Trust me on the sunscreen...

A tour update shall begin,… now.

Thus far, the tour has had its ups and downs. The ups: great shows with great people coming out to sing along in VT, NJ, PA, OH, MI, & IL. The downs: I’ve come down with a nice little cold or something, so my throat has been fighting me for the last 5 or so shows (sorry to those of you that have had to deal with my voice at your stops… I know you all say you can’t even tell my voice is messed up, but I can, so I kind of eat at myself when this happens. I just like my voice to be in top shape all the time, so when it’s not, I just constantly think of how I want it to get better fast.)

Aside from that, the only other “down” of the tour is that the Alsip and St. Louis shows got randomly cancelled back to back. The thing is, shows get cancelled, it sucks, but it happens. I was pretty upset about how the Alsip show got cancelled because all of us on the tour didn’t find out it actually was dropped until the day of the show. We got a call saying that the venue decided to have our show bought out and dropped so they could have a party there. On a side note, the STL show was cancelled because of a mis-communication on the booking end. The show seems to have been double booked at the venue in STL. Regardless, for both cancelled shows, don’t fret if you were one of the ones planning to attend one of those, because I’ll be back through both areas on tour in December.

Back to some more up-sides to the tour. The guys in Goot are great. We’ve all gotten along super well, and it’s always awesome when you and the people you’re on tour with just click in a good way. Right now I’ve got them over at my apartment enjoying some small down-time with DVDs downstairs while I work on EP release plans, and get caught up on some emails and this blog. We’ve had yesterday and today off in between our Louisville, KY show, so it’s been a good time for me to rest my voice. Also, yesterday I finally managed to pick up a memory card & reader for my camcorder,… so now I can finally upload videos to my MacBook. So, expect many more videos and video updates from me.

One last tour mention before I head of to the personal stuff… thank you to all of you who have welcomed my live band with open arms. I’ve been so amazed at how welcome a full band setting has been, even in front of those of you that have been to my shows before. I’m quite excited to know I made the right choice by finally bringing along friends to help bring my songs to life the way they should be in a live setting.

Oh! I’ve been surprised by how many people want to hear what I thought of the new movie Where The Wild Things Are. So, here you go. The movie, itself, is a great one. It’s unlike any “childrens” movie I’ve ever seen before. It’s dark, beautiful, philosophical, hopeful, haunting, and visually stunning. If I had to give it a review that didn’t include my own personal hype in mind, I would give it two thumbs way up. However, I must say, that when I think of the movie from a personal hype level… I think I overhyped it in my own head a bit too much. I’ve been literally counting down every day to this movie for the last two months, and I’ve been a lover of the book since I was a child. So I ended up setting the bar way too high for the movie, as far as my own personal expectations go. I really do believe that when I see the movie for a second time, I’m going to enjoy it much more now that I’ve got my own expectations out of the way. Because, most of the time during my first viewing of it, I was too busy with my own thoughts of what would happen. But like I said previously, Where The Wild Things Are is a great movie. Don’t worry about the hype, don’t worry about other people’s reviews, just go into the theater and get lost in the story before your eyes, and you won’t be let down.

By the way, here’s a glimpse of what I’ve been listening to lately:
Paramore - brand new eyes | Michael Buble’ - Crazy Love | Phoenix | La Roux - La Roux | John Mayer - Who Says

And here are some photos for ya:

Cheers,
Chad

P.S. - See, I told you all I was finally turning this into a real blog. Also, so you know, I’m making it a point to keep up with all the comments left here. (To leave a comment all you have to do is click the “Comments” link just below each post. You don’t even have to sign up for anything.) So, feel free to leave your thoughts about these blogs, because I’ll definitely be reading them… and I’ll do my best to respond to a few of them each time around, too.