7/16 - Johnson City, TN - Monday night pizza, black metal 'n Dooooom!

Despite being a slow Monday night, Johnson City showed us a real good time and we had an absolute blast playing and hanging with some new friends! Coming from Harrisonburg, VA, JCTN is a straight shot for about five hours on I-81 going west, and having never driven this road before we were all impressed with the natural beauty of the region. We ended up stopping at a dollar tree for supplies and eating lunch on a bench in Roanoke, Virginia.

"I got a self a self-timer on this yolo" - Joe

Sleepy Dave (the 3rd row is hella comfortable)

Sleepy Matt (I've been told the front seat is not hella comfortable)

We reached Johson City plenty early at around 7pm and had plenty of time to bum around the downtown area and check things out.  Apparently Monday nights are pretty dead in JC, as there were almost zero people walking around outside, and only a couple clubs on the main music strip were open.  Johnson City is a college town, so we were told it really clears out in the summer.  Either way, we planned on having a bangin' good time that night!

Stage Setup

We may not have performed in front of a packed house, but those who were in attendance at The Hideaway received one of our best and tightest performances yet!  The sound was impeccable, and the show's promoter/venue owner/sound man Tarvo is entirely to thank!  Take a look at some awesome drum cam footage here from a brand new song we have been playing most nights so far!  

As always, we got to play with some awesome acts last night.  Taking the stage after Autolatry was a band called Deerwolfe.  This is a brand new project that is essentially the fun, jam-band-esque side project of a bunch of dudes that are each in a bunch of serious bands.  I would link you guys but they don't even have a facebook page or other website set up!  Closing out the night were Forks of Ivory (http://www.facebook.com/Forksofivymusic) who play an extremely badass variety of noisy doom.  These guys are actually just a guitar/drums 2-piece, but sound like they have more members than that.  We all dug the shit out of these dudes' set, so get check them out and 'like' their page as well.  

Coincidentally, one of our good hometown CT friends, Adam, was passing through Johnson City tonight and we had the pleasure of meeting up with him before our gig!  As any touring band knows, finding cheap eats is what it's all about, and we were absolutely blessed by Adam and his mother's generosity yesterday.  After they took off out of town, they gave us a call explaining that they paid for two large pizzas for us at an amazing pizza place just down the street.  In just six days on the road, the kindness and generosity we have been shown by our friends - old and new - is simply beyond words.  So we'd like to offer the greatest THANK YOU of all to Adam and Catherine Thompson for feeding us last night when we really needed it!

This was legitimately the greatest pizza we had every tasted.  Ever.  

We have to offer another colossal THANK YOU to Susan, who writes for Metalstorm.net!  Metalstorm wrote a flattering review of Of The Land months ago, and it was wonderful to meet Susan in person, shoot the shit, talk about metal and enjoy the rest of the bands!  Thanks so much for being awesome!!!  And now one last thank you goes out to Tarvo, Dugger, the guys in Deerwolfe and Forks of Ivory, Chris from Manic Scum and all the rest of the awesome people we got to hang with last night!  We can't wait to see Johnson City again, thanks for making our brief stay so damn cool.

I'm currently writing this from a Starbucks in Raleigh, NC, where we play a house show at the Axemanor!  So fucking pumped for tonight - it's sure to be an interesting write-up tomorrow!