Tour Diary: Day 2: Escondido to Chico
If anyone ever says to you, “Chico, California sucks,” motherfucker is lying. I didn’t have high hopes for the place – Id never heard of it before AND getting there from Escondido way down in SoCal meant skipping leisure stops in San Francisco and at Yosemite National Park. But the tours the tour and we drove 14 hours thru the night to get there for a gig at a house show. Chico is the home of Chico State, and plenty of the kids there came out to crowd into a basement to hear the Jonbenet rock their dicks off. The gig was great, the kids were awesome and the town is pretty, you might consider dropping in on future roadtrips. I snapped some pictures with the digital specifically for the blog, dude singing in this shot is Mike Murland. Stand up guy. Bryan Schutmaat, who many of you know, is playing bass in the background.
The drive was pretty wild. We left Escondido at around 11:15pm last night after the Killer Pizza from Mars gig and drove all the way up I-5 thru LA, thru the Angeles National Forest, past Bakersfield and Fresno, switched highways in Sacramento and arrived in Chico by like 11 in the morning. That stretch thru the National Forest was amazing. Even though it was the middle of the night, the moon was bright enough to see the hills pretty clearly, and it was gorgeous. I hope to come thru during the day sometime.
Anyway, We hit the mall (I needed to get a pillow) and Taco Bell, tried to find a Wal-Mart and then headed to the gig. The dudes who were having the show were real friendly, and we got to chill out for a while before things got going. We watched Manchester United beat Chelsea in double overtime and then I took a long nap in the van until the dudes went on at like 9.
It was a good gig, the the kids in the crowd were all really positive, and a bunch of them had heard the guys play before three or four years ago the last time they came thru. There were two other bands that played, including one whose name I have written down but can’t find at the moment from Davis, CA, who not only rock but also have a pretty foxy singer name Erica. Before there last song, she warned the crowd that since the band has nothing recorded and no myspace page, that “This is it, some pretty crucial rock and roll.” And it was. I have a shot of her screaming into the mic in my Hasselblad as we speak.
So now we’re headed to Richman, WA, which is like 10,000 miles from here. So we’re going to be driving thru the night again which is only a bummer because when we drive at night we can’t see the sights. Though, driving thru the Angeles National Forest last night, the moon was bright enough that I could see the hills pretty clearly, and it was amazing.
We didn’t hang out long after the show was over. The kids were cool and everything, and this retardedly adorable dog named Stanley turned up (video below), but we left to make it to the next show in Richland, WA by way of Portland, OR.
May 25th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Just wanted to say that Mia and I also watched the Man U/Chelsea game in Barcelona, because the entire city was on lockdown. GREG: This is hilarious and extremely entertaining. For the sake of all blogdom, keep it up.