 Jan 7th � WINSTON-SALEM (Bus Pickup) So has you can see, we got a bus on this tour, which is the greatest thing ever! We dont have to do any of the driving, and we'll hopefully be able to get a lot more sleep! We're also sharing this it with Between The Buried And Me, which is cool, especially since we have known those guys for a while now. Good times will be had! The bus: 
Bus pickup was in Winston-Salem at 8pm today in a Walmart parking lot. Took us 2 hours to pack the trailer! Which was huge, but quite rinky-dink. We made jokes about not only it leaking water but it literally falling apart on us! We shall see. 
TV on the bus, internet on the bus... and all the sport channels so I can keep up with the NBA games. Two good games on tomorrow! Hit the sack around 2am after watching a little of Ninja Turtles, Tremors, and Step Brothers. Played a little guitar on the bus as well, thats going to be amazing to be able to practice while we're driving! Jan 8th � NASHVILLE (Rocketown) I woke up at 6am, only to say "hell no", I'm going back to sleep. From 2-6am I felt that I hardly even closed my eyes. I probably got about 4 solid hours last night. Its going to be a while before I get use to sleeping while moving again. Plus so far the driver was running over the rumble strips every 5 minutes. That doesn't help, ha. Everytime he did I thought, "thats it, we're going off the highway". Made my stomach turn everytime. I'm sleeping in a bunk, fully closed in, no windows, so you can only sit and wonder what the hell is going on out there, plus we were suppose to hit bad snow weather. Hopefully I'll get use to it over the next few days. Finally got up around 10am, 14 degrees in Nashville. Me and our TM/Merch guy Chris attempted to walk a few blocks to find something to eat in just a hoodie and sweat pants. Not happening, haha, turned right around and came back to the bus. So cold and we haven't even made it to Canada yet. We all woke up to find that the "rinky dink" trailer we were pulling decided it wanted to get rid of a tire. Not just blow a tire but have it completely rip off, rim and all. Supposedly we're going to have a new tire here in a few hours. We clearly can't pull that one anymore. Check it out below. Pretty nuts that one wheel held the weight we are pulling! 
Waiting to load in at the moment. Looking forward to playing tonight, we haven't toured sine the Dream Theater tour in August. I think since that tour ended we have only played one headlining show in Houston. Glad to be back on stage and playing live again, missed it! I'm going to film a short walk through of the bus later so all you guys can check out the inside! I want to wait until later while the show is going on, the bus will be most likely empty enough for me to do it. So make sure to check back later tonight or our subscribe to our youtube channel www.youtube.com/scalethesummit ! It will be uploaded as soon as I film it. Found out today that Toronto is now sold out! I'm sure this will be one of many sold out shows on this tour, so get your pre-sale tickets now! Tonight's show was great. It felt awesome to play live again after so long, I played great as well! Very excited this tour is now underway! Crowd was good tonight as well, its technically our first time to ever really play Nashville, on a real tour at least. So thanks for the warm welcome guys! Bus is leaving at 3am tomorrow morning for Atlanta, I'll be asleep way before that. The 4 hours I got of sleep the night before is catching up to me, I feel sick right now. Jan 9th � Atlanta (The Masquerade) Not sure what time we pulled into Atlanta this morning. I woke up around 10-ish. Still finding it hard to get a good nights rest on a moving bus who is still hitting every rumple strip on the damn road, ha. It ended up being a super hectic load in as today was the first day that all 4 bands were here. Cynic had a 50 hour travel day to get back to the states from Australia, lost about half of their gear during that time as well. On top of this, everyone wanted a full sound check, which is ridiculous with 4 bands and loading in 3 hours before doors open. Due to everyone rushing it only led to more problems during the show. For us, we had no problems and everything went great, for everyone else, different story. Devin Townsend had a bit of trouble in the beginning to the show but got it worked out. Towards the end of the set, for some reason no one could figure out, their click track (metronome) was playing through the front of house monitors. So the 1,000 people in the room got to hear the metronome loud as hell for 2 full songs. Devin is such a silly guy that it didn't matter to them, it was actually really funny. Even watching from back stage you could still hear it super loud. Cynic ended up having some problems in the beginning but got them worked out and it flowed pretty smooth afterwards, but I felt bad for them as its embarassing to run into problems so early in the tour. I bet it will flow a lot more smoothly for them tomorrow. Today went great, I felt that the lighting was a little dark on stage throughout our set, which makes it a little harder to interact with the crowd not knowing if you'll be able to see your fingerboard when you look again, haha. It was fine though the crowd was