It's 1:30am and there's a bar somewhere in Montreal that has a mechanical bull in it and right about now I believe that 2 of the 4 members of Transfer along with some of the tour crew are engaged in a battle of man vs. machine! (VIDEO SOON). I don't know about you but I have high hopes of some quality pictures surfacing tomorrow of which will have to be posted. In the meantime I'm sitting in the hotel room at 2am deciding that now would be a good time to tell you a little about the trip so far.
This is Transfer's first trip to the East Coast and has been nothing but amazing on all accounts. We find ourselves again sharing the stage with Brandon Flowers for the US/Canada leg of his 2010 tour and it seems as though every night has been getting better and better for us. Tonight was the smallest venue of the tour but you would have never known from the noise and response we received, my first impression is that I can't wait to figure out when we can get back here and play another show.
The tour starting with a grueling 3 day drive from San Diego to Detroit about 2 weeks ago, rain and snow, road closures in Utah and ridiculously long drives, it was seriously one of the toughest things I've ever had to do.........and by toughest thing ever I mean make sure I had time to go to the bar at the airport before I caught my flight because I decided that I would do the complete opposite to spending 3 days traveling the road and meet everyone there........true team player right?? Anyway, after meeting up with our main man Super Tom who flew in from London to Detroit, the Transfer team were together once again and ready for the first show.
Detroit was a great first show, cold as hell but nonetheless a good time had by all. The day had it's drama in the face of Card's brand new one week old guitar amp being placed on top of it's flight case with wheels and blowing down the path after the show, the wheel caught on the pavement and face planted the amp off of the top of the case and into the ground, smashing everything inside. Mr. Cardenas definitely needed a drink after that incident SO when the owner of the bar/restaurant next to the venue decides to close down the club and allow you to stay in there til 4am and serve yourself drinks, I think we could say that the first show (and Tom's b'day) started off with a bang!
That leads us to Thanksgiving day.........and our only day off on the whole tour.........unfortunately a very slow moving band had to wake up after 3 hrs of sleep and drive 14hrs to Boston MA. At some point during this trip we (and by we I mean Matt) thought it would be a good idea to take a detour to Niagara Falls, maybe grab some Thanksgiving dinner somewhere and relax for an hour. Having never been, everybody agreed and decided to do it since who knows when the next time we're gonna be in that area, we may never get to see Niagara Falls!! That being said, It wasn't until we were 5 minutes away from it (it's now dark by the way!) that we noticed a city overlooking the falls, “Oh, what city is that?” …....well, that city is Toronto, Canada and in approximately 9 days time we will be performing in that city and will have all the opportunity in the world to see the Falls that day! So, a slightly pointless 2 hr detour was had. However that being said, seeing the Falls at night and the fact that there was no one there because it was Thanksgiving was amazing, the roar coming from it, the intensity of it was unbelievable...so ultimately although I gave him shit for it, Matt's idea actually turned out pretty good.
After a day spent trying to locate a new amp for Card and having it arrive an hr before doors open Boston - House of Blues was a great show for the band, big venue and loud a crowd got us back in the swing of things. We got to hang in the bar at Fenway Park after the show and although I'm not a huge baseball fan it was pretty dang cool to be there regardless.
Shows in Atlantic City, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Asbury Park NJ, and 2 shows in New York City followed. Hammerstein Ballroom in NYC is an amazing room in the center of Manhattan and is the biggest show on the tour. As with most of this tour it was sold out and packed to the top for our set. Over the course of the tour Brandon has a core group of fans that travel to every city and camp out before the shows so they can get in first and at the front, they all seem to take the time after and sometimes before to come say hi and for the most part seem to have accepted us. It was at this show that I first noticed that I started seeing people singing along and a bunch of people wearing Transfer T-shirts! Ultimately our main goal is to gain as many new Transfer fans over the course of this tour and it has been pretty awesome to get to go out there every night in a different city and try and win people over. We're close to selling out of all the CDs we brought with us and the feedback we've been getting has been incredible. A big thank you to all of you who hang around after the shows to say hi, send us messages, buy CDs and generally make this whole touring thing worthwhile for a band trying to pave their way into this market.
I guess at 4am I may not be making sense anymore therefore time to shut up! Toronto tomorrow.
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