28th November 2006
We were all coasting this tour exhaustion by now, waking up in the morning was emotionally and physically punishing. My body was crying out for more sleep that morning but the alarm spoke the truth, it was time to get up. I made my way to the meeting point and we set off for cardiff and the first show of our headline uk tour. I think we'd all forgotten what it was we were actually doing and about halfway through the journey i suddenly realised that the next 9 gigs were probably going to be damn fun. The Point in Cardiff is an old church, quite large but re-furbished inside so its generally lost a lot of its churchly charm. Our support band tiny dancers turned up with lots of equipment. Their tour manager was Neil who we'd met when he was tour managing editors. They had some very nice merchandise that was apparently hand sewn by the singer's girlfriend. As their merchandise had a production team of one this meant that there was only one scarf and although it was a very nice scarf and i could afford it, i didn't want to take it away from a more deserving, scarf wearing tiny dancers fan who'd appreciate it on more levels than i would.
We took the time after sound-check to go and have some supper with seth riddle at his favourite italian restaurant. The walls were adorned with photos of seth and his cerys as it was here that they'd had their wedding reception. It was good to see him and the food was satisfying. You can always trust a good meal to remind you how exhausted you are and shortly after the meal i started to wilt. "One thing for it" i said to myself (another sign of fatigue; insanity) and decided to drink through it as they say. A few pints of guinness later and we were on stage. Not a massive turn out but those present seemed to enjoy themselves. Tom's new game of throwing a pineapple into the audience backfired slightly when the girl he threw it to must of taken her eye off the fruit and it delivered a substantial whack to her upper left leg. I don't think we're insured for fruit related injuries to fans, if you're reading we are sorry and hope bruising was minimal..... please don't sue.
There was no hotel booked that evening, it was another night at sea.. well four hours or so across the irish sea from fishguard to rosslare. I cant really remember much about it but it was quite rough and i resisted going to bed as long as possible to drink stella in the restaurant with tom and matt instead. The next thing i remember was waking up in the van being told we had a radio interview at 10 am. It was a tough call but eamon and i went and did the interview for phantom fm straining to act normally. "Fuck you look tired" said the dj when she came out of the studio to greet us. It went quite well really and i was even sharp enough to stop her from playing Porcupine or Pineapple because of the swearing. We hopped back in the van and checked into our hotel. Eamon and I did another interview, he drank wine i drank two strong coffees. There was a distinct lack of cohesion in our thought patterns, we'd end up rabbeting at him about stuff that bore no relation to the questions and he just said "erm" a lot. From there we walked back to our hotel and slept uneasily for a few hours.
It was quite a small venue we were playing in Dublin but we knew it'd be a good show. I watched all of tiny dancers' set that night and thought they were pretty good despite only just fitting on the stage, their sound man steve did a good job. Our set was a ripper, people were digging it, singing along and bopping up and down. We left the stage and some guy just climbed on stage and followed us into our dressing room. At first i thought he was a mate of someone else in the band until he started falling about the place completely drunk. The promoter came back and removed him, it was a shame as he'd obviously just had a really good time and overlooked the situation. I felt a bit bad afterwards as our t-shirt selection couldn't cater for a man who was of the extra large variety and id neglected to order any of his size. Next time mate, i promise. By now we were truly knackered and had to retire to our hotel for some sleep despite the place turning into a massive club and filling up with dublin's young and careless.
It was off to Belfast come the morning and after a slight delay caused by some problems with the one way system, we were off. Tonight's show was at queen's university union. My grandfather went to queens but i don't think the union was there in his time. We were playing a late show as part of a club night so in effect, we were (as i like to say) the entertainment, which means not everyone is necessarily there to see the band; it could get nasty. By the time we went on everyone was hammered and up for it and there was definitely a brakes contingent who were more than excited. During disco party a girl fell down and seemed to get her head wedged between the stage and the left side of the p.a. Tom and I glanced bizarrely at each other as we watched her friend yank her out from where she was stuck. I asked her if she was ok once the song was through and she seemed to be fine although obviously very pissed.