super into it, much louder than Nashville and it made for a great time. Thanks you guys... and the show SOLD OUT! After load out, we're all hanging out on the bus and a bum knocked on the door. Not asking for change, he just went right out and asked for 10 bucks. I thought it was funny that he had a set amount he wanted. Dustie from BTBAM gave him the money to get him to go away.... after we talked about it and I mentioned he probably just wanted it for beer and we shouldn't give it to him. After Dustie gave him the money he then asked if we wanted his beer, haha, proved me wrong haha, he already had his beer! Bus call is at 3am again, I think the drive is only about 8 hours to New Orleans. Looking forward to that show tomorrow. We have never played New Orleans so we shall see. Everyone planning to come out make sure to get there super early, doors are at 5pm for this show! Jan 10th � New Orleans (House Of Blues) 
Slept the entire drive to New Orleans. Sleeping is getting easier and easier. Finally! Load in was pretty easy today, had a sweet elevator to load up the heavy gear. House Of Blues is always super nice. Including full catering for dinner and nice dressing rooms. Show was awesome. Played great tonight, everything sounded good and we played really tight. Crowd was much louder tonight, which was weird as its the smallest show so far. Pretty sure only around 400 tonight. Things are getting a little better for Devin and Cynic, but it still seems to be taking them to long to set up after change out. Thats to bad because it cuts into their set times. They sound prefect though, just like their albums and its unbelievable how good Devin sings. Blows my mind everyday! Went to Yo Mama's Bar and Grill tonight after the show. The guys got burgers to go, and they were damn good! Jan 11th � Houston (The Meridian) Always look forward to home town shows. I got picked up early today, went to my house for a shower, ate at Eastern Chinese for lunch and headed back to the venue for load in. This venue sucks the most out of almost every venue for load in, besides one (The Magic Stick, Detroit. 2 Flights of stairs and no elevator). 4 bands with TONS of gear and only one elevator.... and once you get up the elevator you have to wheel the gear about 500 feet to the main room. Doors sucked tonight. It took them an 1 hour and 20 minutes to get everyone in the door and we played 30 minutes after doors opened. Still played to a ton of people, easily over 500, the room was packed! Crowd was amazing, made for such a great time! Thanks guys! Left the show right after we played to go have dinner with my girlfriend at La Mexicana. They have some of the best quesadillas in Houston. I love Tex-Mex style of food the most and I knew I had to have it in one of the best cities for it, one of the best reasons to live in Houston. Restaurants are amazing! I then took a nap on the bus for 30 minutes and went back inside for the BTBAM encore, meet and greet and to help our merch guy when he gets slammed with people at the end of the show! Meet and greet was great, love seeing people so excited to meet us! Went home again after load out for another shower an headed back to the bus. Went to sleep around 3am tonight even though I could have napped at home until 5am since bus call was at 6am. Jan 12th � Dallas (The Door) Short drive to Dallas this morning. Got there around 10 in the morning. I didn't get up until 12. Looking forward to this show a lot, as it was one of the best for us on the Heads Will Roll tour with Protest The Hero. Load in and sound check for all the bands couldn't have taken any longer today. They ended up having to hold doors back 15 minutes, which screwed a bunch of people in line. Its ridiculous that they do that, regardless of us having the open spot, its still unfair to all the people who paid for the show that really wanted to see us. I have never heard so many "I missed you guys set because of the line". Don't clubs realize if you make doors an hour before the show starts that would drastically increase their alcohol sales? Today they opened them 10 minutes before we started. 30 seconds into our set, my strap decided it wanted to divorce my my strap locks, haha. Normally when this happens the strap completely rips off of the strap locks on my guitar. This time, it some how slipped over the strap locks, which means they are not doing their job properly! I didn't care about mistakes... I just didn't want my guitar to hit the ground, took a knee and kept playing through the rest of "Age Of The Tide" with honestly very little error for the very awkward stance I was in. It was pretty funny, because its happened in the past, scares the hell out of me everytime. I half ass put it back on and played the rest of the set with a lot less stage presence in case it tried to come off again. I guess I care about my guitars to much, ha. I met Tara today, she is the one that worked "Carving Desert Canyons" into stores from Red Distribution... like Best Buy, FYE, etc.... Cool lady, very excited about our band, which is of course great! Load out was a bit of a pain tonight as every couple of minutes a homeless person would ask us if we need help, which of course we never do. We are rolling with 13 people in one bus, only 3-4 can walk inside