The rest of our shows in the UK went very well. The gig in Sheffield was moved from a flatteringly hopeful thousand capacity venue to a more modest 400 and the audience that night were particularly spirited. It almost went horribly wrong when we came on stage to play and realised all on stage power had gone down. I wasn’t too concerned as some well-paced drinking beforehand made it seem quite funny (thanks to Paul for the wine). Gigs in Sheffield always seem to be disastrously over staffed, too many cooks etc. Some sweaty and hairy men in shorts with torches scrabbled about for a while and eventually came up with a temporary solution and luckily the show went on trouble free.
Playing the Leicester Charlotte again brought back some old memories, as I don’t think we’d done it since our first tour in September 2004. Actually to be honest I couldn’t recall playing there with Brakes before but I know it’s the kind of place where you always have a good show, and that’s exactly what we did. Our manager had come up to see us so we went to a nice curry house on the way to our hotel afterwards and had a big feast. Whilst taking a trip to the toilet Alex had to help a guy who’d fallen out of the cubicle after vomiting, tried to stop himself going down by putting his hands in the urinal before finally slipping on some urine and falling on his ass. Another normal night in Market Harborough I presume.
Our hotel that night was half hotel, half old people’s home. I only found this out the next day but I had wondered why two Filipino ladies in nurse’s uniforms had handed our keys to us. I did not sleep well that night. Around 8am I was woken by the slamming of doors followed by the sound of a small child running and screaming into the hallway before slumping down whilst a man screamed “SHUT THE FUCK UP!” repetitively at the child in an insanely manic voice. It seems every tour we do we’re subjected to people going mental in hotel corridors in the wee hours. It makes me glad I’m not a psycho or know anyone who is and also rather depressed that a lot of people have to suffer daily from someone else’s incapability to control their temper. This put me in a rather odd mood so I was glad to get out of there when we left.
We took the long straight road out of the Midlands and into Norfolk towards our final show of the UK tour in Norwich. An ex girlfriend’s cousin had told me good things about the Arts Centre and he wasn’t wrong. Housed in an old church this place had that swirly colossal effect on the live sound that would probably make a good place to see Spiritualized or Sunn 0))). Norwich was a bit of a ghost town on a Sunday and given the dire weather we were wondering whether anyone was going to come, but they did. Both Bobby Cook and Absentee sounded fresh that night and once the room was filled up the sound in there was pretty good. We had a good one and the audience were really appreciative despite a few confused faces I glimpsed, but that’s fairly normal for a Brakes show. It was a shame to part from our support bands, especially Absentee who we were getting to know pretty well. John and Melinda from the band had added their voices on ‘The Most Fun’ and ‘Jackson’ respectively for a bit of end of tour camaraderie, and very good they were too.
After the show we drove back to London where Eamon and I stayed at the Channel 4 health correspondent’s house again, whilst Tom and Alex stayed in Camden. They had to get up mighty early to get down the U.S embassy and apply for visas to go to South-by-Southwest in a week’s time. I slept a bit better that night despite going to bed close to 4am but the bed was damn comfy and the next day was the first day in 12 without a gig. Eamon and I met up with Tom in the morning and drove back to Brighton.
The plan was to re-group the day after next and set off for a little Euro jaunt, but until then I had nowhere to go and just wandered the streets with a bag of sweat riddled clothing feeling like a total bum. I even avoided bumping into people I knew through fear of them thinking I’d gone a bit wrong. After feeling sorry for myself for too long I decided to sort myself out so I went to an internet shop and tied up some loose ends, then headed to a launderette and washed my stinking clothes. I find launderettes strangely calming; perhaps it’s the wafts of soapy heat emanating from the machines or the gentle whirring sound they make. It certainly gave me a bit of time to re-align my brain and calm down a bit from the debauched horror that is touring. I eventually went round to my brother’s place and stayed there for a couple of nights and watched lots of TV.
Unfortunately there had been a mix up concerning the White brothers retrieval of their passports from the U.S embassy. This meant that instead of leaving the day before our show in Groningen, driving halfway and staying the night in Amsterdam (and probably having a bit of fun while we were there), we had to drive all the way from Brighton to Groningen in one day and then do the show. This was going to be pure torture and to make matters worse we missed the 9:15 ferry by 8 minutes, setting us back over an hour.
Once onto the mainland Andy drove for his life across the flatlands and got us there at about 6:30. My bum and my brain didn’t feel very nice but the venue was awesome. Apparently J. Mascis is a shareholder in Groningen’s Vera club, it figures too. The walls are adorned with thousands of old posters, band photos and flyers from the club’s 25-year history and it just reeks of geek rock. The place even has in house accommodation for bands, which makes so much sense and made our lives that extra bit easier. There wasn’t a particularly large turn out and it seemed that most people weren’t too familiar with our more recent material, which was a shame but we enjoyed it nonetheless.
