What's happening out here...

It's 6:40 am and Glenn & I have been driving since 1:30 am from Albuquerque, NM on our way to Denver, CO. We did a similar grueling drive the night before from Phoenix, AZ to Albuquerque… drove till 7am when Mark & Kevmo took over. We're pretty damn wiped so… they'll be taking over for us in an hour or so, lol. We have all gotten used to only getting about four hours of sleep a day. Next tour we'll have a driver so we can actually get some sleep!

Tonight we played to 2500 people in New Mexico. The show was fantastic and we met an overwhelming amount of fans afterward! What a great city… so many personable, genuine people… you know, come to think of it, it's been like that everywhere on the tour so far! Maybe it has something to do with the kind of people that Queensryche's music "speaks" to. We're starting to get to know some of the guys in the band pretty well at this point and understand where their musical integrity comes from. They are all such good people… and have really been going out of their way to make us feel comfortable. 

My fiancee Sibel showed up tonight to surprise me! =P It was awesome!! I didn't see her near the front row until halfway through the first song… I felt the biggest, goofiest smile take over my face! It's so nice to be able to share this with her. The set felt amazing… we as a band have definitely passed through another threshold… we have never been THIS tight before. Playing to a large crowd night after night and having to "win over" a new audience, night after night, has given us a flow and an edge that we've never had before… but you know, it just feels like home. Talking to hundreds of fans post show and hearing similar perceptions from people all over the country is giving us an even stronger idea of how we come across to others from the outside point of view. 

Every show has one consistent commonality, we are completely WINNING THE CROWD ;) Every day we roll into town, sleep for as long as we can, load our gear in, get something to eat, sound check and then hit the stage. As we walk on stage we can tell some are thinking that they just have to "sit through another typical opening band" before Queensryche… part way through the first verse there is a look of relief, by the time we get to the first chorus of the first song there are smiles, screams and arms shooting up… by the time we hit song two we have them ALL… faces full of emotional content and connection, people breaking their necks and punching the air… and by the end of the set EVERY single person in the venue is arms in the air, screaming at the top of their lungs with PASSION!!  …and this is happening in EVERY…SINGLE….CITY! It feels amazing :)

There is a quite sense of validation amongst us now. We have all been working our asses off following this dream since we were kids…. but since finding each other, as a lot of you know, Windowpane has been clawing our way up, meeting resistance at every turn. We've had big time management companies & label execs tell us that we need to be more like "this current band" or "that current band" …all of which we feel are missing that essence that makes REAL Rock N Roll what it IS! The record industry is at an all time low…. and listening to rock fans bitch, from age 14 to 60, all over the country about the current state of radio, it is clear as to why. There is a reason why albums made with integrity 30 years ago are STILL outselling current trends. I have to admit that our insecurities and self doubts had also reached an all time low prior to the tour… and although we felt in our hearts that people would get what it is that we are doing… we were really starting to question ourselves. Not any more. People GET it… the LEVEL of complements we have been getting is almost enough to bring us to tears. Rock fans want integrity, they crave passion… people are really TIRED of the corporate, carbon copy of the last quarterly profit bands that are saturating the radio right now… and all seem to be just as relieved to find us as we are to find them!!! Don't get me wrong, there are a few great bands that have surfaced over the past decade… but I think you get what I'm talking about ;) We're just up their being ourselves... and it's working ;)
To our long time Seattle fans; thank you for supporting us as you have… thank you for keeping our heads above water, thank you for believing in us even when we did not… may you feel the vindication and relief that we are right now as well~

You all mean the world to us, thank you!

Much love

Tony