The hardest part about this tour was leaving Eric and Blake behind. It had been a long time since Ryan and I [Taylor] had played a show unplugged and on our own. My biggest fear was that our lively, full band performance would be nothing more than a snooze fest for the bar crowds as we adapted our set to just two acoustic guitars. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case. Although, Ryan and I
definitely had to do a little more screaming and dancing to make up for the lack of drum and bass.
To save some money on the tour we decided to take the advice of a good friend of ours, Scott Cash (The War), “Don’t eat out and don’t pay for hotels.” I’m ashamed to say we failed that objective on the second day of our tour (come on, who can resist the call of Chick-Fil-A), but we did spend most of our nights sardined in a tent living off beef jerky and protein bars. Ryan and I had been obsessively watching Man vs. Wild with Bear Grylls before the tour and decided if Bear can sleep on a rocky ground then so could we; However, we forgot that camping in late Spring in the South with the rain fly on meant we would be waking up dripping in sweat basically baking like a casserole dish in an oven.
 
One night after a show, with the rain pouring down in Chattanooga, TN, we caved and splurged for a hotel room, but not just any room. The Chattanooga Choo Choo hotel upgraded our basic room and gave us one of their trademark sleeping cars. Literally old boxcars that have been transformed in to tiny suites.
Of course our favorite part of the tour were the shows themselves. Being in a different city every night playing for a new crowd is an unreal feeling, and we were definitely shown the true meaning of Southern hospitality along the way. After each show, fans and fellow bands were always offering up their couches for us to sleep on and drinks at their favorite local bars. We had some
unforgettable nights. Once we hit Atlanta, it was time for a day off. Our good friend, Tim MacKay,
took us on a private behind the scenes tour of the Georgia Aquarium.
Our last show of the tour was in Athens, GA at The Flicker Theatre. It was the perfect way to end the week. We were back together with Eric and Blake and our close friends from Atlanta made the trek up for the show. We spent the whole evening before our set playing bocce and drinking PBR.
 
 We have a couple of festivals in the coming weeks such as Big Bird Bash (Macon, GA) and Artisphere (Greenville, SC). After that we’ll be hitting the road again. This time full band. I still expect us to be stuffing ourselves in tents and living off gas station food. I can’t wait.