After the gig we had a few drinks in the downstairs bar and I discussed immigration policies with a friend of Richard’s called Richard too. Then Chris and I went to FEBO, the self-serving, money slot fast food vending machine for drunk people. Whilst I waited in line for some chips someone threw half a deep fried breaded snack (also known as a bammy hap) at my back and then ran off before I had a chance to see whom the culprit was. I then realised that the centre of Groningen was overrun with extremely drunk and brutish young men who (as well as wrestling each other to the ground in the middle of the road) were shouting what could only have been the rudest of comments at any woman who walked by, in unison.
The next day we were booked to play a place I didn’t even know existed called Hertogenbosch. Despite being unknown to us all, this city was rather sizeable and quite pretty from what I saw. We turned up at about ten to 5 and were told by the mechanically anal sound crew that we had until 5:30 to sound-check. I asked one of them why this was (assuming that there was a cut-off point due to sound restrictions) and he said “because you are an hour late” which I found rather hostile. In our defence there had been bad traffic on the way but it seems to upset these people if you stray from the schedule. We managed to squeeze an extra half hour out of the blighters anyway. There was a very popular coffee shop near by where the city’s smokers formed an almost constant queue to buy goods.
Unfortunately the turnout was sparse again that night. There was a curtain across the stage between bands and seeing as I hadn’t been out front I had no idea what the audience looked like. The curtain was raised when we were all in position to reveal a scattering of people in the venue; most of them huddled up the back by the bar. We got stuck in and played pretty well. There was a lanky and excitable young man with a bowl haircut who was steaming drunk and was flinging himself across all the space in front of the stage while his girlfriend looked on slightly embarrassed. We were just about to play ‘The Most Fun’ when he suddenly appeared right in front of us offering his services as spoon player if we gave him a t-shirt in return. So up he got and joined Tom and Eamon round a mic like a young, Dutch, spoon playing Bez. It was hilarious and did well to soften off the severity of playing a town you’ve never heard of to not many people.
We came off stage, all a bit bemused, and then ten minutes later a man came in with a DVD of our entire show, mixed with edits and everything. And as if this wasn’t amazing enough, we watched it and we were bloody good. With faith in ourselves renewed we headed to our hotel, which was a folk pub with a medieval looking barmaid wearing a velour cape adorned with butterflies. Some of us stayed down in the bar where the Trappist beer on sale made us chat rowdily about music.
After Chris and I watched a couple of episodes of Michael Palin’s Himalaya series, the next morning we set off for Antwerp. I had been looking forward to this our only Belgian show on the tour, partly because the venue is so good but also because I love Antwerp. My friend Jon had moved to the city to be with his Belgian girlfriend Inge 8 months ago and I was finally going to get to visit having been promising for months. I’d walked around Antwerp a bit when we played there almost 2 years ago with Admiral Freebie at the same venue. It was only now that I realised I’d only walked around a very dull area of the city populated mainly by very well off media types. There was a whole other side to this place that I was soon to discover. Jon took me up to the cathedral, showed me a few nice bars and let me in on some local quirks before I had to dash back for sound-check.
The gig was supposedly a double headline although we were on first and hilariously titled Belgians Absinthe Minded were on afterwards. They had these weird robot lights that swivelled and arched like giant desk lamps. Our sound-check was unusually difficult that day for some reason. We were all a bit knackered and were just messing around much to the annoyance of Chris.
Our ex-pats in Amsterdam chums Richard and Damien came over and I spent the rest of the time between sound-check and gig drinking extra strong import Guinness with them backstage. Stage time came around and we went on to an enthusiastic and young audience. It was a bit ramshackle in places, both Tom and I managed to rip our pedals apart with our feet causing temporary loss of signal and Alex was suffering from a moving kick drum. Reports were good afterwards though. They’d sounded pretty good in sound-check but Absinthe Minded bored me senseless after the first two songs. Then to introduce the third song the singer said “Now its time for some funky shit” which really you shouldn’t say unless you’re Isaac Hayes or Samuel L. Jackson, and proceeded to get fresh with a wah pedal. It wasn’t until the bassist swapped electric for double bass that their true abilities were revealed but I was more interested in going out.
Richard insisted we go to a place called Café Beveren by the river. He’d described it to me earlier but nothing had prepared me for the reality of what would follow. To be fair the café had a sound jukebox and good beer but it was the clientele that provided the most entertainment. Definitely popular with the older demographic, all were dancing sleazily and singing loudly to popular oompahpah-esque Dutch and Flemish sung hits of yesteryear. There seemed to be one lady of about 70 years old who was the ringleader, she had insisted on kissing us all upon entry to the bar. Drunken bald men would take it in turns to dance with her and at one point she was tightly sandwiched between two of these men, all three bodies gyrating perversely as the euro ballads barked loudly from the speakers. I was in shock, Richard and Damien looked worryingly comfortable in his place and Jon just didn’t know what to think. He’d lived here for 8 months but had never seen anything like this before, and furthermore when Inge and the rest of their friends came to meet us most of them didn’t want to come in because it was too embarrassing.
