As they continue their Summer Tour, friends of the site The Mammoths have agreed to give us the inside scoop into life on the road touring across the country over the next few weeks. They will share the good, the bad, and the ugly, all in their own words! Stay tuned as we will update you withe the adventures of The Mammoths every week. With that said, let's go!
July 30 - New York to Chicago… helluva drive. We left at 8am and arrived at 10pm. Matt Smith aka Thompson Springs aka Mr. Springs let us stay at his parents house in the Chicago suburbs. We were greeted with beer, deep dish pizza, and beds. Matt’s Dad is a talker/rocker turned commercial pilot. He hung with us for about an hour until we retired to beds. He’s da man.
July 31 - We slept in late today and were fed fresh bagels in the morning. Matt’s Dad told us to take the scenic route into town, so we did. Michael really wanted to look at a guitar at the famous, Chicago Music Exchange, which was our first destination in the city. The band spent about an hour in the store while Michael played what is to become is new baybay. The rest of us left for lunch while Mikey tested his new guitar for a second hour. Tim, Tyler and I walked to a bar and our guitar boo showed up with a 1965 Kay. He was glowing. Our show in Chicago went wellish. The best thing that came out of it was our new friends, C2 & The Brothers Reed. We’d heard of them, but have never met them in person. They walked into the bar while we were loading in and the first thing their guitarist Kelly did was hand us his “boob book”. The boob book is a moleskin notepad with 100+ drawings of breasts. He wants to get in in the Smithsonian!
August 1 - My parents both grew up in Minnesota. I have 6 generations of family in the state. My dad and brother are meeting us for our show in Minneapolis. We left bright and early at 9am for what should’ve been a six hour drive. It was more like 10 hours. A fuel truck crashed about a half a mile ahead of us on the interstate and we did not move for 3 hours. Finally, the police moved all the traffic to the sides of the road so emergency vehicle could get through. Eventually, they turned around traffic so cars and semis could turn around on the highway and go the opposite direction on the road. Obviously, this didn’t work very well when every single car tried to do it at the same time. We got super lucky and found a hole in a fence where we could drive through the grass. We made it out after handing out CDs to truck drivers and other strangers. We arrived in MN and checked into the hotel with little time to get to the venue. My Dad was freaking out because our start time was pushed back 30 mins and he had 50+ friends going to the show. He ended up playing tambo and danced like Mick Jagger during our song Green Eyes. It was hilarious. The night was capped off with a hotel party with my aunt Marcy, uncle John, brother, and my pops.
August 2 - My Dad treated us to breakfast at the hotel. We said our goodbyes and drove 4 hours to Appleton, WI for Mile of Music Festival. We’ve been looking forward to this for a long time. Our booking agent, Matt aka Matty boi, gets all of his bands at the festival. So all of these bands play with each other all over the country and we all congregate in Wisconsin. Our hotel rooms are all on the same floor. This weekend is going to be a wild one. We played our first of 7 shows of the weekend and had so much fun. This festival is completely free to the public and sponsored by local businesses. We get free hotel rooms, free meals, and free booze. Obviously, we overdid it the first night and ended up staying up way too late with all the dudes.
August 3 - Struggle party. Everyone was feeling it today. Luckily our first show wasn’t until 6:30. We showed up to the venue 45 minutes early and the place was at capacity. The show was amazing. Michael broke a guitar string, lost a strap mid song, and battled his guitar. Our next show was in an hour on the Mile of Music bus. We get in the back of a bus for 20 minutes and played 5 acoustic songs to people getting to the festival. Again, a hilarious time. We have one more show in 45 minutes. We rushed to the venue and played probably our least favorite set of the festival. Our set was fine, the sound was just pretty awful.
August 4 - Two shows today! We spent the day doing our own thing and hanging with our other band buddies. The first set was at 5:20 at a venue called Chadwick’s. Again, the venue was at capacity when we showed up… we played a wild set and sweated our faces off. Most of us went back to the hotel to shower even though we had just showered. Our next set was at the brewery in town at 10. Right after we loaded in it started pouring down rain. This was good for us because all of the people had to rush indoors. Our show was at capacity for the fourth time in two days. We could definitely get used to this… I think I speak for all of us when I say this was our favorite show we’ve ever played. After the set we caught our brother band, Mo Lowda on the main stage. They’re sofa king good. Listen to them if you haven’t. All of our friends reconviend at the hotel courtyard around 1:30am. I really can’t believe the hotel didn’t shut us up. Pierce Edens, Kelly (from C2 and the Brothers Reed), and I left the party to sneak into the indoor pool. We jumped in with our wallets in our pockets and hung for a couple hours until we got kicked out by management… oops. They conditioned to hang with the crew until the sun came up while I went to bed. Tonight was truly one of the most fun nights I’ve ever had on tour. Tomorrow is our last show of the festival then we head to my Aunt and Uncle’s lake house for two days of relaxation.
Below are our upcoming dates for the week, so if you're in the area, be sure to come check us out!
August 9 - Eagle, CO
August 10 - Denver, CO
August 11 - Boulder, CO
FMI on The Mammoths, visit: http://themammothsmusic.com/