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Tour Diary: Red Fang, Part Five

Red Fang just wrapped up a monthlong North American tour with Mastodon and Dillinger Escape Plan. Here's their final update from the road.

Where the hell was I? Oh yeah…

Buffalo, NY 11/26/11

Okay, so we stopped at Niagara Falls, and it was great and beautiful and all that shit.

But the best part was the signs that they have all around the park. While we only spotted maybe three that actually told you anything you wanted to know about the waterfall (that fact that 650,000 gallons a second fall over that bad boy was pretty badass) there was a few others that really got us thinking. Here’s a couple favorites.

If you really need this sign to tell you it’s a bad idea to crawl over the fence, well—maybe you should climb over the fence.

And it turns out, if the sidewalks get wet up there, it makes you dance like an extra in the “Thriller” video.

Washington, DC 11/27/11

On the way to the show we got stuck in a traffic jam that lasted close to three years. When we finally got moving (at this point we were already an hour late to load-in and close to two hours from the club) the lady behind us was nice enough to rear-end us. At the time, I was kinda pissed at the lady, but looking back I feel bad for her. This is how she saw it:

She gets out of her car and sees three long haired, bearded dudes running towards her, none of them say a word to her, open the rear of the van look at what seems to be a bunch of large wood boxes, look at each other, say “Fuck it, let’s roll” get back in the van. The van drives off. She is still standing in front of her car with the bumper pushed in. No one has said a word to her.

Norfolk, VA 11/28/11

Yes, this show happened.

Asheville, NC 11/29/11

One of the best parts of the road is getting to hang with old friends, and it’s especially awesome when you have friends that are willing to drive a couple hours to do it.

You know it’s love when you can get all up in the beard:

Thanks for driving down homies! It was great seeing all of you. (Continued on Page 2…)

Charleston, SC 11/30/11
I have no photos for this night so how about terms we are trying to bring back/work into other peoples' vocabularies on this tour? No? Well, too late.

Jamin-z Duestch (e.g. Dude 1: “Should I grab the Ipod?” Dude 2: “Hell yeah, I need to Jamin-z Duestch” or Dude Me: “Hey guys, stop crying. You have ten minutes to get on stage and Jamin-z…” )
Weezin’ The Juice (e.g. “What, we’re out of beer already? Who’s been weezin’ the juice?”)

Shit In One Hand, Fart In The Other… (e.g. Dude 1: “I would love if we could stop soon, I really gotta piss.” Dude 2: “Well—shit in one hand, fart in the other…”)
G’day Mate!  (e.g. Dude 1 who just woke up in the van: “Where are we?” Dude 2: “ Texas.” Dude 1: “Oh, well then, G’day mate! Throw another shrimp on the Barbra!”

Slappadabass (e.g. Dude 1: “Hey what does the dude with the long hair, beard and glasses play in Red Fang? Dude 2: “Aaron? He slappadabass.”
Stems and Seeds (e.g. Dude1: “How long was that drive?” Dude 2: “Ten hours. Harsh toke!” Dude 1: “You’re telling’ me. Stems and seeds bro…”)

Now let’s try to put it all together.
“Where is the show tonight? The Boston House Of Blues? Well G’day from the Big Easy! We should get in there before the other bands weeze all the juice. Remember the other night when I got done slappadabass and there was no more beer and the promoter was all ‘Shit in one hand, fart in the other?’ Stems and seeds man, stems and seeds.”

Orlando, FL 12/01/11

This is what we pulled up to:

First we play with Barney, now with Mickey Mouse? What the shit?

Atlanta, GA 12/02/11

This was the last show of the tour with Mastodon. If you feel a good cry coming on I’ll give you this time to go grab a box of tissues. That’s right, let it all out. I, of course, would never cry myself because I’m a man and if there is one thing I took away away from the ‘80’s it’s real men don’t cry, or eat quiche.

That being said the show was a real barn burner as the kids say. In addition to the normal line-up, Tiger Tiger, MonstrO, and the Black Lips were on the bill. Yeah, like I said, a real barn burner. So, for the last chunk of the tour, we had been getting up on stage with Mastodon for their last song (“Creature Lives”), but being it was the last show the Masto-dudes wanted to do it right. They got all the bands cloaks to wear.


Everyone came out to sing in cloaks as 3,000 balloons dropped from the ceiling. It was an amazing sight. All these people we have come to consider family, arm in arm singing, huggin'…
What?!
I am not crying!
It’s my allergies.

I’m allergic to my feelings.

Baton Rouge, LA 12/3/11


If there is one thing I will never forget about this show it would be the conversation with a guy at the merch booth that all the sudden took a right turn at the Whatthefuckville exit. We’re just chatting, the normal “Do you guys really drink all that beer in the Pre-Dog video” convo that goes down and out of nowhere he just drops “I was on the run from the law for about two years. You know Crime Stoppers and shit…”
The part that struck me as strange was not that he was on the run, I mean, to each his own, do what you gotta do. But the way he delivered the Crime Stoppers line seemed to say. “You know, you’ve been there. We all have.” Am I missing something? Is being on Crime Stoppers in vouge now? Should we flush the band idea and turn into a group of traveling criminals, driving around the countryside, pilfering unsuspecting people of their beer and cheap smokes? We could call ourselves the Fangalareos or the Bloody Tooth Gang (not because for the Red Fang pun, but due to all of our rabid gingivitis).

Yeah, I like this. First thing’s first, we’re gonna need some zoot suits…

—Coyle

Tour To Live!
P.S. If for some reason you like what you’re reading there is pages of this crap at http://redfangband.blogspot.com/