There was one other feature of this place that I actually found quite interesting. At the far end of the room taking up about a quarter of the bar was a huge, self-playing organ music machine thing. It worked much the same way as a player piano or an organ on a merry go round with an enormous wheel of slotted cards relaying the information to all the instruments. This thing had it all, accordion, piano, saxophone. It even played its own drum kit. I was astounded. It seemed to have a mind of its own too and would pipe up every ten minutes or so at which point the jukebox would be shut off and everyone would go mental. It was like an Idol to these people and they were here to worship it. We left café Beveren at about half 3 and I felt as if id come a little further into understanding Belgian consciousness.
My evening was far from over if Jon had anything to do with it. At his instance we went to another bar a bit further north, as to what it was called I haven’t the foggiest as I’d consumed enough beer by then to stock a small pub on a Friday night.
The good thing about drinking on the continent is you don’t get a hangover. In Britain tax is paid on beer when its brewed, therefore the breweries want it to last longer so that they don’t have to keep paying tax again and again so they add chemicals to preserve it which make you puke. In France, Belgium and other beer loving countries tax is paid when the beer is poured, no need for nasty chemicals, no hangover, everyone drinks more beer and the bars and breweries make more money. It’s just another sickening fact that makes me want to emigrate. Anyway, it seems Belgians generally like to sing loudly in bars as everyone in this bar displayed the same high spirits as the last but with a little more decorum. Ween’s Voodoo Lady was played which made me extremely happy. A friend of Inge’s called Merel accused me of having hatred in my eyes to which I protested, “how do you know what my hatred looks like? We only just met”. It’s been said before that my normal facial expression does look like I’m incredibly pissed off but this girl was convinced I was made of pure evil. The truth was that she looked identical to a girl who used to live down the road from my parents and that freaked me out a little but it was still a bit full on.
After a couple of beers I was cajoled into going to a club even further north in the eastern European quarter of the city. We had to cycle through some pretty rough areas and at one point were surrounded by pimps and drug dealers, whooping at us as we cycled through. Eventually we got to our destination, an abandoned warehouse with a sound-system and some mirror balls. It was purely functional, no décor whatsoever and due to a leaky roof, the floor was black slimy and people were getting shit all over their white shoes. The place was filled with stylish Europeans all dancing to the kind of euro beat and novelty tunes that would be deemed as ironic in some circles back home.
The bar served beer, wine or bottles of cava and apparently the place was littered with Antwerp’s young, rich and famous. Jon introduced me to a few people and bizarrely they all knew who I was and what I was doing in town, some people even recognised me from the gig. Antwerp is quite a small place like that, very similar to Brighton, not much happens without everyone knowing about it. I was starting to wilt with exhaustion after a while so I convinced Jon and Inge (whose place I was staying at) that it was time to leave. As we were leaving on our bikes some idiot did a running mount onto the back of my bike almost veering me into a car. A few nudges in his ribs and he fell off screaming “EAT MY SHIT!” as I cycled away from him. I felt guilty for staying up all night but it was nice to be basking, drunk and exhausted in the morning light. Jon still didn’t want me to go to sleep but I had to get a few hours kip and at around 8am I finally got my head down.
It was a beautiful morning when I woke and a brisk stroll in the right direction later and I was back with the van. It was the last day of the tour and we were all on our last legs. Having not really slept the night before I was feeling a bit odd when we got to Amsterdam. I decided to check in to the hotel and have a bit of alone time whilst the others went into town and enjoyed all the Dutch town has to offer. I was slipping in and out of consciousness and kept forgetting where I was. I wanted to go out and explore but remembering some good advice I decided that it was wisest just to do nothing and conserve my energy for later. We were playing the small room at Paradiso whilst heavy rock legends Saxon did the main room. There was a small crowd of odd-looking rock fans hanging around the venue, to chance upon a glimpse of a member of Saxon whilst we loaded in. It was disconcerting to say the least.
We played relatively early to a good-sized crowd. Our old pal big Nige was there and had brought a few of his long-term employers The Arctic Monkeys along. In between songs you could still hear that Saxon were rocking out downstairs. It was a little distracting. It was probably the best show of the 4 in Europe, we played well and the crowd were appreciative. Afterwards we decamped to the local jazz bar for an end of tour toast featuring a lengthy and varied rendition of ‘The Girl from Ipanema’ complete with some cheesy guy scatting. I could have stayed there for hours but tomorrow was an early start partly due to my travel plans back to Glasgow.
It was another beautiful morning the next day and I think we all would have liked to have hired bicycles and got stoned but it wasn’t to be. Tour was over and it was time to go home. The ferry from Calais was overrun with euro teens, all spotty and not knowing where they could and couldn’t smoke. Other than that it was a happy journey and I got dropped off at Gatwick with more than enough time to catch my flight.
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