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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