I woke up on day 2 to some really beautiful weather: 74°, clear sky. I couldn’t ask for a nicer day for a long ride. I quickly packed my things, checked out of the hotel and got the bike ready to go. The odometer read 993 miles at the start of the day.

The planned route for the day was Ohio 3 all the way up to Cleveland. Rt 3 was suggested to me by a coworker who is originally from Ohio, and the line looked just right on the map¹, so I figured I’d give it a go.

For the first half an hour or so, Rt 3 was kind of lame. It was congested and a main suburban commercial district type road. I had suspected that this would be the case until I cleared the greater Columbus area. The upside is that it was on this stretch where I bought fuel for the lowest price of the trip². See, look:

After stopping for gas, the road opened up within about 5 minutes of travel. No traffic, few buildings, and wide open scenery. Unfortunately, this is also when the sky got overcast and began to threaten rain. Luckily I was back under blue skies in a half an hour.

A little over half way from Columbus to Cleveland, I found myself entering Wooster, OH. I figured that it would probably be pretty lame of me to not at least check out the campus of The College of Wooster, given that institution’s indirect impact on the last five years of my life³. So, I decided to try to find the place.

You’d think that it’d be pretty easy to find a college in a small town. As it turns out, that’s not always so. The main problem is that there would be signs saying “College of Wooster” with an arrow, however there wouldn’t be any further signs when turns were required. I kept at it, and after riding around for about 20 minutes, I found the college.

I found a place to park, and walked around the campus a little bit. I stopped in the student center, checked my e-mail, and caught up on other Internet-things. I saw some of those weird squirrels everyone used to tell me about. I almost got run down by some maniacs in a golf cart. And that’s about it. There’s not really much to do on an unfamiliar college campus on your own. I headed back to the bike, fired it up, and got back underway.

The route for the rest of the trip was to take Ohio 3 to Ohio 94 to US 42 to Ohio 10. The rest of the ride up to Cleveland was very nice. Traffic remained very light and the skies stayed clear. I hit the Cleveland city limit at about 5:00 PM. I took my time riding around the city, and then made it to the venue by 5:45.

When I got there, I found out that the doors wouldn’t be opening until about 7:00. I had already figured I’d have to wait a while, and I was on my own, in a city I knew roughly nothing about⁴, so I figured there wasn’t much of a point in riding around and getting lost. The bonus to this plan was that I scored free street parking right in front of the venue, rather than paying the 6 bucks to park in the lot. The bike was parked not 20 feet away from the lot attendant too, so I was sure that it would be very safe.

The only food place in the area was across the street from the venue. It was a sub place. It also closed in the same minute that I arrived at the front door. For dinner, I stopped at an adjacent gas station and bought some junk food.

The venue for the show was the Agora Ballroom. From the appearance of the building from the outside, I was expecting a much larger venue. The stage area was not very large, and there was a smallish pit area in front of the stage, with a raised sections around the main pit area that had seating. I took up residence at a table just behind the sound booth, with a good view of the stage, and stayed there for the evening. I think that there may have been other sections of the venue closed off for this show, including larger stages. Like the previous venue, the beer selection was terrible. Here’s the best I had to deal with:

Immediately after doors opened, they had a DJ begin spinning. For the next 45 minutes or so, It was transported back to about 1999 or 2000. Someone was putting an awful lot of effort into perfectly beat matching a set of 6 year old gothic/industrial club classics for a staggering population of dancers of zero. Whatever passes the time, I guess.

The first band for this show was Rotersand, which was a band whose music I had not previously heard. They did a quick set, 25 – 30 minutes or so, and the music was enjoyable. I’d have to check out their CD to know for sure, but the songs didn’t strike me as particularly great. The music was definitely passable, though, and they were a good opener for the show.

Next up was Imperative Reaction. I like Imperative Reaction. I saw them on their 2004 tour and they rocked out. Their set lasted for about 40 minutes. While I would have liked to see more of them, they hit most of the songs I wanted to hear⁵. I will be sure to pick up their new album when it comes out… sometime. I was supposed to be released over the summer, but it is yet to appear.

