Just got back from an overnight trip to Albuquerque a few hours ago. We saw Mastodon, Between the Buried and Me, Baroness, and Valiant Thor.

They played pretty well, but whoever was running the sound boards did an awful job, not to mention the venue isn't really built for music that loud. Most of what I heard in every song was the kick drum. There were times when supporting vocalists were louder than the main one. I only heard bass during really, really quiet sections (mainly BTBAM). The vocalist for Valiant Thor had what I thought was a funny quote before their last song, "Sometimes, you have to take off your mask and eat some candy."

Even though we had already paid, we were guestlisted because my roommate is friends with one of their roadies. We couldn't get the money back, but no big deal. We talked to Brent from Mastodon and the guitarist from Baroness at a bar next to the venue. They were pretty cool. They had a beer there that tasted like marijuana called Jackalope. It was good, but still weird.

The staff at the venue were terribly unprofessional. You couldn't bring lighters or cigarettes into the venue and we took a cab from our motel room, so we couldn't just put them in the car, so we had to discard them basically. I mean, I can understand a lighter, but cigarettes? What's the point in that? Worse than that, they had a bunch of fucking Camel ads with spotlights highlighting them all over the arena. They were for the smokeless Snus, but it was still a terrible tobacco reminder. Also, everyone was frisked upon entrance. Woo.

On top of that, I didn't sleep the night before. I lost track of time and it got to the point where I figured I'd stay up, although I got an hour of sleep in the car on the way there, so I was already miserable and tired, especially after the cigarette/groping ordeal. Then the sound sucked, so that bothered me.

We got out and there were two douchebags yelling at each other next to the doors. They started fighting. We were across the street on benches, so we watched, as four of the staff standing outside. They started slapping each other or whatever for a while and were breathing on each other on the curb with their fists. Then the staff starts pulling them apart and one of them kicks one of the douchebags in the face while another is pulling him up. What a cheap shot!

That all broke up eventually. While we were outside, we were panhandled three or four times. When we were in the cab on the way back to the motel room, I made a comment about the panhandlers and the cabbie said that was pretty common in downtown. A lot of druggies, generally crack and heroine. He said the same guy asked him twice.

Needless to say, our experience wasn't the most pleasant ever, but it had its moments. We also got a flat tire on the way back. Luckily, we in town when it happened. We just slapped on the spare and took it to a garage to get a new tire. We also went to the Great Sand Dunes. That was absolutely amazing. They're just so damn tall. I didn't expect them to be upwards of 750 feet high.

All in all, it was a pretty damned fun trip.