Tour Journals
September 2006

Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Around

Ok... So I've been planning on writing a little update for a while now, and I'm finally getting around to it. This summer has been SO crazy. I slept in my own bed for only 3 nights of it. Not that I'm complaining... Its been a lot of fun writing and recording this new record. We worked our tails off trying to get it done for a November release, but a few weeks ago, we got word that Capitol wants to push it to February. Its a big bummer for us (because we hate going more than a year without putting out new music, and we worked so hard to meet the deadline), but in all honesty, I think this is by far our best recording. We just want to make sure that we have plenty of time to let people know the new album is coming out.

The album title is going to be Five Score And Seven Years Ago, and its going to have between 12 and 14 songs (I haven't decided yet). Its a pretty diverse album as far as songs go. There's some heavy songs, some mellow tracks, some really happy stuff, an a cappella song (with a cappella drums), and an eleven minute story song (which happens to be my favorite thing we've ever done [by far]). Mark Townsend's thoughts can be found here - http://zilchonline.com/journal.htm

We had a really good time making the album in LA and Nashville, and we got to have some friends guest on the record (Jon Foreman of Switchfoot etc...) Tonight we leave to go on the Nintendo Fusion Tour with Hawthorne Heights, Emery, The Plain White T's, and The Sleeping. We're super excite biked to get out on the road and have some fun touring again. We'll being doing the old tour journals, some podcasts, and hopefully getting another couple episodes of Woodland Forest going (it kind of went on hiatus while we were making the record). Later, friends. Matthew Thiessen

Friday, September 08, 2006
Orlando, FL

i had a request to blog about rock the universe in orlando florida. wellllllllllllllllllllllll................ i thoroughly enjoyed myself. being from the orlando area, i got to see some old friends and my family. we had the privilege of getting a n escort through the park for all of the rides, and we had a good time doing that. my wife was able to come down for her first time at the park. the show was good for us not having played in a while, and the kids were awesome. we will be back at universal in october at hard rock live for the fusion tour... should be fun. thanks for everyone who came out to see us play... it was awesome playing again with mxpx... they are eternally entertaining. see you soon. jon schneck

Thursday, September 07, 2006
Long Ol' Update

Another long period between updates on this here tour journal blog rss diary. Hope you haven't all tuned out by now. We just got done recording a massive 3-disc/2-DVD album with an accompanying 96" x 72" wall poster full of liner notes written in Arial 8 point font. The album will basically be three songs recorded about 15 to 20 ways each. So exciting. But one of the other guys will have to tell you all about that. I'm going to stick to updating you on our shows since Hotlan... um, I mean Atlanta.

6/17 Ichthus Festival - Wilmore, KY
 Ichthus is, of course, a favorite of ours because of all the tornados that try to destroy us. Sadly there were no twisters, no whirlwinds, cyclones, or dust devils of any kind trying to thwart anything or anyone whatsoever. But it was a good day in spite of none of that. We got to see our buddies in Run Kid Run, and I was particularly "jazzed" to meet up with my friend Christopher from the now defunct Calibretto to talk about all the latest and greatest video games. His assertion, and to be honest this baffles me, is that Kingdom Hearts is a good game, worthy even of replay. I'll have to take his word for it.

6/23 Alive Festival - Canal Fulton, OH
"What's up with this weather?" They say that in Ohio if you don't like the weather wait five minutes. I think with a little hard work we can get it down to three or four minutes. Again, no twisters, but it was a wet and slippery day for a festival. Flying out from sunny LA to all that brouhaha was a bit underwhelming, but everyone's bright, sunshiny faces made up for it. Highlight of the day: going to Swenson's and getting a Galley Boy. Delectable.

6/28 Creation Festival - Shirleysburg, PA
Rained out. Mr. Stormcloud doesn't like us.

7/6 Spirit Song Festival - Kings Island, OH
Two highlights for this show for me:
a) I got to play my new Marcus Miller Jazz Bass. (Thanks for the photo, Lauren!)

b) Casting Crowns' crew had this massive 4-player Halo rig that was in its own road case, and we saw it in action. Glorious.

