Tour Diary #1: White Wives

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based White Wives (featuring members of Anti-Flag, Dandelion Snow and American Armada) are currently on their first extensive American tour, and they'll be periodically sending us diaries from the road throughout the run. Here's the first chapter.

Seasons Greetings, welcome to the official White Wives Winter Tour 2011 Tour Blog!

Thank you to the lovely folks at ALTERNATIVE PRESS for hosting this. We are excited and honored to bring their readers and our friends updates from the road. This marks the first FULL US tour for White Wives, and we’ve been gearing up for a long time now to bring it to fruition. We are extremely excited to bring our music to new faces and new places. This blog will feature recaps of shows, road happenings, photos and videos all provided by the members of White Wives. So without further ado, the first entry to our Winter Tour Blog:

Our adventure begins on the morning of 12/01.  Half of our cast, Chris Stowe (Bass), Roger Harvey (Vocals, Guitar) and Josh Massie (Trumpet/Keys) awoke to frigid temperatures on the north side of Pittsburgh, where Roger resides, before gathering gear and possessions and driving to meet the rest of the gang at Anti-Flag’s practice space. Meeting up with Chris Head (Guitar), Tyler Kweder (Drums), our tour companion/support (KOJI) and after a few fashionably late minutes, Chris “#2” Barker (Vocals, Guitar) the touring party was complete.

Piling the essentials into the van and the rest into the trailer (don't forget the hockey bags!), we made our way towards Chicago. Chris 2 and Stowe at the helm; the rest curling up underneath blankets and trying to catch up on sleep.  It wouldn’t be too long before we were greeted by our first obstacle: a blowout on one of the trailer tires.

Commence 3-hour side of the highway wait for a service truck to come to our aid.  Most of us used this “downtime” as a chance to get well-rested. After relatively quick repairs, we were back in action, getting to Chicago just in time for a quick interview over at Fearless Radio. 

(You can check out our interview alongside KOJI now and also hear some live acoustic performances from each of us over here.)

After the interview, we made our way over to Beat Kitchen for sound check. Working out some kinks with help of one of the best sound dudes in the biz we wrapped up check. Our friends at peta2, mostly our besties Megan and Chelsi, went out of their way to reach out to some cruelty-free establishments along our tour route and secure us some, as we put it, “Nice, Real, Meals” one of which occurred in Chi-City.  We all piled into two cabs and made our way down the road to the all-vegan restaurant called Native Foods. There, we were greeted by our host, Holladay. She went over the menu with us and offered suggestions all while taking orders and supplying numerous samples and appetizers. Before too long, our table of nine was covered in a smorgasbord of food. We passed around appetizers while waiting for our entrees, and after a quick interview for the Native Foods blog, Holladay brought us a large bag full of desserts to take with us. We made our way back to Beat Kitchen to tune into the Pittsburgh Penguins game (hockey will appear often in any tour for White Wives, but ridiculously often in a winter tour) and prep for the show. In our short existence as a band, Chicago has always been kind to our music. This night was no different!

All in all, a great evening in Chicago. Our bellies full of food and a great crowd—an excellent kick-off to tour. After the show, we split apart to a couple different homes for the night. Chris 2 and Josh had opted to stay with our dear friend, Toby of Red Scare. Special events of the night included a secret Off With Their Heads show downtown, listening to new Menzingers jams and a night cap at the Gingerman before crashing out at Toby’s.

12/02 We rally everyone up to make the next long haul to Omaha, NE. Stopping only for gas, we made Omaha by nightfall loading right into The Commons, our venue for the evening. A nice small art space with hardwood floors and large bricked walls, Commons made for an up close and personal event. KOJI certainly brought the house down with a campfire-style set with his audience seated all around him. Having a few equipment issues on our end, we still managed to power through our set to a great audience. Then, after sticking around for a bit to mingle with the crowd and wait for the rainy weather outside to die down, we all piled into the van once more for the evening to drive to Kearney, NE where we would be performing an 11 a.m. living room acoustic set to some friends of KOJI’s. 

Find a full list of tour dates at: www.WeAreWhiteWives.com

P.S.
Josh was born and raised in South Texas, he can't wait to get outside and see what this cold white fluffy stuff is covering the ground and our van!