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This may have been the stupidest, most worthless road trip ever. Due to the Worcester show selling out on Saturday and Matt being stuck outside, we decided to trek eight hours to Richmond, VA to catch the entire show.
This trip originally had two goals: go to the show and get Sonic Burger, which was located 40 miles east of Richmond. I added a quick trip to D.C. to shoot some video of The Wall Memorial for a project I was making for my dad, and we also planned on finding Matt a mortal enemy (I have two). I thought that leaving 12 hours early would give us more than enough time to get everything done.
I meant to get to Matt’s house at 5:30 a.m., which quickly became 6 a.m. We were on the road and on 95 South towards Connecticut by 6:15 a.m., listening to Howard Stern and laughing about the stupidity we had ahead of us.
Connecticut brought us a retarded amount of traffic for what seemed like no reason. There was one 21 mile stretch towards the end of the state that took us an hour to get through, which sucked. I’m not a big fan of traffic.
New York expectedly brought a decent amount of traffic, but it was pretty clear by the time we hit one of my mortal enemies, New Jersey (Maine being the other). Jersey was good to us, no doubt trying to make amends for years of hatred and disgust towards the state. The $6.45 toll was a kick to the wallet, but other than that, I had no complaints, though Jersey is still on my list.
Delaware brought the tolls like a dog in heat. In the five exits that Delaware had, we went through two tolls, which were no more than 30 miles away from the ass raping Jersey toll.
In addition to having rest stop workers with buck teeth, Maryland had jumping exit numbers. It started at 99, then dropped to 93, 89 and 85 (or something like that). There was also a lot of 7-11s off of the exits, but we didn’t stop because we were low on time. Maryland also brought Matt his mortal enemy: Baltimore.
We got to D.C. at about 2, about two hours later than expected. We found downtown D.C. pretty easily by car (we went down Connecticut Ave), parking right across from the Washington Monument. We walked around aimlessly looking for The Wall (seeing the White House and the World War II Memorial in the process) for about an hour. After asking a lot of people, we finally found The Wall. I shot some video and we were on our way after a two hour stop in D.C.
We still had time to hit Sonic Burger and still make the show by 6:30, which was when I expected Into the Moat to take the stage, but Virginia traffic decided to kicked our ass and stick us into an hour’s worth of traffic, making our hopes of enjoying Sonic Burger dim.
We made good time after the traffic had stopped, but going to Sonic Burger would have risked us missing some of the show. After much discussion and debate of the pros and cons, we went to a third party and our ultimate decision maker: The Coin. Heads had us going straight to the show while tails had us detouring to Sonic Burger. Heads won the best of seven series 4-2.
We arrived at Alley Katz right at 6. They alley was full of a few hundred kids all lurking about with their cool sounding Southern accents. I forced my way to the front of the door, trying to figure out why people weren’t going inside, only to find out that Into the Moat had cancelled and the show was starting late. Disappointed that we could have made Sonic Burger, I walked back to my car to drop off my camera (I had a photo pass for Into the Moat, but I didn’t want to get to the front of the line only to find out they don’t allow cameras).
Richmond looked like a town built for college kids. The three blocks I walked were full of hipster bars, dance clubs, restaurants and tattoo parlors. Everything was colored brightly like an art school student’s apartment, which was a pretty cool sight.
Cephalic Carnage started while Matt and I were downing pizza in another room. I was tired and didn’t feel like moving, but I eventually made my way to the room where they were playing. My search for a bathroom came up empty and I found myself leaning up against a wall near the door watching Cephalic Carnage destroy the stage. They were awesome to watch live, even though a monitor blocked off one of the guitarists’ head. Their bassist was all over the place, even playing a song in the crowd. Their drummer reminded me of Dying Fetus’ drummer because he looked almost bored and his head barely moved, but his arms were flailing around the drums like a madman on speed. Getting to hear the breakdown of “Counting the Days” made the trip worth it for me.
Between the Buried and Me played pretty much the same set that they did in Worcester, but the wound was much better. I only had a good view of the singer and Paul Waggoner’s guitar, but they were still fun to watch (fingers flying up and down the fret board). They were only able to play six songs in their half hour set, but the crowd loved it, except for probably the kid who got hurt in the pit and had to get carried out of the club. This band is gonna be huge.
The crowd thinned out for Black Dahlia Murder, which was disappointing because they played a great set. I was tired, thirsty and wanting to go home and sleep, but they kept me interested for their full hour and fifteen minute set. The club was really hot and sweaty by this point, which only added to the exhaustion, but I was having fun watching their great thrash metal set.
If going to a show eight hours away wasn’t stupid enough, we decided to leave right after the show. After hitting a convenience store for snacks and energy drinks, we started heading home at midnight. I downed my Mountain Dew Amp drink and took the first driving shift. The drink seemed to have the opposite affect on me, as I fought sleep for the just over two hours that I was driving. After a brief sleep which almost caused an accident, we got gas near Baltimore (the clerk was either sleeping or dead-either way, he wasn’t moving at all), and Matt took the wheel. For the next four hours, I could not keep my eyes open, which was a surreal experience; waking up in a different state each time. I took the Connecticut to Rhode Island home stretch, which brought us home at about 8:30 a.m., making it about a 26 hour trip, which had me wiped out for almost two days.
Written by: RF
Written by: RF