43 Shows In 66 Days: On The Road With The Fling – Part II

The Fling are back with their second serving of tour journals.  This time around bassist Graham Lovelis is manning the pen, documenting all of the highlights (and lowlights) on the road from Denver, to NYC, to Philadelphia.  If you missed our first blog post from Graham’s brother Justin, click here to get caught up on the action.

In this installment, Graham depicts a house party in Albany with The Red Lions, sleeping in vans with a bunch of men, and recommendations on good places to grub if you’re planning a visit to one of their stops.

10/28-10/30 Denver 

Denver was incredible.  It always is.  We’ve got some really good people there.  Halloween party at our friends Tim and Tara’s house.  Converted their garage into a venue for the evening.  Super Soakers, spas, canoes full of beverages, lime with the skin on sandwiches…all the makings for a good night.  We dressed up as old ladies, boy scouts, and rednecks.  When you’re on a budget, the thrift store never fails.  Joel and I snuck into Casa Bonita.  That place is the Disneyland of Mexican food.  They have live hunky cliff diving, what more do you need to know?  The show at Larimer Lounge was decent.  Denver had just gotten its first snow so it was a ghost town.  It happens.  We’re coming back though in December for a rematch.  It was the last night with the Vandervelde crew.  We’re going to miss those guys. On the plus side, we got to catch up with Cold War Kids while they were in Boulder to terrorize the college kids.  Smelly Deli (yes that’s the real name) tastes much better than it smells.  Get the steak and cheesewich, you won’t be sorry.

10/31- 11/3 - Colorado to upstate New York

It’s a long drive from Denver to Rochester.  We pretty much just balled it all the way though only stopping for gas and a bit of sketchy motel snoozing.  Stayed at Roeland’s parents’ house where we jumped on the trampoline, caught up on sleep, ate too much homemade pear and gorgonzola pizza, and watched some television show about how to park a tractor in the bed of a pickup truck.  TV mostly sucks.  Next morning we headed to Albany for a house party that The Red Lions put on.  These people were so great.  Thank you for showing us so much love.  It makes this all worth it.  “ People dance in Albany. That's all I really want, a little movement, some expression, some gesture to let us know you're enjoying this moment we drove all night for.
” Graham Lovelis People dance in Albany.  That’s all I really want, a little movement, some expression, some gesture to let us know you’re enjoying this moment we drove all night for.  We’ll always return the favor.  We love you LA, but sometimes you gotta venture out to find the pockets where the kids just wanna party and all they need is some music and a night off.  We’ll be back.

P.S. Mexican food here is sketchy.  Thanks Greg.  Thank you Caroline for letting us stay.  Money is getting very tight.  Getting far too comfortable with the gas station hot dogs on the turnpike.

11/4 Boston

Positives: Great people, good turnout, free food, everyone is a bioengineer, excellent sound guy/staff, Floating Action joins the tour.

Negatives: Driving is insanely confusing, had to wake up Joel’s dad on a business trip at 3 AM to sleep on his hotel floor, solid crowd and we didn’t get paid to play…at all. We’re going to need to look into that. Promoters are mostly crooked individuals.