Felix Tandem Fun Tour Fact for True Fans #9: When Felix Tandem bassist Cole Villena was in sixth grade, he formed a band with classmates Jack and Trevor after they obsessively played Guitar Hero and Rock Band and thought, “Maybe we should do this in real life.” The band, Free! Kremlin never played anywhere but in Cole’s basement, but those memories of strumming through Fall Out Boy and Beatles and Oasis songs helped him fall in love with music and are pretty directly responsible for him being on tour with a band right now.
I bring this up to say that Jack and Trevor, who are still some of my best friends, live in Charlotte now, and I’ve been so excited to play for them since we started planning this tour. They also offered to host us for the night, which is a huge help. As a bonus, another one of my dearest friends from college, Macy, lives in Charlotte and very kindly bought a ticket to our gig at Milestone pretty much as soon as they were announced. I have been really lucky to have incredible people in my life.
We had to get to Charlotte first, of course. I’m not sure any of us got a great night’s sleep — it’s always an adjustment the first night of tour — but we woke up and hit the road south to North Carolina in pretty decent time. Joel and Max ate at Hardee’s for the first time ever when we stopped for breakfast, which blew my mind. It’s not that Hardee’s is super great or anything, but isn’t that just something that people eat incidentally at some point?
Our route took us very briefly through Tennessee and then along the recently re-opened Interstate 40 connection between the Volunteer and Tar Heel States. In October, Hurricane Helene devastated the area and damaged the highway so badly that it has just now been opened to traffic. It was surreal and saddening to see the damage even so many months later.
On a lighter note, we read through Serena’s travel brochure about Charlotte and set our sights on Piggy’s Ice Cream / Harry’s Grille in Hendersonville, N.C. for lunch. It’s an appealingly kitschy cash-only spot where you can eat your lunch at a table in “Hooter’s jail,” though we opted to eat inside. Max and Joel ordered salads. I shook my head, said “Yankees...” and then ordered a pulled pork tray before walking over to our table in my UNC Tar Heels-branded sneakers. My confession: It was a colossal amount of food for $8.50, and I was unable to finish despite its tastiness.
Max left their earplugs in Nashville and played the first two shows of tour with napkins rolled up in their ears. That’s very punk rock, but we decided to stop at a Guitar Center in Charlotte to buy some purpose-built earplugs for the sake of their hearing. We got to Jack and Trevor’s apartment with plenty of time to hang out and watch a surprisingly great Alabama vs. Auburn game. (Sadly, the UNC vs. Duke game scheduled for Saturday night was canceled. Oh well!)
We arrived at Milestone a bit after dinner — I got a slice of pizza with Jack and Trevor, and Joel and Max got Taco Bell — and set up. It’s a cool spot that reminds me a bit of The Cobra in Nashville, and we were excited to play. Macy showed up shortly after we loaded in, and we had an excellent time catching up ahead of Aluminum Six’s set. They had a cool 90s college rock sound that played really well in the room, and I was happy to play with another rock trio.
The next band, Creatures of the Sun, skewed more toward surf rock, and that was just fine for all of us. At one point, they said, “This next song is called ‘Energy Vampire.’ …you all don’t care what it’s called! We’ll just play.” I am here to go on record and say that I care what your songs are called, and I liked the song “Energy Vampire.” Thanks for playing it!
We were up next. Our set feels pretty tight by this point, and I was able to have some fun mugging for my friends in attendance. At one point, I thrashed around a bit but then almost actually fell off the stage. All three of my friends said they noticed but that I still looked cool. We’ve been trying out a new song, “No Man’s Land,” that’s been going over pretty well! This was our best performance thus far, which was a cool feeling.
I ended up catching up with and saying goodbye to my friends for most of Late Bloomer’s set but heard good things from Max and Joel. Everyone at Milestone, from bands to staff to audience members, treated us really well, and we’d love to come back.
I’ll say it: Charlotte’s got a lot!