Covenant. That’s what this trip was about. Sure I wanted to see Snog, and sure I really wanted to go for a longer ride on the bike, but I’m not sure any of it would have happened if there wasn’t Covenant scheduled to be there at the end of it all.

Just as the previous times I saw Covenant⁶ the show was great. The sound was near perfect, I had a good view of the stage, and the sizable crowd had a good energy throughout. In a previous post, I had written that I hoped I wouldn’t hear much off of the album Skyshaper. Since this was the Skyshaper tour, however, they played a number of tracks from the latests album. As it turns out, I really enjoyed the new material much more seeing it live. Seeing the band in person gave the songs something more.

The set:

1. 20 Hz ⁷
2. Sweet & Salty⁸
3. Bullet
4. Tension
5. Figurehead
6. The World is Growing Loud
7. The Men (extended)
8. We Stand Alone
9. Ritual Noise
10. Stalker (Club Version

Encore 1

11. Happy Man
12. Brave New World
13. Dead Stars

Encore 2

14. Call the Ships to Port

At the end of the show, the sound guy gave me his copy of the set list, as I was sitting right next to the booth the whole time. I was disappointed to learn that they originally had played to play “Like Tears in Rain” during the first encore, which I would have liked to hear. “One World, One Sky” was also set to be included in one of the three intended encores, but I’m not too disappointed about missing that track.

The show was finished by midnight, which was great considering I had a 2-3 hour ride back to Pittsburgh. I was able to get out of the venue quickly, hop on the bike and get underway within about 6 minutes of the end of the show. Since I had to work the next day and was getting pretty cold, I decided to just ride back on the highways so I could get home as quickly as possible.

I stopped at the first rest area I encountered along the highway, about 30 miles or so outside of the city. Given the temperature, traveling at 70 miles per hour on the bike without a windshield was a pretty chilly proposition, so it was time to add a few layers of clothing.

As I parked, a car pulled up in the spot next to mine, and 5 people dressed in club gear got out. I spoke with them briefly, and found out they had just come from the show as well. They were headed back to Morgantown, WV. I’m glad I wasn’t them. While inside the rest area building I encountered two other groups of people who had come from the Covenant show. Crazy.

After adding some clothing, and fueling up the bike, I got back underway. The extra layers made a huge difference, and the ride was much more comfortable after that. It was very boring, of course, but at least I wasn’t cold.

Sometimes boring is better than exciting, though. This brings me to my next point. When you’re driving or riding along, never start thinking about how boring the drive is. Why, you ask? Well, that’s because as soon as you start thinking about that you’ll get pulled over by a cop.

I was cruising down the highway at about 71 or 72 miles per hour or so, no traffic to speak of. I’ve already past the last exit in Ohio. On my left, I passed one of the access roads between the East and West bound roads. I didn’t see the police car until I was already passing the access road. He was hanging out, lights off, like a snake hiding in the grass. He was facing the opposite direction, though, and I wasn’t really going that fast, so I figured I was safe. I did slow down a bit, and continued down the road.

After about a quarter of a mile, I looked in the rear view mirror and saw him pull out. Sure enough, the lights came on. I was only a half of a mile from the final rest stop in Ohio, so I decided not to pull over right away, and instead to wait until the rest stop⁹.

As I pulled into the rest area and parked the bike, I could tell right away that the officer was not happy. The first thing he said to me was, “Why didn’t you stop right away when you saw me.” I explained to him that since I was on a bike, and not in a car, I didn’t feel comfortable stopping on the side of the interstate, so I chose to do so in the rest area instead. The answer didn’t exactly please him, but he at least seemed to understand somewhat.

