Silent Front - Tour Diaries

UK & Ireland 2011

2012-01-02T12:31:00.000-08:00

Saturday 24.09.11 The Maze - Nottingham, England

The first thing we had to do was drive to North London to pick up Stef [Guns or Knives]. We battled through the Central London traffic and managed to be only twenty minutes late. The start of tour is always exciting and being that we know Stef very well, we were looking forward to hanging out with him for a week. Initially we planned to tour with Shield Your Eyes, but Henri was unable to do it so Stef asked if he could do it as Guns or Knives. We made room for Stef’s gear and because we were running late, we drove straight to Nottingham without stopping. On the journey we had the first of many discussions on the subject of how great it was being in a band and doing it yourself, how fantastic The Who are, and how rad Axl Rose is.

The Maze had three stages and we were on the one upstairs. It was a nice little room but it wasn’t set up very well, and after a discussion with the soundman, we rearranged the PA so that people could fit in to watch. It turned out to be a pointless exercise because the amount of people interested would have fitted had we kept with the original layout. Stef had a sore throat and cut his set short because of it. He played the intro to his first song, sang one word, stopped, apologised and said that he wasn’t feeling it, then packed up. Not including Stef or the soundman, we played to roughly six people. We tried a song we had been writing but didn’t do a very good job of it. We made a pact that we wouldn’t do it again this tour.

We had been told when we arrived that the evening was an “eclectic mix of bands”. To us, it just looked like a load of bands shoved on a bill to make up numbers. These types of shows put into perspective how lucky we are to be part of such a great community of bands and promoters, and not have to endure these type of events very often. I might sound ungrateful, but I don’t want to be part of an evening of wannabe rock stars, and Indie bands that want to swap with you on the bill because they have an A&R man coming down to see them.

The music continued until 2am and that meant waiting around for four hours because we were staying at Hannah’s [the promoter]. Stef went and got some sleep in the van and Gareth watched on as me and Phil took to alcohol to ease the boredom. We checked the bands out every so often but spent most of the time outside in the rain, chatting to people. Most of the people were sound, but there was this one arsehole who was walking around asking women if he could see their minges. The arsehole walked past, and one of his victims pointed him out, and a group of us made him apologise to her and another girl! He looked a bit like Kurt Sutherland from the hit ITV soap Coronation Street.

We left the venue just after 2am and headed with Hannah back to her house. Hannah’s house is in the roof area of a chapel in refurbished ex-mental hospital. On entry to her flat we marvelled at the wooden beams and the bridge from the kitchen to the outside area. Hannah showed us where everything was and said we could smoke outside on the roof, the only thing she said we couldn’t do was swing on the pole in the middle of the room because it was unstable. Hannah went to bed so we took turns to see how fast we could go on the exercise bike. We watched a bit of television then headed to the rooftop for a smoke. The flat was beautiful and the rooftop area was a nice touch. After we finished smoking, we headed back inside, across the bridge into the kitchen, then down the steps into the main room. Phil swung on the pole, jumped on the sofa then instantly fell asleep. Gareth and I straightened the pole, took the beer out of Phil’s hand, and got ready for bed.

Sunday 25.09.11 Audacious Art Experiment - Sheffield, England

In the morning, Hannah noticed that the pole had moved. It was an awkward few seconds, but Gareth took the initiative and grassed Phil up. Phil apologised and we collected our stuff and headed for the van. Sheffield was only a short drive from Nottingham so we had enough time to get some food. We found a Wetherspoons, bought breakfast, and recharged our electrical devices.

The Audacious Art Experiment is next to Bramall Lane [Sheffield United’s football ground] in a small warehouse unit. It is run by a collective of twenty people who use the space for art and music. This show had been put on to celebrate the birthday of Charlotte, one of the people who run it. They decorated the place with what looked like Halloween decorations and we set up our gear in the room at the back. There were five bands playing so it started early.

Lots of people had turned out and the room was full when Stef took to the stage [floor]. Earlier in the day, Stef had told me that he wasn’t going to be singing because his throat was still sore, instead, he would only play guitar. Of course, I told everyone that that was what was going to happen, and must have looked like a pratt when he started giving it some with his voice. Stef didn’t show any discomfort and treated the crowd to thirty minutes of soul-laden shit-hot blues. We played next and it was great, the crowd and whole set up was just perfect. Roseanne Barr played after us and were a mix of early Sonic Youth and the noisier parts of Bikini Kill. They were good, but they‘d do things every now and then that have been parodied a lot by comedians. Like the bit when the singer was banging her drums and staring into the crowd shouting “is that what you want is it? IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT IS IT?” Jennifer Saunders sprung to mind and I wasn’t sure if I should be laughing or nodding along. I liked them, I just wasn‘t keen on those bits. Maybe I need to lighten up. Satellites of Love and Woolf played after and were both also very good.

Once all the bands had finished, a projector was set up on top of my bass cabinet and a film called “Ladies and Gentleman - The Fabulous Stains” was beamed onto a wall. It has one of the most absurd plots ever and everyone in the film act like total cunts to each other, except the Rastafarian coach driver who was nice. The film centres around a young girl’s quest to “make it” with her punk band, and in the process, highlights the fickle nature of young women (young men are fickle too but this film wasn’t about that), and the exploitation of them by the industry and media. It’s not as serious as I’ve made it sound and is actually listed as a comedy. It’s got a young Ray Winstone in it as the singer of the band The Looters and also features Steve Jones and Paul Cook from the Sex Pistols and Paul Simonon from The Clash. After the film had finished we drank a bit more then headed back to Sam’s house. Sam had got us this show and is in a brilliant band called Wooderson. He is also a good lad.

Back at Sam’s house, we watched the F1 highlights and talked about Grimsby Town FC. Phil impressed us again with his “fall asleep instantly” trick. He had just finished a sentence when he leaned his head back, closed his eyes, and fell asleep. I thought it was a fluke when it happened the night before, but this proved that it was a real talent. We checked that he really was asleep, took the beer out of his hand, and headed up the steep staircase to bed. Gareth and I shared the double bed and Stef slept on the floor with his massive duvet.

Monday 26.09.11 Wolstenholme Creative Space - Liverpool, England

I cleaned myself in the in the morning with the baby wipes I’d brought along [the power shower kept turning itself off], brushed my teeth, then headed downstairs to wake Phil. He was already up and shortly after we were joined by Stef and Gareth. On our way out of Sheffield we had a discussion about the geographical make up of towns and how supermarkets cleverly place themselves on the roads that lead in and out of them. We knew we wouldn’t have a problem getting food because this applied to all the big towns and city’s in the country. By the time we hit the peak district we still hadn’t seen a supermarket and had to enjoy the splendid scenery with empty stomachs, and it wasn’t until we came to the town of Glossop before we could grab some food.

We arrived at the Wolstenholme Creative Space and parked the van outside and waited for a bit because we were early. We were parked next to a funky light installation that looked like it had been built in the 80s. The lights looked like semi exposed bellends placed upon a thin curvy stem and were all different colours. When Phil went off to get us all a cup of tea, Stef and I went and knocked on the door of the venue to see if we could load our gear in. A sweet lass named Priya opened the door and showed us where to set the gear up. The Wolstenholme Creative Space is run by a small group of artists inside a building that was once home to the first Mayor of Liverpool. The building was neglected for many years and as a result, meant they got it on the cheap.

From the way the space was run and used and how ace the crowd was, this show was very similar to the one the day before in Sheffield. Jon [the promoter] played first with his new band Eyes. They were a cross between Enablers and Lungfish and I thought that they were mint. Stef was great again, he seemed to give it more this time. He had bought some Vocalzone lozenges for his voice and said after that they had helped ease the pain. Axl Rose used to take medicine for his voice too. The whole evening had been amazing and after we played, I manned the merch table while Gareth and Jon took the PA back to the rehearsal room it had been hired from. On their return, we cleared up the mess we had made and loaded our gear back into the van and headed for Jon’s house.

Jon had acquired some vouchers for free pizza and ordered a load in. While we waited for it to arrive we took turns in the shower. We had to catch a ferry from Holyhead in the morning so we had an early start. After I finished eating pizza and drinking Vimto I went and got some sleep. It was my turn in the van.

Tuesday 27.09.11 Auntie Annie’s - Belfast, Northern Ireland

Because of the combination of cheese before bed and sleeping with my head the wrong end of a slope I didn’t get much sleep. It was a nice crisp morning, and despite the lack of sleep, I felt great. I phoned the other three to wake them up and gain entry to the house so I could use the toilet and brush my teeth. Jon woke up at the same time as us and came to the van to say goodbye. We put our bags and Stef’s massive duvet into the back, said goodbye to Jon and headed straight for the ferry. I’d had a dream about Stef’s massive duvet just a few hours before and it wasn’t a pleasant one. I told the others about the dream and Stef analysed it and said that it meant that I was a massive gay.

We boarded the ferry and took a seat next to the canteen area. The food was hugely overpriced so we decided to wait until we got to Ireland. Gareth and Stef felt sick so they weren’t keen on the idea anyway. Gareth slept on the floor underneath the table for most of the journey and Stef told stories of the time Shield ‘em got a ferry with Nitkowski. The funniest story was about Henri [Shield Your Eyes] being sick over Ed [Nitkowski], just seconds after boasting about how he didn’t feel seasick!

We disembarked in Dublin and decided to extend our wait for food until we got to Northern Ireland as food would be more reasonably priced there. We stopped in a small town just over the border and found a petrol station. The road that the petrol station was on was lined either side with ten Union Flags. Coming from England It’s easy to forget that there is some hostility in Northern Ireland over its sovereignty. This town was making its views known and it was a stark reminder of a very unfortunate and sad situation.