the trailer at a time, so load out is always super fast. They still keep asking and asking though. I later met Stanley the artist outside drawing a picture of the bus. Supposedly he is a famous homeless artist that randomly draws people/things and was telling me that he is on Youtube. I have yet to look him up. We needed up drawing a portrait of me when he was finished with the bus. Will take a photo of it sometime later and post it up in here. I gave him $10 bucks and a bunch of our beer, as hardly anyone on our bus really drinks... figured he would want it more anyway. He tells me "you know I work for more than just beer", haha, whats up with all the bums totally owning me lately? Thats why he received the $10. Hit the sack around 3am tonight after watching a little bit of tv. Good day! Jan 13th � San Antonio (The White Rabbit) Woke up in SA today. Very excited for this show. The crowd's here are so much more wild and loud than most of the other cities we have played, so I'm ready for this show! Load in and sound check went incredibly fast today for all the bands. We finished setting up and a quick sound check 40 minutes before doors opened. I have been telling everyone that if we got to the venue's an hour earlier than we are suppose to instead of sitting at a truck stop it would make a world of difference! Sure enough, the one hour we got there earlier was all that it took! Show was insane, the crowds here always make us feel so welcome. Thanks a lot guys for yelling so loud! Makes us feel great and have such a fun time playing for you all! My girlfriend and a few friends drove in from Houston tonight for the show, its great to see her before we start the next 4 weeks of shows nowhere near home. Meet and greets went awesome today. I decided to just hangout by the merch table the entire night after we played. So I pretty much did a meet and greet for 3 hours, haha. Thanks to everyone that came up. It was fun chatting and hanging out. Bus call is at 2am today as tomorrow we have a day off. We are either driving the entire way, or we are stopping in El Paso for the day. Not sure why, haha. Jan 14th � Day Off (El Paso) We needed up stopping for the day in El Paso. Our driver parked us at a huge shopping mall close to a bunch of places to eat. We all started the day off watching the entire mini series of Dead Set, a british zombie series. I had never heard of it but it was always pretty good. Me and a few of the guys then went and ate Olive Garden for lunch and walked around the mall for a little while. Stopped at an FYE as they were closing down. 60% off everything. All the dvds were thrown everywhere that I ended up not finding anything to get. Bummer. Started watching Zombieland on the bus about an hour before we were scheduled to leave for Bowl El Paso. Not sure what the deal was today as we were watching nothing but Zombie related things, haha. We got to the bowling place around 830pm. First thing I noticed when we got there was it was clearly league night. Dammit! We now had to killer 2 hours. BTBAM tour manager or someone had called up there earlier in the day to make sure they were open, you figure they would mention it as every lane was taken up. So stupid. Me, Devin Townsend, Dave, Ryan, Bryan from Devins band, Sean from Cynic, Blake, Tommy and Paul from BTBAM all went to Giant China Buffet. It was damn good, but we all kept talking about how much we would pay for it later, haha. I had steak and broccoli, spicy chicken, buffalo wings, egg roll, brownie, and some fruit. It was amazing and it was fun hanging out with all of them outside of playing shows. We headed back to the bowling place around 10. Me, Paul and Tommy were on a team, and ended up being the best team of the night. My best individual score was a 164, for my third game. Pretty good since I have played in months. I probably only go about 2 times a year depending on what we have going on. It ended up being super fun. About 24 metal dudes all bowling, including one of the guys from Behemoth, which I thought was random, haha. Seemed like a cool guy. The funniest part of it all was that there was a group next to us that had a Slipknot and Cold shirt on, everyone was talking about them all night how they had no idea who they were bowling next to. Of course not, this tour had no El Paso date, and its freaking El Paso. We actually get a lot of requests to play here, so hopefully one day we can make that happen. We all definitely want to! Left the bowling place around 2am heading back to our bus. Left for the overnight to Tempe at about 3am. Jan 15th � Tempe (The Clubhouse) Woke up around 11am at some Love truck stop. Went inside for a shower. The 2 ladies working the register were so mean, they immediately starting bitching at me about how everyone on our bus was handing off the key to each other without paying or waiting in line. I had just woke up and had no idea what see was talking about or what was going on, haha. I just snatched my ticket out of her hand and walked around the corner. She had one of those super "nagging" voices, so annoying. It turned out that the guys on the Cynic bus were doing handing of the keys to the shower, haha. I was talking to their driver about how mean she was, he just laughed. It was really funny, I just