9/12, boise, ID

well well well, what do you know? open fire sleeps in 45 minutes late, but somehow manages to leave 2 hours late. fuck us, right?

a nice clean apartment to leave/come back to, and we are on the road. i started watching Observe & Report (highly underrated, check it asap) but i passed out.

9 hour drive consisted of: too many stops. filled up the tank twice (currently getting 11-12 mpg. not stoked) 90 degree weather as soon as we passed snoqualmie. fuuuck, its hot everywhere but home (heard it was hot at home too). we hit a gas station, and somehow instantly got covered with flies. like 50+ flies were instantly in the van. it sucked. we rocked some ciara, 3 six mafia, every time i die, acacia strain, madball, casey jones, make do and mend, new found glory. most of us just shifted driving cuz we were all super tired from our 2-4 hr sleep the night before.

load in was around 5:30-6pm. at about 5pm, we figured we were about an hour and 15 minutes behind, so wed be there at the most 45 min late. doors werent til 7 show was later. however, at around 5pm, we realized boise, ID is one hour ahead of us. it was actually 6pm, and we were 2 hours and 15 minutes late. cuz, obviously, we left 2 hours too late this morning. fuck. my. life.

call with our round of apologies and excuses of stupidity, and we finally roll up. we meet up with homies BARE WITNESS, and then we checked out the venue. its a very small warehouse. if youve ever been in a storage facility, imagine the biggest storage unit available, and its about that big. maybe an ounce bigger. then we found out that we're playing first. kind of a bummer since we were a touring band, but definitely not a big deal. there were 3 locals, 3 touring bands. 2 touring bands (us and elitist) were on tour from out of town. gaza was just doing a one off show from SLC. but we had to play first. also, this place housed art from local artists, so that was cool. and there was a stoned kitty laying on top of the toilet in the venue....it just laid there while a couple of us pissed and i took a shit. soooo bizzare, wish i took a pic. ps, the cats name was ZIGGY STARDUST. yeah, seriously. the owner dude introduced with the enthusiasm of john from studio 7 but twice as weird. he called us after fire. thats better than open flame, i guess.

setlist:
INTRO
INTRO
I HAVE WASTED EVERY WORD
I HAVE WASTED EVERY WORD
THE MORAL ECLIPSE
TREND-TERMINAL
SURVIVOR
WHAT MEANS THE MOST

if youre wondering why we played the intro twice then i have wasted every word twice, heres why: as mentioned, fisch was inable to make this tour with us, and didnt notify us until after we played the olympia show essentially. so, with that, we had no time to teach chug any of fischs parts. unfortunately, the way the songs are structured, fisch plays the leads and 95% of the transition parts. it is the key to our sound as it shapes the song structure, and makes our songs far far more technical and tight.

the first time we tried the intro, chugs guitar cut out before we even started, so we hit our opening note......just drums and bass. no guitar. then we tried again, and got a minute into wasted words before chug fucked up the riff, got lost, then when he came back in, his guitar cut out again. it was just a fucking wreck, completely unsalvagable. sooo, we started that song again. fortunately, we made it through the rest of the songs with PRETTY much no incident. we had to hurry since we were late and fucked up the whole first 5 minutes. so tuning wasnt great. everyone was a bit stressed. we finished up okay. our buddies asked for what means instead of faith-healer, so we played that and finished. thanks to the bare witness dudes for singing along. a few kids bought some merch, and we are super grateful for that. a good amount of kids came up and told us they loved us/really enjoyed us, and so i just apologized and told them over and over that wait til we come back with a full line up, then we'll be worth fucking seeing! ...maybe

bare witness went on and they were fucking amazing. they fucked up their intro too, so maybe it was just "one of those nights". bone dance played, and they were heavier than i expected, their songs on myspace seem a little more laid back. not quite as driving...but it sounded awesome. jument played and they were really fucking heavy. elitist were heavy too. i thought they were solid but missed some of it. then gaza played, and all im going to say is that it was a seriously fucking insane show. they were thriving off it hard and it made them play harder, and kids go off harder. a perfect show from a musicians point of view. good for them, the band rules. go download/buy/see "I Dont Care Where I Go When I Die". great grind/metal record. it was a semi shitty night for us due to being late/playing first/playing so so so bad, but kids were amazing and the bands ruled and we did okay financially so it was a good night overall. thank you to everyone who was there!

post show was pretty chill: los betas (i think was the name). idahos version of taqueria el reconsito, but cheaper/more quantity. maybe not the best flavor though. delicioussss. we are all sooooo full from it.

then we went to the bare witness house/apt, and this place is fucking sweet. im off to go crash in the van. ive been up for 22 hours (or 21, maybe cuz of time diff. i dont know anymore) and im done. gnight. video from oly and pics from boise up tomorrow. i miss my girlfriend, but cant wait to keep moving with tour. twin falls house show tomorrow.

-stelo