We had played at Auntie Annie’s before and I recognised the soundman. He had done a great job the last time we were there and did an equally good job this time. Ross [promoter] put on a rad line up of bands [Maw and Comply or Die] and had also done a lot of promotion for the show. He had got us a lot of press and had taken the time to plaster posters around the city. Unfortunately, the attendance didn’t match his efforts and he seemed a bit gutted about it. The amount of people in the room wasn’t that bad and had the room been smaller it would have looked fine. The crowd seemed to enjoy the night and we shifted quite a few records and t-shirts.

We drank a few more beers back at Ross’ house and spoke about music and good times. I like Ross, he is very enthusiastic about music and dedicates a lot of his time to helping out bands like us. The best thing about Ross’ house is the 128k ZX Spectrum in his toilet. It’s not plugged in or anything like that, it just looks mint.

Wednesday 28.09.11 Fred Zepplins - Cork, Ireland

When I awoke, Stef was already awake and writing emails on his laptop. This somehow turned into a long discussion about David Icke and the reptilian master race, and eventually turned into a session of watching internet clips of his interview with Terry Wogan. We went for a walk to find a café, and passed a half pipe where some extreme kids were doing extreme sports whilst listening to extreme music. The streets were full of students and there was a strong feeling of youthful excitement in the air. We found a café called Maggie May’s and we ordered breakfast. Phil ordered a Curly Wurly milkshake to go with his food, and Gareth thought that Phil had ordered it just to hear the lady say Curly Wurly in a Northern Irish accent.

It was nice and sunny in Belfast, but by the time we got to Cork it was pissing down with rain. We had to do a speedy load in to the venue because we were parked on a busy road obstructing traffic. The venue was upstairs and was painted red and black, which matched the colour scheme of our merch. It was great to see the lads from Slugbait again as we had had a rad time with them the last time we were in Cork. I had forgotten how fast they spoke and it took a few moments to adjust. Before the show started, Pete [Slugbait] showed me the smoking room and we watched the Arsenal game on the television. The smoking room was amazing. They had put some sliding doors at one end of the pub and cut two holes into the ceiling. It used to be just the one hole but health and safety had been in and told them that it wasn’t legal.

The show was great, Fat Actress and Slugbait were both immense and Stef continued to be brilliant. The stage was wide and that suited us down to a tittle as everyone had space to move. It was tight for time but we managed to play our whole set and only over ran by a few minutes. We packed our gear up and put it on the stage as we were leaving it there for the night. I had a chat with Edel and Dany [Art For Blind - one of the labels that put out Dead Lake] who had moved from Leeds to Cork a couple months earlier. They couldn’t hang about for long as Edel had work in the morning. Gareth drove his van back to Louie’s [Slugbait - we were staying at his house] and later met Me, Phil and Stef at a bar in town.

The bar was packed with the type of people I’d usually avoid, but I was on holiday so I didn’t mind. The music wasn’t too bad and they even played The Chain by Fleetwood Mac. Gareth managed to get drunk within ten minutes of being there and spent most of the evening on the dance floor with Pete. Seb [Slugbait and promoter] wasn’t able to hang out with us which was a shame as I’d not spoken to him much during the show.

They kicked everyone out at around 3am and a mass of people congregated on the pavement outside of the pub. A fight broke out between one of the guys we were with [I’ve forgotten his name] and some dickhead. I manoeuvred in between them to calm things down and it occurred to me that I probably shouldn’t have. If he’d turned on me I’d have got my arse kicked! The last proper fight involving me was with Oliver, a kid from Brunel Court when I was only fourteen years old. I won that one, but the experience wouldn’t have helped me in this situation. Fortunately the fight ended there and we were able to make our way back to Louie’s house, where we drank some more, watched you tube clips, and listened to a band called Ten Past Seven who were mint.

Thursday 29.09.11 Sally Longs - Galway, Ireland

Louie cooked us breakfast in the morning and we headed into Cork city centre to have and a nose, and so Stef could get some guitar strings. Cork is a lovely place but we didn’t stick around for very long. We looked in the music shop and a charity shop and headed back to Louie’s for a shower, then to Fred Zepplins to pick up our gear.

The drive to Galway took just under three hours and we arrived at the venue on time. The bar manager wasn’t very friendly and nor were his customers. Luckily they didn’t hear Stef refer to someone back home as a pikey. Stef hadn’t meant it in its racist context, in the South of England the word pikey is used to describe someone with poor social skills, listens to rave music, and thinks that so and so should win X-factor. Basically, it’s another word for chav. When Stef realised what he had said, his face turned to one of fear, and he looked around to see if anyone had heard then suggested to me that he should probably stop talking! The promoter gave us a bag of food and we opened it to see what was inside. There was a large bag of tortilla chips, a salsa dip, a packet of bourbon biscuits, apples and six energy drinks. It was a strange thing to have for dinner but I didn’t mind, I was hungry. Since Belfast, I’d only eaten a sandwich and a breakfast. Food in Ireland was expensive, and the little money I did have was being spent on beer.

We had put my 8x10 bass cabinet on to a pool table to make space on the stage. Because of its size we had to put it on lying down sideways and it looked grand. Stick Around were the other band on the bill and they had an American punk sound, something I never got into, but they were as good as any band that I’d heard of in that genre. It’s nice to watch bands every now and then that you wouldn‘t normally listen to. Ironically, after Stick Around finished some of the crowd left. It didn’t matter, there were still plenty of people there to watch us. It was a good show and we played slightly longer than normal.

After I packed my leads and my bass away I headed for the merch table to find Stef was manning it for us. He looked like he was coping fine so I stopped off for a beer at the bar. I bought a Smithwicks Indian Pale Ale and I thought it tasted the same as Young’s Pilsner, which isn’t an IPA. It was nice and I particularly enjoyed its undertone of subtle floral notes - basically, I could taste elderflower.

We packed our gear away and Mike [Stick Around] bought us all chips in pita bread from the kebab shop near the venue. The area was full of students and there was total chaos on the small streets of Galway. People were smashing glasses and men and women were pissing anywhere they could. It was like a Saturday night in Kingston or Bolton, just on a smaller scale and with a nicer backdrop. We stayed at Mike’s house that night and he was a thoroughly nice guy with lots and lots of energy. He had an acoustic bass in the living room and we took turns playing it and made up some comical names for the songs on my fictional record “BASSically Whitehorn”. I told Mike that he looked like the England footballer Stewart Downing but he had never heard of him. Mike went to bed as he had to go to work in the morning, we followed suit shortly after and Stef slept in the van with his massive duvet.

Friday 30.09.11 Ruta Live - Dublin, Ireland

Tonight’s show was in Dublin, with the promoter Murmur Presents. They had put on our show the last time we were in Dublin and I will always remember it as the craziest Halloween party I’d ever been to. We met up with one half of Murmur [Steve] outside his work and he told us that this was going to be the last Murmur show for the foreseeable future. Steve jumped in the van with us and we went to meet the other half of Murmur [Connor]. Steve and Connor bought us each a burrito at Boojum, a Mexican style chain restaurant. It was the best food I’d had all tour and just thinking about it makes me wet at the lips. I bought myself a root beer to wash the food down, and we took a walk to a record store that had just opened that very day. We had a little browse, wished we had more money on us, then headed back to the van and drove to Ruta Live, the venue for the show.

The stage still had equipment on it from the night before so we had to pack that down before we could set up our own gear. Stef mentioned to me that he had taken a dump in the ladies toilets because it was cleaner than the Gents and they had locks on the doors. I too needed a dump so I copied Stef and used the ladies. The bar wasn’t open to the public so we weren’t infringing upon anyone’s privacy. Stef was right, they were cleaner, and they did have locks on the doors. They even had soap in the soap dispenser, and bowls of potpourri next to the sink. I don’t mind not having potpourri in the Gents but it would be nice to have locks on the doors, soap, and a dry floor.

This show will go down as one of my favourite shows of all time. Once again, Stef was excellent, throughout the tour he had grown in confidence playing to crowds on his own and his shit hot blues was hotter than ever [that last sentence is precisely the reason I’ll never give gig reviewing a go]. Jogging went on second. We had played with them on the same bill at the Big Horse Party II in Leeds a few months before. They were one of the stand out bands for me, and I’d been looking forward to seeing them again ever since. They played a set of songs both new and old and I recognised the ones from their album “Minutes”, which is a fantastic record. Jogging were mint, everything I’d remembered them being. When we went on the venue was still packed with people and I felt a little nervous and very excited. We also did a set of new and old songs and after we had finished Across The River And Into The Trees, the crowd asked for an encore. After we had played the encore, they asked us to do another! We were all soaking wet from head to toe in sweat as it was so hot on stage, and Gareth and Phil looked like they had jumped into a swimming pool.

I headed over to the merch table and chatted to lots of ace people. I met Ian Maleney and Naomi Neu! [also known as Nay McCardle] for the first time, Ian had published an interview he had done with us on Thumped.com and Naomi had said some nice stuff about us on the internet after our last visit to Dublin. After a year of stalking them on Twitter, it was nice to finally meet them properly. The whole night was everything I hoped it would be and I’d had a banger. We loaded our gear through the heavy rain into the back of the van and made our way to Steve and Connor’s house.

Back at Steve and Connor’s we ordered in some pizza and I had a shower. There was still a load of beer left over from the show so we all tucked in. Connor phoned some of his friends and tried to convince them, and us, that we should meet half way between the houses on a roundabout. The plan was to take a ghetto blaster so that we could dance on the roundabout in the rain. It was 4.30am by this point and they weren’t up for it. Steve said that Connor didn’t own a ghetto blaster anyway. We had to be awake at 6am to catch the ferry, and at 5am, I laid down on the carpet and shut my eyes.

