The "We're Not Here To Help" Tour 2.0, October-November, 1998

Like I said, we had a bus. Thank God for Full Sail School of All Media.

It made all the difference in the world. This tour has been insanely well-documented over at the Keneally site, under Live Performances and Tales From Them Tours. Dig deep enough and you'll find a ton of first-person accounts called "Member Missives", including one from me that I consider to be definitive regarding the differences between WNHTH Tours 2.0 and 1.0. Still, scant attention has been paid to the tail end of the tour, which swung us through the Western U.S. These shots attempt to address that inequity.

 

The 1998 band, outside Quixote's True Blue in Aurora, CO. Left to right: Jason Harrison Smith (drums), me, Keneally, Marc Ziegenhagen (keys).

 

Surveying the landscape outside The Dead Goat Saloon in Salt Lake City, UT, I realize that loading gear in the snow pretty much sucks. Minutes after this shot, I slipped and fell on my wrist, nearly breaking it. Hours after this shot, we had to pull over to the side of I-15 because the bus could no longer gain traction on the rapidly falling snow.

 

I'm pretty sure this was taken at The Fenix in Seattle, because longtime friend-of-BFD and Seattle native Rob Samler is standing in the top right corner. If The Fenix sounds familiar, it's because they kept showing it on CNN as a pile of rubble right after the Seattle earthquake. Immediately after this gig, we left at 1:30 AM for a seventeen-hour drive to San Francisco, where we were due sixteen-and-a-half hours later. Top, left to right: Dennis Hill (tech), Thomas Nordegg (tech), Rob Samler (FOBFD). Middle: Jason Harrison Smith, Marc Ziegenhagen. Bottom: Cami Slotkin (merch), me.

 

Some of the best Chinese food I've ever had was on right here on this table. Wish I could remember the name of the place, but I know it's right around the corner from Club Cocodrie, site of the last gig the original 1998 lineup ever played. Around the table from left: Scott Chatfield (manager), Marc Ziegenhagen, Jason Harrison Smith, me, Keneally, and Cami Slotkin, making a face only she could make.