@Cody To be honest I'd totally be down there if UM wasn't playing Michigan that weekend. My parents always go on vacation for the first couple weeks of February in Florida and they've seen Spafford once so far so they'd be down for me to drag them on tour with me ha. Florida is a lot of fun if you stay out of trouble, highly suggest trying to make it happen if its in the cards.

I'm just bummed the PacNW didn't get more love this year. Should be heaters next week though.

I'm going to hit Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Providence, and Asbury Park as they all fall in between UM dates in Cinci, NYC, and New Haven.

Still blows my mind they only played four WC shows (standalone) in 2017 and this tour has four Florida dates on it. That makes no sense. It isn't like Florida is easier to get around than BC>Southern California. In fact, the 5 is a much easier highway to cruise down over 75/95.

Oh well, hopefully they play some of the West Coast college towns later in 2018.

While Umphrey's turned me onto Spafford, it was my biological mother and father that brought me into the scene - quite literally in utero at some 87 Dead shows on the West Coast. They were in college at Santa Clara and in no position to raise a kid so they put me up for adoption and my parents picked me up shortly after from Colorado Springs.

We ended up returning to Detroit in the late 90s, where my parents were raised and where I first stumbled across Phish. It was at a friend's birthday party in middle school - she had four siblings attend boarding school in Vermont and they were phans so somehow Phish VHSs started playing and next thing you know we were all bouncin' around the room turning her basement into a farmhouse.

High school brought moe. & Umphrey's into my life and during my senior year, a good friend turned me on and tuned me into STS9. Caught a sick show of theirs at St. Andrew's Hall in Detroit and a few months later I found myself at Lollapalooza catching Umphrey's to this day on I think the biggest stage they've played and the Biscuits on a side stage a mere 24 hours later. I managed to get to an STS9 show in Chicago my freshmen year, but life got in the way shortly after and it wouldn't be until Summer Camp 2007 until I caught another show.

Summer Camp turned into Bonnaroo which turned into All Good and then a return to Lollapalooza, where STS9 capped off an amazing night with Daft Punk headlining a few hours prior. Some friends and I decided to make plans to see STS9's 10th Anniversary show (10/3/07) and on the ride home we ended up extending plans to get to Milwaukee and to Madison for the tour closer. Two weeks later I'd see the Biscuits in Chicago and Urbana, and the next month I caught six Umphrey's shows around the Midwest, including at the Ann Arbor Borders.

At this point the slope was slipping and I closed out the year with the Umphrey's New Years run. 2008 was the first year I went hard on tour, seeing shows in six different countries, and somehow managed to graduate a year and a half early, skipping my final final's week in the process so I could swing the second Carribean Holidaze. It was at that Holidaze I caught my 5th, 6th, and 7th Biscuits shows and 2009 took me on Biscuits tour (supplemented heavily by Mantis tour with Umphrey's.)

I moved back to Colorado in May 2009 and lasted less than half the year before I went on tour again and then made a second return to Colorado, this one lasting just shy of six months. Decided to move to Austin in the fall of 2010 and haven't looked back since. I moved to Portland in 2012 and while it has been a lot harder to see shows living in Texas and Oregon the last seven years, I've still managed to go on tour a decent amount. The next state I see Umphrey's in will be my 42nd, but it is getting harder and harder to catch shows in new states (last new one being Rhode Island in February 2016.)

I only missed a handful of Umphrey's shows between Halloween and the Spafford tour, so that is why you find me here now. Richmond was a milestone show for me (if you put on the recording, you can audibly hear me lose my shit when they go into my request that night, The Fuzz) and I got there early to get up front. Spafford was one of the better openers I'd seen so made a point to get there at doors again the next night. They didn't open Penn's Peak, but after that show I found myself booking a hotel 45 minutes away from our AirBnB we stayed at, recouped from the three night run, and instead of heading to Brooklyn to spend the off days, I found myself on the road to Philadelphia for Spafford on a Tuesday night.

After checking into my room, I made the ten minute walk to the MIlkbar only to find out the show was sold out. Some other heads and I figured out that they would do one in one out eventually, so we waited and although I had to listen to part of the shows on the stairs up, I made it in and had a blast. There was no doubt I was going to Asbury Park the next night. Met a lot more people there and reaffirmed I made the right call. The rest, they say, or really, I am saying, is a blur. I think I woke up in San Diego three weeks into March. I haven't caught them since then but I find myself unexpectedly in Michigan this week so that should change this weekend. If not, I'll catch the lucky ones in the PacNW next month.

TL;DR - Heady genetics and friends got me into this shit. Umphrey's finished it.

Going to try to swing Nola>Daze. Just gotta see what Biscuit rumors come to fruition for the fall before I commit to any shows not on the West Coast.