kept ignoring her, which was obviously making them both even more mad. I just thought it was ridiculous because I didn't have a clue what she was talking about and I was still half asleep. Currently on the way to the Clubhouse. Based on the time we are suppose to arrive I have a feeling today is going to be hetic with the club probably holding doors. We shall see! Show tonight was insane! Doors were an hour before we played so every single person for this SOLD OUT show were inside. Damn you guys made it fun, so much energy! You guys vibe made for sure an amazing time on stage! Looking forward to the next time we play Tempe. Left super early tonight as Devin and the BTBAM dudes had a bunch of NAMM things to do in the morning before the San Diego show. We were suppose to play this year and I guess it fell apart last minute before we left, which then screwed us on getting passes as we thought we were playing and wouldn't need to get them. Dammit! Was looking forward to checking out the new Suhr 7 String! A friend of the band was there so he took a bunch of pictures of it for me, looks pretty sick! Jan 16th � San Diego (House Of Blues) We made it to House Of Blues around 2pm for load in. We were hanging out in a Walmart parking lot for a couple of hours, which is super boring! Wish we could have stopped off at the beach instead! I love playing House Of Blues, its such a nice venue! Great sound, catering, back stage areas, etc... very comfortable. Looking forward to this show. Tonight was the absolute most fun I have had on stage this tour so far. The crowd were loud but not the loudest of the tour, I just had fun playing tonight. The other guys, not so much, haha. I can't wait for tomorrow. We formed in Los Angeles so the LA shows are always ridiculous. 
Adam from Killswitch came out tonight, which was tottally random I thought as well as a couple of dudes from As I Lay Dying and Periphery. Pretty sure all of them missed our set, which is awesome. I have been keeping in touch with Misha (aka Bulb) for a while now so it was great to finally meet him in person. They are in town tracking vocals for their first full length album. I think its funny as I have about 200 of bulbs songs on my Itunes and they are just now releasing a full length album. I have to say I wish I was hearing Casey' vocals on that sucker, but we'll just have to wait and see I guess what their new dude does. I went to bed at 1am as I was freaking tired! Thats the end of the day! Jan 17th � Los Angeles (House Of Blues) On our way to LA right now. Its about 1pm. Set in another parking lot this morning, so tired of just sitting places where there is nothing to do. I just finished eating Wendy's and I want to vomit right now. We're in Cali, I want In & Out! Can't wait to play tonight, its going to be ridiculous! 
Shows was awesome tonight. You can't beat sold out at 1,100 people! Sorry to all those that couldn't get in. Greg from Dillinger was at the show, as well as a bunch of label dudes and the drummer of WASP. The most random was Kenny G! Supposedly he watched our set and then left. I can't remember who told me, but Devin's manager I guess took a picture with him and that was that. I thought that was pretty random and neat. Someone was telling me his son listens to metal, so maybe that was it. Would be very random if he were a fan : ) Got to see a bunch of my guys family and friends tonight. I love being in LA, I have missed it everyday since we moved back to Texas. Leaving for San Fran tonight around 4am. Jan 18th � San Francisco (Slim's) Got the venue around 12ish today. Me, Pat, and Chris walked to some publishing company about a mile away that our tour manager wanted to check out and take a picture of. I don't really read books, so I didn't get it haha. Stopped at a Mexican Grill, pretty terrible. I just had a quesadilla and some chips and salsa. I have never had to spit out so many pieces of hard, fatty pieces. It was ridiculous. The funniest part about all of this was... if anyones knows me I'm a story teller and a bullshitter. Well... we are sitting there and our tour manager (Chris) reaches over for one of the pieces of meat that "fell" out of my quesadilla. I tell him, "dude, thats a fatty piece that I chewed up and spit out". He clearly thought I was lying, that I didn't want to share haha. He grabbed the piece and I started slowly raising my voice. Granted I'm not the nicest person in the world when it comes to being a sarcastic "ass", but I didn't want him to eat my chewed up piece of fat, haha. It would have been great though if I let him. Good times. Today is already sold out! Sold out a few weeks back. I remember when we got the finally list of dates and venues and thought this venue was a little to small for this package. I guess for the most part I was right. There are bigger venues in San Fran, first choice was The Fillmore. I guess it was already booked. Regardless turned out to be a killer show! The crowd in San Fran always shows us love! Thanks for making it a blast tonight guys! Jan 19th � Day Off Seriously didn't do anything but drive. I woke up early as hell as we had to ride with chains through the mountains because of all the snow, it makes it super loud in the bus. So I took this picture for you guys. So beautiful! 