Saturday 01.10.11 Music From Elsewhere Festival - Bishops Castle, England

I’d been asleep for an hour when Gareth woke me up. The party was still happening but they had left the room I was in, turned out the light, and someone had covered me with a blanket. There were new faces in the house and the friends Connor had been speaking to about meeting on a roundabout must have arrived when I was asleep. I went upstairs to wake Phil, and to my surprise, he got up at the first time of asking. Phil had had less sleep than the rest of us [nudge-nudge, wink-wink, say no more]. We said our goodbyes to Connor and Steve and made our way to the ferry port.

We boarded the ferry and headed for the sofas so we could sleep. Gareth, Stef and Phil fell asleep straight away but I watched on in horror as the whole place filled up with Manchester United fans. Two united fans had sat on a table in between Stef and Phil, and before I fell asleep, I noticed that one had put a beer on to the table in front of him. When I woke up an hour and a half later, their table was filled with empty beer cans and their eyes weren‘t opening as wide as they were before. Pretty impressive considering it was 10.30am.

We disembarked in Wales and headed for Bishops Castle. I had been told many times about how beautiful some parts of Wales are and just thought that they were exaggerating. Wales is incredibly beautiful. We stopped off for a bit and took some photos and laughed at some sheep. David Icke had said that humans laugh at sheep because they are stupid, so every time we saw one we’d pretend to laugh and call it stupid. It was never particularly funny but it did pass the time on long journeys. We continued our journey through Wales, pointing at stuff, and promising ourselves that we’d holiday there next year. We made one more stop off just before England, this time a toilet, because Phil and I needed to poo. The walls of the cubicle were filled with the phone numbers of men promising to swallow my cum. At first I thought it was a joke, but judging by the sheer amount of it, I realised that it probably wasn’t. All the messages had been dated and were recent. Phil said that his cubicle was the same. I’m surprised cottaging still exists, what with modern technology and Apples vast array of apps?

When we turned up to the Music From Elsewhere Festival the sun was out and it was hot. England had been having a heat wave while we were away. We said hello to Dave and Liz [Lancashire and Somerset Dance Society, great people and festival organisers] and they told us about the barrel of beer that we could help ourselves to. The pub had its own micro brewery and they had brewed a beer especially for the festival. The day was a charity fundraiser and the crowd was made up of locals and the friends of Dave and Liz from all over the country. The crowd varied in age from babies to the elderly and the bill was an “eclectic mix of bands”. This was a good example of what an eclectic mix of bands should look like. The music styles were different, but the quality of the bands was the same. The event looked like this

MUGSTAR - mind bending psychedelic rock music from the cosmic North (errr Liverpool)

MARY HAMPTON - genius folk journeys from Brighton

SILENT FRONT - amazing post hardcore from London - shellac meets sonic youth meet melvins!! yes!!

GUNS OR KNIVES - Stef from 'Shield Your Eyes' treats us to re-workings of Son House / Mississippi Fred McDowell

SWEET WILLIAMS - members of Charlottefield / Ox Scapula and Lamp create heavy rocking post angular blues

VAN COEUR - re- assembled Good Morning Captain shift down a gear into For Carnation blues workouts

BLACK OCTAGON - Journeys into English Folk and American Blues atmospheres

MIND MOUNTAIN - 3 men worshipping at the alter of Sabbath - long riffs around the cosmic nod!

MOTES - Bristol super group from member of Soeza / Line / Headfall create minimalist rock

THE HORSE LOOM - Unit Ama guitarist/vocalist Steve Malley creating amazing folk songs via the druid lay line

McWATT - Leeds duo of flute / accordion and double bass, how sea shanties should sound!

SPITTING COBRA - overworked / underplayed heavy/loud noise rock

Two guys we’d met over the past week were at the show too. One was a chap called Sam [Spitting Cobra] who had played with us in his other band Eyes at the Liverpool show. The other chap was a guy called Chris who is in a couple of ace bands – Lords and Kogumaza, we had met him in Nottingham on the very first night of tour. In fact, the line up was full of people we had met over the years through music. It was a bit like the last episode of Quantum Leap.

Because there were children in attendance, Stef changed some of the lyrics to a few of his songs. It was disappointing; Axl Rose would have kept the rude words in there. It was a tremendous day and we had felt privileged to have been asked be a part of it. Mugstar brought the festival to a close with a set of cosmic rock and a psychedelic light show.

We walked back to Dave and Liz’s house and hung out with Sweet Williams, The Horse Loom and various members of the other bands. I was too tired to drink and Liz made me and Stef a cup of tea. In the garden, three tents had been erected, two normal ones and a tepee. We were given the tepee. After a long fight with tiredness, I gave in and headed for the tepee. Phil and Stef followed shortly after and Gareth slept in the van.

Sunday 02.10.11 Home - Kingston, England

I woke up to find a slug just inches from my face. Stef was already up and about but Phil was snoring happily next to me. I got out of the tepee and headed into the house where Liz was making everyone coffee and Dave was making toast. I found Stef and we made our way to the van to wake Gareth. It was a pleasant morning and the church bells were ringing and families were making their way to church. We woke Gareth and made our way back to the house to wake Phil and collect our bags. We said our goodbyes to Liz and everyone left in the house from the night before and headed with Dave to the venue to collect our gear. We thanked Dave for the great day, said goodbye, then headed home.

Twenty minutes into the drive home Gareth groaned, swore then told us that the van had lost power. The van had broken down only a few weeks before we went on tour and the symptoms were the same. We pulled into a pub car park and Stef asked to have a look at the engine before Gareth phoned for breakdown recovery. Stef had concluded that we might have had a water leak and that may of caused the engine to overheat and shut down. We filled the engine up with water and the water came straight out of a pipe that had become disconnected. Stef and Phil reconnected the pipe the best they could and Gareth and I went and filled up some bottles of water for the engine. For fixing the van, Gareth and I treated Stef to a Sunday Roast in the Nags Head [the pub we had parked in]. We were served our food by two young ladies and Phil explained to us what he would do to them, with their consent.

We were originally going to drop Stef in North London but he had told as not to as the van wasn’t entirely fixed and that it would be silly to risk it. When we got home we unloaded our gear, Stef had a shower, and I made myself a cup of tea and reflected upon the week gone by. It had been fun and I couldn’t wait to do it all again. When Stef finished in the shower we said our goodbyes, and did the usual end of tour hugs. Stef would be coming round ours a week later for the Triple Jump all-dayer so he only took some essentials, and left us with his guitars, his amp and cabinet, a bag of clothes, and his massive duvet.

Euro Tour May 2011

2011-08-27T10:17:00.000-07:00

17th May 2011 Exhaus - Trier, Germany

I woke up early to make some cheese sandwiches for the journey, have what was potentially a last shower for a few days and water the tomatoes. Alex our housemate promised me he would do it while I was away but in a spectacular lack of trust, I drenched them just in case he forgot. This was Phil’s last week as a 20-something-year-old so he was determined to have a good time, and knew that when he hit 30 the tour would be over. We loaded the van with our gear, whacked BBC 4 on the radio and hit the road.

About half an hour into the drive to Dover, I realised I‘d left my sandwiches back at home and that my only option was going to be over priced service station sandwiches, and more worryingly, I wondered what else I had left at home. BBC 4 was still on and Gareth announced that he sort of knew one of the experts on the show. Mildly impressed, we continued to listen, eventually changing to 1548 Capital Gold. Capital Gold was my Dads favourite radio station and could be often seen wearing the t-shirts he‘d won on the early morning phone ins. We boarded the ferry and Phil and Gareth had a little sleep and I played with my camera phone most of the journey [Gareth was going to take photos for the tour diary but had left his camera with the sandwiches].

When we disembarked at Calais, we were pleasantly surprised to discover that we could still get 1548 Capital Gold. As it was hot, we wound down the windows, took our shirts off and listened to the greatest hits of all time as we hit the French motorway. As good as that sounds, my favourite bit of the journey was after we had outrun Gold’s signal and I was able to stick on A Thousand Leaves by Sonic Youth. It is perfect summer music and takes me back to the summer of ‘98. It is definitely in my top three favourite SY records, maybe even top two, with Bad Moon Rising being the other. Maybe it should be a top three with Daydream Nation in there too. - I had this conversation with Gareth and I didn’t really get to a conclusion. Gareth is not too familiar with all the records so his part in the conversation was to just nod and hope I got distracted and talk about something else.

We had been to Trier before with Roll Call for the Second Site, albeit briefly, and despite only ever seeing it in the dark, it seemed familiar. Exhaus is a squat [we didn’t get proper confirmation of this but we are sure it is] that is well kept and very well run. The venue was underground and was a good size with plenty of room on and around the stage to store our gear. As we were the first band to arrive, we set our stuff up and had a sound check. Cough were late and were not going to get a sound check themselves so we were able to leave our gear on stage, ready for us to go straight on when the time came.

When we headed upstairs for food, we met Cough properly for the first time. We introduced ourselves, loaded our plates with food and rather awkwardly sat around a big table eating with them in total silence. Phil turned into his mum briefly and said, “wow, the food is so good everyone has gone silent” but this didn’t stimulate conversation the way he had hoped it would. The conversation did eventually get going and we spoke about London and what a good lad Matt of Astrohenge is as they had met him a few days earlier.

I hadn’t been this nervous before a show in a long time, and I wasn’t sure why it was I felt like it. After a few small errors I overcame my fears and we went on to play a great show. The crowd were mainly there to see Cough but we went down just as well. German crowds always tend to be great. Cough, who are on Relapse and from The USA, were a great watch and they inspired Gareth and Phil to get on with their doom project [Moors w/ the aforementioned Matt of Astrohenge and the whole of Nitkowski]. They have been banging on about it for a year now but they have only had one practice to date.

