ABYSMAL DAWN Tour Diary – Entry 1
By Charles Elliott
10/28
Tour is off to a somewhat rough start. After loading most of the gear and meeting up with our touring guitarist Andy (Isolation In Infamy) and touring bassist Eliseo (Imperial Decay), we drove all the way from Los Angeles to Corona to meet up with Scott and rehearse one last time at Trench Studios. After rehearsal, Andy realizes he left his backback with his passport in it on the street in front of my apartment. I call a friend but knowing my neighborhood it’s long gone (MS13 territory and someone was even macheted at the taco truck by my place a couple nights before). We start looking into options for him and decide to get up early and figure it out. Scott made some sort of comment about me being the Zen master because of how calm I was about the whole thing. At this point in my life I don’t think there’s anything I can’t handle so no use in getting super pissed and stressed about it. These moments of chaos and how we deal with them define us as people I think.
10/29
We we’re forced to miss our first show, an off-date with Arsis in Gallup NM, because Andy lost his passport. We spent all day picking up last minute things and rushing to the Federal building back in Los Angeles to expedite a new passport. It isn’t ready that day so we plan on having someone pick it up for us and ship it to a friend’s house in NY. We leave late afternoon for the first show in Denver, CO with Arsis.
10/30
Played the Marquis Theatre in Denver tonight with Arsis. Show was a little rough since it was the first show of the tour and we only got something like three rehearsals in with this lineup before the tour. A fan came to the show with the Abysmal Dawn logo carved into a pumpkin, which we all thought was fucking awesome. A bunch of people were in the Halloween spirit and wearing costumes. We ended up partying with the Vale of Pnath guys at their place afterwards at a small Halloween party. We all got really drunk and made really bad Easy Mac at around 4 in the morning. Good times.
10/31
Tons of driving. Stayed at Mike Flores from Origin’s place in KS. It was great seeing that guy again. He made us some killer Mexican food and we took a couple of goofy pictures with his cat that looked like Abbath.
11/1
Played St. Louis tonight which was our last night with Arsis. Those guys are really cool and shred beyond belief so we were sad to see them go. We end up hanging out with our crazy Russian brothers after the show at their place along with Arsis. At some point Scott and Eliseo want to go get food and I’m the only sober one so I drive. They’ve never tried White Castle before and insist on going there despite my warning them it’s the worst shit ever. We go. We eat. We vow to never go back there ever again.
11/2
Andy, who has now been dubbed “Captain Slippy Fingers,” lost his phone the night before at the club so we go there in the morning to get it. We eat at an amazing restaurant called The Fountain. Best meal of the tour so far. We get an oil change. Fuck driving.
11/3
We arrive in Philly and end up crashing at Bob from Relapse Records’ house. He lives in a huge punk rock house with a bunch of roommates, one of which we probably scared a little with Scott’s flatulence. At some point I marvel at the Boy George photo that has been given King Diamond makeup hanging on his wall. They won’t sell it to me so I take the best picture I can in hopes of blowing it up and hanging it over my toilet later. We sleep, we eat Indian food and sushi, we work out. Bob gets home from work and we eat spaghetti and drink a ton of PBR undoing every pushup and sit up we did that day.
11/4
Visit the Relapse office briefly and say hello to some friends. Obscura is there as well and it’s good to see those guys again. They give us laminates for the tour and they have Waffle House logos on them. They plan on going to the restaurant claiming to be sponsored to try and get discount or free food. Clever Germans. First day of the tour with Obscura and Last Chance to Reason tonight in Wilmington DE. Show was decent but definitely could have been better. Will take us a few shows to hit our stride.
11/5
Drive to my long time friend Rajah’s place in Brooklyn NY. We plan on actually seeing parts of the city since we have a day off in NY for once but we’re broke and too tired to do anything. After sleeping for most the day we start our drive to Montreal to stay with my friend Francois. At this point all these off dates are driving us made with boredom.
11/6
We get to Montreal early in the morning and stay with my buddy Francois who actually tour manages a ton of bands. We drink amazing beer since he’s a beer connoisseur and listen to Death Human on vinyl before getting some sleep. We get some sleep and go to a local dinner in the morning. The menu is in French so we order the best we can and are all pleasantly surprised. We have a killer show in Montreal as always and finally feel like the tour is actually on its way. Once again I fail to try pout.
11/7
Toronto show was killer. We stay with our friend Andrew who has the Governors Ball Podcast.
