The Smoke Monster is Nano-Bots!!

Yes, the smoke monster is nano-bots. Just ask Ben, the Matches guitar tech, and you’ll understand. See, as I was loading the AP junk back into our trailer I hear Ben screaming the aforementioned phrase to everyone he sees. So come to the show, find Ben, look him dead in the eye and say, “the smoke monster is nano-bots.”

Anyway, sorry I’ve been gone for a few days, but we’re hanging out at a casino/motel parking lot in what I can only assume (hope?) is the equivalent to suburban Las Vegas. Apparently the venue we’re playing here has some blitzkrieg loading rules so I’ve got some time to kill and about zero interest in gambling all my cash I don’t have away.

But enough about Vegas, lets talk about Arizona. Tucson, we need to have a chat. It’s not that I didn’t feel the love, but it could have been a little stronger. I did, however make a new best friend that was helping me out all night (you know who you are, thank you!). The Matches new album came out on Tuesday so the guys took an excursion to Best Buy to celebrate. AP was set up right next to the FTSK merch table, so there was some bonding going on there. Solid night but . . .

Tempe. Tempe, Tempe, Tempe I love you. Huge crowd, everyone was friendly as can be. So Tucson, try and take a lesson from Tempe. I’d ask you to borrow some love from Tempe, but I need all that love from Tempe, so just watch and learn. Everyone at the theater was rockin to every band. I practically couldn’t find anyone to hang with when the bands were on.

Luckily, during the show, Indy, our tour manager, came up to me and asked what I thought about having a BBQ. As a bonafied foodie and lover of all things grilled I didn’t so much answer as made grandiose gestures in an effort to indicate that I would do what was necessary to turn the dream into a reality. Well boys and girls, dreams can come true.

By the time AP loaded back into the trailer I wander to the grill with expectations of charry grilled deliciousness to only find a confused Indy and All Time Low Tour manager (I’m giving up on names, I think it’s in everyone’s best interest) staring at raw chicken on a grill, wondering why the “raw” was not slowly turning into “cooked.” Well, after a quick hand check of the grill I discover the likely culprit to be that the coals, which had been burning for upwards of 2 hours, weren’t so much HOTHOTHOT as cold. Here’s your quick lesson in cooking: hot works better than cold when attempting to raise the temperature of food. (This lesson has been brought to you by the AP Culinary Arts Department.) So, I add coals, add lighter fluid, add fire and wander to the bus to change clothes.

I return to find that my grill which had been expertly reignited to have been commandeered by a gentleman you may be familiar with. A certain Alex from All Time Low, grill tongs in hand, was ferociously, miraculously, throwing meat (and fake veggie meat) on the grill, through the fire and through the flames, until the grill was overwhelmed with BBQ goodness. Right around this time we notice a flurry of police activity in the venue parking lot. None of us being keen on figuring out what all the fuss was about we ran like roaches from daylight to our respective buses, burgers in hand and left the 5-0 activity to the “adults” (aka Indy) for the evening. So before you get all “OMG wut wer they doing!!” on me, turns out someone stole, or was trying to steal a car from the parking lot of the venue during the show. Illegal activity was confined to residents of Tempe. So maybe it’s Tucson that needs to teach a little something to Tempe after all . . .


XOXO
ChrisAtAP