California Part 2 - The Sound & The Fury

After we hit up 6 Flags we spent another night in Anaheim and then headed out to Hollywood. We got there fairly early, checked into our hotel and went and rented a car. We drove around Hollywood for a bit and through Beverly Hills which was pretty crazy. It wasn't like I imagined it but some areas were super nice. We hit up In-n-Out Burger and headed to Venice Beach. We got to the beach area and parked our car to walk along the shore, we spent about an hour walking in the wrong direction and had to turn back to find the well known area of Venice Beach (the level from Tony Hawk). We made it there and looked at a bunch of the shops which all had pretty much the exact same shit. There was also a bunch of graffiti on the walls there that we checked out, some of it was pretty wild. We headed back to Hollywood and once we were there Lennea and Connor got in a bit of a tustle so Lennea and I walked down Hollywood Blvd together while Connor grumped it up in the hotel room (we later found he actually pulled a solo mission and walked around Hollywood). Me and Lennea saw some weird ass people walking around, there were bands playing in the street, break dancers, people dressed up in all sorts of costumes like Jack Sparrow, Spiderman, Jimi Hendrix, KISS, etc. and there were also hella bums cruisin around, one of them was super sketch wearing nothing but socks and pulled a sidewalk lay down cigarette smoke. It was pretty much just a big party with bums hangin. On the way home we got some sleazy pizza and almost saw two dykes fight in the middle of the street. Tight.
The next morning we returned the car and cruised Hollywood a bit more. In the evening we had to make it back to LA and catch the Amtrak to Santa Barbara. The ride was pretty cool cause we went past the LA river and got to see all the crazy graff. There was tooons of it, just non-stop and most of the stuff was amazing.
We got into Santa Barbara pretty late and made it to our hotel room where they scammed us out of another 100 bucks, but it was the only place we had to stay so we had to suck it up and pay. Californians are sleazy. We hit the hay and at about 5:30am we got a knock at the door, it was Lindsey, Grant and Cole from Kelowna/Calgary who were going to stay with us for the weekend. They set up their sleeping bags and we talked for a bit before goin to bed for a couple more hours. We checked out Santa B a bit in the morning and went to a mall that was way out of any of our price range and ate pop-tarts (We left Grant sleeping in the hotel room while we did this). After getting breakfast we headed back to get Grant and found him still sleeping. We dragged his large red-headed ass out of bed and went to the venue.
Day 1 of Sound and Fury was super fun, I probably enjoyed it the most out of all the days. I was super excited instantly because me and Connor found/reunited with Clarke (you readers may remember him from our Rainfest adventure as our crazy red-headed American friend), we talked to him for a bit and watched a few bands. I can't remember the exact order of the bands so I am just going to do a highlight list of the bands I was diggin.

Highlights of Day 1:
- Seeing Swamp Thing, they put on a wild live show with tons of energy. Their guitarists were givin'r hard. I was bummed though because I bought some Kayne West sunnies at Venice Beach and they were in my pocket and got moshed into a few different pieces, but whatever it was worth it.
- Sabertooth Zombie played a super fun set, such a unique band that does whatever they want. A kid got really hurt during their set though which sucks and they had to end their set early. Hope that dude is ok.
- Trash Talk was crazy, I feared for my life the entire time, especially when their roadie got the mic and just started ruining people. I remember him from Rainfest though and knew to steer clear. I also got KO'd during their last song. Apparently some kid stage dived feet first and I got it right to the dome and the next thing I knew a bunch of peoople were around me picking me up off the ground.
- Have Heart was awesome as always. I love this band. Kids were going nuts and didn't stop stage diving the entire time.

After the show was done for the day we headed to In-n-Out with Clarke and his buddies. There were tons of people from the show there and we ran into one of the dudes we met on the Amtrak(I didn't mention this earlier but his name was Phil and was from Toronto, he also had a sweet moustache). Once we finished our meal we just headed back to the Hotel, hung out for a bit and then fell asleep.
On Day 2 we all got up and went downtown Santa Barbara in the morning. Grant and Cole were fighting non-stop which was hilarious for the entire trip. Cole got mad at me and Connor because we called Grant a "day-walker" (a red-head that isn't super pale and can go out with being a noticeable ginger), but we said Cole was to red-headed and pale to be a day-walker. He then freaked and called himself "the night rider". Grant then told Cole that he acted like no one had ever been nice to him in his life and that he had a black soul. During our downtown excursion we saw the sweetest thing on the whole trip. A bum walking around with a dog and standing on top of the dog riding it was a cat and on top of the cat was a rat. They were all walking around riding each other like a pyramid. So fucking rad. We also hit up Fatburger and Grant pussed out of doing the King challenge. Day 2 of S&F was the weakest in my opinion but there was still some good stuff.

Highlights of Day 2:
- Trapped Under Ice was rad I hadn't really gotten into them much before but they really impressed me with their set. So heavy and tons of gnar mosh. Including a naked dude moshing the whole time.
- Colin Of Arabia played a good set, not as many people were into it as I would have thought but they were still good.
- Paint It Black had a really fun set. It was cool cause they came on right after Death Before Dishonor and played like the complete opposite style of hardcore and totally burned the DBD singer for using the word "Faggot".
- Guns Up! was by far the wildest set of the whole weekend. Kids were going off! Lindsey got caught in a mosh and got a wicked shiner + bloody nose + bloody mouth.

After the show we were goin to go party but everyone was hella tired so we just went back to the hotel and hit up 711. Everyone was trying to sleep while me and Grant kept them up talking about baseball all night. Grant is ill.
Day 3 we went back downtown to hang/do some shopping and we ran into cat-rat-dog again which was awesome because I could never get tired of seeing that. At one point the cat got off of the dog and the rat hucked the gap from the cats back to the dogs back. It was super epic. Day 3 of S&F had a crazy amount of good bands but I was so tired that day that I don't think I enjoyed it to it's full potential.

Highlights of Day 3:
- Lewd Acts brought the slime and kids were getting grimey. Their singer was also going nuts and jumping waaaay into the crowd and bashing his head with both the mic and the stage.
- New Lows, I am so hyped on this band. So heavy and kids were moshing hard. Clarke was givin it his all during their set. I love Clarke.
- Shipwreck was really cool. I was never super into this band before but I listened to them a bunch before the show and actually listened to their lyrics and they are amazing, the dude can write. Their live show was also alot of fun.
- Sinking Ships played an amazing last set. Lots of jokes and funnyness, kids were also going pretty wild and piling up on the stage to sing along for the last time.
- Ceremony, I had super high hopes for their set and was actually a bit dissappointed. Don't get me wrong it was still gnarly as fuck and Ceremony is just good so you can't go wrong but everyone was hyping their set saying it would be the gnarest of the weekend and it definitely wasn't, although they do get the craziest circle pit award.

After that was over we went back to our hotel room and had pizza with Clarke and his buds. We then went to bed and got up hella early to catch out Amtrak back to LA where we had to catch our plane back to Seattle. That part of the trip went smooth but once we got to Seattle we found that the 7pm greyhound was sold out and we would have to wait till 11. Luckily I asked at 7 if we could get on and the driver said yes so we didn't have to wait an extra 4 hours. The ride home was good except for the border, the guy we got was a dick and was trying to be sneaky and trick us into admitting something but it ended up just being really awkward and taking a long time but we made it through easy enough.

We made it back home to Vernon the next day and I was actually kinda bummed to be back. I had so much fun in Cali with Con and Lennea and I wished the trip was alot longer. Hanging with Lindsey, Grant and Cole was also alot of fun, those dudes are hilarious and I now consider them all super good buds. Seeing Clarke again was also rad, I can't stress enough how amazing this man is. If any single girls are reading this I would highly recommend getting your freak on with Clarke Holland.

Anyways, thanks for reading this I know it was alot. Hopefully you enjoyed it! Until next time, BYE!

- Dan