As we had polished off the rider, we set out for some beers with Joey from Cough. I bought myself a can of Faxe because I‘d not had one in a while and because it comes in a litre sized can. We stayed above the venue with Cough in a room with eight bunk beds. They all lived in Richmond, Virginia and it was nice to hear them talking about Richmond as I too had been brought up in a Richmond. Richmond Upon Thames. They were also impressed with this. In fact, they were quite easy people to please, when I explained the history of football and the meaning of the word soccer, Joey said that his mind was blown. Brandon told us that if we ever went to the USA, we wouldn’t have any problems getting laid. Though he said that to Phil, then said that Gareth would definitely get laid, but never got round to me. We spoke some more about cultural differences and found some common ground in being citizens of the most hated nations on Earth. The best story of the evening was about the singer from Offspring, that a friend of theirs, who knew him, had told them. Allegedly, during the Smash tour of Europe, Offspring’s tour bus was pulled over and searched at customs. If you remember back, the singer had long plats/dreadlock things for hair and because of this was singled out for a full body search. By the next album, Ixnay on the hombre, he had cut his hair off and apparently, the ordeal of having his bottom searched was the reason for it. Not the greatest story ever told, but at the time, we found it amusing.

A nice proper set of lads were Cough and it was a shame sleep would have to get in the way of hanging out with them some more.

18th May 2011 Excalibur - Reims, France

In the morning, we attempted to eat what we thought was breakfast. It turned out to be bread that was meant for a band that had stayed there a few days earlier, the baguette was rock solid, and the loaf of bread was like rubber. The juice was fine so we drank that then I woke Phil up with a Synthesizer application on my iPod. We said our goodbyes to Cough and headed into town to source some local produce for breakfast. Cough went to Burger King.

We returned to the van that was parked in the communal area of the squat to eat breakfast. There were loads of children running about, swinging on swings and playing football. We sat there watching on and not one worker asked us who we were or why we were there. Phil, Gareth and I are all police checked but they were not to know that. In my days of running such play schemes, I would have had my clipboard out asking us to sign in or more likely, be asking us to leave.

The Sun was blazing so once again we wound down the windows of the van, but this time, waited until we had got out of the play area before taking our shirts off. On our way to Reims, we filled up with cheap petrol in Luxembourg and I bought a load of cheap tobacco. Because of the low tax on goods, the service stations in Luxembourg are busy and there are long queues for the petrol. Same goes for the tobacco, when you walk into the shop they have it on the shelves in buckets and stacked high and wide behind the counter. It was full of your Dot Cotton’s and Jeremy Clarkson’s of this world. I was Dot Cotton, Gareth was Jeremy Clarkson. Phil didn’t buy any tobacco because they didn’t have his brand and he believes in staying loyal to it.

Reims is a pleasant town and when we pulled up to Excalibur we were greeted by the friendly, very energetic and maybe slightly crazy lady who ran the bar. I don’t mean that in a horrible way - I was halfway to falling in love with her. We parked the van directly outside and were assured that the road markings meant nothing and that it was completely safe to park. Unloading was very quick as Dom and Michel [the promoters] and a few others helped us.

The venue filled up and there were people both inside and outside watching the bands and the only thing separating us from outside was a large pane of glass on the front of the café. It was still very loud outside and it made sense for some to be out there because it was crowded inside. Térébenthine were the first band on and I thought that they were excellent. If you look them up on the internet, be warned, the other Terebenthine are crap. The ones we played with are a two piece playing what I would describe as instrumental rock [some might add the word “post” before the word rock]. We got to play all our songs except Knot and played a new one for an encore, it was an exceptional night and the crowd looked like they were enjoying themselves too.

After we had played, one of the crowd members took a shine to Gareth and was hugging him, trying to kiss him on his neck and fondling his hair. There were two obvious problems for Gareth here

He has a girlfriend
The man was not in the slightest bit attractive and even if he was, Gareth is heterosexual.

We had met an English chap from Barnet called Sam who said that the guy in love with Gareth used to do it to him and was relieved that he got a night off. Sam was a great fella and had turned up early to help us out if we had any language problems. When he first introduced himself to us he mentioned that he was English which was not necessary considering his accent gave the game away - though it was confusing for a brief second when he first started speaking. Sam must have made a good impression on the town, the drummer from Térébenthine was wearing a polo shirt with a large Union Jack on the left breast and some lass had turned up with a Union Jack handbag.

We continued the party back at Michel’s house as it was his birthday. We were initially told to keep the noise down but as the room filled up and everyone drank some more, the noise level rose higher and higher. I took along my stash of beer, Gareth had his bottle of rum and Phil also had some beers. Dom gave us some red wine as well and Phil got given some hash. There was a great atmosphere and at one point I had a French guy, holding the French equivalent of a special brew, slurring kind words about my bass playing. It was nice at first but by the eighth repetition I wanted to change the subject or speak to someone else. I hit the alcohol hard that night so I’ve lost many memories of the evening but I do remember being given a drink that had [inside the bottle] a dead snake with a scorpion in its mouth. It tasted like rotting snake and I didn’t see the appeal. Oh well, when in Reims… [this was Gareth’s joke and he had repeated it a couple of times over the course of the day, also we thought it was pronounced Rem but it isn‘t, it‘s pronounced Rhen, which means the joke doesn‘t work, or at least, doesn‘t work as well]. I also have a recollection of us making a bong out of one of the plastic beer bottles. I had fun, and that’s all that matters.

19th May 2011 Grnnnd Zero - Lyon, France

Guillaume from Térébenthine was still in the house in the morning [he works in Paris but had not woken up when he was supposed to so he phoned in sick] and there were a few other people looking worse for wear stumbling about. We were given some much needed coffee and croissants for breakfast, had a shower then headed for Lyon.

Lyon is a five or so hour drive away so we each bought a baguette and some camembert for the journey [Gareth did his joke again]. I remember at one point the heavens opened and Gareth had to hold his nerve on the motorway because his vision was obscured by the heavy rain. There is something terribly exciting about heavy rain, especially at high speed. As we went further south the rain stopped and the blazing hot sun appeared.

We got to Grrrnd Zero on time despite the traffic and the heavy rain. We said hello to Daminos and Paul of Bigoût Records [they are one of the labels that put out Dead Lake] and unloaded our gear into the venue. Grrrnd Zero is an Extraordinary place and every city should have one. It was once a Bathroom showroom and office block but has been squatted and turned into rehearsal rooms and a venue. It also has rooms upstairs for the bands to sleep in and the place is always kept clean and tidy. They constantly have someone on duty and if you need anything during the night you can wake the on duty person up! It’s like staying in a hotel, only better. It is very sad that such a place is under threat of closure, especially when you see how much good it does for the community. I wish we had a Grrrnd Zero in London, the closest we have come was unfortunately run by Ironside’s rude cousin and an even ruder bloke whose party trick was to fit through a tennis racket. I prefer nice people and Grrrnd Zero has an abundance of them.

Every time we have been to Lyon they have not only fed us, but put on a feast. This spread consisted of bread, cheese, curry and a few different quiche type dishes which seem to appear on every spread in Lyon. It’s not just good food either, it is always top notch. This kept Gareth busy up until we played and every time I looked in the room he was filling his plate up with more food. You see, Gareth’s special ability is to eat, Phil’s is to sleep and mine is to talk nonsense when everyone wants to be quiet.

This show was with Torticoli, Sport and The Forgetters. Torticoli were a mint instrumental band and I enjoyed every second of their set. Sport were not the sort of thing I’d listen to at home but I still found myself enjoying them. The Forgetters were from the USA and consisted of members from Jawbreaker, Against Me and Bitchin‘. Again, not really my cup of tea and definitely not what I was expecting but I still enjoyed it nonetheless. We played before The Forgetters and had a great time. We did set two plus Across The River and played our unnamed new song for the encore. The crowd were great and afterwards we were told that two hundred and sixty people had paid to get in - we were given four hundred euros as payment which was a lot more than we had asked for!

We were going to be sleeping upstairs above the venue and didn’t need to pack our equipment away until the morning so we set about getting bladdered with Paul and Daminos. They had some homebrew which we helped them finish and the beer was free for us. Eventually the bar became self service so we continued drinking until the beer ran out. We then staggered up the stairs, found the room with our name written on it, set our alarms and went to sleep.

20th May 2011 Autonomes Zentrum - Koln, Germany

My alarm woke me up at half eight so I turned it off and went back to sleep hoping the other two had set their alarms. Shortly after, Gareth’s alarm sounded so we both got out of bed and started getting ready to leave. Phil’s alarm followed but he slept through it. After brushing my teeth and spraying deodorant over my body to mask any smells, I woke Phil up. Gareth refuses to do it because when you wake Phil he gets aggressive and makes out that you are being unreasonable and acts like you’ve just fed him a pube sandwich. It only ever lasts for about ten seconds but Gareth chooses to not be a part of it. Next we loaded up the van then went to Atac, our favourite French supermarket. To be honest, it’s not our favourite because it’s the best, it’s entirely due to the fact that we’ve been there so many times before and that it is as familiar to us as our local supermarket.

