The Null Device Blog

Friday, we piled into the rental van, picked everyone up, headed to Milwaukee to pick up Mr. Clark, and we were on our way to Cleveland.

MAN Indiana’s a boring drive. MAN.

We roll into cleveland almost exactly on time. Loadin goes smoothly, setup seems to take longer than usual, and soundcheck goes extraordinarily well. Our soundguy, a short, hairy, shirtless balding guy named Dale spends a few minutes critiquing our gear and sweating a lot . He was, however, a top-notch soundguy, and gave us an absolutely godlike monitor mix. And mains, from what I’m told. Since we had ages between the soundcheck and when we went on, we had dinner at a nearby diner, and generally hung out before the show. Talked to a promoter at the club next door, hung out there – it was air-conditioned, which was a refreshing change from Phantasy’s 800-degree sauna. I caught a bit of the early bands, but for the most part just chilled. I noticed our name was on a marquee. This was cool, as I don’t think we’ve ever been marqueed before.

We went on, and it was technically one of our best shows. Sadly, by the time we went on there were only 7 people in the audience. That was a bit disheartening. I guess there was zero promo for this show, and another semi-goth show going on next door with a bunch of biggish local headliners. So it was kinda dire. And the guy that had been stalking Elizabeth, or “Emily” as he called her, managed to miss the show entirely.

We did a pack-up afterwards, and headed down to PIttsburgh for the night. And by “night” I mean “insanely early in the morning.” We crashed with a friend of Elizabeth’s and a very friendly pitbull. Sleep was a wonderful thing, although we didn’t get enough of it.

We managed to hit the road again around 1pm, thinking it was probably a short-ish haul to CT. There was a small delay as we had to clean a bit of tracked dogshit out of the van. I’m not saying who was responsible, though. Well, Pennsylvania threw us some challenges. Like getting back to I-80 – our directions gave us the shortest distance, indeed, but it was all through winding rural highways. Pretty, but slow. Matt Fanale called me a half dozen times to ask where we were, and then to berate me for not getting us out there faster. Once out of PA, though, Jersey and NY flew by. After getting a bit lost in New Haven, we found the hotel. I planned to crash almost immediately, but was browbeat by Fanale into stopping by the club to say hello to Andrew Sega, who was leaving in the morning. So I did, and spent about 15 minutes therem chatting up Sega and, oddly, getting groped by a drunken Gothsicle. I think I could do with another 14 hours of sleep.

In a little while, we’ll be meeting up with Dr. Goedken, and loading/soundchecking. Then I dunno what’s happening before our show, but I’m thinking a nap may have to be involved.
Especially since we’re heading out at the crack of dawn to begin our 18-hour drive home.