The following was written by Noah Shomburg of The Foot.:

April 18, 2010: Louisville: gorgeous city. I had been a few times before, but never to the Highlands, which I guess is the name of the area where the Hideaway Saloon is and where we were staying. The Hideaway Saloon especially rules because they have a band house a few miles from the venue where bands can crash for free under the kind and hospitable eye of de facto innkeeper Jim. As soon as we got to the Hideaway, the bartenders began to warn us that Sunday nights were typically very slow and to not expect a big crowd. They said this was compounded by something called “Thunder”. I had no idea what “Thunder” was, but kept hearing the name tossed around all night. Appaaaaarently, Thunder is a big fireworks festival that had just happened the previous night that everyone within 50 miles had gotten completely shitslammed at, so everyone was nursing hangovers on the day that we arrived.

The folks at the Hideaway Saloon were pretty correct in their prediction about the night. We played to a select handful of bartenders, shady-looking shadesters, heady hippies, and a dude at the bar who either passed out or died midway through our second of three sets. We took the night as an opportunity to play a few tunes that we are currently in the process of writing, experiment a bit, and mess around with new lighting configurations. The sound guy was really nice and gave us some great recommendations of things to see and do in the city. We were walking through an alley next to the venue and nearly stepped on a huddled dark mass that ended up being a person. He didn’t seem too bothered by it and decided that he would rather stay put and mutter at us than give up his prized sleeping spot. Final verdict: we have to come back to Louisville because it is gorgeous and everyone we met was extremely nice, but we definitely need to come back on a Friday or Saturday night to see the most of what the city has to offer.

April 19, 2010: After heading back to the band house after the show, we made a collective decision to catch up on the season finale of Spartacus; the latest and greatest gladiator-themed show to hit the airwaves. Needless to say, we were up till about 4 in the AM and therefore didn’t get up until nearly 3PM the next day. Just in time to grab a quick bite and pick up Andrew Hoag from the airport. He would be joining us for the rest of the tour to assume tour-management duties. No more worrying about merch and accounting because those things are super lame and we would rather beloud and band-ish. We had a good day off to explore our little part of Louisville. Ran some errands, caught up on e-mails, Facebooks, etc and went to good restaurant downtown for dinner. Highlights were: me having to take a shot of the nastiest vodka that the waitress could find and Andrew having to take a shot of the nastiest gin the waitress could find (we each lost the nose game). Luckily Jeff either made the waitress laugh or nearly vomit by loudly discussing Lucy Lawless’ boob-to-nipple ratio (verdict: kind of strange, but still appealing) in the near-empty restaurant.

April 20, 2010: Off to Bloomington, IN! Quick little hop from Louisville. Thinking we will try to make the drive to Chicago after the show tonight. We’ll see how that goes….

The show in Bloomington was surprisingly eventful. After arriving to the venue (Max’s Place) very early, we killed a few hours by walking around the IU campus, which was gorgeous. We were treated to a short set by a female acoustic duo whose name has since escaped me. But ladies, if you are reading this, you rule. We set up and played to only a handful of people, which wasn’t the coolest thing ever, but one of the girls in the opening group got up and sang “I Want You” by The Beatles with us, which was great. We also had this guy with this crazy didjeridu/hand drum contraption that he had made jam with us on a few songs. To explain what happened next, I should give a bit of perspective on how the venue was laid out. The venue was a smallish (80 capacity roughly) restaurant and music club with the stage located in the front near the front doors and windows. Near the end of our first set, I looked back at Noah (as I do) only to see a guy push/throw/shove another guy straight through the plate glass windows in the front of the venue. They guy quickly jumped up and ran away.

Needless to say, we just kept playing, although Jeff did look somewhat concerned that the rest of the big plate glass window would shatter and kill him dead. We took a little break after the first set so we could help the owners clear the glass off the stage and patch up the window. Andrew was especially clutch here because he had very strong work gloves. Perfect for picking up gnarly shards of glass. I went outside and spoke to the guy who threw the other guy through the window and in a semi-coherent drug-addled state he explained that he had beef with this other guy for a few days. Apparently they were crashing at the same house and the guy just wouldn’t stop walking around naked. So obviously, he had to be destroyed! Anyway, we went back and played our second set to a venue that was at that point without a front window. This did prove to be kind of convenient, though. Jeff was able to jump out of the window while playing and play his bass from the sidewalk, drawing curious stares from passersby.