Holy Moley!
Instead of making regular updates i've been writing as i go with the intent of bombarding one and all with this essay detailing the first two weeks of recent brakes activities. Hold on to your braces, its a bumpy one!
First up was this mega tour with da killerz. These guyses were putting on quite a show, a real high spec operation. They even brought their own floor. The tour for us started in brussells at the ancienne belgique and we had a good one. We've always been a bit unlucky in brussels so it was a relief to have a incident free time there. Being a support band we dont really have time between souncheck and show to get up to anything like eating out or doing a bit of sightseeing. I was lucky enough to have a few friends who live in antwerp come to the show so i got taken out afterwards. We ended up in a quaint little aged bar that had tobacco stained books nailed to the walls and 10 inch records hanging from the rafters. I drank lots of Leffe, smoked many cigarettes and then wobbled back to our hotel which was further than i thought. I kept my eyes peeled as eamon had an incident in that area once that ended up with ex-merch man keith the gypsy being mugged for his phone. I got back safely and after a sleep we headed for Paris. A remarkably strange thing happened just before we left. The van was a bit stinking so i filled a box with anything that was rotting or detritus and carried it a few yards down the road to a big bin. Eamon lifted the lid up for me and when we peered inside there were two pipettes set lists staring back at us.
This was even stranger seeing as i was to see bobby cassette later that day in Paris.
It didn't take long to get there and as we were driving in the shit weather passed by and the sun shone down on the autumnal parisian streets. I was looking forward to playing the bataclan, i've got a few live albums that were recorded there so i was interested to see what the place was like. There was a little stretch of grass and water features in the middle of the boulevard and i appreciated the fact that the journalists asked us if we wanted to do the interviews there because of the nice weather. From there we could see the venue was painted all manor of bright colours. Back in our dressing room and the french had been as generous with their rider as usual with all sorts of cheeses and meats and everything we'd asked for on our rider. Unfortunately no promoter supplied us with the red jacketed squirrel walking a tightrope in a miniature circus big top accompanied by four circus trained mice doing tricks as requested......yet. We took the stage feeling happy and the crowd seemed up for it. When eamon revealed we were from brighton, uk there was an almighty cheer. It became obvious that lots of the audience were british. 80% in fact as i later learnt from kiilerz tour boss jeremy. This seemed bizzare but understandable for a band their size. As these shows have gone on we've come to realise that the killers are a band people are willing to go to great lengths to see and seemingly make a weekend of it. Their presence in every town is noticeable, you overhear people talking about the show, all the hotels are booked up with people going to the show. Our gig was good that night and afterwards we had a drink with bobby in the bar next door. They served entrecote and good red wine but played kasabian, editors and the rakes on the stereo for all the anglaise.
The next day we set off for the long drive to amsterdam. I made a start on a brakes tour film i'm making with imovie and my mobile phone. It might take me a while to edit and it's going to be pretty crude but hopefully it'll be done by christmas. We arrived a little late and we were instantly rushed into a few interviews. Somehow I ended up doing a couple on my own and they were most enjoyable, well informed and intelligent interviews. Questions you could give proper answers to and a few that took a bit of a think to answer. We sound-checked the main room at the paradiso and then just hung about for a bit before we played. We'd only ever played the smaller room there so we were looking forward to it. There wasn't much room on stage so i felt a bit boxed in when it came to the gig. Tom threw a pineapple into the crowd, as carefully as possible of course, you could do some damage with one of those, the crowd seemed to appreciate the free fruit. We played ok but it was nothing on paris. As we were trying to squeeze our gear off stage i suddenly got doused in beer. I looked up to see where this alcoholic shower had come from and saw that a lady was carelessly dangling her drink over the balcony and letting it spill down onto the stage, and more importantly onto the killers' guitar tech's workstation. I flung a few optical daggers her way but she was off on one having a good time and not really thinking. Trying to forget about the dousing i carried on loading off stage until a plastic cup then hit me on the head. My initial reaction to all this was that someone must have really not liked the show but i think that was just me being paranoid and that it was probably just accidentally kicked through the gaps in the railing or something. Anyway, it fucking pissed me off and i was in a shit mood until a lot later. We had a few booze treats backstage and then went off to find our hotel. Amsterdam can be a confusing place to get around and we got a bit lost but found it eventually and after convincing the receptionist that we were booked in to the establishment, those of us that still had a thirst headed out to find a suitable drinking spot. We ended up in a jazz bar that we'd been to before, a long, thin and smoky place with a band at one end and a bar at the other. It was quite late already but it seemed to stay open for a hell of a long time. Some of killers' crew showed up along with big nige, our old driver, now back-line tech for the arctic monkeys. What with eamon's bro steve being there too it was quite a party. Apologies to those who we'd arranged to meet there earlier, we just couldn't get our shit together in time. Ta for coming though.
