From Jack Spence:

02.11 Soma, San Diego, CA
We’d been looking forward to the California leg of the tour for some time; Patrick is from there and has been promising us a life-changing experience of beautiful women and beautiful burritos (I was particularly excited about the latter).

Our excitement lead us to the venue a few hours early, followed by a similarly eager Twin Atlantic a few minutes later, so we killed some time the only way we know how; we went to The Salvation Army Store! I know I said I was broke before, but you know it’s a sorry state of affairs when your eye catches a two dollar set of second-hand bongos, and you realise you can’t afford them. The Twin Atlantic guys had been saving all tour in anticipation of the Salvation Army store, and had dollars in abundance; their successful purchases included shirts, a rug, and two pairs of rollerblades.

I traipsed back to the venue feeling particularly bongo-less. I soon cheered up though, as I realised that a) they sell bongos in the UK and b) I can’t play the bongos anyway. The venue was what I like to call a ‘mini-Brixton’, in that the floor slopes gradually down towards the stage – like at Brixton Academy in London -, gifting everyone with a view of the stage. It also gives us a phenomenal view of everybody from the stage. The show, as predicted, was brilliant; the crowd was just a wave of people jumping maniacally around. Hopefully you weren’t jumping sarcastically, and had as much fun as we did.

02.12 Chain Reaction, Anaheim, CA
There’s something about non-alcoholic venues/festivals that make you want to drink so bad. For the tour so far it had been neither here nor there how much alcohol was around, if we turned up at a venue and there were no beers at all, we wouldn’t ring any alarm bells or break the glass on the emergency beers, we’d just got on with it. But today, as I cowered before the army of ‘NO ALCOHOL’ posters plaguing the venue, I felt determined. Oh, I will drink, I threatened to the posters, giving them an all-knowing stare.

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From Jack Spence:

02.04 - The Social, Orlando, FL
One of the great perks of being a touring band is getting to see the cities and countries with such dramatically different ways of life to what we are accustomed to. As such, it was with great interest we arrived in Orlando, the only city in the world where people believe in the existence of vampires.

For decades vampiraphobes have fled to Florida in pursuit of the kryptonite qualities the overbearing sun has throughout the year, crippling the would be night-stalkers. The first law of this refuge city seemed quite apparent; all activities must cease before dusk. Our call sheet actually read like this:

Load in – Dawn
Doors – 1pm
Curfew – Before Dusk

I may have mentioned this tour’s early curfews before, but this show actually finished at 5pm. Five pee em. I could’ve watched the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy (no, not the extended edition, obviously) after the show and still gone to bed at a semi-decent hour if I’d wanted to. And yes, I did want to, but I did not pack my Lord of the Rings DVD’s, as I did not think I’d have time for them. How wrong I was. Damn, I need a Viggo Mortensen fix.

I digress, but y’kno what Orlando, there may be some method in your madness. I don’t know if it’s that you want to live each day as if it’s your last as you think it actually might be, or perhaps you’re super perky due to the fifteen hours of sleep a night you get, but you guys went nuts for the show – particularly as we went on stage at 2.30pm, which is when we nearly wake up. It was one of, if not the, best gigs of the tour so far. But much as I appreciated your enthusiasm, I could not help but mock your ignorance, your damn right blindness, you were so busy with your fear of the unknown, you didn’t see what was right in front of you. Pale skin? Dodgy teeth? We are quite clearly daywalkers. Every t-shirt you bought has funded vampire-terrorism. Fools.

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From Jack Spence:

02.01 - The Barbary, Philadelphia, PA
While in Philadelphia, we met the craftiest man that has possibly ever existed. To try and fathom this man’s craftiness is like trying to understand that there is no apple in McDonald’s apple pies.

Let me set the scene. A group of seven plucky, law-abiding young adults arrive in central Philadelphia to peruse some shops, and hopefully pick up some Dr Martens shoes. As fortune would have it there lay an empty, van-sized space directly outside the Dr Martens shop! We approached it tentatively, thinking such a great spot in an otherwise teeming street was highly suspicious.