7/7 Cornerstone Festival - Bushnell, IL
Cornerstone is another favorite of ours. I'm biased since this was the first Christian festival I attended, and I have been coming back for the last ten years. I got to hang out with my friends Scott and Tom at their Volume Skateboards booth all day, and they let us throw out free stuff during our set. We shared the stage with MXPX, and it was surreal for me since ten years ago I saw them on the same stage and thought that they were immortals. Perhaps they are since they've been around forever. The guy that announced them ten years ago said, "And now... God's favorite band... M X P X!" Awesome.

7/8 Lifest - Oshkosh, WI
I got to see Dizmas for the first time today, and I thought they were great. Not too much else to report other than the fact that Olivia brought me Jelly Belly's, and I ate them while watching Prison Break. Mmmmm... scrumptious.

7/14 Sonshine Festival - Willmar, MN
Sort of a hometown show for me since I'm originally from Minneapolis, MN. Therefore I decided to ride up to the festival from the hotel with my parents and brother. Riding in the backseat with my brother kind of brought me back to my childhood. As did this blast from my past: before pulling out of the driveway, my parents used to randomly check if we had our seatbelts on. If we did we would be rewarded with a quarter. Well they brought that random check back into effect on our way up to SonShine, and I am proud to say that I'm 25¢ richer (unfortunately my brother is not).

Usually our set at SonShine is plagued with technical problems, but this year we were in the clear thanks to Scott and Josh. Thanks guys! The show was fun, and I love all my MN peeps.

7/26 Creation Festival - George, WA
Holy moly was the view awesome for us onstage at Creation West. This was our first time playing the venue after the sun went down, and it looked so amazing when Matt asked everyone to wave their cell phones and lighters. Looking from that sea of little lights up to the stars was unspeakably cool.

My friend Elissa (who I had not seen in six years) and her friend Seth came out to the festival and hung out with me. We got to fly kites in the afternoon, thanks to Melanie, and I got a minor sunburn. Melanie also brought Jon some paint, colored pencils, and paper, but before he could get to it Thiessen painted a picture worthy to be hung with care in the Louvre. Dave played a new boxing game on an XBOX 360° demo console, and it enticed him to buy the same boxing game for the PS2 a few days later. He spent hours and hours honing his skills to become the welter-weight champion. Good on ya, Dave.

8/19 Purple Door Festival - Lewisberry, PA
At Purple Door we got to see Brian Pittman's band Inhale Exhale, and they were great (is that the Sun Microsystems logo they've got going in their favicon?). I especially loved watching their guitarist John shred his guitar into ribbons. For our set the crowd was a courteous and attentive one, a shining example. Especially for the fact that most of them stayed well into the rainstorm that we brought. Good on ya, crowd.

9/2 Revelation Generation Festival - Frenchtown, NJ
Not surprising at all that when there is any chance of rain within 100 miles of where Relient K is going to be, it comes down with a vengeance. RevGen festival was a bummer because we didn't even get to play a few songs. Three things stand out, however, about this day:

a) The festival was in Frenchtown, and the guy that brought me from the airport was French. He was hilarious. We talked the whole hour-long trip to the festival, and at one point he got all worked up about something, started swearing, and immediately excused himself by saying, "Pardon my French..." Awesome.

b) Steven Baldwin (The Usual Suspects, Bio-Dome, among others) was at the festival. A bunch of us in the RK crew were sitting around in the trailer to escape the rain when a box truck pulled up behind us. It had flames, a huge picture of Steven Baldwin, and text reading "THE UNUSUAL SUSPECT". Who should come out of the driver's door into the rain wearing a cowboy hat but... Steven Baldwin! We were unable to speak. A little later, after we recovered that ability, we were talking about the awesomeness of what we had just witnessed. I started wondering aloud what his need was for that box truck, like what he was selling out of it. "DVD's of Bio-Dome?" I surmised facetiously. Immediately Steven Baldwin appeared right next to us from around the side of the trailer like he had been waiting for a chance for someone to say "Bio-Dome". It was craziness.

c) After being chilled to the bone with the cold and rainy weather our runner on the way back to the hotel decided it was in our best interests for us to try Rita's Italian Ice. While it was delicious, it only added to our cold. To make up for this he also sent us a care package of homemade fudge a week later. Thanks!

Sorry again, folks, that it's been so long between updates. Jon will enlighten you on the events of our time at Rock the Universe presently. John Warne

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