Tales From The Road: Santa Barbara/SLO

We woke up Friday morning a tad bit hung-over from the night before. Thursday night we ran through a practice of our set and out of nowhere, people started showed up for an impromptu party. So we raged it a bit on Thursday to prepare ourselves for a little mini-tour action. 

Packing for out of town shows is very much a “learn-over-time” process and we’re getting pretty damn efficient at it. We did a little Tetris action to accommodate all of our gear and by the time we got on the road we were only 2 hours late (which is really good for us).

On the road I found myself pondering what the hell I’m doing with my life as I always do on my journeys. I now take a profound amount of pride when I thinking about Vibrant EYEris and our retrospective accomplishments over the 4 years we’ve been doing what we do. There is a very solid force of talented musicians that has formed between the 4 of us and we’ve been through so much as a band together.

When VE started, I had no idea where we were heading or what exactly we were trying to do , we just wanted to make music. Now, feel like the future is more wide open than it has ever been before and each day brings a new step in this incredible journey.

Anyways, we bumped some proper jams along the way, just to be sure we arrived with our musical minds warmed up and ready to lay it down. First was Chrissy Murderbot… DAYUM! This man knows so much about music it’s ri-god-dam-diculous. If you are unfamiliar, please grace yourself with the pleasure of acquainting yourself… juke it baby!

As we drew nearer to the venue, we popped in some Pendulum to get our electronic blood pumping properly. This was the first time I had ever actually listened to a Pendulum CD from start to finish. Blown away. Very impressed by their versatility and the unique compositions they formed together. Bangin’ group.

The first destination on our target with SoHo in Santa Barbara, opening up for Sambada. Every time The EYEris has rolled through Santa Barbara we’ve been showed nothing but positivity and love from the fans in the crowd. Both times we’ve played SB it was at Velvet Jones, once with Andre Nickatina and once with Souls of Mischief for The New Noise Conference 2010. Incredibly intense vibes and a powerfully welcome reaction for us at both shows.

As we show up, Sambada is finishing their sound check… blessing the air with their stylistic rhythm. We arrived at happy hour so the vibe was intense from the beginning. After a bit of set up and a very quick and dialed down sound check (thank you Allen, you’re one talented sound guy) it was time for the waiting game.

Lights go down a bit and we take the stage, with the dinner section full of people enjoying dinner. The music they had been playing over the house system was something you would typically find at dinner with champagne and caviar so we made sure to come out with full force right off the bat. BOOM… I want it all!

There was a crowd of electronic music lovers getting down from the beginning so it helped fuel us through the transitional awkwardness we were experiencing. About 4 songs in, we played “Warrior Woman ft. Mojo Deville” and the floor was flooded with people from the bar dancing and grooving along with us. We played very very well, solid and together, dynamically tight and explosive when appropriate. A quick 45 minute set and we left the crowd with their blood pumping and ready for Sambada.

The rest of the night is a very short blur of driving aimlessly through Santa Barbara following faulty directions. We then realize that we are supposed to meet our homie at Isle Vista, so we jet out there and cap the night off with some kicking back and drunken conversation.

The next night we played at The Brewery in San Luis Obisbo…hmm… let’s just say this. We played for 30mins in front of 12 people at 7:40, it was more like a practice/personal showcase, but ce le vie that’s how the game goes.

So we jetted back to Santa Cruz and here I am now wasting time writing this blog.

On another note… I am very pumped about this album we are working on. We are thinking about calling it Enhanced Design. We’ll see.

PEACE!

-Numerous