7/29 - MIIIIIIISSSSSIIISSSSSSIIIIIIPPPIIIIIIIIII

We spent the night with Kevin and Ray down in Gainesville, and enjoyed a sound night of sleep in their awesome living room. Their couches were so fucking comfortable that we probably could've slept past noon on those bad boys! Unfortunately we had a long drive ahead of us. We were going all the way from Gainesville to Hattiesburg, Mississippi! Karl, our American badass, woke up ripe and early at 7AM to rouse us and get us moving westward. Kudos to him because we ended up beating some traffic and getting most of the way out of Florida before noon.

About 60 miles before we passed through Pensacola, we needed to take a rest stop to get some gas and stretch the legs out. We began to pull over to a rest stop, but quickly swung to the right because there was a "State Park" sign. Being the nature lovers we are, we instantly knew what to do, go to the Florida natural springs!!!

Breaking out the burritos

When we pulled into the state park and rummaged through all of our pockets and hidden car compartments for $4, we pulled into this amazing park called Ponce De Leon Springs State Park. It turned out to be more than worth the 4 dollars. The first order of business was to whip out burrito supplies and bring home the goodies. After we got our daily fix, we ran back to car to get our swimming trunks on. Anyone from our homeland Connecticut really has no idea what north Florida's natural springs are like until it's seen in real life. Crystal clear freshwater, surrounded by woods, trees rooted in the middle of the water, minnows swimming around, with a fine sandy bottom. Best of all; the water was cold as shit. Super refreshing!

Tour food delights

A crystal clear "fuck you"

Wow it's cold!

We took our sweet time swimming, and ended up taking something of a hike down the stream deep into some tropical woods. Seriously a cool experience for us. We saw some frightening wildlife, but managed to make it out intact without shrieking too, too much. (Just kidding, we play black metal so we're not afraid of shit!)

FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK

After our leisurely escapade at the state park, we hopped back in the tourmobile and trucked it the rest of the way to Mississippi. Once we hit some civilization (the roads in the backcountry are very isolated), we stopped to grab some cheap soft serve ice cream because it was so damn hot down in Alabama/Mississippi.

Ice cream and blogging. Hell yeah!

We made it to the venue in Hattiesburg, MS a little bit early, so nobody was there. We were at first a bit apprehensive that nothing was going on that night because The Tavern wasn't even open. We split up into groups and examined the local supermarket and general surroundings, but didn't last long away from the car because of the absolutely sweltering heat. Before too long, another band showed up and we were underway for the night.

Autolatry chilling at the venue and me being an idiot

The weird shit that you find in Mississippi grocery stores

The band Burn Down The Scenery opened up the night with their agressive core-style metal. Then we took the stage, and fortunately, a crowd gathered for us! Hard to expect a good crowd at a metal show on a Sunday night in Mississippi, but believe it or not, it turned out awesome. We rocked it hard and people received us well. Closing out the night was Through The Awake, another metalcore band who was musically tight. It was quite evident that they had a good deal of local support and worked the crowd with their absolutely hilarious Spongebob Squarepants theme song cover.

Show flyer for the night: Autolatry with Through the Awake

After the show, we met up with Rob and Eli from Third World Abortion, a death metal band from the Hattiesburg area. They were kind enough to lend us some space on their floors and couches for the night. We ended up staying up with them and shooting the shit all night. Those guys are really awesome and we had a great time last night!

Seamus, that sneaky leprechaun.

We ended up crashing very late at night, but knew that we had to get up relatively early because the next day, we'd be playing NOLA!! Our plan from the beginning of this tour was to spend our whole day in New Orleans, soaking up some badass culture. The writeup for New Orleans will be live tomorrow! Stay tuned, my loyal friends!