Vibes blog

I just met up with Corey Smith backstage at The Fillmore Charlotte to talk about tonight’s show:

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Tent, check. Water, check. Camera, check.

It’s almost time for Bonnaroo! I’ll be sending out Twitter messages and posting daily blogs right here from the festival site in Manchester, Tenn. this weekend. While Tweets will start on Thursday, the blogs will kick off Friday morning.

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The Avett Brothers have released the track listing for its new album:
1. I and Love and You
2. January Wedding
3. Head Full of Doubt, Road Full of Promise
4. And it Spread
5. The Perfect Space
6. Ten Thousand Words
7. Kick Drum Heart
8. Laundry Room
9. Ill with Want
10. Tin Man
11. Slight Figure of Speech
12. It Goes On and On
13. Incomplete and Insecure

I and Love and You is set to be released on Aug. 11 with a CD release party being held at Bojangles Coliseum on Aug. 8.

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I picked up a copy of Beijing’s version of Creative Loafing, The Beijinger, and found a long list of music venues. I went this route since my Lonely Planet led me to places that had evidently been shut down for some time.

The Mao Live House was billed as “the capital’s premier live music venue” and it just happened to have a rock showcase that night. So, I headed down to the DongCheng district and found the Live House on a street that was lined with small shops, restaurants and street vendors.

The Live House is named after Chairman Mao and I think the name is a nod to Beijing’s gradual forgetting of the infamous figure. On the wall behind the stage hangs a large red flag that has an image only of Mao’s hair — Mao’s face is missing from the picture, as it were. The venue was medium-sized and had a Visulite feel — a standing area in front of the stage and raised bar-stools in the back. Before getting into the music hall, you pass through a bar area and a hallway that has a foosball table and a bunch of friendly Chinese hipsters guzzling down bottles of Tsing-Tao. (more…)

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Now that the jet lag is over, I can sit and reflect about our excellent journey through the Middle East. I’ve learned a lot of things.

1. The troops are amazing!!!
I give them huge props for doing the tasks they do. Regardless of how you feel about the war, these men and woman are doing a stand up job. They are putting their lives on the line to protect our nation and our freedom. Every person we talked to had a great personality and deserves recognition. We salute them! Keep up the good work and THANKS! (more…)

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We have currently lost track of all dates and days, so now each update will be by country instead of day.

We left Qatar and headed to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Our first show was at Al Dhafra Air Base. After we arrived at the base, we were given the rest of the day off. We were all in bed by 8 p.m., and got about eight of nine hours of sleep. It was so nice.

The next morning, we got a tour of the base. First off, we went to the K-9 section. They brought out a German Shepard and showed us all the tricks he could do, including the chasing and attacking modes he went into. They asked for volunteers so Josh and Adam both put on the arm sleeve and let the dog latch onto them. Both admitted that you can feel the teeth all the way through that thick sleeve. (more…)

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So, we are about half-way through our tour and figured we could take this time to talk about living conditions and such. The food everywhere has been outstanding. The only bad food we have had was the airline food. We have been fed steaks twice, most dining facilities have grills in them. One especially good DFAC in Qatar actually had a Krispy Kreme in it. People are definitely getting fed well over here.

The rooms we have been given have all been nice as well. Mostly it’s two per room, a couple of times we have had our own rooms, and once all six slept of us in a room with three bunk beds. Which was fun, except our sound guy Devin snores ridiculously loud, and Adam somehow imagined to hit his head on the TV stand. Although nobody can figure out exactly how he did it…

Everybody so far has been extremely grateful for us coming to play for them. We have to remind them we are way more thankful for what they do for us. Thats why we wanted to do this tour. (more…)

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Qatar:
Both shows were really cool and we got presented plaques by the base commander. It was the first day that we got to hang out, do laundry, take naps, go out to eat and stuff like that. Then we gave out a ton of CDs and signed a bunch of them.

When we went to customs we were told it was really strict so people were ripping pages out of their books and deleting movies off their phones and stuff. It was really funny.

That’s pretty much it. Now, we are headed to UAE and Dubai.

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You have a few more days to vote for KISS to put Charlotte on its list of tour dates for its next tour. Go to this link and vote for Charlotte.

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Charlotte’s The Stellas are in the midst of a tour of Southwestern Asia to perform for troops at bases in the Middle East. They’ve agreed to keep us updated on how it’s going along the way:

Day 1: May 10 8 a.m.
We all met up at Jacob’s house to load up equipment, and make some last minute adjustments. We arrived at the Charlotte airport two hours before our flight, which was a good idea because after checking in all our equipment — 30 pieces — our plane was already boarding. First issue we had was two of our bags were overweight. After we started freaking out, the guy behind the counter told us we could buy duffle bags for $35, so we gladly purchased three of those and got everything underweight.

Our flight schedule was Charlotte to Atlanta to Washington to London to Biskhek. Thirty-six hours and a couple of time zones later and we arrived in Kyrgyzstan. We passed through customs, met our contact and headed toward the base. By this time, it has been almost two days since we’ve been in a bed, so we shower and crash. May 11 happened but nobody really knows when? (more…)

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