The tour started in Torn Bowel’s hometown, Port Claim, which was about four hours north of us, so we were going to leave pretty early on the Thursday morning of the first show. Through these conversations with everyone, I started learning more about planning tours: obviously the nights when most people would come out were weekends, and since the Port Claim show would likely be the busiest, it made sense to have booked it on a Thursday. The other three cities would be smaller shows, and all but the Sunday night one would be weekend nights. This meant that our second-ever show would be a busy one, which was a bit nerve-racking, but all of us were feeling confident.
Four boxes of Scream into This arrived, fifty in each, and they looked great. Totally professional. We decided we’d sell them for fifteen bucks each, which was probably a little high, but we had to pay our expenses on the road and we also had to start repaying Edgar’s parents. Who was to say that anyone would even want to buy one, right? We could lose a ton of money and be that much further behind on the loan. But there was no point in worrying about that. We could also sell out and come back with three thousand dollars.
Thursday morning, as I waited for the van to arrive, I’d dressed in pure Marie-Lise-on-tour style. I wore jeans, a T-shirt, and a big pair of black sunglasses. The only one who’d be able to call me out on ripping her off would be Fern, and when the van pulled up, I saw she had the same idea as me. We grinned awkwardly at each other, acknowledging it quietly, and as I climbed into the backseat beside her, dragging my suitcase, I was at least able to have the satisfaction that my hair wasn’t pure white and hers was.
“You guys both look like rock stars,” Socks said.
TWENTY-EIGHT
We arrived in Port Claim after five irritating hours of traffic. At this point we were late for load-in, but there was nothing we could do about it.
We pulled into the parking lot of the idiotically named Klub Klang, and as we swung the van around to the back, I saw another van with a few guys standing around outside it. I was immediately reminded of the assholes from Heathenistic Bile, and felt my guard rise.
But they turned towards us and smiled as we pulled in, raising their hands in greeting. I didn’t see any cheap, shiny leather or dangling wallet chains. Just a bunch of long-haired guys in jeans, all grinning.
We hopped out, and the guys all came over to meet us. There were five of them — Jamie, Billy, Kevin, Phil, and PJ. No extra crew, no glaring girlfriends. Everybody shook each other’s hand, introducing themselves, and immediately their singer, Billy, started a friendly conversation with me.
“So Ken says you guys are fucking amazing,” he said, smiling. “I can’t wait to check you guys out.”
“Yeah, same,” I said, easing into the whole thing, feeling more comfortable. “We’re really excited to be along. Thanks for having us.”
“Oh, it’s going to be fun,” he said. “It sucks my buddy’s band had to cancel, but we’re happy you guys could come out with us.”
“Do you guys tour much?”
“Sometimes. Just a week here and there, mostly. We all finished school last spring, which is gonna make it easier for us to focus on doing the band, you know?”
“Not going to college?”
“Maybe. We want to take a year and try to get the band going, you know? We can always go to college if it doesn’t work out.”
Torn Bowel had already loaded in their stuff, and so we loaded in our gear as well. We were happy to find out that we would get a soundcheck as well, after theirs, so we sat down and watched them set up their equipment.
This club was about the same size as the Toe, but a bit cleaner. It still smelled like shit though. I was starting to figure out that every bar and club has the exact same smell of old beer and piss. On the wall behind the stage, KLUB KLANG was written in huge red letters, but to my relief one of the Torn Bowel guys busied himself hanging their band banner up to cover it. For some reason that name really rubbed me the wrong way.
The house guy at the sound desk gave them the signal. Torn Bowel jumped into a fast song when they were ready to go. They were really good. Billy was an amazing singer, casually moving in and out of roars and growls. All of them played very comfortably, obviously treating this like a not-a-big-deal soundcheck. I made a mental note to also pretend it was no big deal for us to have a soundcheck.
When they finished their song, Billy called out to us. “How’s it sounding out on the floor there?”