We had a day off the next day and we engineered it so we could stay in amsterdam and travel by night on the ferry to harwich. It was a glorious autumnal day and amsterdam was gleaming. Amazingly we managed to find a restaurant that we'd been taken to on a previous visit to the city and there we had brunch and planned our day ahead. We couldn't resist a wee cycle around vendal park so we all hired some bikes and set off. It was lush bombing around looking at the birds and the trees. The park seems to be home to lots of tropical birds for some reason, i think they were parqueets or something like that, bright green with a mighty squawk. Saw a couple of herons too!
Tom had a couple of pre-rolls he'd purchased from a local smokery so we stopped for a wheeze. Maybe I'm getting old but that stuff is pure toxic trip weed, not for the faint minded and seeing as i was feeling slightly of that ilk given the previous night's reveling i went a bit funny after a couple of toots. Once back on the cycles i started not being able to see anything that wasn't moving the same speed as me, quite dangerous really. By this point we were lost, everything started looking the same and we must have been around the park six times before we worked out how to leave. We took the bikes back and wondered what to do with the remainder of our day. Conveniently enough the nearby cinema was showing Borat just before our designated leaving time. 80 minutes or so and a lot of laughing later we departed amsterdam and headed to the hook of holland for our boat back to england.
After a satisfying sleep at sea we headed to wolverhampton for the first of the 4 uk shows we'd be doing with brandon and co. It was saturday and the following day was another day off so on the way we checked into a weird little b'n'b at the foot of the peak district with the intent on spending our day off with a hike and a pub lunch. The place was called the dog and partridge and was fucking weird. The reception was adorned with hundreds of teddy bears all shapes and sizes and we seemed to be the only people there. We had a spot of lunch and then headed to wolverhampton. The gig was good at the civic hall, i had family present so i was a little nervous but we had a good one. I was interested to find out what the killers' uk audience would be like but they were as reserved and polite as the fans in europe, give or take a few obsessives who boo'd for the sake of it but thats to be expected really. We drove back to the dog and partridge after the show and had a sleep.
There'd been a weird two day flu bug going around the band, eamon had it first then me, then al and now it was tom's turn. He was too ill to come for a walk the next day and opted for some bed action instead whilst Alex stayed in wolverhampton with his girlfriend harriette. So it was eamon, tour manager andy, sound guy chris and myself who headed to Hartington for a day out. We bumped into a few keen hikers who gave us directions for a nice 3 mile walk.
It mainly followed the path of a picturesque river in a deep valley then headed up through some cow fields before coming downhill and back into the village. We had a nice roast and a few pints whilst watching some bizarre pagan morris dancing thing out the pub window. It was a good day off.
The rest of the uk shows were fresh. In manchester we went boozing at big hands and got quite merry. Then in hull we played a sweet gig in a 5000 capacity ice arena and then watched casino royale at the odeon next door. It was most entertaining. Glasgow was great of course. I got the chance to go home and wash my clothes which really needed to be done. It was nice to be home if just for a short while. We got the killers an Aerosmith cd and the second series of green wing as parting gifts. They were quite pleased with the cd but a little confused by the dvd, hopefully they'll find it funny. It was a good experience all in all, a good way to tighten up for our own tour and sound practice if we ever become as massive as they are. I'm not sure if their crowd would have all been into us but as long as a few people came away impressed then thats ok.
