Day 12: Shakopee, MN

Shakopee was the first of two dates we were added to. Chicago was originally supposed to be our last date but our hard work landed us a couple more shows on the tour.

The night before this date we had to bring out tour manager and driver to the airport because they had only taken time off for the original warped dates. The 8 hour drive that followed was split up by myself and Briggs (the new default drivers). I give Anthony a ton of credit for driving us. After working a full day in the sun it is exhausting to sit and drive through the night.

The show in Shakopee was a blast. Derek, the lead singer of Mayday Parade, and Kyle, the lead singer of Breathe Carolina, watched our set from on the stage. Fans were happy and excited to see us on the date because we were originally never supposed to play there.

One of the highlights of the day was the forklift driver that picked myself and the gear cart up and brought it up a massive hill to our trailer. Scary and amazing.

-Dunnigan TTV

Help us book shows in September?! + Warped Tour Update!

As you may or may not have heard (start following us on Facebook already!), Tip The Van was invited to stay along with the Warped Tour! We won't be regularly scheduled to play the Kevin Says Stage, but we will be performing acoustic sets and doing CD/tee shirt giveaways for the rest of Warped!

These are the following dates we will be at:

Sat 08/07/10 Utah State Fairgrounds - Salt Lake City, UT
Sun 08/08/10 Invesco Field - Denver, CO
Tue 08/10/10 Cricket Amphitheatre - San Diego, CA
Wed 08/11/10 Pomona Fairplex - Pomona, CA
Thu 08/12/10 Sleep Train Amphitheatre - Marysville, CA
Fri 08/13/10 Idaho Center Amphitheatre - Nampa, ID
Sat 08/14/10 Gorge Amphitheater - George, WA
Sun 08/15/10 Washington County Fairgrounds - Hillsboro, OR

After we're done in Oregon, we're heading to Los Angeles to shoot a music video with Dan Dobi for our new single "Refuse The Tide". After that, we are going to be heading back to the east coast and could really use some help finding shows!

Can you help us with the following?

8/26 - 8/29 - Southern California
9/02 - 9/05 - Arizona/New Mexico
9/07 - We have a show in Austin, TX @ Headhunters Tiki Lounge
9/09 - 9/12 - Louisiana/Tennessee
9/16 - North Carolina
9/17 - We have a show in Virginia Beach @ Geared Up Rock Bar & Grill
9/18 - 9/19 - D.C./Jersey/PA

Please send an email to contact@tipthevan.com to help us out if you can.

See you on the road!

xoxo
Tip The Van

Errors Galore

I just checked and it seems that none of the past few blog entries posted from my phone. While I try to sort out the issues, check out www.facebook.com/tipthevan for updates.

Dunnigan TTV

Day 11: Chicago, IL

Dear Chicago,
We love you. Hands down the best date of the tour so far. There were a ton of people who knew who we were when we were handing out stickers in the morning. We had a pretty large crowd when we played our acoustic set at the Altec Live tent and a massive crowd when we played our regular set. I couldn't believe how many people showed up. Definitely a highlight of tour so far.

Another highlight of tour has to do with picture attached. We were invited by the John Lennon tour bus, a mobile video and audio recording studio, to do a cover a John Lennon song. We learned, "Just Like Starting Over" in about an hour in our van and then headed over to the Lennon bus. The bus is seriously magical. It's a fully equipped studio with all sorts of fun additions like glass that turns opaque with the touch of a button and a magical green screen for shooting video. You can check out the video and song in the upcoming weeks. Thanks to Johnny from RBF for laying down trumpet.

-Dunnigan TTV

Day 10 (the real one): Detroit, Mi

We never really know what kind of venue we will arrive at in the morning. Sometimes it's a field, an amphitheater or a park. Warped Tour Detroit was set up at Comerica Park, home of the Detroit Tigers. This was the first day merch tents were indoors and being out of the direct sunlight was glorious. Do you know what else is glorious? Free Starbucks backstage!

I believe a lot of great music on tour comes out of collaboration. On the Detroit date Simone, Briggs and myself (Dunnigan) played a song with a solo act called Gardening, Not Architecture. It was a lot of fun and we'd like to thank Sarah for letting us take part.

Now to address the picture. Warped Tour rented out a bar for us after the show and threw a moustachio bashio djed by Sum 4¹and Andrew WK. I didn't have enough time to grow/perfect my moustache so I fashioned one out of out stickers. Did I mention open bar? Yea, that was a fun night.