That night we stayed in another b'n'b. Andy is very particular at making sure our accommodation is cheap and cheerful and as little like a travelodge as possible. Lets just say every night is interesting. On checking in to this particular place Andy requested if it was possible to lengthen the end of breakfast from 9 to 9:30. "Do you want to stay here or not?" was the response he got. It didn't matter as we had to be up early to get the ferry back over to the mainland.
We'd heard there were only 7 tickets left for the king tuts's Glasgow show and by the time we'd driven the picturesque drive up from stranraer it was sold out. A sold out show at tut's is a thing of beauty, they even give you a bottle of whisky as a prize. I was already pretty chuffed to be home and this time i had a bit of time to do the right thing and take my long suffering girlfriend out for dinner to make up for not actually being home, ever, at all. The food they lay on at tuts is great, don't get me wrong but we wanted a bit of privacy so went to a nice fish restaurant just down the road and had a splendid time. The gig itself was lush, there was this big american guy going nuts right down the front and the whole place was rammed and dripping. Big thanks to Le Reno Amps for supporting us again, love those guys. Some woman went up to eamon afterwards and said one thing; "Lesbianism!". What she meant we'll never know. The inner exhaustion was starting to really build up now, you can put it off and try and ignore it but its always there making you weird. Once your duties are fulfilled for an evening there's little you can do to stop yourself flopping into a heap on the floor but at least i was at home in my own bed, for a change.
We were up and off to Leeds the next day. We had not played in Leeds for a while so it was no surprise that the gig had sold out and had been upgraded to the larger room of the cockpit next door. Our soundcheck was a bit shitty that day. Something was set up wrong with the pa, like the thing wasn't running on full power or something, it sounded toss and the in house engineers seemed too incompetent to fix it and didn't really give a shit. One of them had stupid spiky hair and kept saying "Id better ring Sean". I gave in to the fact that it was most likely going to be a bit of a shitter and that we'd just had to get through it the way it was but it turned out alright and the place was heaving, again. Im not used to doing headline shows where you can see several hundred people in the audience. The front row were quite chatty and kept offering their hands for high fives. I obliged a couple of times but realised that it probably looked a bit shit from the back. We had some japanese dudes down that day filming for a program for mtv2 japan showcasing rough trade bands. I hope we get to go out there next year, maybe australia too. After the show we were laid to waste again, just shattered and we all just wanted to go to bed. That nights b'nb was one of the freakiest. Me and eamon's room had a toilet in the corner and a shower next to it, separated from the beds with a frosted glass panel. It was also opposite a brothel which Andy unfortunately mistook for a late night bar with embarrassing repercussions.
It was a short dash over to Manchester the next morning. I made the mistake of having a nap on the way which totally screwed my brain for the rest of the day. My body desperately wanted to shut down and go into what i call 'repair mode'. Id never played the roadhouse before and id heard some bad things about it but it seemed like quite a cool little gig. As i was leaving after sound-check to go to the pub a guy was enquiring with an employee as to whether there were any tickets left. It was sold out and he looked really disappointed so i put him on our guest list, that was my good deed of the day. The gig was really good that night, packed out again and bloody hot. We did a good trade in t-shirts that night too and pretty much sold out of stock.
We drove down to birmingham the next day for what would be i think the 4th time we've played the bar academy. When we arrived we saw that on the sign outside it said Monday: Breaks. This was annoying so we had it changed to the correct spelling pronto and then all went our separate ways to do a bit of shopping. There were a few CD's i wanted but i was disappointed on a whole with the major chain's selection in birmingham. Borders in particular had gone quite down hill from what i remembered. I suppose the proximity to christmas forces them to fill their racks with guaranteed sales, compilations and snow patrol for 3 quid. Shopping centers really are dangerous things and before long i found myself in John Lewis gazing in wonderment at all the nice things i could buy. Luckily chris phoned me and told me to come to the pub where he and eamon were drinking winter ale. A quick half and then it was time for sound-check. The bar academy is quite small and there is no dressing room or backstage area to speak of so our rider was flung down on a fusbal table which we stood behind at the back of the room. Stuffy commented that it looked like we were presenting a student cookery program. It was a pleasure to welcome stuffy/the fuses as second support to the tour. Id never seen them and they were very good. Not too many people there when they started but it slowly filled up. Tiny Dancers played and looked a bit cramped again, then it was our turn. It always feels like you are playing to the front row at the bar academy as the stage is pretty much on the same level as the audience and there's only about ten foot of width to it. We had fun though and the gig was a bit different, lots of improvising and spontaneous stuff. Afterwards we chatted to lots of people as well as the tiny dancers who had been given a box of wine as an apology for not being allowed back into the venue by the security after they'd had dinner. On leaving birmingham we listened to scritti politi's cupid and psyche 85 album which really pissed everyone off except for me then we drove into darkness for miles before reaching our destination at a strange country club somewhere near stoke on trent. The room was huge and very warm with flowery decor and a trouser press. I was confused and delirious, i had to sleep but first i watched some telly to wind down and discovered that whichever fuck wrote the new lil' chris single has shamelessly ripped it off the buzzcocks and should definitely be hung.
