Chapter Five: High Mountain Desert

Posted by Jamie

Closure isn't the word, but it's the first that comes to mind.

Well, in one way or another, we made it. I'm currently sitting in Players Bar and Grill in Bend, Oregon, on what was supposed to be our 28th show, but is in fact only our 10th. We always promised that we would give Bend ONE more try, and then we'd give up completely. Let me give you a little LTS history with Bend.

So, two years ago, we are supposed to play at The Domino Room in Bend. Because of one thing or another, the show was promoted, but never booked, and thus, no show. The band we're supposed to play with improvise a solution, and we play in their backyard to their parents bbq. They play, and it's great, then we set up and play one song...and SURPRISE, Johnny Law shows up and shuts us down. We are allowed to try and play an acoustic show instead, which goes surprisingly well, and eventually that gets shut down by the cops again. We end up selling a SHIT TON of merch, and basically walk away even.

Winter of '05 we go to do a weekend show, drive up after work, play, and head home. Well, we leave really late, then Dave's car runs out of gas coming over the pass, and we basically show up to see the venue flipping the chairs and shutting off the lights. Yay.

So, we give it one last "hurrah", and Bend pays off. We play with The Dirty Words, who are awesome (coming from Me, that's saying A LOT) and everyone there is pretty enthusiastic. To top that off, we play our first show as a four-piece, with me playing the four string. Any short comings we may have had because of our new configuration, Rayn MORE than compensated for by performing one of the best shows of her career. Bee-otch got DOWN.

So you win Bend. You win.

It's weird how every ending has the potential to either be a true ending or just another beginning, and how the four remaining Leaving the Scene members always pull through. I can't believe how lucky I am to keep trekking on with these three other people, and I've never felt closer to them. I know that this journey of my life has already been lucky enough to last longer than most people get in their entire lifetime, and I'm not taking that for granted ever. We've dealt with members quitting, members being asked to officially leave, show after show of playing to bartenders and doormen, bad booking agents, people trying to take advantages of us, the constant financial and emotional burden of pushing this as far as it will go and beyond, and never for more than a moment considering giving it up. But when things get down, we remember that there are people out there who are buying our cds and t-shirts, people who are listening to our music online, and read these ridiculously self-indulgent journal entries, and send us endless amounts of love. If it weren't for you people, we would not be doing this. So thank you.

Tour '07 is over. Good riddance. All we can do is look back and take the good and embrace it and take the bad and learn from it. For example, don't take a school bus on a 4000 mile journey until you KNOW how well it's going to do on the road. For another example, realize that anyone can buy a website and have a professional looking image and a professional looking email address. That does NOT make them a professional in the music industry, and do not give them your money. Lessons learned. And we met some incredible people, made some new fans and new friends, and had some fun too. Thank you for reading. We'll keep in touch, we're gonna try and hit the ground, if not running, at least briskly walking.

Love you all

Leaving the Scene