Gig 20030404 Journal

Source: Shihad.com (circa 03)

Date Published: Unsure

Who: Shihad.

Where: Tucson, AZ, USA

When: 4 April 2003

Reviewed by: Shihad (Jon Toogood) & (Phil Knight)

Tucson looks like what I imagined the Wild West to look like from watching too many cowboy movies. Lots of Cactus's and surrounded by a big desolate landscape. The area the Rialto theater is in is very hip and and filled with heaps of cool bars and cafes. We stay at the Hotel Congress which is where Dillinger was finally caught after being a naughty man and they've kept it exactly the same since (art deco madness) We are now playing with Sevendust who are a tad on the Heavy Metal side so we've been having fun and playing things like You Again - again, and a rip-snorting version of the opening riff of 'Master of Puppets'. goes down a treat every time! Tonight's show was particularly fun as the stage had a huge stack of Speakers in front of it which, for Phil, Karl and myself is a great excuse to try out every single rock move in the book - which we did - (always wanted to be in KISS!) and acts as an awesome platform to hurl oneself into the crowd from. Smashed my head into my guitar (Jules's fault) and now have a black eye coming up as well as one of those bruises that looks like it could be a big zit. what the fuck - crowd was into it from the word go and go it did... YEEEEEHAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!! gotta get back to Arizona.

-Jon.X

Phils Denver/Albuquerque/Tucson days.

A few of us felt a bit flu-ee in Denver but we think it was because of the thin air. Some crazy woman said to our bus driver as he was washing the bus, "why,that's a real nice big black bus you got there. You shine it up good cause I'm gonna be back. And I wanna rock." I was sure she was drunk, but Jules(our guitar tech and photographer) disagreed. After the show I stuffed to much catering down my gob and felt a bit sick. You know, like when you were a little kid at a birthday party. Our rider of drinks mysteriously disappeared out of our dressing room, which was weird. In Albuquerque, Jules managed to find an aussie rules game on the bus satellite TV, and I've gotta say that after living in Australia for the last 4 years, I still don't understand the rules. The wind that day was insane, even worse than Wellington. I cut down on my pepsi consumption that day and it made me feel a lot better. Tucson was definitely a lot cheerier than the last city. The Hotel Congress that our bus driver was staying at was pretty cool (on this tour we only get hotel rooms on our days off and seeing as we have beds and everything on the tour bus we just shower in our bus drivers room). It was very old western. There were Vietnam style helicopters buzzing around in the sky which was pretty out of it. Why do the others laugh at me when I'm eating.