I was still annoyed about this come the morning and hadn't risen in time to make breakfast which was apparently very good, but it was the last day of 8 gigs in a row and that was something to be proud of. To London we drove and we were there in no time. As usual all our phones started buzzing with the late guest-list requests but as tonight's show was another sell out there was little we could do. The venue at kings college is on the the top floor of the union and is positioned at a convenient bend in the river allowing a spectacular panoramic view. Our dressing room was all the way down in the basement so getting from there to the gig took repeated lift journeys. The room had a big table and many comfy yet serious looking chairs around it. In the corner was a white board with various slogans like "knowledge=power" written on it and questions like 'what do you want?' and 'how are you going to get there?'. This was encouraging thinking for our london show. After sound-check Eamon, Sam, Chris and I went out for some food. After a bit of wandering we found a sushi place on high Holborn. I was feeling adventurous and ordered some sea urchin which arrived looking like the faeces of a very ill dog. With this in mind i just couldn't stomach it and had to leave it uneaten. The gig was just starting to fill again for stuffy and the fuses who sounded even better than the night before. There were many people to greet and talk to, people who work for us and who we work for interested to see how we're getting along. Like the growth of hair, its hard to notice if your band is getting better. I think you'd know if you were getting worse but playing the songs night after night really tightens you up to a point where you don't really have to think about it. Its no accident that London shows are booked at the end of tours for this very reason. It seemed to be a mixture of people who loved our first album and those that had recently gotten into our new album in attendance that night. You could spot them apart quite easily. Good to see a bit of a moshpit down the front, unfortunately the pineapple made it back onto the stage and my hands got all sticky with its juices.
After two days off we finished the tour at Brighton's Pavillion Theatre. Brakes had never played this place although id played there with every other band i've ever been in. Id also seen a lot of shows at the theatre whilst growing up in brighton, everyone from silver sun to god speed you black emperor. I was feeling a bit tender that day as being back in brighton had awoken the party monster in me and the previous night had been spent drinking far too much vodka with old friends. We were a bit disappointed that the promoter hadn't hired in a p.a that was going to be loud enough for us and the audience. Subsequently sound-check was a bit chaotic. Eamon and Tom then rushed over to resident records for an acoustic in-store. There were about 40 people there, I stood outside breathing in as much cool air as i could. I could see eamon and tom through the window performing but couldn't hear them. Instead there was a gypsy man singing tender love ballads whilst gently plucking a guitar. That was my soundtrack to their gig, it was all quite surreal in my delicate state. I walked back to the venue in time to catch the vile imbeciles, our first band on. The band is the new project of ex 80's matchbox guitarist and my old flat mate Andy Huxley. They were awesome and i was glad they played although Andy had convinced himself that everyone was going to hate it which pissed me off. The place slowly filled up, friends and family arrived, Stuffy played and the audience were very quiet. I was in one of those "I cant do it!!" kind of moods by the time we were due on stage, of course i actually could and i did and it was all good. Much reveling was had afterwards. Some of us relocated to the gloucester club for more drinking and shouting in each others ears and when it was late enough to pretend that its early enough for breakfast, we did just that. The food is awful at the market diner but the experience of being there is great, so many different kinds of people, mostly drunk but all eating fried food. For me thats where the tour ended, with double servings of black pudding and too many chips.
A Merry Yule to you all, thanks to everyone who came to see us over the last few months, see ya'll next year.
Sunday 24 December 2006
Wednesday 6 December 2006
killers dates and spain
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.
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.
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