Mineral Tour Diary - Columbus, St. Louis, Kansas City, Denver

Tour Diary by Gabe Wiley, drummer of Mineral

Columbus - 9/15

The people that work at skulls in Columbus are a mixed bag more so than any other place we played. Most of them were decent enough, but couple of the bar tenders and one other guy ( i don't know what he did) were the biggest assholes, enough to make a mention. Next door to the club is a record store called magnolia thunder pussy, which swallowed a bit of my time. Some nice collector vinyl, but I'm poor and nowhere in the van for more stuff. Got to see empire empire as they played the show. They were good and very nice. Thanks to the people singing along and those couple hecklers making me laugh. Knock it off tho.

St. Louis - 9/16

Ah the dreaded st louis. At the out set, we were warned. "keep an eye on your stuff while you're here, shit gets stolen all the time", the promoter says. And we did, for the most part while the van was parked outside the club. Nothing happened. But it was Chris's birthday and we decided to go bowling with some of the people from the firebird. Even there some of us and the sound guy from the firebird would stick our heads out of the door to check on the van. The robbers must have been so quick at their work as we had only been there for maybe 40 minutes and peeked out every 10-15 minutes. But someone said "hey the lights are on onside the van." My computer stuff, text books and all the papers and homework I stupidly had not submitted yet were gone. Assholes. Oh, and we played a show as well. Fuck St. Louis, except the people at the show. I hate that your entry is mostly gripping, but sometimes a mutha-fuka's gotta gripe. So bands do go play St. Louis, but watch yo shit and get out after the show.

Kansas City - 9/17

Still figuring out what to do about school work after the burglary. (I like having the opportunity to say the word burgled, not so fun when it's my stuff) wonder if I could get special circumstances consideration, ah screw it, I'll half ass it and hope for the best. During the drive, we heard about various people starting different online donation pages which amazed us. We had to politely ask them to pull them down as it would be impossible to tell which are legit or scams. We did ok one controlled by us to help pay for things such as medicines (one guy had all his insulin stolen -yikes-) and sundry. Y'all are so very kind. It's funny to think this would not have been possible back when were actually a band, ah technology. Maybe we should write and record a song just for yous yutes who donated. Oops, now I'm gonna get it. Well show time. IIOI was fantastic, but holy hell it was hot up there behind these lights. It is a very odd thing to play a show with the knowledge that you will probably be expected to do an encore. You have to not only plan which songs to leave out in the original set, but where to go hide in case people do request more, then you pop out sheepishly, "ok, we'll play more". But what happens if your escape route gets locked, and the door to it is in the crowd but to their right? I'll tell what happens. You turn even more red than you were from an hour of aerobic drumming, and frantically bump into people like a pinball. After much too long of this, you run back on stage like it's a refuge. Total spinal tap moment, and that'll knock you done a peg or two. Throughout all of this tour we would see many friends each night. Some old friends from home that had moved to the outer reaches of the states. Others who were members of band that we used to tour with. I started to feel a little guilty as we didn't have much time to speak with strangers that wanted some of our attention. But reminiscing is hard to give up. So speaking for myself, I apologize to any who I didn't get to talk to.

Denver - 9/19

Last day. I am so happy and ready to get home. It has been awesome playing shows with mineral again. And we couldn't ask for better shows with fantastic people coming out and helping us with energy and singing prowess. But I'm old and miss the wife and my girls. This is all I wanted back when is was touring constantly, but now, I like home. But today we have two shows, riot fest in the day and marquis at night. But, tonight we play with christie front drive. First time in 18 years. They were the first band to take us tour, Kerry from cfd put out our very first 7" and just all around kick ass band and friends. It is quite likely that we would never have become the band that we did without knowing cfd. They were so instrumental in us learning how to tour and introducing us to a plethora of great bands. Unfortunately, Kerry, their bass player couldn't make it as his wife just have birth a week before. But the rest if the boys carried on triumphantly. All of this and it was octoberfest right outside the club. Octoberfest in September, oh joy. Piles of puke and torn lederhosen in all their glory. On stage, there was a door behind and to the left of my drums with a curtain covering it as to not be seen. While playing, Ron from cfd would occasionally poke his head out and watch making it seem as though there was some magical hobbit hole in the wall. The first time he did this, it startled me and I dropped my stick. So, "this time I have an excuse". (Sweet, quoting myself) and once again you people were fantastic with the singing and energy. (What do you you mean-you people?!) so thank you so much, it's been our pleasure and left coast, you're up.