He then proceeded to tell me that he clocked me at 82 miles per hour. I informed him that his reading must be off because I wasn’t going any faster than 71 or 72. He told me he was sure of his reading, and I continued to insist that his equipment was off, and that I had no reason to travel 82 miles per hour, in 40 degree weather on my bike with no windshield or nifty heated accessories. It was then that he admitted that he had only got me at 70 miles per hour, but had figured that I must have been going faster, being on a bike and all, and that he was trying to get me to admit to that.
He then asked for my paperwork and such. As I began to reach into my inside jacket pocket, I saw him tense up so I said, “I’ve just got to get my wallet from my jacket. I’ll do it slowly, and in your plain sight.” When I told him that I had to get my registration out from under the side cover of my bike he tensed up again and told me that I couldn’t open it up.

“Sir, I can’t let you open that,” he stated.

“Well, I guess I can’t show you my registration,” I responded.

“Sir, don’t be difficult. I need you to show me your registration. Now.” The guy was backing off, getting super agitated.

“My registration is with my tool kit, underneath the side cover. I need to use my key, then unlock and remove the panel so that I can show you the registration. That’s where it is.” I was doing my best not to come of as defiant, and really trying not to show off my annoyance.

“Okay, but do it slowly.” He backed off a couple more steps, shined his light on the bike and covered his weapon with his right hand.

This really bothered me. First, he lies to me about what he observed. Then he gets testy when I try to comply with his requests. I figured there was no way I was getting away from this one with just a warning, even if he did admit I was just going 5 over the limit.

I produced the paperwork and he took it back to his car. Sure enough, a couple of minutes later, he returned with a freshly drafted speeding ticket. He also told me to make sure I “watched my attitude when dealing with officers of the law.”

Since I was stopped anyway, I fueled up the bike again and got back underway. The rest of the ride passed without incident, and I arrived back on campus around 3:00 or so. Odometer reading at the end of the ride? Well, you can see that for yourself:

And that’s pretty much it, folks. It was a great first road trip on the bike, and I’m looking forward to taking more long rides next season. As for now, this past weekend, I did most of the winterizing on the bike, so she’s asleep for the winter.

Rest well Shadow, rest well.

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¹I have a pretty good track record for figuring out what roads a good motorcycle roads by looking at maps. Really, it’s not that difficult to figure out, but I bet that all of that time I spent reading maps as a limo driver is paying off these days.

²This was not the lowest observed price. About 20 minutes later I saw gasoline advertised at $2.01.

³I find it highly unlikely that you’re reading this if you don’t at least have some idea of what I mean by this.

⁴Except that whole bit about Moses. Confused? Read this.

⁵Aside from “Rift”. How could they not play that? Fuckers.

⁶Synthpop Goes the World in Toronto, June 2002, and at Manray in Cambridge, MA, May 2003.

⁷This song came with a helpful little intro, in which a computerized voice would say “100 Hz” and then a 100 Hz tone would play, and then 80Hz, and so on, all the way down to 30, 25, and 20 Hz. Very educational.

⁸Despite what I said about coming around to like the rest of the new album, I still maintain that this song is useless.

⁹Choosing a safe place to pull over is a perfcetly legal practice. If you don’t feel comfortable stopping for a cop on the side of a dark and secluded road, you can wait until you find a well lit or less isolated place. While being legal, it usually pisses cops off, as you’re not pulling over right away, and they assume you’re screwing with them. I did it though, because I don’t want to be on the side of an interstate on my motorcycle… not with a rest stop just a mile up the road!

Here’s the problem: the Great City of Columbus does not see fit to properly label their roads.¹ Due to a lack of signage, I missed US 40. At one point, I stopped at a gas station for directions. The cashier looked at me like I was a raving mad man when I was asking for directions to US 40, or S. Central Ave, or Harrisburg Pike–any of the major roads that would have helped me out. There was one nice lady who seemed to know where I was going, but her directions seemed to involve a number of odd landmarks. Her instructions were also delivered in an unintelligible accent made no more comprehensible by her voice, which clearly had been ravaged by a lifetime of booze and cigarettes.

After riding up and down some main roads for a while, I was finally able to locate US 40, putting me back on course. Within short order I arrived at my target road: the Harrisburg Pike. The name of the venue for the show was Outland, and its website helpfully listed its address as 660 Harrisburg Pike².

