Post MWP Post

Hey yall, it’s Jake. I reckon I’m mostly recovered from the trip, but I did something to the knuckles on my right hand that’s got em swollen up! I don’t know what it was though!

I thought it would be nice to just do a rapid recap of our little MWP adventure

Tuesday before MWP: me and my gf Casey (who some of you met) decorate shrimps with a hot glue gun. Heinrich finishes preparing the ableton session for backing tracks version one. I ask him to make the eyewitness theme our walk on music. Donny buys a new guitar case and resigns himself to using a different guitar than usual (with a longer scale length). Bria, (our merch specialist from December’s tour), is in town doing merch for Men At Work, so we catch up with her and get some Rocky’s hot chicken. She comes with me to pick up Tyler when he flies into asheville late that night. We put on saltybet and I get Bria back to her spot. It’s nice having the whole band at the house.

Wednesday before MWP: we get up, try to get brunch at a place called homegrown but wind up at a coffee place called homeground instead. I have to leave early to take Ernest the 108 lb German Shepherd to doggy daycare. We meet back up, and find out there are a bunch of yellow jackets that have just made a nest in the ground under the stairs leading to the basement. I wage a terrible war against the yellow jackets. It is largely ineffective in the short term. We clean the basement, load in through the cloud of stinging death, buy a new headphone mixer for Tyler, Donny and Heinrich get it set up, then we practice the set together for the first time in a while.

It’s a little rough but not as rough as it could be 😅. My fingers pretty much remember oak (I hadn’t played that one in some time) even if I can’t tell you what section is coming next in the moment.

We make notes of what to focus on and any errors or changes we want in the ableton session (it also controls our guitar tone changes, so heinrich makes some timing adjustments there too). We practice a little more after running the whole set. Donny asks Heinrich to make Petey Pablo’s “North Carolina, (Come On and Raise Up)” our walk off music.

That night we get merch packed up, we make more shrimps, and we watch more Salty Bet.

Thursday before MWP: we practice again. It feels pretty good this time. We pack up and load out through the yellowjackets. I can’t remember where we eat lunch, but I know we didn’t eat dinner before the airport and regret it deeply when we’re buying overpriced snacks there. Heinrich smashes a full glass of beer on the ground by accident. We get on our flight without much other incident and head to Madison.

We land in Madison around midnight, get our bags surprisingly fast, get lost in the construction, and eventually Uber to Ty and Heidi’s house in 2 cars. We get there to beds and clean sheets for everyone, the patented Japanese Toilet Experience, and the legendary cat Michi. They have a whole goodie basket of soap and toothbrushes and shit if you forgot anything (WHICH I DID). Video legend Jaraad calls me and asks me where I’m at - I immediately realize it’s because he’s flown from LA to Wisconsin even though he told me he couldn’t swing it. I tearfully decline hangs that night cause we’re all tuckered but we scheme up a rough game plan for the next day and pass out.

Friday, MWP day one morning: Ty’s up first to get to the venue and get set up. We all take our sweet time getting ready while snacking on fruits. I need make a hype post for the Internet, and we come up with hiding the golden shrimp in the venue for a free shirt. Our Tyler designs cheese curd based setlists.

Ty picks us and our gear up and the rest of the band heads over to the venue at like 1 or 1:30. Me and Casey get an Uber down to the merch printer, Underground Printing, and pick up the MWP shirts. They look good! I think a brighter red and a darker tan got merged in the final print, but all in all it came out looking sick - we remain the shirt design kings (thanks to Eka Pzychopart for that one). We get another ride to the venue, finally catch up with Jaraad, and start to get merch set up. Hard decisions to make about how to best display the shrimp pens.

Friday, MWP day one afternoon: We knock out a sound check and are blown away by the audacity of the shrimp gang that shows up. Turns out it’s Aether Prawn, the all-shrimp Aether Realm cover band. I search my brain for how we let it get to this point. I decide it’s sick and I don’t care and we yell about how silly it is.

We finish, Jaraad and Casey run to get food for everyone because we have to stick around for VIP and to finish setting up merch. We’re mobbed by 10 people that are dressed like me from ProgPower (but I’m not even dressed like me from ProgPower). Of course, it’s the members of Aether Prawn with a few new faces. All are true TMHC legends. We receive a one of a kind signed shrimp pen poster display poster.

The merch table is popping all night, I catch up with a ton of old friends and make many new ones - too many to shout out here. I ask Rav from Ravenous if he wants to do Guardian live since I saw his cover, and he’s down. I ask Aliyah from Shield of Wings if she wants to do Swampwitch and she’s down. We chat with our fellow North Carolinians in Mega Colossus, we meet some of the Master Sword guys, we share a merch zone with Traveler and rock out together with inflatable guitars. I tape a golden shrimp to the bottom of the merch counter, and eventually a guy named Aaron finds it for the first time. We give him a shirt. I hide it in the rafters and a dude named Kieran finds it this time, he opts to keep the Golden Shrimp. I forget names at a fantastic rate (sorry Joseph from Empress I feel like i had to ask like 9 times, congrats on the new album). I remember people from years back. My phone screen cracks worsen and it becomes difficult to take cards at the merch table (or even have my phone on without it calling people at random). I play a few rounds of marvel vs capcom. I try to buy Kyle Finlan a drink and my card gets declined because I forgot to make a payment in the bustle before the fest - this is pretty funny I eventually get him with a different one. He gets me back at some point.

We head to the back to get ready, hang with Lily from Master Sword for a bit, and ty does his pre-finale hype. Donny wants a new pre-show ritual and heinrich says hands in the middle and we yell sports. We’ll workshop that one.

The set is great, the crowd is feeling it, and we have a line of TMHC real ones at the front all dressed like me. Every time I call for a crowd chant, I get one. (Hearing “tell em where the crew’s at” from a literal crew of beloved people all the way in Wisconsin is insane). Nick Bernard catches me every time I forget a word in my own songs. Aliyah comes up and smashes swampwitch. rav comes up for guardian and I forget. he’s coming up and look over and am genuinely surprised to see him. He smashes it too. I throw a bunch of shrimps into the audience and my aim is terrible. We do a goofy obvious encore bit after TSTMTS where the crowd ends up just chanting for donny. Donny instructs the crowd to bring us out one by one, and we hit TMHC for the encore. Kyle Finland snaps the fam photo along to the best outro music of all time (the petey pablo track)… and the rest is history.

I’ll tell y’all about my day 2 as well because it was pretty fantastic, but right now it’s late and I just wanna get this posted. Thank y’all to everyone that came out and made us feel so welcome.

TMHC x NWONMB forever.

PS leftover shirts will be up soon! Sorry I didn’t get them up before we left, I just got swamped.