I am SO proud of my son's band!!!! They got picked for the Warped Tour!!!!!

[calimary]

7. Thanks! I hope this whole board celebrates!

I can't even fully articulate how cool this feels! We've been working SO hard for SO long. The nice thing is that others recognize it. I've heard many times from promoters of various types, agents, bookers, PR people, etc., about how you mostly see bands sitting back and saying "okay, make it happen for us." And they just expect it to be handed to them without their putting in any effort, themselves. Somebody's just supposed to come and wave a magic wand and - POOF! - simply make it happen. It doesn't work that way unless you're that little jerk Justin Bieber in a really fluke-y situation where you're spotted by Usher on Youtube 'cause your mom posted something and all of a sudden - POOF! - you're a star. And even then, how's it all working out for him? He didn't work - I mean REALLY WORK for it. It just sorta fell on him like that weird block of green ice from the sky after a plane's exterior toilet valve popped open by accident. And I'm rock-solid certain he doesn't really appreciate it. 'Cause he has no sense of what it's like to work at it and struggle and put the effort in when nobody cares about you too much - and you've still gotta keep on keepin' on, as the cliche goes.

Well, on the other hand, my boys HAVE worked at it. Very hard. Everything they're achieving now, and every dream they're realizing now, they've worked hard for. Put in long hours, about 70-thousand miles on their little tour van - which, when parked next to one of those big-ass tour buses that the bigger-name bands have, looks almost like a Volkswagen Bug by comparison! I saw a photo one of them took of this scenario, their tour van next to Candlebox's big-ass tour bus, and indeed, it was like Big Mommy and Little Baby. They have enough stories-from-the-road and other wild adventures, just in three years of touring, to write a book! They're quite the troupe of veterans even for boys still this young. The youngest is 21. Everybody else is 23, and the new bass player just turned 24 a couple of months ago. Relatively-speaking, still babies. But their little baby feet have rough soles on them already.

They've really paid their dues. They've put in the time and the effort and the hours-days-weeks-months and the miles, and they've earned this!