Flagstaff is a surprisingly pretty ski town that looks a lot more like Utah than anything I think of as Arizona. It is also held hostage by the non-stop freight trains that travel endlessly through the town. We arrived at a very small venue that had apparently been forsaken by previous management so not only was there a huge leak in the roof right over the stage (of course) but the PA system was a meager set-up that only facilitated vocals and nothing else. The local support Astaroth were there to greet us and we quickly discovered that they were already fans of our work. They also handled ticket presales for the whole of the audience in attendance (about 80 people), so it was an insult and an outrage when their set ended up getting cut. The house sound man had to drive up from Phoenix and he was painfully late, and then the other band on the bill which looked and sounded like a pack of retards took their sweet time getting set up and starting. Astaroth did the wise thing and bowed out, but we were irritated that they had done so much to help this show (including help with loading in our equipment) and ended up losing out to that loser band.The show itself was the most commando one we have played in some time. Since there were no monitors we were relying on stage volume to carry us. My SansAmp decided to stop working right when we got on stage so I had to line in directly and I found the pluckiness of the sound to be very distracting. After our opening song it was obvious that only drums were discernible, so we cranked the volume and finally got the impact we needed. The crowd, while small, was enthusiastic and we ultimately came away with satisfaction despite the fact that we could scarcely hear each other and the sound was truly weird.
Since we were in the mountains the cold of night came back at us and set off everyone's coughs again. I finally crawled into the back and went to sleep. We have a horridly long drive from Albuquerque to San Antonio coming up so the more rest we get, the better. Not much else to report for now, but sometimes an uneventful day is welcome.
