Buzz Blog

Check out part one of the band’s diary here. And the "Final Stats" found on the band's Tumblr are pretty darned funny, as well. Ryan Shelton writes from his home back in Salt Lake City on October 19:

And just like that, Salt Lake's prodigal band has returned home from our inaugural tour of the Northwest. After more than 2,400 rough-ass van miles, eight shows in nine days and the consumption of countless homemade cookies (Thanks, Mom!), we feel obligated to regale you with more “tales from the road.”

In Part 1 of our City Weekly travelogue, we recounted our trek from SLC up through Redding, Calif. (and all destinations/shows in between). After the now-infamous Sue's Java House show in Redding, we hit the road for Medford, Ore. where we played Johnny B's bar on a Tuesday night. Given that we were the only musical act on the bill that night, we took the opportunity to sharpen our stage antics, which now include stage diving, microphone thrusts and all-around guitar wankery. (For photos and video footage of these rockin' exercises, please visit our official tour blog: broncotour.tumblr.com)

Medford was lovely, Johnny B's was left in ashes and we headed north for Eugene, where we befriended an official ambassador from the LSD nation at Cosmic Pizza, our venue de jour. We have video of our new friend dancing and tying himself in knots on the ground in front of the stage on our blog ... it's must see T.V.

Speaking of friends, we were fortunate enough to stay with a host of “besties” in six of the eight cities we visited. We were treated to great breakfasts and amazing company. Thanks to everyone who put us up (and put up with us) along the way!

After Eugene, Bronco rolled into Portland, where our good friend Leif treated us like royalty (see our blog for footage of his sweet dance moves). We played the Ella Street Social Club with two great local acts and enjoyed a strong turnout and some rad Moulin Rouge-esque Can-Can dancing!

Notwithstanding some morning-after roadside vomiting, Portland was a blast and was followed by our penultimate show in Seattle at the Skylark Lounge on Friday night.

Bronco's drummer, Gee, lived in Seattle for a spell, so his friends came out in full force, giving us another packed show. We were joined by two killer local acts, The Glasses and Pony Time (thanks, guys!). Unfortunately, we left some drum gear in the bar that night, which was surprisingly our only equipment casualty of the tour (save for Tyler's guitar-strap mishap in Medford).

… Of course, we didn't realize that we'd left Gee's kick drum pedal in Seattle until we were unloading the van in Boise Saturday night for our final show. The rock 'n' roll gods took pity on us that night, however, and a pedal was provided by the opening band, who ironically needed to borrow pretty much every other piece of Gee's drum kit expect the pedal we left stranded in Seattle.

Boise was super-duper fun. We had a caravan of Salt Lakers make the drive up to get their Bronco on, two of whom got engaged THAT NIGHT before the show! AND the Boise State Broncos had just crushed the Colorado State Rams earlier that day, leaving all of “Bronco Nation” out and about to check out Bronco at Woody's.(Good timing, no doubt.)

Thanks to Tommy who let us crash at his house after the Bronco show Saturday in Boise and cooked us breakfast before our long drive back to SLC on Sunday.

Given the rainy nature of our trip, we decided to name this tour “The God's Tears Tour 2011.” Pretty snappy, right?

All in all, the tour was a massive success. Fun was had and friends were made. One Van, six tramps and a million memories.

I'll end this post with a road quote that sums up the tour nicely:

“The roughest road often leads to the top.”
-Christina Aguilera