That night we got about an hour and a half sleep before we had to get up and off to the airport. We didn't want to miss the chance of supporting the killers in glasgow and we also didn't want to have to cancel our spanish tour so our flight to bilbao had been arranged to make sure both were possible. This meant flying from glasgow to amsterdam at 5 to 6 in the morning, then amsterdam to paris and finally paris to bilbao. It looked horrendous but we got through it, delirious with the exhaustion and quite excited about going to spain.
Andy got sacrificed at Charles de Gaulle for the sake of a kick drum pedal that they wouldn't allow us to take as hand luggage. He waited for the next flight and checked it in the hold. It seemed ridiculous seeing as we'd taken it on two flights already. When the rest of us got to Bilbao the exhaustion kicked in and we all started to trip out a bit. Luckily our hotel was posh as fuck and we weren't treated like peasants when we got there. A few hours and a much needed bath later and we headed to the venue for sound-check. The band we were supporting are called surfin bichos, an established spanish band who had been big in the 90's and had apparently re-formed recently. There was a bit of confusion between us a their crew at first, not helped by the language barrier and the fact that Andy was still in paris. All confusion was eventually smoothed out and we had a good first show. I was feeling sick with exhaustion afterwards so i sat at the back of the room and watched the main act.
A guy came up to me and said "next time do not say goodbye, you must play four more songs!", I took this as a compliment. Surfin Bichos sounded alright although a lot of their songs reminded me directly of other songs but just without any distinguishable melody. They seemed like quite dour individuals too, no smiles or jokes and hardly any inter band eye contact during the gig at all. We hit the hotel for a bit of kip but were back up at 5:30 am for departure to madrid.
A coach had been laid on to take both bands and their crew down to madrid and to barcelona the next day but when it came to it the headliners opted to travel separately which left just us, their crew and a film crew. The film crew must have been making a film about the band getting back together or something. They were filming everything all the time. I managed to sleep most the way to madrid which was a blessing as I'm usually really bad at sleeping on the move. Chris and I went for a stroll once we'd arrived, loaded out and checked in.
We went in search of this cable car thing called the teleferico that dangled above a park to the west of the city. Unfortunately when we got there it was seasonally closed, then it started to rain and before long we realised we were wandering through the equivalent of the west end of madrid, all theaters and tourist shops. Found a doll shop with some freaky evil looking things in the window.
Good to see a bit of the city although it seemed to be just as over-populated and stinking as any other capital. The gig that night was good, the venue was a plush old theater converted into a club. Had a caiprinha in a bar afterwards where the barman had half a moustache and beard. We got driven back to our hotel by this wired dude who was the spitting image of cheech from the cheech and chong movies. He gave us some rather crude stickers of his band A Palo Seko which means straight up or a single shot if ordering a drink.
It was another early start the next day and a coach journey tainted with interrupted sleep and bumpy roads, amazing scenery though. Our promoters rep sylvia was concerned as the hotel we'd booked was apparently in the worst area in barcelona where all the hookers and drug dealers hang out. "Perfect" we thought. We checked it out and it wasn't all that bad, sure there were some fruity ladies and plenty of suspicious looking fellas but there was quite a community spirit about the place really.
Sylvia was an amazing rep, constantly trying to make sure everything was going well and to plan, she was just looking out for us. Playing razzmataz was a delight as always. Eamon, Andy and I stuck about after (for lack of better judgement) as we wanted to see Clinic (who were playing upstairs) and drink more booze. They were lush, it sounded awesome in that wee bar but then they are just a sorted band, the right sounds and the right playing. Id never seen them before and for some reason they reminded me of motorhead even though that makes no sense at all. The club filled up and soon there were 4000 people bopping around to indie disco. We left at 6ish and got a cab back to our hotel.
