Philadelphia, PA - D&B's Dockside bar

Rain or shine, the Hot Mugs rock, but the rain was almost too much for us yesterday. The Dockside bar outside Dave & Buster's in Philadelphia is right on the water facing New Jersey. The view from the dock was beautiful, even in the pouring rain I enjoyed the mist over the water shrouding New Jersey. It rained all day and into our scheduled show time, but the event coordinator gave us the okay to wait it out. And sure enough, 20 minutes later the skies broke and the sun showed up for us. It turned into a beautiful sunset as well.

The crowd was stiff, but we had fun, and you can't beat playing waterfront. And you KNOW when you play anywhere near a D&B's, you go. We ate a delicious meal that we totally bought just so we could game cards to play games in their giant game room with. Nobody won an iPod or a Wii, but we definitely had enough tickets for at least a temporary tattoo set. Blake and Austin had a gleeful time playing the "rapid fire; mow em' down" machine gun game; I'm pretty sure that's all they played actually.

It was my turn to drive last night, so I was rocking an amazing playlist, three specific albums: 'Worship & Tribute' by Glassjaw; 'Black Holes & Revelations' by Muse; and 'Blue Sky Noise' by Circa Survive. Throughout this summer of pop and alternative blues rock stuff, I have not lost my affinity for angry, violent styles of music.

We're quite happy to be back at our home but not quite home, the Jameson house here in Connecticut. A little bit of familiarity is enough to hold me over at least. Playing an acoustic set again at Angels & Kings in NYC tonight. The acoustic set is gonna be a welcomed change to our typical electric attitude.

Jon