Luck struck again; a ticket inspector was loitering close by, we could simply ask him if we were all clear to take the space. Little did we know that under that seemingly honest smile laid a despicable monster, ready to pounce. “Yes, you can park there,” he promised pleasantly, “you won’t get a ticket.” Thinking this was our lucky day; we bundled out of the van and off for twenty minutes of lollygagging. We returned to the van in high spirits, until we saw the unthinkable, the damn right preposterous; HE HAD GIVEN US A TICKET! Based on the time, it must’ve been a mere minute after we’d vacated the van. He must’ve written us up and scampered instantly. But mark my words, you devious ticket-giving scoundrel, you will rue this day.

In other news, the show was good, we had a Philly cheese steak and that was good too. To be honest I think they were both tarnished by the rage and contempt we all had.

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From Jack Spence:

01.27 The Annex Wreck Room, Toronto, ON
It took two hours for the Border Patrol to cave into our angelic British faces, and they granted us entry into Canada. They however turned to our American driver Patrick (The Habadasher) and, due his lack of British charm, refused him entry.
 
Apparently he had a previous indescretion involving urinating on a wall eight years ago, and such devious criminal minds are not allowed into Canada. It was an odd moment, dropping him off at a hotel in America, where he’d probably spend the day hatching more terrible crimes, like telling telemarketers he’s busy when he isn’t, or not seeing his grandmother on her birthday. What a dastardly man.
 
We continued into Canada with Tour Mum Bryony at the wheel, and soon arrived in a surprisingly snow-free Toronto. The show had been upgraded from Sneaky Dee’s to the Annex Room, so we all had high hopes of a Canadian triumph. Unfortunately, we did not take into account the venue’s strict door policy of searching every nook and cranny on every person that entered.
 
In fact they nust’ve been doing thorough background checks too, and be taking patrons into windowless rooms to shine a lamp in their eyes and interrogate them;  as by the time we went on stage there were approximately six people in the room, and by the time we finished our set, approximately seven. I’m exaggerating, but seriously Annex Room, sort it out yeah?
 
After the show, we donned our tourist hats, our I LOVE TORONTO t-shirts, grabbed some flimsy disposable cameras, and set off in search of Niagara Falls. Now, I don’t know if it was our lack of sense of direction, but we found it almost impossible to find the giant waterfall. It was like looking for a dwarf among an army of midgets, and it took us hours of scouring before we heard what sounded like a giant bath being run - it transpired we’d been literally circling around it for the past hour, but there was a pesky shroud of mist hiding it completely from our untrained English eyes. The mocking cloud continued to block the waterfall from sight, so we fled, vowing revenge in the morning.

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We Are The Ocean are out on tour with You Me At Six, The Swellers, and Twin Atlantic. We thought it’d be great to have the band do a Road Blog for PropertyOfZack as they come overseas from Europe to conquer the US. Check out the first update and come back for more!

From Jack Spence:

01.23 - Our American adventure begins with a grizzly 5am wake up call, followed by four groggy hours of travelling and airport queueing; brewing excitement and that Gotye song we can’t get out of our heads kept us going until we reached our seats on the plane, where we collapsed happily and entered some Inception-style slumber. I was awoken what must’ve been minutes later by a barrage of applause, as our pilot and fellow passengers wished our guitarist Alfie a happy birthday. He celebrated with a free bottle of Buxton water, the animal.

Our eight hour flight came and went, an ominous three hour delay at Charlotte Douglas airport came and went, and soon enough we’d arrived in Cleveland, Ohio. All the while, that pesky Gotye song was still on a loop in my head. Seriously, go and listen to it, ‘Somebody That You Used To Know’, and try and kick it from your thoughts afterwards. I challenge you. Anywho, after twelve hours of waiting, any destination is going to seem like paradise, so we welcomed Cleveland with open arms. We decided in our jet-lagged states that we only had enough physical capacity for one stop before we nestled into bed to dream about kick drums and delay pedals and whatever else musicians dream about; this port of call, being the unabashed tourists that we are, was Walmart. A shop that sells TV’s, live fishing bait, and forty different brands of peanut butter? Truly, this is the promised land.  

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