Finger Eleven [ tickets ] is not a household name, but the up-and-coming Canadian rock quintet earned the right to play before packed arenas when it was selected as an opening act for portions of Creed [ tickets ]'s North American tour. Frontman Scott Anderson has agreed to provide liveDaily with a report from the road each day through the conclusion of the Creed tour, which also features Sevendust.

Finger Eleven's sophomore album, "The Greyest of Blue Skies," was released by Wind-Up Records (also home to Creed) in July. The band has since been taking its music to the road, mixing club and festival dates with its arena gigs.

The Creed tour is scheduled to conclude on Thursday (12/14) in Orlando, Fla.

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saturday the ninth

left for baton rouge this morning. stayed over in biloxi last night. nice gig. great crowd. hope you liked it, biloxi. we loved it. on stage, i called you Mississippi. sorry to generalize, but i'm positive that you're not all from biloxi anyway.

we went off last night, to use the parlance of our times. so much so, that rick [Jackett, guitar] needed oxygen after the show. my knees were giving out towards the end. i was excited to see how it was all gonna turn out. i remember that much. i don't remember much else. the hallmark of a truly great gig. no memory of it anywhere. rock and roll. in fact, we liked the gig so much, we spent the night and the better part of this morning celebrating. the party wrapped up at 6:30am sharp, when our drinking became eclipsed by the desire for the holiday inn breakfast buffet. after that, we had the good sense to turn in, although i'm sure the other buffet patrons would have enjoyed our company for a while longer. we'll see you soon ... we've gotta go back there ...

sunday the tenth

i can't remember the name of the stadium we played last night, but i liked the name so much, i swore i was going to. i'll call it "centroplex"; that's very close, if not the actual name.

great name, anyhow. baton rouge is the home of the centroplex, and we had another good show. the opportunity to let it all go and have a good time was taken by the entire crowd. good times in louisiana ... who would have guessed?

the truly great thing about yesterday was: baton rouge had its annual christmas parade. i've never experienced how ridiculous any christmas event is without snow. i asked two of the locals what christmas was to them, considering the lack of snow. they told me, without hesitation, "not much." exactly. you people haven't earned your christmas. that's why you don't appreciate it. and spreading lights all over your lawn (admittedly, a cool idea) is really just an insult to real snow. you know what the weather was like yesterday? these people have their christmas parade on what pretty much feels like a hot spring day ... ridiculous.

come on, move somewhere with a little christmas credibility. there's still time.

monday the eleventh

there are leaves falling all over the streets of downtown birmingham. further proof that the south has no idea what to do when it comes to christmas. in this case, it's really not their fault. and the leaves are beautiful, however poor the timing. also, back home, i hear it's an 'effin blizzard ... just showin' the world how it's done, i suppose.

on our way to atlanta, the second, no, third last show of the tour. i'll miss this, for sure. i miss it already and it's not even over yet.

i should mention the movie i saw yesterday, billy elliot. i'd rave about it, but it's really not that kind of movie. you'd have to rave about it in muted tones if you really wanted to ... rave ... about it. james [Black, guitar] saw it before i did, and the look he gave me told me it was gonna be heavy. it was. gloriously so. what a great movie. i won't stop thinking about it for a while.

Diary entry #5.

Diary entry #4.

Diary entry #3.

Diary entry #2.

Diary entry #1.