Atlanta, GA

Atlantaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. The drive from Nashville wasn't too bad, around 4 hours. The venue we played was called the Masquerade. It had a heaven and hell theme with two stages cleverly named, heaven and hell. The RBF, SM, TTV tour was upstairs in heaven (the larger room). Downstairs, in hell, was Funeral for a Friend (another pretty large band). There was also a mid level bar, aptly named Purgatory.

Some venues provide buffets for the bands and others give you a buyout (money to go buy your own food). The masquerade had a mexican buffet and it was muy delicioso (thank you high school spanish!). After we ate like gluttons, the doors opened and people rushed in as if a flood barrier had broken. I knew right from the when people started flowing in that this was going to be a good show.

From the first chord, people started going wild. I have never experienced such a rowdy and amazing crowd. They were dancing, moshing, crowd surfing and even singing! There is no better feeling than having a crowd go crazy for your music. The more they react in the audience, the more we react on stage and we feed off of each other.

This show, for me, is the most memorable because of the crowd and one special move I did. During our song, April Showers, I have a fairly long and rocking solo (not to pat myself on the back or anything). Almost every venue has a barricade separating the crowd from the band and inbetween there are security guards. The barricade at the Masquerade had a pretty wide lip on it, so when it came time for my solo, I jumped from the stage to the top of the barrier and started to wail on the guitar. I still get chills talking about it, but hands flew up all around me and people were cheering as if I was Hendrix himself. Flashes from cameras went off all around and I could not help but smile because this is everything I imagined being in a band could be.

We finished our set to thunderous applause and set our course for Viriginia, knowing that Atlanta was going to be tough to beat!

-Dunnigan TTV