Where the Harrisburg Pike starts there are some old strip malls on either side of the road. Immediately afterwards, the number starts in the 700s and goes up. I figured that the venue must, oddly, be in one of these shopping mall structures. I ended up in pulling into the mall on the odd-numbered side of street first, but I was encouraged that I saw the numbers 651 and 693 and such in the windows, as I figured that I simply had to cross the street and head to the other strip mall.

Upon riding across the street however, the lot is empty. 90% of the storefronts appeared to be abandoned. I see a 640 and a 680 in windows, but no 660. There was a police officer parked in the lot, so I rode over to him and asked about this venue. Of course, he’d never heard of it, told me that there was definitely nothing going on here, and that I should probably leave so that I wasn’t trespassing.

Friendly guy.

I rode away from his car, and actually found a door marked 660. It was a beat up wooden door with a couple of old mailboxes hanging on it. It didn’t look encouraging. It was also locked. There was no sound coming from it and no doorbells in sight.

I briefly considered that the advertised Snog show was nothing but a plot to lure me into a crappy section of Columbus, so some thugs could beat me up and steal my precious motorcycle. Upon further reflection, this seemed like a far fetched plan. Still, I kept it in the back of my mind and got back on the bike.

On a whim, I decided to check the back of this building since I was definitely at 660 Harrisburg Pike. As I started down the weed choked alley-like area, I remembered the evil plot to bring me down, but I was determined to find Snog. I rounded a corner and there were many cars parked around the back. Many more than would make sense for an abandoned strip mall, anyway. I rode a little further and found a covered patio with folks smoking, and a banner that read Outland. I had found the venue.

I parked right in front of the ‘main’ door³ and headed into the building. It was about 9:40 PM. As I would later find out, Outland is located in the stock room of a former supermarket. It is also a Total Dive. The venue was pretty sizable, though, with 3 separate rooms: the main room, a video game arcade, and a billiards room. Additionally, there was the aforementioned smoker’s patio, as Columbus is a no-smoking-indoors kind of place.

As I walked around, it became obvious that none of the bands had yet played. For some reason, the start of the show had been pushed back to 10 PM. While I was waiting, I checked out the bar. The selection would have been great… if I had no taste whatsoever. It had been a long day, however, so I made do with the best beer they had available: <shudder>Heineken.</shudder>

The crowd was rather small. Maybe about 100 or so people were milling around. A few loops around the venue confirmed that I knew no one in attendance. One friendly guy did start a conversation with me, though. He was a tall, skinny guy in his early 20s or so. He introduced himself to me as “The Vampire Damien” and started by bragging that he and his friends had traveled all the way to Columbus from Cincinnati. After quickly exiting that conversation, I was accosted by a drunk girl who asked, “Do you want to be my boyfriend? Mine left me tonight.” And then she vomited on the floor right in front of me.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to mingle with the locals for too long before the first of the bands started. First on the line up: Movement & Effect. As it turns out, this act was just one woman who hit play on her sequencer and sang along. For the first song, she also strummed along on an electric guitar. The set dragged on for about 8 or 9 songs. While the music wasn’t terrible, it was pretty boring, and the set was much too long for an opening band, especially at a show that got underway two hours late.

After about fifteen minutes of equipment wrangling in between bands, the second act of the night, called Stygios, started their set. These guys were clearly local heroes, as the crowd were going nuts for them the whole way through. Me, I left the main room for the whole set. They were loud, distorted, sang insipid-sounding lyrics, and played poorly structured songs. That being said, I’m sure they’re all nice guys and are, of course, much better musicians than I am. They were, however, a poor choice to open for Snog.

Stygios was off the stage by about 11:50. Both opening bands played for at least 45 minutes each. By this point, it had been a very long day, but I was excited to finally get a chance to see Snog. For a while, though, it looked like I might not have that chance.

Something was wrong. Snog’s set up took about an hour and forty minutes. After getting their equipment set up on the stage, it appeared that they were having a problem between one of their midi-controllers and computer or synth module. For about an hour, there were many concerned faces on stage, and much shuffling around of keyboards to try to get things running. One of the keyboardists from Stygios even lent the band one of their keyboards, which was really cool of him. Eventually, Snog’s set up people got everything running in its original configuration.

