AYRIA

Wow, it’s crazy being in America during the U.S. election and not being able to be part of it at all! Madness on the T.V. I tell you.

So, I’m unfortunately very, very sick. I almost cancelled a show last night due to having no voice at all. It was terrifying! I pushed through and somehow did a show (I thank Rogue for his magic steam machine and great pharmacy recommendations) but now I’m completely drained of all energy, drugged up, and planning to sleep the day away in this Omaha hotel room.

Before I crash, here’s 6 current songs that I’d recommend to anyone with similar tastes in music as me. I’ve been listening to these a lot in the van and I like sharing!
1. Humanitarianism – Zeitgeist (this is my current favourite song)
2. Wait For You – Hadouken!
3. Boxed – Jabberwock
4. I Never Said – Kloq
5. Fail – Everything Goes Cold
6. You’ll Find A Way – Santogold (thanks Blepharisma!)

I need more new music though! I’m bored of my iPod right now so recommendations would be great!

On our way to Texas, we stopped to play Phoenix (Tempe) which is always a good stop for us and we had a great time, and then Albuquerque (which was surprisingly an AMAZING show having never played there before) I bought these really cute new shoes in Hollywood and I braved them onstage in Albuquerque despite the extreme platform high heels to them and they were just awesome! I just loved my outfit that night. Felt right. I’ll have to wear it again and I know it seems weird to say, I just did. I got to meet Mr. Tommy T who I know through mutual friends and who is apparently a huge Ayria fan! Everyone was so nice in both the above cities.

Next stop, one of my most played states: Texas! I LOVE this state. I love the people, the weather and the guacamole! We played most of the same venues that we hit with Combichrist when we supported them last August and it was great to see our turnout increase even more and to see a lot of familiar faces at the shows. I don’t really want to write a novel about the past two weeks but basically, the highlights included:

• playing the Church in Dallas, which is just an amazing venue to play and honestly, some very attractive people were in attendance.. ahem
• The energy of the San Antonio crowd (hi S.A. Jeremy! 😉
• Getting to have a “pool day” in San Antonio with Jessica, etc. with our make shift swim up bar (thanks Vince from I:Scintilla for the fuzzy navels 😉
• The entire tour of 17 people going to Six Flags for the day, eating green funnel cake and not surprisingly, not feeling well afterwards
• Celebrating Brittany’s (I:Scintilla) birthday in style with a huge Mexican dinner out with everyone, and going to a Coyote Ugly bar, jumping up on the bar and dancing to “Smack my bitch up”
• getting to Houston again and seeing Naikia and company (you guys absolutely rock!).. unfortunately also having some of the worst sound problems ever! (sorry crowd!)
• Playing Elysium in Austin, getting to sneak off to my favourite little vegetarian Asian fusion tea shop by myself and enjoy some amazing chai tea and food.
• Being put up at the friggin Hilton in Austin, nicest hotel EVER!
• Finally last night in College Station; playing an outdoor venue and freezing our asses off but loving the crowd and every minute of it.

In this leg of the tour, we also played New Orleans. It was my first time there and I unfortunately didn’t get to see all it has to offer since we had back to back shows these past 5 days. But it seemed like a place I’d like to go back for the real experience. The promoter made us Jambalaya! Yummy Yay!

I have two weeks left on the tour before my 10 day hiatus for Joe and Steph’s wedding. I’m looking forward to the break having been out on the road for almost 2 months now. But then we rejoin the tour in NYC on Nov 26th (The Azoic is replacing us through the 7 North East Dates).

Also, a few new shows have been added*. Here’s what we have left these next 2 weeks until I return for the East Coast:

OCTOBER 30TH INDIANAPOLIS, IN @ TALBOTT STREET
OCTOBER 31ST MILWAUKEE, WI @ THE MIRIMAR THEATRE
NOVEMBER 1ST LACROSSE, WI @ WAREHOUSE
NOVEMBER 3RD OMAHA, NE @ THE ROXBURY
NOVEMBER 7TH COLUMBUS, OH @ SKULLY’S MUSIC DINER
NOVEMBER 8TH DETROIT, MI @ SMALL’S BAR
*NOVEMBER 11TH CHAMPAIGN, IL @ THE HIGHDIVE
*NOVEMBER 12TH LOUISVILLE, KY @ CLUB FUZION
NOVEMBER 13TH CINCINNATI, OH @ THE DOCK COMPLEX

I’ve always loved Seattle and this city will always hold a special place in my heart. I almost moved out there in 2003/2004. Plus my Drummer Mike is from there so we’ve seen all the best this city has to offer! We pulled into Seattle on a night off. Went up to Broadway and got some delicious and cheap sushi with I:Scintilla, and my good friends Mike and Amy. We had split from the Cruxshadows at this point since we had places to stay. Then I actually broke off from everyone (ok, Jeff my keyboardist came too 😉 to go stay with Mike and Amy. As much as I love everyone on the tour, it’s always nice to get some time to myself to visit friends. The next morning Amy made the most amazing omelets with fresh spinach for us! We spent the day running around doing errands, picking up stuff, then going back to Broadway for Pho, and finally hitting up the Mercury for a night of clubbing. This is the first night of the tour I feel I let loose. I think we all did. All 3 bands came out and had a really fun night. Good times.

The show the next night in Seattle was amazing. The crowd there keeps getting better and better for us. It was awesome to see some of my friends there at the show too. The set went over really well, especially the new stuff.

The next day was really tough to say goodbye to Seattle but luckily Mike and Amy came with us to Portland so I rode with them. The Fez Ballroom is a great venue to play. The backstage room was huge and I’ve been friends with the promoter Derrek for a while now too. Again, I feel like a broken record gushing over how awesome the crowd was, but it’s true. I met some amazing people that night too as well as got to see a lot of familiar faces too. Derrek took me out for an amazing latte too (yay!) and we reminisced about him putting on one of the first ever Ayria shows. Then we stayed at the Jupiter which is a crazy rock star oriented hotel that’s obviously for bands… but anyways, we woke up super early to do the insane drive to San Francisco simply for the reason to hit up Death Guild on that Monday night. We did it! Brittany (I:scintilla) and I actually changed and did makeup in the van while driving and we pulled up in the parking lot about 11:00 pm to be greeted by dtk, structurefall, rabbitron and headed in for another night of fun. Ok, so the pattern is starting to look like we’ve been clubbing a lot. We haven’t. It’s something specific to the West Coast for me. I have a lot of people I want to see out there and it just so happens it’s easiest to do by going out to clubs. Anyways, the next day was a show day at the DNA lounge and I won’t go into any details since that was pretty much covered in my last post (yeah, the S.F. Ayria cheering squad). The next day, we had off again and we mainly just hung around and relaxed. Then I broke off from the group again and structurefall took me out for an AMAZING seafood dinner because he is awesome like that. It was so elaborate and delicious that I could barely move afterwards. It was funny because the place was super classy and all I have is tour clothes so I tried to class it up by adding heels.. kinda worked, not really.

Then we got the call that our L.A. show for the next night was cancelled since the venue shut down unexpectedly.. so that evening was stressful. But magically, by the next day, almost ALL promoters in L.A. got together to make this show work! I’ll be honest. The place we played had a less than desirable sound set up, and the weirdest stage ever but the energy of the crowd made this make-shift show work still! We were just so happy the show didn’t get cancelled! Luckily, while we were there, they actually arranged a second show in Hollywood for the following Monday night since the original all ages plan fell through for the first show. The second venue was the Knitting Factory right on Hollywood Blvd. and you would never believe that a show announced with 3 days of online promotion only would do so well! It was amazing. While in Hollywood, I shopped way more than I should have. I’m just lucky the stores rejected my Canadian debit card! I’m still nervous to see the credit card bill though. Anyways. I scored some AWESOME Shoes that I later wore onstage in New Mexico.. I also hung out with my friend Noah in Hollywood who took us out for sushi.

So between the 2 L.A. shows, we played in San Diego. I’d never played there before. We had fun but due to an unexpected city curfew, all bands had to be off stage by 11 pm, which meant, our set was cut in half pretty much. The next day, us and I:scintilla hung out with friends of Mike’s who took us to the beautiful San Diego beaches were we went swimming in the Pacific ocean. It’s my goal to go swimming in every ocean! So far I’m at two. Haha 😉

Ok, after our swimming adventures, we head back up to Hollywood and ended up out at Bar Sinister. This club is cute. It’s where I had my first Ayria L.A. show ever, back in 2004. We danced and had fun. We mingled, met people and promoted the show that would be happening at the Knitting Factory.

The next morning after the show, we left L.A. signaling the end of my West Coast visit unfortunately. But now we are on to other adventures we just played Phoenix and New Mexico and now we have arrived in San Antonio TEXAS where we have a show tonight… more to come with pics soon..