Gareth had had little sleep so I was going to commit to staying awake for the whole journey with him. To achieve this we decided that we’d only listen to mint albums. We started with Rumours by Fleetwood Mac and followed it with Shield Your Eyes by Shield Your Eyes, In Utero by Nirvana and Chauffeurs by Nitkowski. At least, that’s the order I wrote them down in. It’s not a lot of music for an eight and a half hour drive but the other trick to staying awake is to talk. We had been discussing the pros and cons of bringing another band on tour with us and we spoke about how when you are a single band, you get to know the promoters better as there are less people vying for their attention, but when you don’t bring another band, there are less opportunities for conversation and you don’t get a sentence of the week. Sentences of the week are great things but as the name suggests, they only last a week. You can try to make them last longer and take them home with you, explain them to your friends, but no one outside the tour van will understand it. Previous sentences of the week include “Daddy’s in Abu Dhabi Mummy (in a posh accent)”, “Shhh, it’s just a joke” (you whisper this one), “I’ve got a willy” (you have to say it while pretending to cry), “Smelly old wasp” (in a deep voice) and the classic “Crafty sonar”.

As we approached The North of France the rain started, eventually turning into a downpour causing low visibility and as we entered Luxembourg, we were treated to a tremendous display of lightning and loud Thunder. We stopped off to fill up with petrol [along with everyone else passing through Luxembourg] and I added to my collection of rolling tobacco. I wanted to buy six packets this time but six is sechs which sounds like sex so I opted for the other highest number I knew which was vier [four].

We got to Koln on time and found the venue with ease. We didn’t have high hopes for tonight’s show as we were the only band on the bill and we were pretty much gate crashing a dubstep night. Flo, the guy putting us on, showed us around Autonomes Zentrum [the squat] and gave us a full commentary on the squat’s brief history and explained that they had no electricity or water and that to flush the toilet you’d need to take in a bucket of rain water that they had collected. He said that it wasn’t a problem that the toilets didn’t flush because “if seventy percent* of the world can do without flushing toilets, then so can we” a sentiment not shared by Phil or Gareth who needed to shit. It’s one of those moments in life when you realise that you are in fact a spoilt little middle class prick. I always say to people who accuse me of being middle class that I was brought up in a council flat, a defence that probably wouldn‘t have worked here. I didn’t like Flo when I first met him, mainly because I judge people and I’m crap at it, but the more I spoke to him it became clear his dedication to good things and that he was a great person. Flo founded the squat and worked hard to get it to where it is today, he fought a battle with it’s owners [a bank] and won. It’s technically not a squat either as the bank gave him a lease! Flo runs the squat [there is a group of volunteers but I get the impression that he devotes the most time] alongside his full time job and lives elsewhere as he took the decision to not allow people to live there because some were shitting and pissing in their rooms. It’s idiots like that that give Anarchism a bad name because they think it’s about doing what you want when you want. I’m not massively clued up about it myself but I do know that it is about community, being nice and pulling your weight. And post apocalyptic clothing.

We sat down to eat before the show with Flo and a few other people who help run the squat and ate an amazing Asparagus soup. We were offered two types of beer, one a standard pilsner, and the other, a type of beer called a Kölsch that was local to Koln. We chose the Kölsch and that gave Gareth an opportunity to reprise the gag he had done in Reims. It worked better this time because Koln [Cologne] almost rhymes with Rome. The main course was a German/Japanese mix of noodles and pickles. I held back from making jokes about a previous German/Japanese alliance because I figured that mentioning the war to a German is about as cool as doing a scouse accent to a Liverpudlian. I might as well have whipped my top off, jumped on a table and started chanting the classic “one world cup and two world wars”, with my Kölsch in one hand, and pointing at them with the other.

The room that we were playing in was huge and had a high ceiling. This would usually mean that the sound would be crap, but it was fine. There was plenty of time so we played a long set and were surprised at how well we went down considering it was a dubstep night. The crowd even bought a load of records! The whole experience was pretty ace, the people I spoke to were nice and the atmosphere was very friendly. The dubstep was pretty good too, I would have danced but I dance like your dad and didn’t think it’d be appropriate.

After a while of watching people dance we headed up to bed. Because there were no lights we had a wind up torch that you had to continuously wind or it‘d just turn off. We stopped on the way for a rummage through a load of clothes, bric a brac and gewgaws [we weren’t stealing, Flo had told us to take anything we liked] but after feeling about for ten minutes and constantly asking the torch bearer to “shine it over here a sec” we decided that we’d have more success in the morning. We continued our mission to find our room, and after scaring myself with thoughts about how snuff movies work, I shared them with the others. If I was directing a snuff movie or a thriller I’d definitely set it in this building. One more thought occurred to me, no one knew where we were, on our gig listing it said Koln - Partyministerium and Flo told us when we arrived that it was wrong.

*I made that stat up because I can’t remember the actual one, but it was a high number.

21st May 2011 Espace B - Paris, France

Thankfully we woke up in the morning still alive. There had been no elaborate plot to murder us during the night and film it. The room was now lit with sunlight and we could see everything in the room including old sleeping bags and the stains on the mattresses that we’d just been sleeping on. We let Phil have an extra twenty minutes to wake up so once Gareth had got the van and backed it up to the door, we started loading in. We had a proper look through the nic nacs and trinkets and in the light it wasn’t as exciting as it was in the dark. It had become apparent why no one had taken this stuff before. I did find a European kettle lead which strangely enough I was looking for. I would have liked to have taken some photos of the place but Flo had asked us not to and even though no one was around and I was tempted, I decided to respect Flo’s decision. He was a good person, albeit, a very serious one.

We stopped in a town in Koln to buy some breakfast but I left empty handed as I was fed up with eating bread and that was all that was on offer in the supermarket. That and salty pretzel snacks and liquid based salads. Gareth and Phil bought a carrot and coleslaw salad each. The drive to Paris was largely uneventful but we did stop in a service station that we had visited on our way to Hazebrouck from Metz two weeks before. It was the service station that we had refused two hitchhikers a lift, but later discovered we were going the same way. Also, the toilets had been fixed and I made full use of them.

We were the first band to arrive at Espace B and had been very much looking forward to this show. We did have some sad news though, our old tour buddies Revok had had to cancel due to a rather unfortunate circumstance. A band called Howling Fever replaced them. I was also looking forward to seeing Kimmo who, if you’ve never heard, are amazing. It was nice because Natasha [singer, guitarist] appeared to be as honoured to be playing a show with us as I was to be playing a show with them. My second encounter with Natasha was in the toilets - the men’s toilet was a squat toilet [hole in the ground] and the ladies was the John Harrington style, something which is more my scene despite it’s medical disadvantages. After I’d finished laying a cable in it I left to find her waiting to use it. Firstly, I’d made it smell bad and secondly I shouldn’t have been using it at all [just to clear things up, I wasn’t technically in the girls toilets as the sink area was shared and the two doors opposite each other, one for Dames and one for Hommes]. How embarrassing.

Howling Fever went on first and were ace. I think they are a Parisian band, and from what I can gather, haven‘t been around for very long. The singer does this amazing falsetto thing with his voice which I found quite impressive. Kimmo were up next and to be quite frank, were even better than I thought they’d be. They kicked off the set with Kikkoman, the first song on their album “Bolt and Biscuit”, and continued to play mint song after mint song. They did a few tracks from “After The Show” which I recognised [that was the only record I had at the time] so I was a very happy bunny. We played next and at the risk of sounding repetitive, we had an ace show and the crowd were great etc. We have played in Paris more times than any other city [not including London] so people are familiar with us and we have many friends there. Narrows played last. Narrows are made up of ex members of Botch, These Arms are Snakes and more bizarrely, Ursa. Ursa, were around in the early 2000s and consisted of members who went on to form Ternary and Art of Burning Water. We played many shows with them and they introduced us to bands like Caretaker, Werm [now Art of Burning Water] and Windham Chikarah [now One Unique Signal]. Wayne Pennell and Kyham Allami of Ursa were also responsible for the recording of our Delete EP and Wayne recorded Misanthrope for our split with Shield Your Eyes. Ursa were a great band and I learned a lot from them. - I know I am supposed to be talking about the show in Paris but I figure that a brief history of West London DIY in the early 2000s is in some way relevant.

When the show had finished, I bought myself the two Kimmo records that I didn’t own and chatted with them some more about their music. Afterwards I went outside to talk to friends and anyone who would listen. We were staying at the home of Alex and Tiffany, two very good friends of ours. Claire, another friend was coming back too and we were dropping the promoter [Thomas] home so we all crammed into the van. We bought some beers and pizza along the way and set about drinking too much and staying up way too late. Claire and Tiffany told us a story about some person who ate a McDonalds too quickly and died as a result. They didn’t elaborate any more on how it happened but were happy to treat it as fact. It was a very good night and even though we had one more show to go, it felt like the end of the tour.

22nd May 2011 The Fighting Cocks - Kingston Upon Thames, England

With only three and half hours sleep, we woke to the sound of our alarms and got up quietly so we didn’t wake Tiff and Alex. Phil was in the van so there was no need to wake him. We stopped off at a petrol station before exiting Paris and were greeted by a young adult in children’s clothing demanding money off of us. I think he was in the red gang because his oversized clothes were various shades of red. He must have had one leg shorter than the other too because he had a severe limp. We refused him the money so he stood still, trying to look mean, but eventually limped off behind the van to harass someone else when he realised that there were three of us, and we could look meaner.

We boarded our ferry at Calais, found a seat at the front, and had a kip. I woke up to discover an audience of about twenty people had congregated in front of us and were all looking in our direction. I was confused for a few seconds, until I realised that they were there to get a glimpse of the famous white cliffs of Dover through the window behind us. I bought myself a pain au chocolat and a coffee and sat back down to watch the people watching me. On our way back to the van, and while we were queuing to get down the stairs, Phil got speaking to an elderly couple who had been listening in on our conversations. Phil gave them a short guide to DIY touring and they were most impressed. He gave them our web address and when we got to the bottom of the stairs we said our goodbyes. Strangely, I think he had made their day.

