It’s day 2 on Death Angel‘s “Ultra Violence” tour and it’s been a crushing night here in Charlotte, NC. The crowds have been responding well to our new material and it’s awesome to see more people singing along now that our new record, The Aftermath, is out. It might be Day 2 but we’ve been on the road now for almost 3 weeks headlining dates before linking up with Death Angel, Threat Signal, Wretched and Potential Threat. Just as expected, the first day of tour didn’t start as smooth as we originally planned. It was only the first day out and our radiator already blew only a half hour from the venue.
After finding some empty water bottles and searching for a water hose on someone’s lawn we nursed our radiator all the way to the Gilman St. venue in Berkeley, CA. On the second day after dropping $300 on a new radiator we hit the road to Stockton to continue our warpath. We’ve seen a lot of familiar faces and a few new ones too at the recent shows. The second day of the tour we had this awesome chick slamming it up in the pit for us in Stockton, CA. She moshed it up so hard that she ended up dislocating her knee! No joke. She had to go to the hospital (after sticking around ’til the end of the set!). I gotta say, we have some of the most bad-ass fans.
In Yakima, Washington we tried some great beers including Irish Death. The food’s always great too. I’ve always thought the west OWNS at mexican food but the east definitely has us on pizza and italian food. Mama mia…
In Boise, Idaho we ended up partying after the show at the house of a German dude by the name of Hansi. Hansi played Wacken 4 times amongst touring with some of heavy metal’s greatest. Through our chat I learned he had been a former member of Kreator and Protector so we shared a couple brews and traded some road stories. We had a few laughs and I learned that not only did Hansi have an impressive resume but he was one funny bastard too. And god did he love beer..
We shortly soon realized again that our radiator issues were not over JUST yet. After continuing on our headline dates we began noticing a massive leak in our newly installed radiator. Whoever installed the last one didn’t know what they were doing because since it was put in wrong a new crack was created. It caused us to miss our date in Rochester, NY, which really sucked because we had looked forward to playing with Impaler who was on the bill for the night. We ended up playing one show with them in Allentown, PA, though, and it was one of the most memorable nights of our headline tour. Impaler puts on a crazy, theatrical show.. At one point I saw the singer bite a fake head filled with a bag of fake blood and he spit it into the mouth of their roadie and on the bare breasted chest of a lucky girl in the front row — amazing!
A few gnarly spider bites later as we continued on our way and wrapped up our headline dates to link up with Death Angel. The tour started in Springfield, VA and it was refreshing to see such a crowd there. Carlos‘ leg got nasty from the spider bites but he still managed to play each night. In Springfield we had a room full of fist-pumping and circle pits and we were just getting started. All the guys in the other bands on the tour have been such rad dudes and it’s cool to check out Damian‘s other band, Potential Threat, each night. Headlining tours are great but supporting such legends is always better. Hanging with Death Angel and seeing them perform every night is like one big school of rock. They don’t mess around. The tour is still young and we have another couple weeks ahead of us. We look forward to what the rest of the dates will bring, as long as there’s no more spider bites or faulty mechanics, such a sick tour so far!
