Valient Thorr Tour Diary, Part 665 (Almost Over)

By Valient Himself (Valient Thorr)
Alahoyus Broskeetos, and Broskeetas.

Sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you from out here in the concrete jungle.  This tour should have been called something with the words awesome, endurance, wisdom, speed, courage, and hecticness in there.  Come see Valient Thorr in the SUPER AWESOME SPEED WISDOM COURAGE ENDURANCE HECTICNESS TOURR.  Lemme give you a run down on recent activities.

The big reason you haven’t heard from me in a while is that right after I wrote to you in Erie, PA, a few shows later, my computer was stolen in DC.  Some asshole snaked it and 100 bucks out of the Nitewolf’s wallet.  Thanx to Nitewolf for letting me use his computer now to type this to you.

Yeah, so let’s see where did I leave off?

Ok, after Erie, we split to Cleveland at the Grog Shop.  Always awesome there.  I picked up “Lolita” on DVD at one spot, and my own copy of “Trancers” for $1 at another.  Show was pretty good, but a lower turnout for Cleveland actually.  Smiling Moose in Pittsburgh made up for it.  Carson Street is like a second home to us, as all of our merch is made down the street at CommonWealth Press, and “yinzers” treat us not unlike returning bastard children of the South Side.

The show in DC at the Black Cat was killer, and we got to see many old friends like Hash of GoGoGo Airheart/ Thievery Corporation fame.  But alas, the next morning my poor little 12″ G4 Powerbook was gone.  Moving on so as to keep my eyes dry, the next show was Philly.  It was great, but I was so pissed about being robbed that I just wanted to keep reading my copy of “A Game Of Thrones” by George R. R. Martin.  I’m pretty sure the R. R. stands for rock ‘n’ roll.

The next night was Brooklyn.  What can I say?  Of course it went off.  We’ve always killed it in New York, since day one.  We were very excited for our first day off the next day.  Unbeknownst to me was the excitement that lay ahead for me the next morning.  So, like I said we partyied hard that night, me myself ‘til about 6:30 a.m.  The next thing I know I wake up to two words: “Oh Great.”  The first thing I see when one of my eyes focus is that it is still not even 9 a.m.  Then I look up above me a see a dude standing over me, furious.  I should probably spare the details here, but for the next two hours, I had to deal with this girlfriend of mine’s crazy ex-boyfriend go through all the motions including: slinging flowers, slinging a beer bottle at our heads in bed, turning over furniture, pulling his hair out, confusing me with someone else, recognizing me as who I am but also as someone he hates, trying to kill himself in the bathroom, calling me homeboy, trying to kill himself with a butcher knife, trying to kill us with a butcher knife, jumping on table and spilling 3 coffees, pulling curtains off wall, trying to jump out the window, etc.  Yeah, it was rad.

Next up Providence, home of Howl.  Show was too early.  I did catch an awesome jazz/fusion band a la Mahavishnu Orchestra called Bixit or something like that.  They were playing outside.  They ruled.  Then we split to Boston, home of Junius.  Someone announced that they were from Providence on accident, and then was reminded that there is no smoking before shows.  Someone.  That show was killer.  Actually almost every show after this was awesome.  Foufounes in Montreal was absolutely incredible.  We got to meet Voivod!  They came out to the show to hang.  Also after the show we hung out with As I Lay Dying and Unearth.  Very awesome dudes.  We got pretty ripped.  Then off to Toronto.  Thanks to Tariq for bringing out all the babes.  Another awesome one.

I’m running out of time here, so I’m gonna fast forward.  Detroit, Chicago, Madison, Minneapolis, Kansas City… All of these shows were some of our best and most packed we’ve ever played by ourselves.  Detroit and Great Lakes Thorriors were partying, Chicago @ the Double Door was absolutely jam packed!  Madison went off as a real Thorrendezvous with Thorriors from Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Chicago, Madison, and Kansas City in the house!  The Triple Rock in Minneapolis was nuts as always, and we crammed more peeps in there than ever.  KCMO at the Record Bar was the 5th anniversary, and we rocked with Hammerlord, and it was also the last show with Howl and Junius.

For the next three shows with had Iowa’s Radio Moscow hanging and jamming with us.  Denver brought a new venue to us, Three Kings Tavern, and with it friends, Karen from Nashville Pussy was in the house, and Brent from Mastodon came over from Red Rocks with crewman buddy Mike in tow.  Also Radio Moscow ripped.  Next up was Salt Lake City.  Can I preface this by saying that SLC is one of those places that you kind of dread going to because you think it’s gonna be a stinker.  I mean, the kids are enthusiastic, but can you get them to come out???  This night, we were blown away!  The Utah Thorriors made their own back patches, and cooked up such an intense BBQ, that we could have been in Atlanta, GA for all I knew.  This was a hell of a show.  People were beating the shit out of each other.  Chicks were beating the shit out of each other! And then hugging after each song like it was some sort of ritual…  Amazing.

Boise was the next night, and let’s just say, we need someone to post our video on a fixed gear bike blog so that tons of fixie kids come out and party it up.  ’Cause it was kind of lacking.  But what can I say?  The next night was totally awesome.  We met up with our friends Red Fang, and locals Witchburn played a couple shows with us.  When we got there, Aaron from Red Fang heard me humming a tune, and said, “Hey! We are covering said artist tonight.”  I said, “Holy shit, I wanna sing that with you before tour is over.”  He said, “How about tonight?”  I said, “Yes”, and so it was.  So, if you are at one of these last shows, you’ll get to see what I mean.  Secret secret.  Plus, Sailor Jerry gave out BBQ sandwiches at El Corazon that night.  Heavy shit happened that night, as Red Fang rolled their van twice on their way back to Portland, 30 minutes outside of town.  But luckily they were all OK, and safe.  They played a hell of a show the next night at Dante’s and then skipped Bend, and Sparks to meet up with us in their borrowed van in San Fran.  Portland was a goddamned great show by the way.

Bend and Sparks were cool too, but we were ready for a day off to tell you the truth.  San Fran was balls to the wall.  Mark from Death Angel came to hang, and Austin from Saviours came to hang, and brought his mom!  Rad dude!  Finally, we had a day off yesterday, and I watched Troll 2.

** Check out new video for “Doublecrossed” below.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDvYdQNEgmw