Photo by Rock N Roll Socialite/Shane Gardner
Brooklyn “sludge/gaze” band Spotlights are in the middle of two weeks on the road supporting Deftones and Refused. It’s a dream come true for the two principle members, married couple Mario and Sarah Quintero. The band is writing a tour diary for us chronicling their two weeks on the road. In this third installment, they hit the Northeast and detail a terrifying hotel stop. You can read the first two installments here and here.
August 9th, 2016 (Day 7)
Finally caught up on sleep last night…
I’ll take us back to the Baltimore show on 8/3. The Pier Six Pavilion is now one of our favorite places, not only to play but just in general. Also the crowd, the sound and the gorgeous view of the harbor at sunset all made for a truly surreal experience. Sharing a dressing room with Refused took it to a whole other level.
Many drinks were had and we ended up in a great hotel room for the night where I got a solid 3 hours before heading back to Brooklyn for a day off before our Coney Island show. After playing 2 of the best shows of our lives, coming home was hard to wrap our heads around. It felt like a dream. Luckily the next morning after doing a load of laundry, spending some quality time with Dana (Sarah’s lovely sister and animal care giver) and giving our little herd of cats and dogs some hugs and kisses, we headed down to Coney Island for show #3.
The hometown show was kind of a roller coaster of trying to see friends, while keeping our heads in the game. The venue seems like it’s on it’s way to being fantastic, but you can tell things are still just getting figured out. Luckily, the incredible [Deftones] crew took great care, as always, in making sure things ran smoothly and sounded great. Worst part of the night was having to drive back home and look for parking in our neighborhood for about 1 1/12. Got a sweet 4 hours of sleep and kept on keepin’ on.
And then there was Philly…
By far our favorite show of the tour at this point. Not only is Philly a great town but the people and the venue were outstanding. Biggest and most responsive crowd we’ve had yet. Everyone’s set that night was just on fire. Playing outdoors, looking at the Ben Franklin bridge, right around sundown. Not even the 90 degree heat and sticky, humid air could bring down the vibe of the night. We were greeted by Chino in our dressing room with a bottle of bubbly at the end of the night, which was, again, a pretty surreal experience. I can’t stress enough how welcoming and kind everyone on this tour has been to us.
Looking for a last minute deal on a hotel in Philly was not an easy feat. We finally found a room on Priceline for $95, not too far out of the city and went for it.
This is the story of room 402 at the Motor Inn in Philadelphia.
Driving by we noticed a semi lit up sign that looked something like M T R I N . We were like “hmm.. Is that the hotel?” and sure nuff.. It was. Rolled into the shady looking parking garage, guarded by 2 pistol packin’ security guards. I couldn’t really tell if that made me feel safer or not about leaving our van full of gear in a dark garage. We were greeted by the attendant behind bulletproof glass and sent to a room that didn’t have a key to it. We had to be let in by a guy that I guess was the Super of the place, with the master key. At this point we were all so fried and tired that we were just going with the flow. We get up to the room and the “Super” knocks before opening the door We were like ‘Why are you knocking,’ and he’s like “You never know! One time I found a guy in a room barely breathing. Not my problem if he’s dead! Haha.” To sum it up, we all slept fully clothed like vampires to avoid touching as much as we could. We’re pretty easy going but having to flick rat shit off my pillowcase was the last straw. Hey, now we know, and it makes for a great story!
Moving on to The Mohgan Sun Arena in CT. This is like a full on arena with 3 levels. The pic below hardly does justice to the size. It’s definitely weird to play big shows like that when there is no general admission/floor area. But, once our set got going we warmed up and had a great time. Watching how Deftones handled that was a true lesson in being pro as fuck and just overall badass. They just went all out and had a blast.
Drove back to Brooklyn today to get one last practice in with Chris before he joins up for the show in New Jersey at The Stone Pony show.
Boston tonight!! Can’t wait!
[Photo credit: Rock N Roll Socialite]
