Dylan Gilbert & The Over Easy Breakfast Machine 2010 Summer Tour Diary – Part 1
Hello, my name is Dylan Gilbert. I’ve been playing as a solo artist since late 2005 when I was 18 years old. At 22 I put together a band (The Over Easy Breakfast Machine) for my 2010 summer tour to promote my newest album Pangaea. The band now consists of two of my best buddies, Zach Jordan on bass and John Harrell on Drums (both of Linus Van Pelt & The Dinner Rabbits). Our first few shows as a full band were pretty interesting to say the least. We played a Beatles tribute night in a sold out theatre, in the top of a Tree House at a backyard party for one of our school professors, a Motown tribute show in the back of a thrift store and a packed living room at a friends’ house in Virginia Beach. But nothing could really prepare us for our ridiculous upcoming tour…
Day 1 – July 7th – Caledonia Lounge in Athens Georgia
We had some serious trouble finding a tour vehicle, but at the very last minuet got a hold of a White 93’ Isuzu Trooper that we affectionately dubbed The Storm trooper! This would be our home for the next month. The first show at Caledonia Lounge in Athens went relatively well. We spent the day hanging out in Athens with our good friend A.J. Weiss (who also played the show with us later) and a few of our friends from around the area. One of A.J.’s friends was nice enough to let us borrow her (awesome) house for the night.
Day 2 – July 8th – Wonder Root in Atlanta Georgia
The next morning we slept in and hung around Athens for a little while before heading to Atlanta to play at Wonder Root. Wonder Root is one of my favorite venues. It’s kind of like a community arts building with art showings, a recording studio and shows in the basement. We played with a lot of bands that night (maybe 6 or 7?), but one band really stood out to us. I think we all agreed looking back that Northern Howl was one of the best bands we played with the entire tour.
This was one of the most fun shows we played, but also the first night that things started to go wrong. As we were loading in our gear I noticed that I had a sharp pain in my right foot especially when I put pressure on it. I decided I’d worry about it later and we went ahead and played. Afterwards, my foot felt like it was on fire and we decided it would be a good idea to stay the night in a hotel and get some ice and put it on my foot. Once we’d stopped in a hotel about an hour north of Atlanta I took my sock off and saw that my foot had swollen to a gigantic size! We determined that at some point in Athens I’d dropped something on my foot or twisted my ankle.
We all feel asleep in big beds watching Behind The Music: Courtney Love (which is some of the best quality television I’ve ever seen.) haha
Day 3 – July 9th – House Show in Charleston South Carolina
I awoke the next day to Zach jumping up and down on John’s bed laughing and yelling “You made me miss the continental breakfast, John!”.
We started the long drive from Atlanta to Charleston which is about 5 or 6 hours. We got caught in a huge thunder storm for most of the drive and narrowly missed running into a truck that spun off the road in front of us. The only reason we missed the collision was because The Storm trooper stalled out on us just seconds before it happened. We finally made it to the House we were suppose to play at and played an awesome show with Mel Washington and Wylie! Unfortunately, I was forced to play sitting down because I couldn’t put any weight on my right foot (which was still swollen almost twice it’s normal size!)
Day 4 – July 10th – The Brown Coat Pub & Theatre in Wilmington North Carolina
As we drove up the coast line from Charleston to Wilmington we stopped a few times. First we stopped at a Walgreen’s to purchase a (pimp) cane for my worsening ankle. Thankfully Zach talked me into the wood grain style, which he insisted was more legit. Later, as we drove through Myrtle Beaches main strip I noticed Alligator Adventure which is basically a big zoo that specializes in alligators, turtles, lizards and birds, but also had tigers, lemurs and otters. I would recommend this for anyone.
Enter: Dirty Carl. My older cousin “Dirty” Carl Stephens is a mega vegan hipster who lives in Wilmington. He joins the tour for the next week and makes everybody feel at ease with the magic of his monstrous beard. He helped us snag a last minuet show at a place called The Brown Coat Pub & Theatre that (to my knowledge) usually specializes in Theatre plays and Karaoke more than hosting bands. They didn’t seem to know what to think of us at first, but by the end of the night we were all best buddies.
After we performed, Brad Land (author of Goat: A Memoir) did a special reading (and there was in fact a little Karaoke as well. Someone even did “Jesus Walks“!)
Day 5 – July 11th – Winston’s Cafe in Chesapeake Virginia
The next day John, Zach, Dirty Carl and I headed further up the coast to Chesapeake Virginia we’re we’d made a lot of friends a few weeks earlier playing a show in nearby Virginia Beach. This is one of our favorite towns (and also one of the crazier towns we’ve ever been to hahaha). After the show we went back to the house of Musicplayer and Tokyo lead singer Robert Smith (no not from The Cure) and had a nice relaxing evening with all the funniest kids on the coast!
To be Continued….
Hey, I took a couple of those pictures! 🙂
But also, good tour! Glad to hear more of it and to have seen 2 of the shows!