On Friday March 26th 2010, I joined my good friends from Dead Superstar on their first tour ever! Personally, I had never been on tour and was thrilled to go on the road with them. There were 6 of us: Terence (Vocals), Evan (Guitars), Troi (Bass), Jared (Drums), Jaimie (Merchandise) and myself. After arriving at the train station in Mineola (Long Island) from New York City, Evan picked me up and he tells me: "Troi is still waiting to pick up the RV and we are stressing!"
After a few hours, Troi arrived with a house on wheels. Literally. When I heard that we where going to be traveling and sleeping in a van, I was picturing the typical tour van with everyone crammed together. But I was very surprised when I saw this huge RV, especially since I had never been in an RV! Once we packed up all the equipment we made our way to Allentown Pennsylvania, where Dead Superstar were scheduled to play a show that night. We sat in traffic for a long time as we crossed through New York City into New Jersey, to get to Pennsylvania.
Once we finally made it to the Crocodile Rock in Allentown, it was crunch time. We had 10 minutes to take the gear out of the trailer and get it setup so that Dead Superstar could get their groove on. They then rocked a set to a fairly empty room, thanks to another Rock show that was happening upstairs. Who the hell books 2 different shows of the same type of music in one night simultaneously? The geniuses at the Crocodile Rock. Regardless of how many people where there, Dead Superstar played a great set and had a good time doing it.
After they finished their set, we headed upstairs to check the scene out. The average age in that room must have been 18. We hung out for a bit, and then headed back to our house on wheels. By that time, we were all starving and could have found something to eat, however, parking our house wasn't the easiest thing to do. While we were all hanging with the members of Black Water Rising from Brooklyn, a light bulb lit up on my head. "Hey guys, why don't we call Domino's and have them deliver the pizza to us?" Off course the answer was a loud "yes"!
Before the pizza arrived, the guys from Black Water Rising hit the road. Once the pizza delivery guy showed up we where all in heaven. We literally swallowed that pizza and those wings, in 1 bite! We were the human trashcans! Jaimie, the only girl there, says to all of us: "You guys are pigs!" Once we finished eating, we got on the road and headed to a rest area between Allentown and Philadelphia, where we all fell asleep pretty fast.
The next morning, the first thing we all said was how bad we all wanted to shower! After a few failed attempts at getting some water running inside our house on wheels, we ended up renting a cheap motel room and showered before heading over to Pennsylvania, where Dead Superstar had a scheduled performance at the Philadelphia Tattoo Arts convention. Once we got to the motel, which was the type of place you see crack whores and dealers hanging out on every episode of Cops, we all showered, got changed and were ready to take over the convention!
Once we got to the Sheraton hotel in Philly, we parked the RV and started unloading the equipment. After setting up we went to check the scene out. I had never seen so many people with tattoos in one place. It was an amazing site! The term "colorful characters" is an understatement.
Before Dead Superstar took the stage, Terence, Troi and I went to get some food. As we walked around a quiet downtown Philly, we saw this homeless guy laying down along the curbside. We went to check on him to make sure he was OK, which thankfully he was. After leaving the man behind in his deep uncomfortable sleep, we saw another one! After walking blindly in order to find a place where we could eat an original Philly Steak Sandwich, we finally found this pizza joint and the three of us stuffed our faces.
There were a lot of people hanging out backstage once we got back to the convention. Since I was there not only to help the band out but also to document the event for all of you, I decided to go for a walk and check out the scene. After a few steps, I come across "The Enigma" who was about to perform. I then ran into some Burlesque girls and then into some porn stars! It was surreal to say the least. The show was about to start. So I quickly ran upstairs to check out the ink festival! It was mind blowing to see so many people getting tattooed at the same time!
After walking around for a bit, I headed back downstairs to catch the different performances. The first act I saw was the one featuring “The Enigma” and his sidekick “Serena Rose”. This act was very fun to watch, it included chain saws, light bulbs, halogen lights, tubes and all sorts of other bizarre things. The highlight of the act was “The Enigma” inserting a really long tube into his nose, which he had coming out of his mouth and after he drank two bottles of Gatorade, the liquid started coming out from his body into the tubes. This guy is amazing!
Next up were the body suspension performances, hosted by Joanna Angel from "The Burning Angels", and featuring tons of hot girls hanging from chains that where hooked up to huge hooks that pierced their skin. This was insane to say the least and the crowd loved it.
Finally, the time had come for the music acts to begin. First up was Panzie from New York City, who put on a good performance but the crowd was not feeling it. I think it was the wrong crowd for them and by that time most people had gone downstairs to the bar area.
Once Panzie finished their set, it was go time for Dead Superstar! We brought out the gear as quickly as possible so we wouldn't lose the crowd. After a quick sound check, the band played a furious set in which the energy was addicting. Everyone in the room was feeling their vibe, specially “The Enigma” and model Danielle Darkko. After the previous disappointment of the night before at the Crocodile Rock in Allentown, the band was within its element - playing great Rock n' Roll in front of a decent sized crowd.
Rock Metal Inc.:
After they finished their rocking set, we hung out backstage for an hour and then proceeded to bring all the equipment downstairs. Once we packed all the gear we hanged out in our RV, were Erric from Killcode joined us with Tattoo artist Kelly Edwards from San Antonio. Once the night was winding down we all decided to go into the hotel and find a party… at 5 am!
We literally went through every floor of the hotel and listened for noise, because according to Erric from Killcode, that's where the party was! We suddenly found a baby crib and Evan got in while Erric blasted him around the halls. We finally heard some noise inside a room, we knocked and once this girl opened the door Erric tells her: "I believe this crib belongs to you." You should have seen the faces of the girls that where staying in that room. They didn't know whither to laugh or scream!
After we destroyed the crib, we took a table, a chair and put these items in the elevator! Nothing was going to stop us from having a good time. As we where going up and down in the elevator recruiting people to join our elevator party, we ran into this security guy. We asked him where the party was and he said all the parties had been shut down. For a second we thought he was going to escort us out of the hotel, but he was actually pretty amused at our antics.
We ended up at the Hotel Lobby, loud as hell and that's where the party ended with a classic Continental Breakfast. We where literally the first ones there and ate a ton of food! After that we finally went to sleep!
We all woke up the next morning, amazed that we weren't hassled by the Police, since we were still parked by the loading dock and had the RV extended! Once I woke up I was ready to go to the Tattoo convention and get my Pantera "Cowboys From Hell" Tattoo! I will tell you all about that on a different article. Jaimie also joined the ink festival and got a killer dagger from Kelly Edwards, whom we had met the night before.
After getting inked, we hit the road and headed towards New York City with a pit stop at Crackle Barrel where we all stuffed our faces once again! We then got back on the road were I fell asleep and when I woke up, we were in Queens! I got dropped off in Astoria and headed home.
All in all, it was an amazing experience and we all had a fun time without any big problems or unnecessary drama. The band wants me to go on tour with them again, so stay tuned to see when that will happen. I want to thank everyone from Dead Superstar, Erric from Killcode and all the crazy bastards that were at the Philadelphia Tattoo Arts Convention! If you haven't experienced a Tattoo convention, I highly recommend it!
You can listen to Dead Superstar's new record titled "Tribulations" right here:
Dead Superstar links:
Dead Superstar Official Site
MySpace
Reverb Nation
By: JoSchuftan
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