Snog took the stage at just after 1:00 AM, and played a sixteen song set, not clearing off until just after 2:30 AM. The set list was roughly as follows⁴:

1. Neighbour of the Beast
2. King of Hate
3. some new song
4. some other new song, possibly Crash Crash
5. Al Qaeda Is Your Best Friend
6. Planet of Shit
7. Don’t Go Down to the Woods Today
8. Spermy Man
9. Some classic Snog Song
10. Late 20th Century Boy
11. Corporate Slave
12. Born to Be Mild
13. Hooray
14. The Human Germ
15. Waiting
16. The Prole Song

As you can see, the first 7 songs were all off of the new album. This worried me, because while the new album is OK, it’s definitely not the strongest offering my Mr. Thrussell and Co., and since the show started very late, I wasn’t sure for how long the band would be allowed to play. After song seven, however, Thurssell broke into his first of what I ended up calling his “atmospheric monologues”⁵ and declared that he would be taking the audience on a tour of the “EBM Museum”. He then proceeded to take the band into something very close to a “best of Snog” set.

As you can see, the band finished with “The Prole Song”. I thought it was a good way to end the night. This show was the last of Snog’s U.S. tour, and it was apparent that the band was having a good time performing.

After the band cleared the stage, I quickly made my way to the bike so that I could get back to the hotel. I wanted to get a good night’s sleep, but I also didn’t want to sleep in too late, as I had a day full of riding adventure ahead of me on Tuesday.

More on that in To Ohio and Back, Part III.

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¹See, back in 1924^* some folks at the Federal level thought it’d be a great idea to start a numbered highway system. Why? Well, this would allow people to navigate great distances with out having to know the names of local roads, thus facilitating national travel. What a Crazy Idea! While crazy it may be, it’s a great system. The idiots in Columbus, though, don’t seem to realize this.

²The website did not, however, contain a very important piece of information about where the venue was located. You’ll see what I mean as you continue reading. Their website has since been updated.

³Hah! Parking! Bikes are so fucking cool.

⁴I didn’t take notes on the set list for this show, but I wrote these down when I got back to the hotel. It’s at least 80 – 85% right.

⁵ Man, that guy talked a lot throughout the second half of the set.

^*Seriously kids, learn your history. If you want to know more about the US Highway System you can check out http://www.us-highways.com/.

The journey began on the afternoon of October the Second. I had taken the day off from work so that I could run some errands, straighten up the apartment, and get an early afternoon start on the trip. The destination: Columbus, Ohio. The reason: to observe everyone’s favorite anti-capitalist band from Australia rock out.

Odometer reading at the get go: 698.9 miles. The day was overcast, but the temperature was a pleasant 70° when I set out at about 3:30 in the afternoon. The planned route: US 22, to US 40 to Columbus.

US 22 was boring for most of the way. I even screwed up while still close to home, and ended up on the wrong highway near the Robinson Mall. Once I got back underway, however, US 22 was a slab² for the first 55 miles or so. This was also before my windshield arrived, so those highway miles get tiring after a while. Combining these factors with the gray weather, it was a bleak start for the ride.

To pass the time, I had brought the iPod along. I figured that some tunes or podcasts would be nice to pass the time, provided I could hear them while still being able to hear the road and cars around me. This turned out to be infeasible at highway speeds, due to the wind noise involved, but worked nicely on the lower speed roads.

About 25 miles into Ohio, the slab section of US 22 finally ended and I was left with a nice 4 lane byway on which to ride. The road sometimes went down to 2 lanes, but traffic was light the whole way and made for a good leg of the ride.

A couple hours after leaving, I hit US 40. US 40, also known as the National Road in this area, is marked as a scenic byway, and I’d say it mostly deserves that distinction. It runs roughly parallel to I-70 to Columbus and beyond. When I approached 40, the sky also cleared up, and the temperature was still pleasant in the high sixties / low seventies. It’s a 4 lane road for most of the length that I traveled, and I encountered barely any traffic. At this point, in the ride, however, I was starting to worry about getting to Columbus in time, so I slabbed it a couple of times on 70, alternating between the nice road and the quicker road.

