Jeremy Porter Road Blog

Road Blog: Saturday June 13, 2026 - Maumee, OH

Road Blog
June 13, 2026
Maumee, Ohio

Jacob JakeE took his first shift of the run behind the wheel for the long trek northeast back though Indiana and Ohio, but the first stop was Bojangles for breakfast. JakeE is all about the breakfast, as we've established, and he got us on the Bojangle's kick when we were down south a few years ago. TBH the breakfast stuff doesn't rock my world, personally, but their fried chicken is legit, so I usually just go that route. The one in Marion, IL is attached to a Love's (the greatest of all truck stops), but it's an Express location, so no bone-in chicken, but the tenders are righteous and my ham-cheese biscuit and side of mac+cheese were good too. No complaints. The kid was happy with his feast, and that made us happy, and so we were on the road.

The drive was long but relatively uneventful. Spirits were high from the fun night at John Brown's on the Square Friday, and JakeE kept it between the ditches and took over the stereo with albums by Billy Joel, Rush, Gillian Welch (I think?) and a couple others before I'd had enough and cranked some Rainbow (Graham Bonnet era, Down To Earth) to cleanse the palette. We discussed the transition from Dio to Bonnet as the Rainbow singer at length, while dodging traffic and drinking coffee.

I texted our pals The Needmores with a tour-tip to gas up in Indiana before their Chicago show last night as prices are significantly lower there than Michigan and Illinois. We saw $2.99 at one station, a number we hadn't seen since the Trump War started. JakeE took us to a QT travel plaza and I was skeptical, thinking we'd be better served at a Love's, but it was deceptively awesome, with a self-serve latte bar that looked like a line of taps at a major brewpub, a smoothie bar that looked similar, and lots of hot snacks and foods. I was carefully analyzing and deciding which torpedo I was goona get when a local fella walked up, pointed to the corn dogs, and said in an accent more Mississippi than Indiana "that's the good'uns right there." as he reached for the plastic tongs. "Is that right?" I asked, perplexed. "Yessir," he answered with all the confidence in the world. "I come here and get me one every week after church." He almost had me sold, but corn dogs just ain't my thing. "Hmmm." I said, opting for the steak and cheese torpedo, saving me 10 calories over the chicken version. Over at the latte bar my new friend and I met again. "Wait'll ya go over on the other side. They got smoothies and everything!" I truly love these small little slices of America.

We decided last minute to make a stop at Sweetwater, the music mega-complex in Fort Wayne, as we were making great time and had a little time to kill. Troy had never been there and looked wide-eyed at the massive building like a kid walking into Disneyland for the first time, capturing it all on his phone. We split up – I went to the TONE ZONE and checked out some pedals, then strummed an acoustic and a couple electric guitars, JakeE jammed some Green Day with a kid in the bass room, and Troy picked up a new stick bag and crash cymbal stand for the punk rock show in Detroit Sunday night. We met a nice couple of ladies and one of their husbands from the Detroit area and had a long talk about music and the Detroit area venues we both play. Troy took a trip down the spiral kids' slide, JakeE grabbed a bag of chips from the cafeteria, and we were back on the road.

We hit Maumee around 8pm and stopped at a Sheetz to fill up ($3.69 if you're keeping track, better than Michigan by half a buck, but not Indiana), changed out of our civvies, and headed over to the village idiot maumee. The joint was packed to the gills for the 6-9 cover band, and we were fried and dusty from the long drive, so we ordered pizzas and walked over to a quieter, neighboring bar to take the edge off and settle in for a moment of peace before re-entering the chaos. The salty door guy at the Idiot approached us as we returned – "You did NOT just go to **** did you?" and we were all "um yea um the Idiot is packed and we've been cooped up in the van all day and we needed a little bit of a quieter place to reset for a minute and um we're um sorry" and my pal/manager Kevin came out cuz he saw the guy through the window leave his seat with an angry face and thought there was trouble out on the sidewalk, then we all had a laugh and promised we'd never make that mistake again and everything was copacetic. Seriously, he's been there forever and he's a sweetheart and it was a funny little tongue-in-cheek moment of tavern loyalty that we'll not forget. Our allegiance is, and will always be, to the Village Idiot, no matter what.

We had a good showing of friends there – Dawn and Don, Erica and Daryl, Gregg, Tim... how great to see these awesome people and have them at our first Saturday night at the Idiot in years. We love you all and appreciate it more than you know. Also in attendance was my pal Tomato Bill, who is a Toledo guy in the tomato business that I met on a flight to Las Vegas in April and we became fast friends. He's a heck of a character with some great stories dating back to his Army days in the 1950's and right up to today's modern tomato farming tech. Super grateful to Bill for his support and friendship, and I hope I can reciprocate someday, somehow.

We were running on fumes and did our best to play well and engage the crowd. We had a great room when we went on, it peaked around the time the Knicks won the NBA championship, with a table of dude-bros up front WAY more focused on the game than the music, but that's the way it goes sometimes. A couple of them threw some tips in the jug and gave us some nice words, all good, and part of the gig. To be honest, we were a bit flat. Not terrible, but not firing on all cylinders. Alcohol consumption was minimal, water consumption was drastically escalated, and we gave it our all. I grabbed a photo with Greg between sets that recreated a legendary hilarious one from Detroit 11 years ago. Good times.

After the music, a few more photos, some hugs and see-ya-soons, and we were back on the road, sticky from head to toe, ears ringing terribly, and absolutely exhausted. We dropped JakeE off at 3am, then Troy left my place around 3:30. I grabbed a shower, took a swig some milk and a couple Rolaids, and crashed out around 4:15am.

So here we are, Sunday morning, facing down an early load-in in Ferndale tonight were we are beyond stoked to be opening for The Avengers at The Magic Bag! More about that in an upcoming post. But mega-mega THANKS to the Village Idiot, seriously a room that we love and will play any time they'll have us. And mega-mega thanks to everyone who came out – you really have no idea how much it means to us. We love you all. See you tonight at the punk rock show in Michigan! xx