The Next day we drove to valencia for the final show of our spanish tour. We'd hired our own transport so we could have a lie in and get there on our own steam. It was a beautiful day and we drove right the way down the coast. We stopped at services and had some weird paella that included some unidentifiable meaty substance. Tom said it smelt like a giraffe's cage and Eamon bought a mini baseball bat adorned with cannabis leaves. At the venue the manager said he'd found us a motorised plane that was about the right size for a gerbil but he couldn't get the gerbil or the squirrels. We appreciated the effort though. Had a good one that night, the crowd were a little more up for it than at the other gigs, must be the sunshine.
It all caught up with me that day and i was ready to put my head down. I spoke to our driver more about surfin bichos outside. he told me that they hadn't released any music in 12 years. "Why did they reform" I said, "for the money" he replied. I went back to the hotel while the others were taken out by sylvia and co to the only place that was still serving booze, a hooker bar. The next day was a travel day, we flew at seven pm but had time to get some authentic valencian food down us which included more giraffey paella and some very garlicky prawns. Back in hove and i had just enough time to wash my clothes (by now a threat to humanity) and sleep before commencing our uk headline tour in Cardiff.
So it begins. Brakes stand together, squinting into the future at the months worth of touring ahead of them. It'll be a month of firsts what with some of the biggest shows we've ever done taking place when we support the killers over the next week and a half. We'll be on telly for the first time too as well as heading to spain and, of course, doing our own tour around the uk. Hope to see some of you if not all of you along the way. Keep your eyes peeled here for updates, images and amusing anecdotes from the debauched world of brakes on tour. Wish us luck!
p.s thanks to all who came to our fopp instores and to all of you who've bought the new album thus far.
TA-RA
MArc
Last thursday i arrived at glasgow bus station and looked on the board for my coach to manchester, it wasn't there but then tom appeared and low and behold, we were getting the same coach. Not very surprising really, it was cheaper than the train. Megabus can be a sickening experience if you pick the wrong day but it was ok on this occasion. A woman got on the bus at preston with a big basket ful of cheap sarnies, crisps and chocolate bars. She was quite a vocal lady and as she was leaving the bus she popped her head up the stairs and said "does anyone want anything from me before i leave the bus?". I thought this was quite nice but all she got was some asshole saying "i dont want nowt, go away!"
We got to manchester early and hopped in a taxi to strangeways where we were booked to play the warehouse project formerly a boddingtons factory. It was some corporate affair for a certain vodka brand. We arrived just as the long blondes were setting up. It was freezing in there and tom and i had to wait around as the rest of the brakes party were running late.... no surprise. It was clear that we weren't going to be able to soundcheck at 4 as planned so we had to right it off as we had a date with mr marc riley over at the bbc which was far more important. Once the others had turned up we unloaded our gear and then headed to the studio.
We had to rush a bit when we got to the beeb as we were due on air at 7 but we got soundchecked ok and started with hold me in the river. Mr Riley was a top bloke, he even gave us a tenner to go to the bar with after the first track! We did on your side and cease and desist as well.
After all that we headed back to the warehouse. It was bloody cold in there and not too many people either, felt a bit lifeless to be honest. We went onstage following a dj set by m-peoples' mike pickering and played the best we could with numb hands. I dont think we'd paid much attention to what set we were going to do as it started hard and went a bit soft in the middle.
Its hard now we've got all these new songs, we actually have to think about it where as before it was just play as many songs as we can as fast as we can. We stuck around to watch the other bands and then headed to our accommodation which was bang in the center of town. Had a bit of trouble locating it at first and we were freezing walking around in a panic. Funnily enough it was just behind where we'd parked after all that. Slept for about 3 hours and then got up and off to the west country.
It was a beautiful drive down, all of worcestershire and gloucestershire in full autumnal glory.
Got to stroud and drove up the winding hill road to shortwood where our friends ben and bella were having a leaving party in a field. Ben and Bella and their four kids are starting a new life in new zealand. It was damn cold in that field, luckily i had my nordic army jumper that id purchased in oslo in february but even with that on the cold still got in. It was the toes that seemed to suffer the most and we had to keep dashing in the van to thaw out. Once they got the roaring bonfire alight everyone was much happier and all got merry.
