Trivium: Exclusive ‘Trespass America Tour’ Blog

American metal kingpins Trivium are currently out on the first annual Trespass America Festival tour along with Five Finger Death Punch, Killswitch Engage, Emmure, God Forbid, Pop Evil, and Battlecross. Bassist Paolo Gregoletto has just checked in with Noisecreep with a blog covering the launch of the tour last week. From the sound of it, Trivium are in for a insane few weeks!

From Trivium's Paolo Gregoletto:

"Trespass America has begun! Having spent the last 6 weeks criss-crossing Europe by plane and bus playing summer festivals, it is nice to be back in the States. Don't get me wrong, the shows overseas are always some of the biggest and best we do each album cycle, but there is nowhere more comfortable to tour in the world than the U.S. We are the land of 24 hour convenience and on-demand everything, and God bless us for it! More importantly though, the shows so far (even though it's only been two) have been incredible. Having spent many summers boiling and roasting to death on asphalt parking lots across America, it's very pleasant to be inside the air conditioned walls of an arena.

My travel day to Denver to begin the tour was the sort of delay ridden day that would make the average traveler have heart attack. I however have learned to tune all that out, having dealt with 15 or so flights with 27 pieces of gear and 8 other travelers this summer; this was only a minor setback to the start of the tour. I spent most of the time in Houston watching the absolute dread and terror in people's faces as they learned that there might not be another flight to their final destination. Yes, I know, that sounds like a dick thing to do, but hey it's all I had to do in between eating food and wandering from terminal to terminal. Luckily, or I guess unfortunately, our guitar tech Ken who is the funniest bastard on our crew had a delay at the same airport. He was traveling with his kids to drop them off in Texas before heading out to Denver as well. We broke bread at McDonald's and shot the shit for an hour till we had to head off to our gates.

Two hours later and one $100 cab ride to the venue, I had arrived. The jet lag from the Euro flight hadn't subsided at this point, so I was running on fumes and protein bars. I found a cheap hotel room next to the arena and called it a night. The first day in Denver went fairly smooth for us; all our gear made it through customs and everyone who had a flight that day made it in on time. 5FDP had a few days of rehearsals in the venue and everything was ready to go by the time our crew had to load on stage and sound check. We have played Denver many times, but tonight was definitely was a special one for us. Out of the 4300 people that Matt questioned about seeing us for the first time, at least 75% of the audience put their devil horns up to the sky.

To still be reaching new people 7 years and 5 albums into our career amazes me. I didn't get to see much of anyone's set that day, but what I did catch was excellent. 5FDP ain't fucking around with the production, and have been most gracious with all the bands about giving everyone a full light show and as much production as we could bring. Being a headliner is like being the host of the party, making sure the everyone in the crowd and all the support bands are having a good time. These guys are killing it!

Billings, MT was the first day off, and my what an eventful day off it became! The day started simple enough, wake up with an hour's ride left to the hotel, drink coffee, and make the best breakfast I could out of Greek yogurt, Triscuits, and a banana. Some say that touring life isn't glamorous, but fuck it, I make the best of any situation and that was a damn fine breakfast! Once we got in we hit a nice sandwich spot called Harper and Madison. Not only is Matt our front man, but he is also the living, breathing version of Yelp. We hardly ever have a bad food experience when he makes the call on the food adventures for the day, and this was no different. I had a fine tuna sandwich and a bowl of African peanut soup, which was better then it sounded. The lovely folks at Harper and Madison gave us the recommendation of new hot spot called Lilac for dinner that night. Fast forward a few uneventful hours, and we are at Lilac having an amazing dinner. Much to our surprise a few fans worked there and gave us a few extra treats and some Champagne since it was their one month anniversary. We hooked them up with tickets to the show the next day and asked where they would go to kick back and have some alcohol. The spot they chose for us was called the Rainbow Room, not to be confused with the legendary staple of the sunset strip. This is where the night starts to get colorful.

