Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Gainesville & Orlando

Over the first 9 dates of this tour, TPC partied in 8 different states. Now our routing has taken on us on a dark and frightening turn with 6 straight days in the mythical land of sun, fun, beaches, tourism, and the elderly in Florida. What fantastical and incomprehensible journeys await us?

After the Atlanta show, we had our first actual day off on this trip, which just so happened to coincide with Super Bowl Sunday! What karma. We rolled down to Jacksonville with the bros in the Hold Steady and all got three hotel rooms together to crush brews, eat pizzas, watch the game, and gamble on the game's outcome. The Allen clan of Alison and Jeff proved the ultimate victors in the betting pool. but Bobby Drake came away with a small booty as well.

The game kicked off at 6PM and so did we. A night of debauchary indeed. It ended around 1AM for most people, who crashed on beds exhausted, drunk, and ecstatic that the Steelers brought home the trophy to the good people of Iron City. Alison, Matt, and Tad from the Hold Steady stayed up till 4AM watching John Bonham drum solos on DVD. Wow.

The next day, we dusted the cobwebs out of our brains and headed to St. Augustine, the site of that night's show. We got to town early and ran like little Huck Finn characters to the ocean with rolled up pant legs, no shoes, and a limitless desire to punch the ocean. We treated the waves like encroaching enemies and yelled across the great expanse to Spain about how much we liked their food. We hope they heard us.

The show was at a place called Cafe Eleven -- a small little coffeeshop/winebar, which was easily the smallest venue we played on this trip. The show was loud and sweet. Retired to the Ramada Inn down the road for cable TV and good conversation with our new pals from Swearing at Motorists.

Woke up the next day, and holy shit, wouldn't you know it, Jordan got tattooed! When it rains it pours with TPC. He got a kickass pipe wrench on his forearm from an awesome tattoo shop on the beach in St. Augustine. For a detailed explanation of what this tattoo means to Jordan, please ask him at the next show. He'll get into it for real with you if you buy him a Pabst.

Next day the show was in Gainesville, home of the Florida Gators and a kickass venue called Common Grounds that had an outdoor porch with a useable regulation size basketball hoop and a small Asian guy spinning house music all night. The show was sweet, all the bands killed, met some good folks. Motel 6 afterwards.

Woke up, seriously ate the shit out of some Waffle House food (ask for your hashbrowns to be scattered, topped, and peppered, trust us), and hit the road to Orlando -- or Hotlando, as we've taken to calling it. Orlando is the home of Disney, Epcot, Universal Studios, Sea World, Walt's frozen remains, and a sparse and uneven downtown full of sketchy characters.

The show was at a kickass venue called The Social, which features some of the best show staff we had the pleasure of interacting with on tour. Asa the show manager is a superstar -- thanks dudes! The venue space was set up in a way that we could order drinks from the bartender if we asked loud enough. Totally intimate and rad. After the show, we loaded out in the midst of toxic sewage and stayed at a crazy guy named Travis' house -- home to an angry roomate who had to wake up at 4AM and a loud but harmless dog named Yoshi. Easily the weirdest sleeping situation we encountered on this trip.

Tomorrow: Ybor City!

Chapel Hill, Athens, & Atlanta

Newsflash dudes! The south is awesome, did you know this? We are learning this lesson more and more every day.

After leaving D.C., the air became noticably fresher, the breeze a little warmer, the sun a little brighter as we headed south and we got stoked. Pulled into Chapel Hill in the early afternoon and fell in love with the green trees, the little storefronts, the multitude of BBQ joints.

Headed to The Music Loft to get Aaron's amp fixed and were treated to an awesome staff of dudes that fixed it up -- quick and cheap. Thanks homies! While there, there was a pony-tailed dude just seriously laying into some Arabian scale patterns at 250 BPM (beats per minute, folks) on a 7-string acoustic guitar. After finishing his rousing shred-sesh he proclaimed to the shop's owner -- "I'll give you my girlfriend's vagina for this thing." Wow.

The show in Chapel Hill was sweet -- at a cool little club called Local 506. Lots of people and good times were had. After the show we went to an awesome huge house that our new friend Lisa was house-sitting at. Got our sleep and shower on hardcore and Beak got to try "Sizzurp" (created by Cam'Ron).

The next day we had some huge family-style barbeque in Durham, which basically means they bring out 600 bowls of meat and fried shit and you eat it until you almost die. Hit the road to Athens bloated and content.

So, the thing with Athens is that its crazy. It's home to the Georgia Bulldogs, 30,000 college students, R.E.M. and the B-52's, and about 1,400 frat bars. The downtown district was teeming with dudes rolling in packs together, roving from bar to bar, drink special to drink special. The show itself was at Tasty World, a sweet venue staffed by some of the nicest people you'll ever meet. The crowd was modestly-sized but spirited. After the show we crashed at our pal Dave's house. He's a BMX biker who's lived a crazy vagabond lifestyle from Halifax to Athens.

The next day, we met up with a whole grip of dudes for BBQ and Whirlyball (more on that in a minute) in Atlanta. The whole day's events were coordinated by an amazingly awesome guy named Henry who runs a magazine called Chunklet. He was a great host to all the bands and showed us an amazing time. Whirlyball is a game where two teams of 5 compete while driving in bumper cars, carrying lacrosse sticks, and trying to throw a whiffle ball through a target. Needless to say, it is the greatest game ever created. TPC made a strong showing, but ultimately it was the Georgia cats and Henry that destroyed everyone else.

The show in Atlanta was great. It sold out and the crowd was really receptive to all the bands, especially the Hold Steady. THS slayed that night and everyone left the venue feeling elated and slightly drunk. Crashed at our friend Reed's, tired and ready for more.

Coming next installment: tales of hotel room debauchery in Jacksonville.