Friday May 12th, 2000

Raleigh, North Carolina

What the fuck!? We finally make it to the south and yet again it's some weird ass punk/old drunk trash show. What initially seemed cool turned to shit! It was basically a booze party for old punks (steve note: keep in mind we're 20 and 21 yr. old hardcore kids at this time). Our host, Slayer Dug, welcomed us, showed us the outdoor stage in his backyard and told us that tonight was the "first show of the season".

Cool.

We sat around his pad for a while, played some play station and then with time to spare before the show, we drove to find a place to swim. Didn't find the lake that we were directed to, so we reluctantly drove back to Slayer Dug's. At this point everybody there was getting hammered, and apparently this crowd likes to fight when they're drunk. Who doesn't? Slayer Dug had since shaved a buzzcut mohawk to ring in the season.

Our plan now was to go get food and not come back. However, in getting directions to a shawarma place one of the cooler guys there gave me $10 to bring him back a falafel. Shit, plan backfired. At the shawarma place we spent a good hour devizing a plan to bail on the show and also deciding the fate of the tour, since the next 4 days -before Cincinnati- were sketchy at best. We considered spending a few days in Florida, but ultimately decided that we would swallow our pride, cut our losses and drive home. We'd start fresh again after a solid 3 days in Ottawa chilling out. Afterall, in 8 days we played 3 shows, and only one of the those was good (show with Unearth in Lawrence, Mass.).

So, we had to go back to the show, mainly to give that dude his falafel. I came up with the bailout story, and there I was telling Slayer Dug that one of our band members "has a very sick Dad and has been calling home everyday to check out the situation with his Mom". As the story went, Matias -who willingly volunteered to be the guy- had just called home and "things were not looking good, his Dad had to go into the hospital again. Due to this our tour is over and we are going home". Slayer Dug was very sympathetic, and said goodbye to us all and wished Matias good luck. We're going to hell, but whatever.

Outside the shawarma strip mall after deciding to bail and drive 17 hours home.