Jan 20th � Denver (Cervantes) Made it into Denver around 2pm. So much driving from San Fran. I think because of the snow it turned into 30 hours of driving! Spend another half hour walking around the city for nothing. There was seriously nowhere to eat around Cervantes, pretty slum looking area of town. Had some pimped out Cadillac honked and yelled "crackers". Haha. Another SOLD OUT show tonight. I'm telling you guys if you plan on coming out, don't plan on getting tickets at the door. The past 3 shows were weekday shows, and they sold out before doors even opened. So many people were turned away from the door tonight. Don't wait! Amazing crowd tonight, thanks a lot for being so fun. Can't wait to play Denver again. This tour has been so good for us and so much fun with the other bands. Its going to be a bummer when its over. Jan 21th � Day Off Stopped in Kansas City today. Currently watching the Lakers vs. Cavs game. I think the plan is to see Avatar in 3D Imax in an hour. Avatar was awesome. I was one of the ones that really didn't care to see it, but I figured I'd give it a shot. Ended up being great in 3D. Toy Story 3 is coming out in a few, in 3D as well. Its going to be great. Jan 22nd � Louisville (Headliners) Woke up this morning outside the venue. I'm back to my 4am-12pm-ish sleeping schedule. Probably better anyways. When I get up early I'm just sitting on the bus for hours doing internet work. I get more finished when I stay up late, as we are usually at the venues until about 2am anyway. Show is sold out tonight, again. We heard that Detroit is close and that Chicago at House Of Blues is sold out as well. People! Get your tickets now for the remaining shows! First time playing Louisville. Crowd was great and we played awesome. At least I think we did, haha. Meet & Greet I basically did by myself outside by the buses. We normally do them on the inside, but today a bunch of guys found me outside this time, so I figured I would just stay outside. The venues have also been running people out the past few shows right when they are over not letting anyone talk to us or get things signed. Barely have the chance to buy merch at the end of the show. Its bs. Jan 23rd � Detroit (The Majestic Theatre) Woke up again at the venue today. Detroit is damn cold today! The show was originally at the Magic Stick, which is way smaller but inside the small building. The show sold out in 2 weeks when the tour was announced so they moved it into the Majestic room which is double the size at about 1,200. That show sold out before the day of the show, today. Its nuts all the shows are selling out before doors open! Ate, again, at Subway for lunch after load in. Took a shower in a really gross venue shower. Great way to start the day, ha. Show was awesome tonight. Definitely the biggest show of the tour so far. The crowd was huge tonight. Thanks for showing the love guys! I feel like my blog is smaller in comparsion to the Dream Theater tour. We did an interview yesterday and the guy asked us what crazy stuff has happened on this tour. I told him "nothing really". We are sharing a bus with BTBAM on this tour, and none of us really party super hard. So nothing really "crazy" has happened so far. The craziest thing was us all going to Giant China Buffet and late night bowling, haha. Maybe something crazy will happened in the near future. Jan 24th � Chicago (House Of Blues) Woke up on the drive into downtown Chicago. I love this city. One of the places I would like to live someday, even though I think after one winter I would hate it. ha. Show was sold out again tonight before doors opened. Crowd was great. I played great tonight, but it was one of those shows where I thought I didn't play my best, even though I know noone could hear the small mistakes. It was more of a tone thing, than actually mistakes. Just an off night I suppose. The club decided tonight that they were going to push the kids out. They actually made us physically stop selling merch 10 minutes after the show ended. One of the ignorant security gaurds actually took the money out of my hand and handed it back to one of the kids in our line. Unbelievable. These kids/adults paid good money for their tickets and we all sold out this show, shouldn't have been treated like cattle pushing them out. It was honestly unbelievable. I have never heard anyone, at any club tell us we had to stop selling merch. Insane! We, and the other bands handled our business and took care of that problem. Sorry to the employess that work there, we weren't mad at them as they were just doing their job (what they were told), but we were not going to let them screw us over. Jan 25th � Cleveland (Peabody's) Stayed up super late last night hanging out with a few friends and the rest of the guys. Had a long arguement with our merch guy/ tour manager about Denzel Washington being a badass at acting. He of course disagreed. It was dumb. He is a great actor, end of story. Bordeom. Ha 