There was lots of nitrous oxide going round which made proceedings quite interesting. We took the stage in all the clothes we had and played a blinding show. Everyone danced and bounded around and it was a joy to give the dudes a proper send off. They've been to quite a few of our gigs when we're down that neck of the woods and i'll miss having them around. Good luck you guys!!!!!!
It got quite late and we made a move to cuckoolad cottage where eamon grew up to sleep for a bit. Had a slight nightmare getting in due to a sticky key butwe got in eventually. Bit of tea and toast and off to bed it was. A fun couple of days had by all. Dropped tom at truck studios on the way back where hes doing some recording with restless list and then headed back to brighton. I think the sleep deprvation mixed with a sub zero climate has left me with some illness so the rest of my weekend is going to be spent sucking lemons and watching tv.
Adieu
Wotcha!
The Luminaire show was a blast, always a pleasure to play there especially on Mr Andy Ingles birthday. The proprietor himself looked more than embarrassed when we wished him a happy birthday from the stage. Luckily for him we didn't play the song. We tried out a few previously unplayed live album tracks and they seemed to go down well. Last night brakes continued their assault of the london live music circuit by doing 2, yes 2 gigs in one night. We soundchecked at the borderline where we would be topping a bill also including the hours and the mescalitas as part of a new rough trade club night. Unfortunately we had to miss out on seeing both acts as we had to dash northwards for a 20 minute set at the islington accademy as part of the festival awards show. We bigged up truck and end of the road and played pretty well, the audience was a little subdued but i think we left an impression. After that we hotfooted it back to charing cross road and re-grouped backstage at the borderline. The Hours were still on and seemed to be having a good show, lots of people there to see them. We took the stage at about 9:30 and had a good show, sweaty, loud and at times painful. Did plenty of tracks off the new album which are all starting to sound good live. On the way home tom had a slash in a bush in brixton and disturbed a couple of canoodling fellas who fled shamefully into the night. This weekend we will be making preparations for our video shoot for 'hold me in the river' which we'll be directing and shooting ourselves. Its going to be a brakes classic.
Backstage at Trash having a cintilating conversation
brakes bus shot
On thursday we left brighton quite late and headed up to east london for a show at adventures in the beetroot fields at uber club, fabric. We were all feeling a bit tired out as we'd just spent the last 3 days shooting our video for hold me in the river. Its going to look pretty diy but we had loads of fun making it and i think that'll come across. It was certainly more fun than having to stand around for hours occasionally pretending to play your guitars whilst film types discuss lighting. Anyway... got to fabric and it was writhing with young trendy types. I could have sworn some of them were 14/15 but Eamon later reminded me that as you get older 18 year olds start to look younger and younger, how depressing. We took the stage about 11:30 and played pretty good. Tom and Eamon broke 3 strings between them which slightly slowed down proceedings (bloody guitarists) but the audience didn't seem to mind. Disco Party went down the best as usual but generally people were in quite a dancey mood which was nice. We left the venue about an hour later and headed back south. I got dropped off at gatwick so i could catch my 06:35 flight back to Glasgow, trust me it was a lot cheaper that way. Id never slept in an airport before, I imagined id just find a comfy bench and snooze off the time i had before my flight but to my astonishment every seat in that terminal was occupied. I tried to read but my eyes kept crossing so i resorted to lurking by a large seating area until someones flight came up and claiming their patch as my own. I got about an hours kip until i had to go check in. Good to be home if its only for 6 days until our next gig. Today me and the mrs donated some blood. Its my 3rd time since Brakes did our collective donation before 'give blood' came out. Its definately something more people should do, it doesn't hurt, its relatively quick and you get a free glass of orange squash and a tuc biccie afterwards.
Salutations Brakes Posseeeeeeeeeee!
