Day 1 - Portland, OR

Last night was technically the first night of the tour, but since it was Tacoma I don't really count it.
(Quick recap: Good show. Great turnout. We sold a good amount of merch and made good money from the door to help us get going.)

Today we drove to Portland after staying with Jon's parents in Olympia. It was an easy 2.5 hour drive and we got to the venue really early. We parked in a bank parking lot across the street since the venue doesn't have parking and went to a Fred Meyer to hang out. We moved the van to load in and got everything out then moved it back. We forgot the heads for the guitars so we decided to run back and get them. Upon walking across the street, we see a tow truck and some guys putting our trailer onto their hitch. We bolted to the parking lot and tried to get them to put it back. They were pretty cool about it but still made us pay $125 to get it taken off. They would have charged us $145 but they broke our lock off so he gave us a little break and took $20 off. We chose to pay out of pocket instead of using band cash. We had to buy a new lock so we went back to Fred Meyer to get one then moved the van to some random spot on a residential street.

The venue, The Hawthorne Theatre, is really cool. The turnout was a little low, but more than I actually expected. The show went really really well. We haven't played here before and people were stoked. We had to turn our amps down unusually low and it was easily the quietest on stage sound I've ever had. There was a light directly in my face the whole time and the only time I could see anything was when I walked to the very edge of the stage. We played pretty well and our fill-in drummer did a lot better than last night. He's doing well, I just miss having Randy around. We got packed up and kind of stiffed from the venue, we only got $20. Lame, but I kind of expected it. We went to a girls house who was kind enough to let us stay the night. She's pretty cool. Chris had to sleep in the van to make sure nothing happened to it and Brent and I bunked up together on a futon. The day definitely had its ups and downs but an alright start to the tour. We'll see what happens tomorrow.