  8:45 am............... My dad shakes my foot and tells me someone is on the phone talking about a trip to Pheonix, the man with the master plan is urlLink Andy , greetings were taken and the question was " are you ready?"..........................NOPE. I needed about 20 minutes to get ready and 20 minutes it was, a race against the clock ensued, a quick shower and a stroke of deorderant and we were on our way. A slight detour was in progress when we decided we needed to ingest in some donuts from the infamous Dunkin donuts, hot cocoa or coco as I would put it burned my sensitive tongue and the journey was on. 5 minutes into the drive I had already spilled some damn hot coco on my gear and burned my hand with the searing liquid, Andy, the man with the plan and the mouth of steel gulped his piping hot goodness in easy strides.
The road was calling our names and we were speeding toward it, eagerly anticipating the events ahead. First stop.... food and an inerstate 'subway' was grabbing our thoughts and we participated in good humor, a few trucker jokes and a hot 'subway' employee later we were back on the road as JK would say. Later a game of " who can make the most truckers honk by pumping their fists in the air" began and at last count Andy was up by one truck, I was down for the count untill a truck weighing station showed her face to me and the trucks honked in my favor. One last stop before our final destination, a restroom break in the mother of all truck stops, they sold everything from candy to cd players, they even had an arcade room where I had to stop off and try my luck, after a few games of video hunting and a handfull of urlLink hillbilly jokes, the road had us.
The last stop was of course the great town of Pheonix, Arizona, I loved it as soon as I caught a good glimpse, traffic was insane but tolerable since I wasn't driving, we met the lovely ladies that were letting us sleep on they're floor shortly after at one of the coolest apartments I've ever seen. After a warm greeting and a couple of dogs we were on our way to see the town and head for the reason we traveled so far. A slow trip to a rockin record store and a quick trip to a convienence store and we were on our way to glory and some just plain old rockin and rollin.
The Nile Theater 7:30 pm, the presence of "EMO" and all of her stupidity was present as we looked for parking, the walk to the club was like none I've ever taken, I was just about to see urlLink Hey Mer and I was giddy with anticipation. The place was packed with black rimmed glasses, beatle hair cuts, tight pants and the worst part, I saw a few geeks wearing the're very own, home -made Saves the Day shirts, frankly I wanted to punch every last one of them.........but I digress. The first band showed their faces and I expected the worst noise ever to come out of the pa but boy was I wrong, urlLink Thursday showed me a thing or 2. Slow ballads laced with cruchy guitars and some serious drum work was the making of this band, besides the sometimes cheesy mic spin and the Cedric-esk dance moves, they ripped! The moment I and probably 3 other people were waiting for, yep you guessed it Hey Mercedes took the stage, the opening chords to 'Frowning of a Lifetime' reared it's head and I began to sway, the band hunched over with the force of music and I hunched along, singing every word and slapping the drum beats on my thighs I was in semi-heaven.
The following songs would consist of 85% new record and the rest old, every song put me into a dreamy state while Bob shook his head to the beat of the song, watching them play made me see that they are insanely great musicians and they made it look effortless, Damon has to be by far the greatest drummer I've had the privalage of seeing, not only did he rip it up for Hey Mer but he pulled double duty and rocked it with Saves the Day.
With my fist occasionally in the air and the words constantly in my mouth I shuffled my feet and slapped my thighs for one of the greatest sets in history, they blurred the line between humans and God. After the set I parted ways with Hey Mer, hopefully not for the last time. 9:30... Saves the Day takes the stage and the crowd loses it, I'm not to enthused to see them on the basis that they have idiots for fans and the whole time before they came on I could here them talking shit about they other bands, thats just not kosher where I'm from.
As usual STD as the idiots called them by their handcrafted crap shirts rocked it, played some of my favorites and a lot of songs off the new record but all in all they ripped as well, not as rockin as some other band that played called Hey Mercedes but it was good. Vicky and Valerie knew the happs on a little after show hangout and we stopped by for a little look at what too much pot and too much beer can do to a person, "The Flying V's"(Vicky and Valerie) had a few things to do in the morning so the stay in the crack house was abruptly ended and the coronas were tapped, the buzz came to me in a cigarett and hunger induced shock.
An air mattress, a dog bitting my hair, and a few hours of sleep. Day 2 involved a late breakfast early lunch, brunch if you will at a place called " The Cheba Hut" which was a Marijuana themed samach place that had the names of pot for the names of their samacha's. The food was rockin and I want to go back right now, a stroll in the shopping section of town was induced and my love of the town grew, I was a little sad to leave but I will return one day, so Pheonix I hope your ready for me and my crew. We have a new record out called "Everynight Fireworks" and this songs not on it............ Bob Nanna 
