July 11, 2005 - Ogden, UT

We were set to go on tour with a band called Oubliette from Charlottesville, Virginia. They were another vegan straight edge band on New Eden Records, so we had a lot in common with them. They had set up a whole summer tour, but needed a little more—clout, I guess you could call it—out west so Erik, the owner of New Eden sent them our way. We were more than happy to do it for a couple of reasons. All of us were ready to start touring as much as we could, and Bryan, the singer, said he had set everything up but just needed a little help out west. Nothing major, maybe just a few shows in California and somewhere between Denver and the Northwest.

We were happy to oblige, and hooked up a show in Sacramento, Redlands, and Idaho Falls. We tried to get something set up in Salt Lake, but it didn’t work out, so we headed a few miles north for a show in Ogden. The kids up there have always been supportive, and we liked going up there whenever we got the chance.

There was one little problem with this tour on the Cherem end—Bill couldn’t go. He’d gotten in to some deep financial trouble (something to do with a Nigerian Prince, I think) and couldn’t afford to miss two weeks of work. We didn’t want to get the reputation as a band that bails on an entire tour at the last minute, so we did the only thing we could think of—we got a fill in singer and went on tour. Luckily, Brook Aftermath didn’t have a job and wanted to come along, so instead of having him as our roadie, we promoted him to singer. He was fine with it, but a little bit apprehensive, because he didn’t have much time to learn all the new songs we were going to play, but hadn’t had time to record. That meant that Bill needed to show him how to sing the songs and give him the lyrics. Brook was up for the challenge, but he didn’t want to start singing until we were out of Utah. So Bill drove up to Ogden right after he got off work, and showed up just before we went onstage.

The show went well, and we all headed back home to finish our last minute packing. It was going to be an interesting two weeks, but we had no idea what we were in for.