Oakland would have been great had we been playing in a 200 capacity venue instead of a 1400 capacity ballroom. I hate playing ballrooms unless they are full. This tour is simply not big enough to pull those numbers so the crowd ends up spread out and the sound in the room is booming and awful. Still, the reaction was good and I approved of our performance. We seem to have it locked in now, and the slight adjustment we made to the set list have made all the difference in terms of flow and dynamic. I was feeling poorly after the long drive from Portland, and even though my head was swimming it still felt comfortable and coherent on stage. My voice is still wrecked and it wasn't helped by the two back-to-back interviews I did afterwards. Even on the ground floor I had to shout over the din of Belphegor and Immolation and now my throat is tired. On the other hand it was massively cool to walk out onto the street and hear “Internal Decacence” raging and booming through the neighboring buildings. We found out tonight that we are selling the most CDs of all the bands on the tour. That bodes well for the success of “Advent Parallax”, and it was also encouraging to know that we are holding our own with the other bands in that regard. An odd moment occurred when Sanguine and I discovered a portal independently of one another. Old ballrooms seem to be clearinghouses for paranormal energy, so I was not totally surprised. There was an unlit black painted hallway connecting two dressing rooms and as I walked between them I noticed another room to my left. It was pitch dark and I peered into the inkiness and tried to discern what was in there. For some reason I felt like I was supposed to enter, so I stepped forward and bounced off the wall. I then came back into the dressing room and told Sanguine I needed to get more sleep because I was hallucinating. He smiled and said he had done the exact same thing a few minutes earlier. We walked back down the hall together and studied the wall, and there was clearly nothing there. Hello from the other side.
Now: We have showered and rediscovered our human selves. We are on the way to Santa Ana and we feel revitalized from the night of good sleep. The climate is finally mild and relaxing and the upcoming travel legs are short so we are looking forward to more leisure in the days ahead. Right now we are blasting towards Los Angeles with In'n'Out Burger at the top of the agenda. The Double Animal is mandatory.