Show tonight is once again sold out! Smaller club, but still about 700, and its packed. Played damn good tonight, so much better than the night before. Felt good. Crowd was a little dead tonight I thought. Everyone was really quiet. Not just for our set either, even during Devin's set the crowd quiet. I wasn't inside for Cynic's set and BTBAM are just about to play. Even when I did shout outs for all the bands in the beginning of the show they were super quiet. Guess its just one of those cities. On the Dream Theater tour, Philly was really quiet! Weird. Jan 26th � Toronto (The Opera House) I have been looking forward to the Canada dates the entire tour as they were the craziest shows during the Dream Theater tour. Its damn cold up here! Doesn't matter the time of day, its freezing out. I don't think I could ever live up here, but then again it would be much different if I had the proper clothing for this weather. Show tonight was everything I expected. Canada in general love their progressive music! The crowd tonight was insane, even before we played it was freaking nuts! Thanks for helping us have such a great time everyone that came out! "Meet and greets" were basically all night for me. Decided to sit out at the merch table with our merch guy and talked with fans the entire night. Its great meeting everyone and hearing how much they love our music, really fuels all of our fire for playing in this band. I wish I had more to say about each day, but riding on the bus actually eliminates a lot of the other bullshit that goes along with touring. Like hotels, driving incidents, encounters, etc... even though I actually prefer to be in the van. It feels more like you are on tour as you actually see the traveling part. On the bus you wake up at each venue. Jan 27th � Montreal (Club Soda) Woke up today in a very cold, busy area of Montreal. It's weird being only 60 miles from the US border yet it looks foreign. French is the word here, haha. All kinds of people around. Really cool city. I didn't really get to see much of the city last time we were here. We all went and ate at a local sports bar down the street and had the "Mexican" Burger because it had salsa on it. Damn racists haha. Shows tonight went great, as I predicted. Canada fans are nuts! You can tell of them were really enjoying themselves and really knew the songs. It was a great show for all the bands. Thanks to everyone who came out! We're only about 40 miles from the border so I'm going to just stay up and wait until we get there. The US border is a little more tricky to cross and usually a little more picky with the entire process. Sure enough they woke everyone up to match faces to passports. Its lame for all those sleeping. I stayed up to 6 this morning. Super tired. peace. Jan 28th � Boston (House Of Blues) I woke up at load in time outside of House Of Blues, at around 2pm. This place is huge! Way bigger than all of the venues so far. Stage is easily 3 times bigger than all of the stages so far. Playing is going to be super fun tonight, so much space! Show tonight wasssss awesooommmmee! About 1,000 during our set. Crowd seemed really familiar and stoked about our set. Super loud. It was super fun being able to move all around the huge stage. Played great tonight, should have changed my strings though. They were feeling a little on the sticky side. Not sure if many of you know but I started and own Sea & Sky Clothing. One of my team riders came out tonight, first time meeting him in person. Cool dude, and it helps that he also digs the band, haha. Better. Meet and greet thing we do at the end of the show went great. Took a bunch of pictures and signed a bunch of autographs. Going right to sleep tonight. Didn't sleep well the night before. Jan 29th � Albany (Northern Lights) Middle of nowhere today. Almost seems like we are in a ghost town. Last time we played downtown Albany, but this place is pretty far away from the city... at least it seems like it. We wake up everyday outside the venues and this place seems pretty out there. Anyways... lets hope people show up, haha. Damn cold out today. Last time I checked it was 14. Which is unreal! Texas barely gets around the 30's every year. Suppose to be below 5 tonight! It hurts your face to go outside and it doesn't help that none of us have the proper clothing. Nice turnout tonight. I think the venue made it to 800, maybe a little more. Which is awesome. The crowd was quieter than normal but still great. I played really well tonight. Had a little mishap during the end of Omni, which sucked. Travis' pedal was messing up which was making his amp cut out.... and it so happened during my solo. Thankfully it