Abiotic Check in With the First ‘Shred Diaries’ aka Noisecreep Tour Blog

The tour kicked off for us not far from our home town of Miami, Fla. The tour had been going on for a few days already when we jumped on, and we were eager to get things going. We played a familiar venue call Transitions in Tampa, which has a huge skate park attached to it. I'm pretty sure it was featured in one of the Tony Hawk games. We got there nice and early to meet up with the rest of the package and a few of us got our skate on. If you're in a band playing this venue and you skate, hit up the park! Touring musicians get in free! After our skate sesh, the other three bands slowly started pulling into the venue and introductions commenced. Instantly, I could sense the vibe was right. All the members and crew of each band were ready to have some sweet hangs and put on a good show. The show went great and we road on to Daytona Beach, FL for day 2.

Daytona was one of the best shows so far on the tour. We played a venue called Frank's First Row. The crowd was really into it and that made our energy explode that much more on stage. The Burial and Sea of Treachery killed it, and we packed up quickly to make the long ride to Louisiana.

Day 3 lead us to Metairie, Louisiana where we played The Cypress. Another tour package was coming through the area as well, so both packages were put on the show, creating a huge show of metal awesomeness. As usual, the first few days of tour always come with some hiccups as the battery died in my main guitar. While I tried to figure out if it was a cable or a battery during sound check, the venue let us know the technical difficulty was cutting into our set time. I quickly picked up my back up guitar and we were able to finish up our whole set without another hitch.

After tearing our way through Louisiana, we made into the beautiful state of Texas. Having never been here, it was definitely a change of scenery from what we're used to back home. The weather was hot, but there was a nice breeze and it was nowhere near as humid as it gets in Miami. We hit some pretty insane traffic on the way to the venue and the Texan drives were having none of it. On the expressway, drivers proceed to get into the emergency lane, floor it in reverse, and make their way off the expressway. Others drove through patches of grass in between roads. Even trucks with trailers attached took the risk of off-roading to make their way to their destination. We braved through the traffic and made it to the venue just in time for load in. We played an awesome venue called Walter's in Houston with some kick ass locals and drank some great Texan beer.

Our trek through Texas led us to San Antonio, where we played the legendary White Rabbit. It was probably one of the most fun stages I've played and the sound was superb. We definitely can't wait to be back in December with our friends in Veil of Maya and The Acacia Strain.

Ft. Worth, TX was our next spot on the tour and one of my favorites. We were excited to learn that Dimebag Darrell's grave was only 25 minutes from the venue. We made sure to leave early enough to have time to pass by and pay our respects. Upon getting to the cemetery, we immediately began scouring the area for a grave we had only seen in photos. After a good 10 - 15 minutes of searching, we finally came upon it and that's when it really hit us. A large, black tomb stone read the name "ABBOTT" and a plaque in his memory lay on the grass just below it. It was quite a sight to behold and definitely rustled up some emotions from us.

I put one of our picks down on the plaque and it was time to go. We'd be playing Tomcat's, which was the best sounding venue so far. It was also the venue where we ran into some trailer issues. Somehow, one of the springs broke on our trailer so the trailer is literally sitting on its axle! Very gnarly, and looking expensive to fix. Unfortunately, we realized too late and would have to wait until the next day to get it fixed, forcing us to miss the show in El Paso. We hate missing shows, so this really bummed us out. Luckily, some fans were kind enough to let us crash with them so that we could get the trailer fixed the next day. The trailer is all fixed up and we're now ready of our 10 hour drive to New Mexico!

That's a wrap for this edition of something I like to call The Shred Diaries. Check our tour dates and make sure you don't miss this tour if we're hitting your area!

Watch Abiotic's 'Vermosapien' Video

Abiotic, Sea of Treachery, Float Face Down, and The Burial tour dates: