Euro Tour Diary Day 1 - Depressed
Well, where to begin. After a nice flight over we land and after figuring out how to dial a damn phone number we get the news... Our driver Christiane got in a wreck with the van and gear. Totaled everything and broke some ribs! Now that`s ROCK. We get a hotel near the airport and go to the airport bowl for some beers. The 20-something year old bartender apparently never met a real live American before! He had only talked to us people via the internet! Gee, I wonder why no Americans frequent the Airport Bowl? Hmmmmmm.
We`re promised the next day a driver will come get us for our first gig in Southend. Well, check out time is 1 pm and I have no messages and cannot get a hold of our booking agent. We hop in a cab and go to our pals over at Photofit to hang out and kill some time. Finally at 6 pm our booking agent advises us no driver! The gig is several hours away so we can`t go. We`re BUMMED!
Still in flux about how we`re going to do the rest of the tour we head over to Rafa`s cousins house in London to make some plans. We read on StonerRock.com that a lot of people showed up to the Southend show and we`re pissed off! We should have been there! Tomorrow am we`re on a ferry over to Calais, France, then over to Zomergem, Belgium for our show that we will not miss no matter WHAT! We have to drag all our shite on that boat so wish us luck people!! More later�
Euro Tour Diary Day 2 - Hopeful
A successful plan in tact! Rafa�s cousin�s sister�s boyfriend�s ill fated father drove us 70 miles in his Citroen Picasso to the Hoverspeed in Dover, and we took the ferry over to Calais in France where our driver Roman picked us up with a backline YEAH!!!!! First sign of hope. It�s about a two hour drive to the gig in Zomergem and damn I�m car sick. Fooking 70 miles in the back seat of a small packed car then an hour ferry ride. BARF!
We pull into this small town where we see the HUGEST cows I�ve ever seen in my life. They must get fed steroids, man, they were like body builders!! T�ou Liefken is a small barn-like house in the middle of nowhere. There were roosters that looked like screaming jay Hawkins!! Jan the booker greeted us and we were just so happy to be at a club and hey play some music - ya know, the reason why we came here! We unloaded and said goodbye to Roman; he will meet back up with us in Tilburg next Thursday.
So, this leads us to our next dilemma how do we get to our next six shows between here and Tilburg� Hmmmmm, our booking agent says he found a driver and van and a very cool local tour manager. Xavier helps us out as well. The two are to talk in the am about this, so I feel good and decide to chill out. My stomach is still fucked up from all the stress, beer, traveling, and lack of sleep so I�m on the wagon tonight. We�re starving and the nice people at the club make us a meal consisting of sausages, potatoes, cauliflower, and salad with a jar of mayo! These people in Belgium are mayo happy.
We�re headlining this show; a local band featuring the drummer from Thee League of Gentlemen play along with this French band, Blutch, then us. I�m kind of nervous we have about 50 people in this really small town and we�re about to play on gear we�ve never seen before. I end up with a Marshall JCM 900 stack and a JCM 2000 head with so many knobs on there I can barely find the damn volume. Rafa comes to the rescue and dials me in. Joey has what looks to me like a miniature drum kit. He has a 22-inch bass drum - HAHAHA!! Rafa has an ampeg stack with a solid state head so we�re all working under a little bit of a rock �n� roll handicap.
We get up there and start busting it out. We played for an hour and besides a few small clams we performed pretty well under the circumstances. I announced our last song and after we got were done the crowd clapped then went silent. As we said our thank you�s to the nice peoples, a few yelled out what was a pretty lame encore attempt and although I was just so happy to make it thru this set we did do one more in which I did manage to fuck up!! No one seemed to care we sold a bunch of merch, Joey and Rafa got fucked up, and I rested backstage until we were ready to go. We stayed with this very nice guy, Luke, who totally set us up. Still not knowing how we�re getting to the France shows in the am we go to sleep! Finally a successful show.
Euro Tour Diary Day 3 � Triumphant
We get to bed about 3 - 3:30 am - the usual after the gig rock time - and I do my best to sleep since I�m sooooooo tired, but it�s hard to sleep not knowing what will happen the next day, and oh yea the beautiful sounds of snoring from one of the band members, who will remain nameless at this time!
Alarm goes off at 9 am; I snooze it for a few times and then get up at 9:30 am and start hitting the cell phone to contact our booking agent about how we will get there. Xavier texts me that we have a van and driver standing by but I have to make arrangements to pick this van up like 50 kilometers away. I finally get a call from our booker that he was under the impression that we were all taken care of you!! FUCK!!!! I have a small mini-meltdown.
All right, now it�s now 11 am and we have to move fast. I call John the driver on stand by and the van place. Our pal Luke, whose house we stayed at, is nice enough to pick up our driver and take us the van, which is 50 kilometers away!! We fucking high gear it over get the van at around 1 -1:30, cruise back to the club, load to load our gear, and at 3 pm we start heading to Limoges, France, which is our gig tonight at the Woodstock boogie bar. It�s 680 kilometers away, so about 450 miles I�m guess or a seven to eight hour drive, depending on traffic. Hmm, 3 pm and we have an eight hour drive and are scheduled to play at 10:30 pm� FUCKING A � GO JOHNNY GO!!
Our driver, John, is from Ireland; he�s fucking driving like hell fire. We go 700 kilometers, get stuck in fucking awful traffic in Paris, and make to the show at 11 pm! The people come out clapping and help us load our gear onto the stage!! After taking a pee and getting a warm beer, we plug in and play. ROCK!! I feel like I�ve conquered the world now. A band alone, stranded in Europe, pulls it together and makes the shows!! We�re set from now on. We have a driver for the rest of the tour. Limoges is great and we met some nice pals�
Next stop Gay Paree�
