lucky girl!), Chrissy from The Echoing Green, made a new friend at Duchess. After working up A LOT of courage, she was finally able to get up the nerve to ask this handsome devil out on a date. Here she is getting his number.
I know what you're thinking. She didn't really ask that guy for his number. Well, somehow I knew you were a cynic, so I made sure to get a shot of the ACTUAL NAPKIN as proof!
But, enough fun. We finally arrived at our destination in Northampton and... uh... so we played a couple shows there. Here's a colorful picture of the 8 people who came out to see us.
So, back on the road! We kept having problems with our stupid vans. We had another dead battery back in DC (we bought jumper cables for that one!) and now we were getting a flat tire. Here's a picture of us trying to keep the thing inflated.
We were smart enough to pick up a set of walkie talkies to chat between our various tour vehicles. They were a life saver, as well as a source of endless witty banter. In the photo below, you are witnessing a round of the walkie talkie pornographic alphabet game. It's quite a challenge, actually. If you want my humble opinion, Nate and Jarko were the winners... they always had an answer ready right away!
But enough complaining. We needed to get on the road and down to Philadelphia in a hurry. No time to goof off doing our laundry. Well, maybe just a little time. I mean, we need clean clothes, right? A stinky synthpop artist is a lame synthpop artist, they say. I'm not sure who "they" are, but I know they're right. They always are.
Finally, we get on the road and we got to Philly. We couldn't wait to get to our next SUPER 8!
With a little help from our various maps, we actually got almost everywhere we were supposed to go on time. Really. A good 80% of the time, our navigation was perfect!
As usual there was a lot of waiting around to check into the hotel and stuff like that. John and Chrissy took to pacing back and forth to kill the time outside our hotels.
Albert just got crazy like the parking lot was his own private dance club.
Wow, this whole thing is taking me a really long time to do! What's up with that? I'm gonna have to just blast through the rest of this for two main reasons. First, I don't have that many more pictures of specific tour events. Second, I'm tired. You can understand that, right? Thanks... I'll make up for it with a big blitz of photos at the end. SOOOOO...
We got to Philly. We did a great show. The crowd was great. I even met someone special that day. Cool. Then we (Cosmicity) split off from the group as they headed off to Rochester, NY. We had a wedding to attend back in Detroit and would meet up with the group again in Chicago. I've been informed by several reliable sources that the situation in Rochester was, to be kind, pretty crappy. Needless to say, they were happy to get going to our last stop, Chicago, IL as soon as they could. When we all met up in Chicago, there was some time to shop and enjoy the city. We all stocked up on cool used CDs and stuff, then played a sweet show to an enthusiastic crowd.
Parting was indeed such sweet sorrow, though I was a little distracted. It's a complicated scenario, but as the rest of the bands were headed back to NYC to catch their flights home, Steve and I were slated to just drive back to nearby Detroit. Only, we had a flat tire that night... didn't get to leave Chicago 'til 4:00 am... then drove through a thunderstorm. Anyway, I didn't get to say the goodbyes I wanted to. I really enjoyed being with everyone on this tour, and I know from the e-mail that's been flying around that the feeling was mutual. We really established a bond... the kind of bond that makes us all want to do it again next summer. So look out world. The 2001 Summer Synthpop Tour is COMING TO GET YA!
Now, I leave you with various and silly photographs of us on the road. Enjoy them. We can't wait to see you all again next year.