I arrived at my hotel around 7:45 or so, just after it was starting to get dark. I was a little worried about getting to the venue on time, as the show was billed to start at 8 PM, and I wanted to allow for time to get lost. I felt it was necessary to stop at the hotel first, though, as I preferred to leave my belongings in hotel, opposed to on the bike outside of the venue.

The hotel was a rundown Rodeway Inn, located in Worthington, which is just outside of the city. The night before, I had Pricelined for hotels, and this location was the winner, at just $35 a night and located about 15 miles away from the venue. I stopped for just enough time to leave my stuff in the room, and then hit the road again.

According to the the maps I had consulted back in Pittsburgh, it was a pretty easy route to the venue on some of the signed US Routes (such as 23 and 40) to get to the venue, so I opted for that route as opposed to simply taking the interstate. I also figured I could find food easily on some of these roads, as I hadn’t eaten since about 1 PM.

On US 23, I managed to stop at the Worlds Slowest Taco Bell Ever. I arrived around 8:00, and didn’t get out of there until about 8:45. The only customers there before me were a mother and daughter, who were ordering as I arrived. Ten minutes later, I was finally allowed the privilege of placing my order. Roughly 25 minutes after ordering, my food had finally been prepared. The incompetence at this establishment was simply staggering.

I started to worry about missing part of the show, but then I remembered that there were two bands booked before Snog that I had never heard of, so I figured they were probably just crappy local acts. After eating the very late and really terrible tasting burritos that I had ordered, I got back underway.

The route ahead was easy. Take the street I was on south until I hit US 40, turn right, then turn left onto a road that would eventually become the road on which the venue was located. Sounds easy, right? If only it was.

Stay tuned for To Ohio and Back, Part II, in which our hero gets lost in Columbus, threatened by the fuzz, and finally finds what he is looking for: a kick ass concert from David Thrussell and Company.

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¹And by a few days, I really mean two weeks.

²That’s what us super cool biker-types call an expressway-style road.

No, Mom and Dad, don’t worry… I’m not quitting my job. I’m just taking a couple of days off of work and heading off to Ohio on the bike for a couple of concerts.

On Monday evening, Snog is playing in Columbus. I’ve always wanted to see Mr. Thrussell and Co., but I’ve never caught them on their infrequent tours of our great land. It’s time for some Live Snog, and it’s going to be great¹.

On Tuesday evening, everyone’s favorite masters of Norse witchcraft², Covenant, will be rocking out in the Cleveland area. So I’ll head up to that city named after a Connecticut resident³, and watch the re-animated corpse of Eskil Simonsson sing songs that hopefully do not appear on the album Skyshaper.

The plan is this: I’m taking off Monday and Tuesday. I’ll head out Columbus-way on Monday afternoon. I will stay somewhere⁴ in that area on Monday night. On Tuesday, I’ll make a day out of taking the back roads up to Cleveland, and seeing what I can see along the way. After the Covenant show, I’ll head right back to Pittsburgh, as I didn’t want to burn another vacation day for Wednesday.

This trip will be facilitated by the arrival this past week of my new saddlebags, and the sissy bar roll bag I ordered. These will give me the needed cargo capacity. Unfortunately, my windshield won’t be arriving until this Tuesday, so this trip will be with out that accommodation.

I’m excited as this will be the first long trip on the bike, and I’ll be seeing two great bands too. How can I go wrong?

Now, who else is going to be at these shows? Sound off, people.

__________________

¹ That sounds dirty, but it really isn’t.

² Ask Steph, it was her theory to begin with.

³ It’s true, you can look it up. The city was founded by Moses Cleaveland of Canterbury. However, he eventually left it, and went back to Connecticut to live and die. See, even the dude who started Cleveland knew better than to actually live there.

⁴ Any ideas for where I should stay?