Im sitting in the dressing room of the luminaire in kilburn awaiting stage time for what will be our first gig in a wee while. Tom and Alex have been on the road with the ESP and it sounds like they had a grand old time. October tends to be quite a debauched month for the Beatty family, what with my mothers birthday, my brothers' birthday and mine (funnily enough we were born on the same day 3 years apart) and to top it all off the same said brother got married only this weekend just gone. All the band were present at the reception and a good time was had by all. Congratulations Rich and Kirst!!! Needless to say im feeling a little tender and we haven't even started touring yet. In the meantime we've been putting the finishing touches to artwork and discussing new t-shirt designs. The new ones look pretty fresh and there's more of a variety this time so look out all you memorabilia nuts. Eamon and i did an interview with phil from the stool pigeon last week. He bought us a good few pints of ale to whet our tongues and we had a decent chat about pretty much everything. There should be a two page piece in next months article. Also did a 'brighton walk and talk' for music week where we took a journalist and a photographer around a few places in town. I was a bit useless when it got to talking about 'the brighton scene' seeing as i live in glasgow but it was still kinda fun. Plenty gigs coming up and we're doing a video soon!
Take care of yourselves... and each other
marc
Golly gosh, it has been a busy summer, and brakes had one more festival shaped hurdle to leap before they could close the book on 2006's festival season. We all trundled down the M27 towards Salisbury for the End of the Road festival at the beautiful Larmer Tree Gardens. Peacocks roamed freely, cider was drank and a good time was had by all. It was a perfect end to a successful summer's hard gigging for brakes. We had a healthy crowd watching our slot on the garden stage and we enjoyed the show tremendously. BSP took the stage after us and it was a joy to hear them play after so long. Various Brighton chums then joined forces at the delightful bimble inn where a nonsense jam ensued. Various things got knocked over and broken and i bowed out before the chance of being throttled by a wayward brass instrument came my way. Apologies to anyone who got seriously hurt.
Hats off to Sofia and Simon who did a great job organising what was one of the best festivals of the summer. Im hoping it will be the first of many end of the road festivals, i can honestly say there was nothing wrong with it at all.
Hey there you crazy kids!
Brakes have been back on the festival scene playing north, south, not east but also the west of this kingdom. We re-grouped in the first days of september up in Glasgow. Those punks at Jack Daniels got us to play a gig at the hard rockin' Cathouse club on Union Street and filmed it for a show due to be broadcast on the channel 4 channel some time soon. We did a posh interview too so you guyziz gonna get to see some brakes faces on your visual screens in the near future, holy moly! The show itself was a pumper, good crowd, good times. Thanks to all those dudes who came down from dundee especially to see us although next time do us a favour and leave your BSP t-shirts at home, as much as we worship the sea power Brakes are not them and its just kind of weird. I promise there will be an abundance of new brakes merchandise to acquire very soon.
The next day we were up early to fly to Dublin in time for our show at the Electric Picnic festival in Stradbally. It was a bumpy ride, high winds rocked that little plane around like it was made of paper, quite fun. We got picked up by a lovely man named Seamus who gave (stand in tour manager) Matt and I some good tips on giving up smoking. Matt was wearing patches and complained that they were making him hallucinate at night. Seamus drove us out of Dublin and through county Kildaire explaining a lot of interesting facts about horses along the way. We got to our hotel which seemed to be very golf orientated. Seemed like the kind of place where men go on holiday to play golf all the time whilst leaving their poor wives to soak in the executive spa facility. It definitely wasn't Brakes' bag that was for sure. Someone even looked at me funny when i asked for directions to the toilet. Turned out this wasn't our hotel, ours was nearer the festival thank god! We got to a place called Port Laois, found the hotel which looked a lot like the other one but without the golf crap and headed to the festival site for some fun.
It was a nice festival, everyone looked happy and non-threatening and there were kids and none of those stupid fairground rides or minging burger stalls. Had a little wander around, saw SFA who were great. Had another wander around and then went to see a bit of Belle and Sebastian who sounded lush despite being a bit quiet. I very randomly bumped into a girl who used to work in a cafe in Brighton where i used to eat brekkie every sunday. How we recognised each other was a mystery. I wanted to see Sparks but also didn't want to miss any of Yo LA Tengo so i got a good spot in their tent and waited it out. A girl asked my name, I told her it was Marc and then she introduced me to her friend as Paul, so i called her Sophie and that pleased her a bit but then she tried to steal my beer so i left. YLT were cool despite the sound in that tent being dreadful.
