Tour Days With Lazerbeak

LazerbeakLazerbeak, News

Hello there and welcome to the final Tour Days With Lazerbeak of the IntoThe Spin Tour.  We arrived back home in beautiful sunny Minneapolis last night; safe, sound, and maybe just a little hungover.  It feels great to be home, although the last four weeks have been the absolute best.  A huge thank you to everyone that made it out to any of the 21 shows.  We had a blast meeting so many of you and hanging out in your fine cities.  Below are a million photos from our last week on the road.

The final recorded Legend Points from all seven of us involved.  You can see the van and trailer behind us.  I have decided to take up the campaign of naming the van MOUNTAIN in an attempt to turn it into a larger than life epic traveling creature.  Dessa is so not feeling it so much.  I may need to enlist your help in persuading her.

Ah, the life of a tour manager/headlining performer.  Pretty sure the phone and laptop have fused to Dessa’s hand and lap at this point.  She did an amazing job of handling all that was thrown at her without blowing up at anybody.  Total Bawse and a joy to be around.

I’ve found that I have a gift of catching Sims making absolutely ridiculous faces.  The one above even involves a ridiculous looking hat.  Perfect combo.  All joking aside, I had the best time hanging out and ripping every single show with this dude.  So nice to see all of the years of hard work that we both put into Bad Time Zoo paying off.  We got this.

By the last week of tour everyone is generally pretty worn out.  A lot more sleeping gets done in the van while driving from city to city, which means you have to get creative sometimes on where to rest your weary head.  Joey and Dustin perfected the “best buds sharing a bench” technique.  Dessa on the other hand went for the more unconventional “front seat worm cocoon” approach.

The good news is that at the end of her sleep metamporphosis she was awakened  and transformed into a ball of energy by the Candy Rescue Ambulance.

Here’s a shot of Ander maybe sleeping or maybe not sleeping in the middle bench.  You can never tell with this guy, as he has been known to pass out on the drop of a dime.  The cop glasses certainly don’t help either.

I don’t sleep very well in the van, but I have mastered the technique of eating without spilling everything all over your (semi) clean clothes while in a moving vehicle.  Tip 1: always get a ton of extra napkins whenever you stop.  You’re gonna wanna basically create a solid blanket of napkins over your entire person.

Then all that’s left is to do is go to town on those Chipotle pork tacos.  It’s that easy!

Speaking of food, we ate a ton of it on the road.  I learned that I actually really love sushi after years of not stepping foot near pretty much any and all seafood.  Dessa and Sims were extremely helpful and patient in working with me and my limited pallette to find the best options.  On our last night in Omaha we ended up ordering a whole boatload of the stuff, literally.  Dessa’s head is in there for proportion purposes.

Sean and I are in love with Popeye’s fried chicken, and we made a promise to ourselves that if we drove past one at any point on the road we would have to stop the van.  Weeks went by with no sight of the restaurant and it looked like all hope was lost.  Then as we were pulling out of Omaha yesterday morning to make our way back home it appeared to us out of thin air like a vision from the heavens.  Redemption song!

Here’s a couple action shots from a few of the shows.  These are always tough to get because of how dark it  is, but hopefully you get the idea.  The band at this point was a well oiled machine, and everyone was firing on all cylinders.  So cool to see.

My finger finally split open from hitting the Maschine pads so hard, so for the last few shows I was forced to rock a strange silvery contraption on my left middle finger.  Here are the supplies I used to MacGyver the situation.

Rolled up toilet paper and band aid for padding, duct tape to protect the padding and secure everything to the finger, and  aspirin (and vodka redbulls) to numb the pain.  Here is the end result.  I imagine this is probably what if felt like for Clark Kent every time he exited that telephone booth.  I ‘ve gotta come up with a cool super hero name every time I rock this thing.

Here’s another ridiculous looking Sims Face picture for good measure.  Haha, gotta love that.

Dustin rocking his final amazing truck stop purchase: a to-go tinfoil wrapped cheeseburger.  Not quite on the caliber of the chocolate milk/chicken wing combo from stops in the past, but a respectable decision nonetheless.

We had a bunch of free time in between the drive from Denver to Colorado Springs, so we decided to go catch the opening weekend premiere of Bridesmaids.  Not sure if I was just fiending to see a movie after weeks of going without one, but I laughed throughout the entire thing.  Highly recommended, you are gonna love this movie.  Here’s us satisfied customers moments after the final credits rolled (shouts to Sims’ brother Petey for coming along and hanging with us).  Stay tuned to my twitter account over the next few weeks (twitter.com/_LAZERBEAK_), as I am going to be playing catch up on several Official Lazerbeak Movie Reviews.

I met this awesome dog named Wild Bill outside the venue in Salt Lake City.  I’d like to think that he was channeling the spirit of our good friend Plain Ole Bill, as they share the same name and both rule super hard.

There was also this enormous Karl Malone portrait greeting us at the second Salt Lake City venue.  I had a love/hate relationship with The Mailman during his time in the NBA, but this is still pretty cool.

The drive from SLC to Denver after playing two back to back shows in one night was pretty brutal.  8:00am van call is never a good look.  Luckily they let us out of the trailer once we arrived at the Denver venue to catch a little fresh air and try out this new Seagram’s espresso vodka concoction.  Much needed after that day’s long drive.

I think we’re laughing so hard out of sheer tired deliriousness at this point.  The last couple days always seem to make you a little crazy.

And now for a few required majestic scenery shots.  The western half of the country is filled with some pretty amazing views.  Here are a few that really stood out, courtesy of Dessa, Dustin, and Joey’s nicer camera phones.

That about does it.  What a great tour.  Huge shouts to my road dawgs Dessa, Sims, Ander, Joey, Sean, and Dustin for being so easy to get along with.  While the Into The Spin Tour may have come to an end, the Into The NBA Playoffs Tour is just heating up.  Go Bulls!!!  See you next week for a regular old Tuesdays With Lazerbeak post.  I’ll leave you with one final Legend Point for old time’s sake.

Hope you have a wonderful week.

— Beak