With plenty of time to spare before the show started, we dropped all our gear into the Fighting Cocks and went home to shower, eat and I checked my plants. They had come along way in the week we had been apart, and my original fears that Alex would forget to water them was proven to be mere paranoia. He had done a wonderful job and said that he not only watered them, but had been speaking to them.

The whole week had been Phil’s birthday week and each night we had done plenty of celebrating. Tonight was another birthday celebration, and lots of friends turned out for it. I didn’t make any notes about this show and from what I can remember, Lich and Ten Speed Bicycle were the first two bands on, and Big Kids had to pull out after not being let into the country. We had lots of fun and played to lots of new faces. This show was once again well attended. In fact, the attendances for the whole tour had been far beyond our expectations.

Even though we couldn’t be too loud as it was a Sunday night, we did some serious, slightly quieter partying back at our house. All three of us had taken Monday off of work so we were in no rush to get to bed. Phil hit the big 30 at midnight, and everyone sang happy birthday.

European Short Weekender 2011

2011-05-15T13:09:00.000-07:00

6th May 2011 Eurofoot Café - Metz, France

I had it in my head that I was going on a long tour and kept confusing myself with the numbers of underwear and t-shirts I should been packing. This was because the tour was originally two weeks long. Unfortunately we had six shows cancelled so we changed the plan and organised the remaining dates over two separate trips. This trip was for two shows - Metz and Hazebrouck.

We woke up at 6am to catch the 9.45am ferry from Dover to Calais. Again, forgetting that I was only going for two days, I made a point of having my last Marmite on toast and a decent cup of tea. We loaded the equipment into the van, checked we had our passports and I did a last count of underwear and t-shirts.

Usually the sun makes a town look nice, but the sun was out, and Dover still looked like a shithole. We headed for the Sea France ticket booth and were conveniently ignored by security, even passport control didn‘t want to see our passports. We boarded the ferry and Gareth decided to have a little sleep, Phil put the finishing touches to a poster he was making on his laptop and I headed off to change my money. The Bureau De Change advertised that it didn’t take any commission, but the crafty fuckers made their money by offering a terrible exchange rate. The real exchange rate was ninety pence to the Euro which meant I should of got more Euros back than the Pounds I gave. I got sixty nine Euros for my seventy Pounds. I would have waited until I got to France but strangely enough, France don’t have Bureau De Change’s [Phil discovered this the last time we were there]. I headed back to the others, buying a coffee on the way and sat down to watch a game of ladies tennis on the television.

We were at the front of the ferry so when the doors opened we were one of the first to disembark. We again avoided any passport control and after a quick reminder to Gareth that they drive on the other side of the road, we hit the motorway. I had read Lee Ranaldo the day before on Twitter and he wrote something romantic like, “Just got to Spain, now driving along the Mediterranean talking poets and poetry”. We had just got to France, now driving along the motorway somewhere between Calais and Metz every now and then pointing at things we thought were funny.

The sun was still out and Metz looked fantastic. The part we were in had that “Guildford” feel about it and the only difference was the Tricolores hanging from various buildings and statues upon entry. You don’t get that in England, we tend to reserve the displaying of the Union Jack or The St. Georges cross for international football tournaments or scaffold companies. When we got to the venue we unloaded our gear down two flights of stairs as the venue was deep underground and met Joachim and the other people who help run the night. I’m terrible at remembering names so when they are names that I’ve not heard before, and said at speed, I find it extra hard to remember. This is a fault of mine, not theirs. After setting up we sat about for a few hours watching the television. It was all in French but was somehow very absorbing. We watched an episode of The Simpson’s and a news program in which we guessed the story. One story was about Princess Katherine’s sisters arse and one was about a chap that had been killed in Pakistan by U.S troops, who in France, goes by the name of Ben Laden. We met the other bands, gave a friendly handshake and sat down for some food.

The first band [No Metal In This Battle] went on around 10ish, During their set a drunk man decided to make a tit out of himself by dancing/staggering and trying to talk to them while they were playing. You get them from time to time and it’s strange how they never come in twos. When they had finished I went upstairs to use the toilet. As I was climbing the stairs, the smell of sick was getting stronger and as I reached the top of the stairs and turned the corner, a kid was sitting on the floor with sick on his clothes and the surrounding floor. After using the toilet I hurried back to Phil and Gareth to tell them so they could go up and have a look for themselves. Whilst the second band [Theme of Laura] were setting up I nipped out for a cigarette and Phil and Gareth joined me. Outside sitting semi conscious in a chair was the guy that had been making a tit out of himself while the band played. We were minding our own business, chatting away, when he starting trying to undo his flies. He didn’t manage to get his cock out in time so settled for pissing in his trousers. A long stream of urine made its way from his right leg, down the street and into a drain. There was so much urine that it wasn’t getting through his jeans quick enough so a bulge had appeared just under his thigh. As the jeans drained slowly the chap that was being sick upstairs came falling through the door onto the floor missing the piss by millimetres. Other than that, everyone else was behaving in a rather dignified way. Theme of Laura took to the stage/floor and Mr Pissed Jeans had returned, fully conscious and like nothing had happened. We played last and had a great time and even got an encore. The people of Metz were very receptive and after we had played, at least seventy percent of the audience bought a record. This was well above our usual crowd to record sales ratio!

We hung around after the show drinking and chatting to various people and the other bands, both of which were ace. This feeling was evident when we said our goodbyes as at the beginning of the night we only used handshakes but by the end, it was full manly hugs. No kissing though, we’d only been there a few hours.

As there was nowhere for us to stay, Joachim took us to an F1 hotel and bought us a room for the night. We had stayed in a couple of F1 hotels when we were on tour in France with Nitkowski the year before so we knew what to expect. I for one actually like them as they are clean, cheap and comfortable. Gareth noticed a sign on the gate that read “You know your six digit code, use this to…“ It was obviously a badly translated sign but we thought it was a friendly way in which to start a sign and that more signs should start that way. For example, you could have on the London Underground “You know the gap, please mind it” or “you know your bag, please take it with you”. We stopped at a vending machine on the way to our room and bought as much food as we could with the money in my back pocket that we’d got from the sale of a t-shirt. In case you‘re interested, we bought one bag of Madeleine’s [brioche], two packets of Mikado and three bags of Emmental Croustilles [Nik Naks]. We settled into the room for the night with our food, drank some more alcohol and watched An Audience With Johnny Halladay and the French version of Loose Women.

7th May 2011 Shaka Laka - Hazebrouck, France

We had one breakfast between us so the plan was for Gareth to go and get as much as he could carry and bring it back to the room. Most of the breakfast had been eaten by the other guests and even had it not been, Gareth was told he wasn‘t allowed to leave the dining area with any food. Gareth returned empty handed and we woke Phil up, gathered our stuff and headed for a Supermarche. We bought a baguette each and something to go inside but I made the mistake of getting some fruit. Experience has told me in the past not to as the fruit buying etiquette changes from place to place. I couldn’t see any weighing scales so I took my bananas to the check out and when it came to my turn the lady did an impression of fruit being weighed on some scales. Holding up the queue behind me, I set off to find the scales and weighed my bananas.

The best route to Hazebrouck from Metz is via Luxembourg and Belgium which is a tad bizarre considering Hazebrouck is in France and we were already in France. We stopped off to stretch our legs in a service station in Luxembourg and I bought some cheap tobacco. The lady serving me was very pleasant and spoke perfect English, which was a relief as I had no idea what language they speak in Luxembourg and would have looked silly had I tried to speak in not only broken, but completely destroyed French. There was a girl and guy looking for a lift to Mons but we declined their company on the grounds that we were not going past Mons and were instead heading for Hazebrouck. It’s a shame as it would have been an experience and we could have had some fun with them. We could have pretended that we were of the far right wing ilk and see how far we get before they either stop agreeing with us and/or ask to get out the van.

After passing Mons on the journey we got to Hazebrouck and the sun had retreated behind the clouds. A few buildings had Tricolores hanging from them and the roundabouts each had a sculpture in the centre. The violin/cello was my favourite with the globe coming in a close second. Gareth wouldn’t do a 360 round the roundabout so we never got to see Britain on it. The venue itself was an ex British/Irish pub which made it feel like I was back in England. Even the doors had Push/Pull signs on them. The owner of the bar looked like a cross between Bill Bailey and our friend Jerome from the band Revok. He too was a really nice guy and showed us the room in which we could stash our valuables and if we wanted to, have a sleep.

We met the other bands and ate a Lasagne with them that the owner had made. Lifeless Hope went on first and Fall of Messiah second, both of which were brilliant. We played last and the sound of the room was amazing. We played a thirty minute set and when we finished were asked to play an encore. We sold a few records afterwards [nowhere near the extremes of the night before] and drank a couple more beers before heading back to Pierre’s house [drummer, Fall of Messiah].

Pierre lives on a farm about twenty minutes drive from the venue. It was nice to see stars in the night sky and had I not been cold, could have laid looking at them for the rest of the evening. Instead we headed for a barn, climbed a ladder and relaxed drinking beer in a room Pierre had made. It had sofas and mattresses and his band rehearse there. We chatted about bands and who knows who [Fall of Messiah know a few bands in England] and Gareth asked us questions like “would you wear a Foxtons t-shirt everywhere you go if in return they gave you a house rent free?”. As the night went on these questions developed into school playground style questions like “would you… your Mum or your Dad” etc. Phil asked the best question of the evening but I’ve been censored so I can’t tell you what it was.

8th May 2011 - Home - Kingston Upon Thames, UK

We woke up a 8am to catch the 11pm ferry from Calais to Dover. We hadn’t got to bed until gone 4am so we were still a little tired. Pierre woke up too so he could give us some breakfast, buy a record and say goodbye. We gave him the record and a tote bag as the night before he’d given us each a copy of the Fall of Messiah record [I highly recommend it]. We exchanged email addresses, said goodbye and drove to Calais.