didn't distract me, as I didn't mess it up at all. It cut right back in which is weird. I'll of course have to mess with that tomorrow, see if I can figure out the problem. We got to take showers over at Gold's Gym, in the same parking lot. The venue has a deal worked out with the gym so we were able to take a shower for free, in a shower that is actually nice for once. I stood under the hot water for about 20 minutes tonight. First time we were able to not rush, it felt great! Meet and greet went well tonight as well. I love the excitement in peoples faces, its awesome. Sitting on the bus, its 4 degrees outside with a wind chill of -5. Ridiculous. Jan 30th � New York CIty (The Fillmore - Irving Plaza) Still freaking cold! Way to cold! There is no escaping it either. The inside of the venue is even unbearable. For all you guitar players out there, it sucks to play in cold climates. Makes your hands super stiff and you can't feel the strings... which makes the bending, slides and vibrato sound not so great. Hopefully once the fans get inside, they'll warmup the live room. We actually carry a blow dryer with us on all tours for all the cold venues. Tonight I left it on for an hour in our dressing room as their space heater was supposedly "broken" aka "she didn't want to go get it for us". The blow dryer actually heated the place up nicely. Pretty funny it worked. Backstaging. 
Tonight's show was awesome! Great crowd and once again a sold out show! I played great tonight on brand new strings. I love new strings! Sitting out in the cold bus right now. In NYC, you aren't allowed to run the bus's generator as you get noise complaints. They said the fine is $1,500. Outrageous! So I'm sitting in the dark, freezing cold, updating this sucker for you guys using the clubs internet. haha. The love I have for all of you, haha! Jan 31st � Philedelphia (The Trocadero) Made it to Philly around 2pm for load in. This club is located smack in "China Town". Seemed pretty odd for a venue. This is one of the oldest standing venues I think in the entire country and dammit it smelt like it, haha. Really cool theater. The last time we played Philly was with Dream Theater and though the crowd was huge they were pretty quiet. Tonight was quite the opposite. Philly showed the love tonight with another SOLD OUT show! Show was awesome and it was also our biggest merch night, so thanks to everyone who picked up a shirt or cd or book or poster pack or hoodie, ha. 
Portnoy came out to the show tonight, as pretty much the entire line up on this tour has played with Dream Theater multiple times. It was great getting to see him again since Progressive Nation Tour in August. Also had one of my family friends come out tonight, which was great getting to see her, know her since I was a wi little one. Feb 1st � Baltimore (Sonar) So sick of the freaking cold weather on this tour! Damn cold today in Baltimore. Again I woke up with a kick in the butt to come unload. ha. Pretty cool venue. Acoustically seems a little dumb has far as the set up looks. Sound guy was telling Travis to turn his reverb down as the room was a little washy. Once its filled with a bunch of people it will be fine as we both have the same reverb settings. Told him to not worry about it. Started having problems with my Powerball, AGAIN. Probably the 5th time now before important tours and while on tour, starting to get a little irritating. Powerball has a tube monitor system built right into which so nicely tells me what Power Tube is going out. Seems like a neat idea, but when the problem is internal and will burn out any new tubes I put in it, sort of not helpful. I have had the same guy fix it each time now, and apparently not doing the best of job. Travis has has a Powerball for about the same amount of time, about 5 years. His head has original tubes too, ridiculous. I guess I got a lemon. Show went awesome tonight. I ended up getting the amp to pull through for me during our set with no problems. In between each song I had to keep resetting the tube monitor so that it would go back to work each song, to help by more time. Seemed to work. Meet and greet at the end of the show went great. Signed a million things and met a lot of cool kids. Glad everyone really enjoyed the show. Day off tomorrow, freaking pumped! My hands are feeling a little fatigued from playing every single day. Feb 2nd � Day Off (Savannah, GA) I think we made it to the mall and hotel around 4pm. Showered and went and got something chicken for dinner. Came back and pretty much hung out on the bus for the rest of the night. We're leaving for Florida at 2am tomorrow. Feb 3rd � St. Petersburg (State Theatre) Finally some killer weather! Florida delivered! I got to wear a short sleeve t-shirt outside for the first time in like 4 weeks now! I love Florida. 