The next day it rained early but brightened up towards the afternoon. We were on later in the evening so once again i had a wander around. Saw Aberfeldy who were playing in the same tent as YLT and suffered equally to the bad sound and chaos of that stage. Riley the singer made a very witty joke about Razorlight's 'In the Morning' hit being about date-rape and enthused at how much they'd enjoyed their recent tour with James Bl(c)unt. Time passed slowly as ever before shows but eventually we took to the stage. Our tent was pretty massive and there was hardly a peep there to start with, it filled up gradually though and this pleased me as it meant that there was either very little or no people leaving the tent. We were a little confused at times but generally it was a good one. A good time in Ireland all round, only down side was that Matt had taken up the chuff again. Two days with Brakes and he was like a little smoking monkey.
After a boozy evening in Stoke Newington the next day, we went shopping for clothes in central London. None of us like shopping that much but it was surprisingly enjoyable. Tom was waiting in the queue for the till of Zara and the woman in front of him managed to cash up £1500 of clothes and she looked miserable as fuck. We were hoping she was a stylist or something and not some sick shopaholic weirdo.
That evening Eamon, Tom and myself went to sheppards bush to see Yo La Tengo....again. Well, im a fan..alright? They were most pleasing. All the songs off their new record sounded great to me and i haven't even got it yet (always a good sign) plus they did a few arthur lee covers and old fave stockholm syndrome as encores. Bumped into Becki from Da pipettes and Paul of maximo park. Glad to say they were both well.
Another day came and it was time to so some brakes work that didn't involve playing music.... a photoshoot! woohoo. We all posed, pouted and got our faces wiped by a swedish lady while the owner of the bar we were using as our set, Franco, laid on the beers. Prego! It was a bit stuffy down in that bar (Trish's of Greek Street) but the shots looked good and we got a variety of setups done with the help and genius of top camera dude Dean Chalkley.
We had a day off after that but then we got on a ferry and went to Bestival from where ive only just returned. Id never been before, well not to the festival but its location Robin Hill is where i used to play a great deal as a child. It was really nice to be back on the isle of wight. We took the back road so we could drive up the hill from where you can see all 4 corners of the isle, beautiful. Me and Eamon were staying the night so were erected our tents and then headed down into the arena. Did a quick interview for Radio 1 and then watched The FAll. They were superb, new band, sounded good. It was little chilly as nightfall came and the nerves were upon me so i felt a bit strange. Had a look at the tent and it wasn't as big as i thought it was going to be, didn't feel so nervous after that. Watched tilly and the wall who are quite entertaining with their tappy clappy folk. Our time to play came round, appropriately prompted by a cash number we took the stage and played an absolute blinder. The audience were singing along very loudly and were very appreciative. Luckily the whole thing was filmed by the Jack Daniels people as they were sponsoring the tent so we've got two really good gigs on film.
Scritti Politti did a great show after us, bit of a mind fuck as they were one of the bands my dad played constantly through the 80's. I love his voice.
We met with friends and made merry afterwards. There were people there who i wasn't expecting to see, pleasant surprises etc.. Before i knew it it was 5am, had to go to bed.
I woke at 9:30 and just had to get off the site. Everyone there was being real squeamish about the bogs. Maybe we're just a bunch of scummers (im pretty convinced of that actually) but these people were just being pathetic, like they'd never been to a festival before. There were as many showers as toilets in the artist camping and more of a queue for them too. The toilets were full of shit but they should have emptied them during the night. So I walked into the countryside until i feared dehydration, lack of orientation and a peril at the sun's mercy. I returned to find eamon had been woken by a boy called daniel who'd decided to have some fun with the horn of his fathers car at just past ten am. He was in a bad mood. We left shortly after this debacle and didn't look back.
Seems like a lot for 8 days huh? Good times for Brakes at the moment, album sounds fresh and i hope y'all going to like it as much as i do.
See you at End of the Road if you're coming.
Marc