The drive home was uneventful and we were back in our house by 1pm giving us the rest of the day to recover. Usually I feel sad right about now but this time I knew I only had a week of work before I was going to be setting off to do it again.

Silent Front Solomon Grundy UK Tour 2011

2011-05-01T09:34:00.000-07:00

04.02.11 Kingston Upon Thames - The Fighting Cocks

Nic has a cold, Phil has a cold, Mark has a cold, Gareth is recovering from a cold, Rupert doesn’t have a cold and neither do I.

This felt a bit like a warm up show because we were only across the road from our house and Triple Jump were putting the show on, which is us. We didn’t feed any of the bands or give them beer [something we’d usually try and do and something we’d ideally want from the people who put us on!] but we did split the money between Hag and Palehorse as us and Solomon Grundy didn’t need the diesel money because the van wasn‘t used.

We were first on and started shortly after eight o’clock. It was surprising to see the venue filled with people and if you were there, a massive thanks to you for turning up early to catch us. We played Tactic A and Plunder for the very first time live and we didn’t fuck either of them up, which was nice. Solomon Grundy, whom we were about to go on tour with, went on second. As my brother would say, they is sick bruv. Actually he wouldn’t have because he likes utter wank and once went to see scouting for girls and said he liked it. He usually listens to chart rap music. Hag and Palehorse tore the place to pieces and all in all it was a very good start to The Pants Tour [Gareth observed that both Grundies and Fronts are alternative words for underpants].

We partied back at our house into the small hours and though we spoke about how good we are at it, never played MarioKart on the Nintendo 64. There were a lot of random people I’d never met in our house and I met another Marmite lover. I made us some toast and showed her the wonders of adding sugar free Peanut Butter to the Marmite which she agreed was very good. In return I got a recipe for a bacon sarnie that I plan to try one day.

05.02.11 Liverpool - Don’t Drop The Dumbbells

After a quick tidy up [though Phil left a two day old pot of stew on the cooker] we loaded up the van, got some supplies from the Supermarket and headed for Liverpool.

Rupert bought us all a Kinder Egg from the supermarket and we were impressed with the quality of the toys. Rupert got a plane in his and I remember feeling a bit jealous because all I got was a rabbit. Once fully erected, it was a good eight inches long and we couldn’t understand how they’d managed to get it in. During the journey I was keeping an eye on the Football scores and if getting the only shit toy wasn‘t enough, Newcastle United [Rupert’s team] came back from four nil down to draw four all with Arsenal [My team].

Don’t Drop The Dumbbells is a special place despite the rather rubbish name. The Building used to be a gym and is being looked after by a chap called Jake while they decide what to do with it in the long run. It is currently being used as an art space and they have a few rehearsal rooms as well as pictures of body builders on the walls. It was being billed as a video shoot and Jake was filming it for a show he does on the internet. Outside the venue they had put a sign giving directions to the “Silent Front Film Extras”. There wasn’t a bar as it was a private party [that anyone could attend] so everyone brought their own alcohol and smoking was allowed inside the venue. Good job too as it was pissing down with rain outside.

A few friends of ours (All three of Georgia Asphalt) turned up shortly after we had loaded in. They had come for the night from London to see the show and to hang out in Liverpool plus Mike was due a visit to his parents house. Luke [one of the promoters] made a soup for us which was once again very good and I spilt a bit on one of the Solomon Grundy t-shirts which Nic and Mark were not too pleased about. The line up was Iron Witch, Aeroplane Flies High, Solomon Grundy then us. The room was big and it was full of people and the atmosphere was friendly and just generally ace. We had an excellent show and the sound was perfect.

We went back to Jon and Luke’s house [the promoters] and drank some more with Aeroplane Flies High. Aeroplane Flies High are still in their teens which is incredible considering the quality of their music, when Phil and I were at a similar age we were rubbish. We stayed up very late with them and told stories about shit [literally] and swapped urban legends. The one about the brother and sister who farted into a jar and opened it up twenty years later, had a sniff and died is probably my favourite one.

In the morning Jon and Luke made everyone tea and an English breakfast and Phil, Gareth and I chipped in with the washing up. Later on Phil did a poo and the smell spread around the whole house so we had to open some windows. He blamed it on food poisoning from the fried chicken he’d eaten the night before. At around two o’clock we said our goodbyes to Jon and Luke and hit the road. Proper good lads Jon and Luke.

06.02.11 Middlesbrough - The Tavern

On top of his cold, Phil had managed to get food poisoning and didn’t look at all well whereas Gareth, Nic and Mark were starting to feel better. Rupert and I still hadn’t caught anything from the others.

The venue was a pub with a huge function room above it which meant carrying the equipment up a steep and narrow staircase and Joyce [my bass cabinet] was particularly hard to navigate into the room. The room was full of tables and chairs so we rearranged it and set up our equipment at the far end, we met the ultra nice Holly and Stacey who were putting the show on and headed out for some food.

Nic had been craving cod the whole journey up and I was determined to spend as little as possible so we went looking for a chip shop. On the same High Street we found seven pizza takeaways and one chip shop which was not only closed but completely shut down. Defeated, we returned to the pub for food with the others. Phil, Rupert and Nic ordered the roast, Mark ordered nachos, Gareth ordered the chicken burger and I ordered the roast beef giant Yorkshire wrap. Mine was nearly the same as the roast except it’s served with chips and peas instead of roast potatoes and vegetables and is wrapped in a giant Yorkshire pudding instead of the pudding being used as a basket for the food. Confused? The bar staff were and I was still waiting for my food to arrive when the others had finished. It eventually turned up but it wasn’t what I was expecting. Fifteen minutes earlier we had seen a roast dinner being marched around the pub looking for its owner and eventually the penny must of dropped so they took it into the kitchen and folded it up to look like a roast beef giant Yorkshire wrap. When I questioned it the manager came over and shouted at me like it was my fault. I didn’t mind what they’d given me and I didn’t even kick off about it, I just told them that it was wrong and that I was happy to eat it anyway. I’d of preferred an apology but seeing a member of staff go red in the face and get stressed about a Sunday dinner was good enough for me. Everyone headed back upstairs leaving me to finish up on my own. As they left me, each apologised and went anyway.

Cuss Words went on first and I realised that I recognised them from a Shield Your Eyes show in London a few months earlier, only now they were a trio instead of a duo. During their rather excellent set, Nic was holding her ears as she had forgotten her ear plugs and Tom [Drummer] leapt over his kit and handed her a spare pair of ear muffs. He works for the Queen, and it shows. Rose Valle went on second. Solomon Grundy went on third and it hit me that they are something special, they have that thing I love in a band though I’m not entirely sure what it is. We played our set stone cold sober as Phil was ill, Gareth was driving and I had no one to drink with [Solomon Grundy weren’t drinking either] plus it was a Sunday. The sound was great and we played set two [we’d made two set lists and were alternating between the two].

We drove to Leeds after the show to stay at Stacey’s house. Cuss Words stayed too so to make space Solomon Grundy stayed with a friend of Nic’s. I started drinking and we watched the North American Rules Super bowl with Cuss Words and exchanged cuss’ until the cocktail of white ace cider, white wine and gin caught up with Tom. I slept in the van as Phil was clearly too ill and Gareth never does because he drives. I don’t mind the van as it means I don’t have to listen to moaning the next day about my snoring.

07.02.11 Leeds - Nation of Shopkeepers

As we were already in Leeds we were able to have a long sleep, shower, eat another fry up and chill. In the afternoon we headed to the city centre to find a Primark as Mark and Gareth wanted to buy the Dr. Dre Primark T-Shirt. They also bought two pairs of underpants for the merch table and planned to write Silent Fronts on one pair and Solomon Grundies on the other. Phil bought some medicine for his runny botty.

The usual worries of playing a show on a Monday night quickly dispersed as the venue filled up early on. Trog and Justin [two friends from Bradford] turned up for the show as did Phil’s youngest brother Simon. Solomon Grundy played first, us second and the brilliant Humanfly last. It was an excellent night and as usual the Leeds crowd were great.

We headed back to Nodders house [promoter/British Wildlife Records] with Stacey from the night before and played MarioKart and Monkey Ball on the Game Cube and built a human pyramid. The human pyramid consisted of Me, Phil and Rupert on all fours at the bottom and on top of us was Gareth and Mark and at the peak was Nic. We had a few goes at it as we were a bit wobbly and having the smallest person on the bottom [me] was never a good idea. Stacey and Nodders looked on and took some photos of us. Next up we played some MarioKart - We split everyone up into teams; Promoters [Nodders and Stacey] Bassists [Rupert and I] Guitarists [Mark and Phil] Drummers [Nic and Gareth]. The Guitarists won the MarioKart with Drummers coming second, Bassists Third and Promoters last. Nodders was let down significantly by Stacey. We kept the same teams and played Monkey Ball - the game of real skill. Bassists won it and by a massive margin. In fact if you added everyone else’s scores together they’d still not have been close. I can’t remember who came third last, second last or last but their wasn’t much in it.

We all chatted some more, Stacey got a cab home and we all went to sleep.

08.02.11 Edinburgh - Henry’s Cellar Bar

We woke up around nine, showered, ate toast and Nodders served us tea in mugs with a Gollywog design. We made a quick detour into the town centre as Phil had bought the wrong medicine and the shitting hadn’t eased. We parked down a side alley next to Boots and Mark and Nic said they’d never seen the Willy Bum Bum video. Either Rupert or Gareth got it up on their smart phone and we linked the sound up to the stereo and watched the video with significant volume. After this moment everything was one of three things - Silly old, smelly old or friendly old - If this makes no sense, type in Willy Bum Bum on your browser search bar.

