Missoula, MT Recap- To All My Friends Tour
Me, Ant, and Slug were on our way to get some food when we saw this dog was sitting outside a coffee shop in Missoula Montana. I usually walk around the city and take pics but i wasn’t too happy with any of the pictures I took, plus this one is much better.
This was my 5th or 6th time in Missoula since 2002 and by far it was the weirdest. Usually Missoula crowds are really fun, and I’ve never had a bad time there. This time around there was just something weird in the air.
We played two nights there, Thursday & Friday.
The main problem was the amount of aggressive dudes there. Fights were breaking out all over the place both nights, but the second night was the worst. Some dude apparently threatened one of our merch guys, so that automatically had everybody kind of tense. Fortunately nothing happened.
Some dude was manhandling his girl, and some dudes from our tour had to step in and break it up.
A big ass fight broke out during my last song the first night. There were 5-6 people involved in the brawl and security didnt do shit to stop it. I hate when fights break out at shows. They totally distract the crowd and ruins the moment. It’s really hard to get that kind of momentum back, and in my case it was impossible because it was my last song.
Even when security did step in, they would talk to the person, and take them to another part of the club–but never throw them out. It was the weirdest shit I’ve ever seen. Typically if somebody is bleeding or makes somebody bleed they get asked to leave, or thrown out, but in Missoula apparently they work on the honor system, because nobody was getting thrown out. The same dudes kept starting ruckus all over the club.
There was a lot of aggressive, cowboy ass shit going on. People saying stupid ass shit at the merch table all night, to everybody. It was very overwhelming, and nothing like anything we had seen before in that city. Near the end of the second show a big ass brawl broke out in the lobby, and spilled out onto the street. Apparently some dude got his face busted up pretty badly. All the while this was happening, there was a pack of hippies on the street singing “Yellow Submarine” by the Beetles. Fucking weird.
What makes this even weirder is that there’s a significant hippie feel to the city, so all the aggression just felt out of place. I’ve never seen an Atmosphere crowd act like that. Maybe it was the college kids or the full moon. I can’t call it.
People fucked with a lotta drugs there too. They would be at the merch table saying shit that nobody could understand half the time. People tripping up and down the stairs, running into pillars, and staggering around the lobby like zombies and shit.
It was so weird, and the energy was so bad, that my people actually told us to stay inside after the show and not go out, and that never happens.
But I actually met a couple of cool sisters there, and kicked it with them after the second show. The dudes in the city were still on some cowboy shit at the bar I went to but I was able to avoid all that bullshit and have some cool conversations with some normal people. After being so overwhelmed by craziness the first two nights I kind of felt like I had to go out and give Missoula another try.
And I’m glad that I did. I had a great time. Really cool conversations in a really cool bar. It almost made me forgot about the crazy shit I saw and heard, and in that situation, almost was good enough for me.
Word is Blog.
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