Kevin Bronson on March 15th, 2011

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[Tour diary of Eastern Conference Champions’ SXSW sojourn. ]

Day 2, Monday, 11:51 p.m.
I-10 East, outside Blythe, CA, | 52 Degrees/Clear

Something happens as soon as I get behind the wheel to drive – I immediately want to go to sleep.  When someone else is driving, I can’t sleep ’cause I feel guilty. Sleep in the van isn’t real sleep, it’s a hybrid sleep composed of constantly about to fall asleep and quick jagged moments of lunging forward whenever the driver steps on the brakes. We have had a couple close calls (as I knock on the wood paneling that engulfs our conversion van), once where the tire about broke off doing 80, resulting in a week-long stay in Baker, Calif., and another where the brakes overheated headed west from Denver through a mountain pass. The results of these experiences have left me crippled with fear.

Greg can drive like a champ. He can go forever. I’ve seen the dude do 10 hours straight.  Sometimes I feel it’s just to spite me. I know when he is about done, though, ’cause he starts to do this stretch to the left, pushing off the right arm rest and rustles his beautiful locks.

Melissa, bless her, brought some soy-based snacks with clever packaging.
They look nice enough.

We are driving through the night in hopes of pulling into Fort Stockton tomorrow round 5 p.m.  The one drawback of a 3 piece is driving shifts. Arcade Fire must do 12 mile shifts in their gold plated van.  We used to have a TV in the van but it got stolen in the “Great Van Robbery” of 2007. Fuckers couldn’t even leave us the $8 TV.

While we are tired, we are in good spirits. Gas prices are kind of killing us right now, hopefully will move some merch to cover it.

Respectfully,
Joshua

[See Part 1.]