11/8
We wake up in Toronto kind of late and our friend Andrew goes down stairs to put some more money in the meter for us. While he’s down there he discovers a half smoked joint of Scott’s in the passenger side. The joint was from CA and we can’t believe how lucky we are we didn’t get searched at the Canadian border. We play in Cleveland that night. Attendance is a little low I think mostly because pretty much all the same bands, including locals, played together a couple months before. I make the executive decision to drink before the show and make the most of it. Try to get everyone to play the Abysmal Dawn drinking game where everyone takes a shot every time they hear a blast beat. Obviously I haven’t thought this through. I have a bad cable and I end up just singing the last part of the last song and not playing guitar. It was a night to remember.
11/9
Played Joliet, IL tonight and Mojoes. Good crowd and venue. Otherwise not too much to note. Do miss the food at Reggie’s Rock Club.
11/10
Awesome show at Station 4 in St. Paul tonight. Had a few drinks with some fans afterwards. Anthony, the sound guy from Origin, does house sound at the venue and was bitching I didn’t accept his friend request on Facebook. Fuck social networking. I guess we’re “friends” now asshole, haha.
11/11
We have another blessed border crossing today. We were told that we would have to pay $450 at the border to play at the venue in Winnipeg due to tax reasons. Last Chance to Reason actually cancelled the show because of it. We get to the border and they wave us through without making us pay or searching us. We arrive at the club and there are a bunch of people in bondage outfits doing a photo shoot. Someone tells us it’s for a pansexual convention that’s held at the venue/hotel once a year. I don’t want to judge people, but when the heavy set dude in a corset and leather thong was bending over at the vending machine trying to get a Pay Day or Almond Joy, I did wish I could unsee that moment in my life. Pretty soon the whole group stripped down to nothing with everyone posing in what looked like a recreation of the “Blessed Are The Sick” album cover. I took a few pictures but I was told they didn’t want them published because some of the people are police officers, school teachers, city workers etc. If you want to know more you can check out their site at www.theball.ca. Other than that the show itself was sick. We had a couple of rooms comped by the hotel and we ended up drinking way too much with some fans.
11/12
The promoter said we’d have the hotel rooms all day since we had a day off today. We get a call from the front desk in the morning kicking our hungover asses to the curb though, since apparently no one told them. We get out and eat some of the shittiest Mexican food you can find. Admittedly, being from CA we’re spoiled in that sense. Promoter finds us a place at a fan’s house after that and we continue getting our beauty sleep. Too partied out to go to the get- together at the promoter’s house unfortunately.
11/13
We end up playing at a bar/club on a college campus Saskatoon. It’s cold as hell, but I still prefer touring in the cold as opposed to the heat. The fans that came out to this one were super cool, but it wasn’t the best attended show. The food at the venue was amazing though.
11/14
Edmonton was incredible tonight. Always one of our favorite places to play in Canada. The crowds are great and always super supportive of us. It was one of the highest attended shows of the tour so far despite being a Monday having a blizzard that day. We partied hard with this kid who was a huge fan last time we were there, giving him drinks and buying him dinner. He showed up to the show in a Last Chance to Reason shirt and Obscura hoodie. He’s on the shitlist, haha. As the night went on we continued drinking at a fan’s house with the Last Chance to Reason guys. Their new guitarist Mike was kind enough to drive us there since we were all too drunk to drive. Apparently our drunken rambling sounds like a Monty Python sketch.
11/15
Last Chance to Reason left the house before us this morning. We noticed a red duffle bag that wasn’t ours that was left behind and asked if it belonged to the owner of the house. We get to the venue in Calgary and ask the Last Chance guys if it belongs to any of them. They say no so we open up the bag to see what’s in it. We look inside find some shoes, and among other things, a huge bag of weed. The guy got ahold of the tour manager though and makes the 4 hour drive to pick up the bag. Another border crossing disaster avoided. Other than that much better crowd and PA compared to the last time we played Calgary. It was good to see our friend Eric Grief there as well, who coincidentally booked the show and used to manage Death. We load out after the show and start the 10+ hour treacherous drive to Vancouver.
11/16
Drove about 5 hours myself overnight until the road conditions were so bad I had to just pull over. Couldn’t see the lanes of the road on a freshly snowed over two- lane highway. With semi trucks coming at you in the opposite direction; it’s not the safest or most fun thing. I wake up at first light and drive for a while and then Eliseo takes over. We make it to the Rickshaw in Vancouver and are welcomed to a fresh heroine needle at the doorway. Love the venue, but it’s in a super sketchy part of town where drug addicts can legally go shoot up. We catch some dinner with the Obscura show, tear things up on stage and then stay the night at our friends Char and Rita’s house.
