Phoenix Rising!

D-Day. Time to hit the road. The day started off with a bit of excitement. I narrowly missed pummeling a boxer that darted in front of my car while on the way back from the obligatory Starbucks run. Steve and Bill arrive at my house with Dodge Durango in hand. Note to self: Dodge Durangos do not have as much space as the skillful workers of Budget Rental Car would have you believe. Due to space constraints we're forced to jettison my Vibroverb and Steve's extra bass. Oh well.

The five hour drive to Phoenix was uneventful, which was great. The playlist on the way out included The Huntington Cads 45s, The Born Losers, Takeshi Terrauchi, The Sons of Adam, Jim Campilango and the 10 Gallon Cats, The Phantom Four, and Led Zeppelin I. I'm not the fan of the mighty Zep that I once was, but I still think that Page never got a better tone than on that first album. Steve's GPS system was much more palatable once we changed the women's accent to British.

The first thing one notices about Phoenix in August is the thermal disparity with Southern Cal. Holy crap, its hotter than hell in Phoenix with a high of 109! Good for the joints I suppose. After a dip in the 95 degree pool (refreshing!) we lounge around our hotel and do nothing of significance.

Fast forward to 7:00pm when we meet Trey and Scott (Surfside IV), Trey's lovely wife Chrissy, and Scott's girlfriend, Holly for a Thai dinner. We had a blast at dinner and was humbled by the generosity of our hosts when they picked up the tab. The Surfside IV and their support crew are wonderfully nice and hospitable folks. It was a pleasure to meet and hang out them for a few hours.

The Blooze Bar is a bar in a strip mall in Phoenix, but packs a pretty decent crowd for a Thursday night. Much better than San Diego generally. The Bar's owner, "Tumbleweed" was a character and was very nice to us. I can definitely recommend the Blooze Bar to wayfaring bands in search of heatstroke. The Surfside IV hit the stage at 9:30 and played a great set. They had a fill-in bass player, but pulled off a really enjoyable set. I'm looking forward to hearing the product of their next recording session. Trey gets great tone from his roundwound armed Jaguar.

We hit the stage around 10:45 and played a 75 minute set. The crowd thinned over time, but we had a blast. We played all of our newer material and some covers including: Gear!, Wild Jet Beach, Musume Doseiji, Carioca, The Breeze and I/The Cossack, and Everybody Up! All in all the night was a success and definitely a good start to the tour. Now we prepare mentally for the Vegas set, where we could be going on in the wee hours of the morning. Next stop: Sin City!