The bartender was named Chris I believe, or so that's what the cop we would meet later told us. Awesome dude, and also a fan of Trivium and many of the bands on Trespass America. Having been the first of the tour to find this spot, we were the beneficiaries of a lot of free beer and hard liquor. I was not in much a drinking mood, but a free beer is a free beer. Corey and Nick are the resident drinkers of Trivium and proceeded to inhale as much as they were given. Once some of God Forbid, 5FDP, and KSE showed up to the bar, it was a full on RAGER! Iron Maiden cranked on the juke box, shots coming and going, and just random screaming much to dismay of some of the more normal locals.

On the way back to the hotel we got separated from Corey and Nick who were absolutely shit faced. Once Matt, our manager and I were about 10 minutes into our walk, we turned around to find that they were no were to be found. Oh well, let's get back to the bus we decided. Who did we happen to run into on the way back to the hotel? Why it was some of Billings' finest wannabe "thugs."It was sort of silly to exchange words and it of course it turned into a lot chest beating from them. A few pushes and shoves later we continued on our journey to our bus, still sort of shocked and laughing about the absurdity of our encounter. As we rounded the corner to pass the 7 Eleven across from the parking lot where our bus sat, they show back up to defend their honor. Now these were young kids, probably freshman in high school and we we're not ones to fight people, especially kids. But they made enough commotion that the cops swung by and told them take a hike. Funny enough, the cop was a big fan of rock and metal and looked us up on Spotify in his squad car and said we "shredded!" See, it's never too odd of a situation to make a new fan!

At this point though it was 3 AM, I was beat as hell. Show number two in Billings was a bit longer of a day due to some delays from the local crews rigging up the lights and PA, but it really didn't matter for us since we could set up off to the side. The local catering did a decent breakfast, and that set the tone for the day for me. If I can get some eggs in the morning, then the rest of the day and the show is just a great bonus for me. I enjoyed recalling the prior night's events with everyone and laughing at how crazy Billings turned out to be, in a good way of course! If the day off was an indication of the show, well then we were in for a killer audience. I hit the local YMCA to get heart smart and work on the guns for a bit to kill a few hours before press.

7:30 PM rolls around, and right as Matt is inhaling to scream "In Waves," I look out and see the crowd ready to go apeshit and know that it's going to be on tonight. Our set was a fine 35 minutes that kept the intensity of the crowd building with each song. By the time we got to the intro of Throes of Perdition, I felt pretty confident that anyone that didn't know Trivium before was becoming well indoctrinated into how we like our shows, intense and epic. "FUCKING EXPLODE!" screams Matt, and on cue the crowd erupted into a sea of moving heads and the night closed quite amazingly for us. KSE and 5FDP both played intense sets that assured that anyone leaving had either no voice or a bad neck and back.

Today we are in Bismarck, ND, which is a new town for us. Looking around the area from our bus, it seems we are in a good spot to stock up on any supplies that we may need for the next few days. The first two shows set the bar very high for the rest of the tour, but looking at the shows coming up I believe that there may be some fierce competition for the crown of the craziest show of Trespass America. BRING IT FUCKERS!"

Trespass America tour dates:

Jul. 24 - Lubbock, TX @ Lonestar Amphitheater

Jul. 25 - Belton, TX @ Bell County Expo Center

Jul. 27 - San Antonio, TX @ Freeman Coliseum

Jul. 28 - Beaumont, TX @ Ford Pavilion

Jul. 30 - Nashville, TN @ Bridgestone Arena

Aug. 03 - Battle Creek, MI @ Kellogg Arena

Aug. 07 - Syracuse, NY @ SRC Arena

Aug. 08 - Glens Falls, NY @ Glens Falls Civic Center

Aug. 10 - Scarborough, ME @ Scarborough Downs

Aug. 14 - Pittsburgh, PA @ Stage AE

Aug. 15 - Wallingford, CT @ Oakdale Theatre

Aug. 17 - Worcester, MA @ DCU Center

Aug. 18 - Newark, NJ @ Prudential Center

Aug. 19 - Philadelphia, PA @ Penn's Landing

Aug. 22 - Knoxville, TN @ Knoxville Civic Coliseum

Aug. 25 - Rio Rancho, NM @ Santa Ana Star Center

Aug. 26 - Phoenix, AZ @ Comerica Theatre

Aug. 28 - Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Palladium