05.24.09: Academy 3 @ Manchester

We load in to Academy 3, which is a 3-tiered venue inside of an elementary school. MM’s TM Matt uses the boys' room piss trough, and a cockroach crawls out from the drain. Everyone herds into the vinyl conference room where various members eat, sleep, steal wi-fi, or dream about any of the aforementioned. I get jealous of MM’s Chinese food, and I begrudgingly hack at the mountain of crisps in the corner.

With no room inside the venue, merch is setup outside. If only there was a newspaper, a game of Scrabble, ANYTHING to look at besides an empty flight of stairs to a lonely landscape. Me and TM Matt discuss our post-tour exercise regime, and in writing this, I realize I did not follow through. Regret.

We finish packing up. And of course, Cole’s guitar goes missing. It was right up on stage, and someone snagged it. He flips out. I do a triple check backstage, and snag some beers along the way. Ok, so one of those guitars was Bradford’s from Deerhunter. The other is his baby, a 1983 Squier Bullet outfitted with pickup from an Epiphone strat. Shit.

In the van ride back, someone starts singing TV party, and for some reason we absolutely MUST figure it out. Passing around the guitar like a lit spliff, the guitar ends up in my hands. Everyone shouts out the chords, and we were all wrong. Meanwhile, we look for the after party bar with the 2 bands. No dice. They left us by ourselves to party. Fortunately, the beers hold up.