Club tonight seems a little older than most of the clubs we have played on this tour so far. Their sound system and monitors is sitting on industrial shelves. Little strange and kind of takes up a lot of space. Show tonight was awesome. They opened doors an hour before we played which was awesome getting everyone inside before we started. Really fun crowd. Had a few old friends come out to the show tonight, it was nice catching up. Feb 4th � Charleston (Music Farm) Had a blow out on the bus this morning. I have a bottom bunk so damn it was loud! And the fact that he drove on it for like half and hour I finally had to get up. It was a super loud flapping noise and I couldn't take it anymore. We all got off the bus when he finally stopped to have it fixed only to find out that not only was the tire shredded but that our driver had rear ended a truck while we were all asleep. Thats nice and reassuring. ha. I have been getting back into a better sleep routine and falling asleep a lot sooner, this is not going to help, ha. 
Small town today, seems like a college town for sure. Back in the dang cold again though, ha. Pretty cool venue today, neat vibe to it. Not to sure on the turnout tonight though. We just arrived hear super late. Its 5pm. There is usually always a line outside starting around 3pm. We shall see I guess. Yeah I was right, smallest crowd of the entire tour. Pretty sure the final count tonight was only 400 people which is pretty small looking back at all the shows that have sold out. Still had fun playing tonight. I actually used the guitarist of Devin's band's Mesa Road King II tonight. I had only 5 minutes to EQ the sucker, but it sounded pretty freaking good. Much clearer than the Powerball. I used it tonight as I didn't want to worry about the powerball going out anymore. Looks like I will be using it for the last 2 shows as well. Feb 5th � Knoxville (Bijou Theater) We are playing a seated venue today. Brings back all the memories from the Dream Theater tour as 95% of that entire tour was all seated venues. Really cool looking place. Excited to play again tonight. Messing with Cynic's stuff. 
Now messing with BTBAM's things. 
Show was awesome tonight. We first walked out there and everyone stood up. I told them all "Hey we're Scale The Summit, thanks for making this less awkward". Haha. They were really loud tonight, cheering after solos and what not. Thanks for making it so much fun tonight guys! Feb 6th � Charlotte (The Fillmore) Ahhh, the last show tonight. I'm glad on one end as I'm looking forward to going home, but this tour has been so much fun and a really great success that its a bummer to see it come to an end today. Hope the show is a badass one, would love to send us home with one last amazing show! Really amazing venue. Very new and fancy. Sound check went great. Everything was really clear and cutting through in the mix on stage, fingers crossed it sounds that good out front, ha. Show tonight was insane! We had our first ever legitimate mosh pit during our set. We don't really consider this band a "metal" band, as its really not, but none of us care. That pit was awesome. I first noticed it during "City In The Sky" which honestly makes sense as live there are some riffs in that song that are very metal sounding, and super heavy. After that song we only had one song left and its actually the most metal song of our set, "Omni" from our self released album "Monument". I told all the kids in that pit area that this is the song for them as at the end of the song the last riff we blast through the entire part. I told them I would give them the sign that its time to "kick the shit out of each other", haha. Sure enough at that part they all went nuts. Big thanks to Charlotte sending us home with one of the most memorable shows we have played so far. It was our first time playing in Charlotte tonight and you guys couldn't have made us feel more welcome. We all had a blast. Couldn't stop talking about it back stage for the rest of the night! 
Bummer to see tonight come to an end. Killer show tonight, amazing tour. BTBAM leave tomorrow for their Europe tour, then Japan, Australia and Hawaii. 2 more months of shows. Best of luck to them and safe travels. Sure we'll come together again in the near future. Until next time! Later guys. Can you believe this person only drinks tea? No joke. ha. 
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