Leeds to Edinburgh was the longest drive on the tour but it was made ok by the scenery. We past a pub called “The Craw Inn” which lead to us shouting out things like “Craw Blimey”, “Crawshank Redemption” and “Crawdon Bleu”. Nic Crawshaw loved it. I was sat next to Rupert for the journey which was good as he had a constant supply of sweets and maize snacks.

On first impressions the sound man seemed like a really nice guy but during the evening he managed to break an amp head by knocking it of the cabinet, split the resonant head on Gareth’s bass drum and tried to emotionally blackmail Rupert into giving him some weed. Sound check was a bit ropey but when we went on everything clicked into place and the sound was actually pretty good - so fair play to the man! We all make mistakes…

It was the hottest most sweatiest of the shows so far and the heating was on and the venue was packed tight with people. We had been lucky with attendances on this tour as traditionally Sunday, Monday and Tuesdays are a bit thin. Secta Rouge and Jackie Treehorn, the local lads, ripped the crowd a new one. Again, the crowd were great and very friendly. This was Jackie Treehorn’s album launch show and it was extremely nice of them to let us play too. The album is called “Everyone’s an Expert”.

Earlier in the evening Solomon Grundy shared a deep fried Mars Bar and I bought a Hamburger only to discover that it wasn’t going to be served in a bun with a bit of salad and maybe a bit of burger sauce. Instead it came battered and deep fried.

After the show we were given a crate of beer and we went back to Secta Rouge’s house for beer and pizza. Mark and Rupert debated for about three hours on whether or not salt is a seasoning or a condiment. This was a theme of the tour and the rule was that the promoter of each show gets a vote and by the end of the tour we would have a democratically elected answer. We were using the first past the post voting system as the alternative vote wouldn’t work with just two. The loser was going to have to play the Unicorn show in his pants - Mark was condiment and Rupert was seasoning. After the debate the promoter cast his vote and seasoning was winning with three votes to condiments two. Secta Rouge and co are a great bunch and this was the second time they’d let us stay in their house and they are always really good to us.

09.02.11 Newcastle - The Northumberland Arms

We started the day with a drive into the beautiful city centre of Edinburgh and went to a Wetherspoon pub to get at least two days worth of calories in one hit. By now everyone was feeling a lot better and Phil celebrated having normal gut behaviour by ordering the mixed grill. Nic made an observation that usually when touring you feel gradually worse as the days go by due to excess and this was the first tour she had been on where everyone was feeling better by the day! On our way to Newcastle we tried to visit the Holy Island of Lindisfarne but decided against it when we discovered that the tide would be coming in in twenty minutes and had we got across we might not have been able to get back. Instead, we parked up and had a skimming competition and took some photos.

The venue was a tricky find as it was in a pedestrian zone and we were not aware that we should have been looking for the service entrance. As we were loading in Rupert pointed out an elderly lady drinking her lager through a straw, we then took turns walking past her and slyly taking a look.

Eugene, the promoter and brother of Jon [promoter from Liverpool] made us a beef stew loaded with massive bits of beef in it. It was the donkey’s nob. My dad used to say that whenever he made stew, as in “Russ, try this, it’s the donkeys nob“. Basically like the dogs bollocks but reserved for sentences describing stew.

Reich’s and Cauls where the local bands and apparently hadn’t been together for long. Both played great shows despite the thin attendance and were very well rehearsed. After Solomon Grundy played I overheard one chap saying that he could tell that the last two songs they had played was where they really wanted to be heading musically. This was the sixth time in a row and eighth time in total that I’d seen them and I’d never worked that out. What a clever guy, I thought. We played set one, sold some merch and headed for Eugene’s house.

Eugene made us some pizza and let us play with his kitten. Lois the kitten spent the rest of the night jumping into our faces and finding creative places to lay as we slept.

In the morning Eugene had to go to work but left us with the facilities and ingredients to make Bacon Sarnies and coffee. We did a sterling job of cleaning up the kitchen of the mess we had made and said our goodbyes to the other two chaps who lived there and headed for Clough’s. Clough’s is a sweet shop that sells boiled sweets from the jar. I got some Rhubarb and Custard, Apple Sours and Blueberry Sour Bonbons. As I bought mine I turned around and asked where the local primary school is and two local women overheard and didn’t see the funny side. Next we headed off to find Byker Grove and though we were already in Byker we had to go to another part of the city to find it. When we got there we realised that it wasn’t going to be possible to get up close but we could still see it over a wall if we crossed the road. We each got a photo of us jumping into the air with it behind us in the distance. Mark and I later confessed that we were frauds as we didn’t particularly like Byker Grove and we were joining in the excitement to fit in.

10.02.11 Nottingham - The Chameleon

This was the worst day of eating on the tour. We had started the day with a bacon sarnie, ate bags of sweets, packets of crisps and service station sarnies on the road, had a *McDonalds before the show, a **Greggs pasty after the show and a kebab before bed. Nic had two chocolate éclairs somewhere in between all that too.

On the way back from parking the van, Gareth and Rupert were verbally attacked for not wanting to dish out their money and were called grebs as a result. Greb comes from the word ***Grebo which was largely used to describe a short lived early nineties, mainly Midlands, music phenomenon of hard working touring bands that sold lots of t-shirts. The scene was very community based much like our own except they all went on to sign to major labels. I’m guessing that the guy who said it to them didn’t know this and probably uses it to describe anyone not wearing the latest high street fashions. Gareth gave some lip back and Rupert got scared as he thought that they might have had a knife.

Soft Pyramids, Hymns and Shapes were excellent and the crowd were clearly happy with all the bands. It’s the busiest I have ever seen the Chameleon having played there twice before and it made the carrying of Joyce up two flights of stairs well worth it. We sold some records and even more t-shirts [see above paragraph].

Afterwards we tried to hit Rock City but the queue was massive and it was raining. Instead, we bought a crate of beer and headed back to Johnny’s house, a friend of Rupert and Mark. We stayed up watching Scuzz TV which I didn’t find very fun nor amusing. To me it just looked like a load of grown up men acting out their childhood fantasy.

*The McDonalds was the most depressing one ever and we chose not to eat in. It was full of sad faces, gobby pregnant women and angry looking men eyeing up Nic.

**This Greggs was open twenty four hours a day and sold curry pasties!

***The word Grebo itself is a lot older and is the name of a subgroup of people within West Africa.

11.02.11 Brighton - The Hobgoblin

The Hobgoblin had had a refit since we were last there and the venue bit had been moved upstairs. The other change they had made was the beer prices and the beer. They had stopped selling its trademark ale Hobgoblin and had opted for some Real Ale from micro brewery’s which was annoying as I‘d been looking forward to a pint of the ruby ale most of the journey down. The venue upstairs had a few teething problems and the shit PA and general sound of the room is definitely something that needs to be addressed. This didn’t ruin the show though and the Dead Beat, who went on first, were once again brilliant. Solomon Grundy were next and they were still making me very happy despite this being the eighth time in eight days I had seen them. Our set was noisy due to the PA constantly feeding back but once Phil turned the monitor off things improved slightly. It was a frustrating show to play and probably more frustrating to watch but the crowd seemed to understand and were very complimentary afterwards.

We hung out in the downstairs bar afterwards with top lasses Sarah, Kerry and Kate until it shut then headed to a party. Craig, the guy whose house we were staying at, was disc jockeying at a party and he invited us along too. The party was full of students and Gareth later commented that it was like an episode of skins in there. My own take on it was that it was like a group of Key Stage 4 children having a party, maybe to celebrate the end of their GCSE’s and their impending Key Stage 5 status. We stayed for about fifteen minutes then headed to Luke’s House [one of Rupert’s friends]. Outside the house, a girl hanging out one of the windows told Mark that he should have gone to Specsavers. Mark had been to Specsavers.

Nic had gone to stay at Kate’s house so we sat in Luke’s kitchen with a few more beers and flicked between the different variations of babestation that Sky TV had on offer and discussed male oppression and who was exploiting who. It was a similar thing to watching Scuzz, only now it was grown up Women acting out men’s fantasies.

On our way back to Craig’s house everyone got chips in pita except me and Gareth. I got chips on pita and Gareth got himself some humus and salad in pita, only they had run out of humus. To be fair it was gone 4am.

12.02.11 Camden - The Unicorn

We woke up covered in sweat and headed out for breakfast and a go on the bumper cars. We did the usual walk to the end of the pier, drive some cars, then walk back again. When we got to the van there was no need to wait for Nic as she had made her own way to London with Sarah so they could spend some time together. We loaded the van up as the equipment was still in the venue, bought some milkshakes for the journey and headed to London.

The journey from Brighton to London was pretty much perfect, it was a sunny day, the roads were clear and as a result we got to the Unicorn early. The venue filled up quickly and seeing lots of our friends turn out for the show made it feel like a proper homecoming. The Black Heart Orchestra went on first and were excellent. They’ve got a bunch of new songs and a slightly different sound - something which I‘ll not try to describe as I‘ll just sound like a dick. Mark had lost the Condiment versus seasoning debate but refused to wear the pants because he felt he had come to an agreement rather than losing to a vote [Mark had conceded a few nights before when he realised that he was wrong]. Fully clothed, Solomon Grundy were yet again amazing and I could tell that the last two songs they played was where they really wanted to be heading musically… We played a different set to the two that we had been alternating between because we felt that we should play all the newer songs since we had played the older ones many times to crowds in London.

It was a great night to be a part of, which made the fact that I’d be going to work on Monday all the more difficult. I put those thoughts to one side and drank as much alcohol as I possibly could before the bar shut.

We said our goodbyes to Solomon Grundy and loaded the van for the last time on this tour and headed back to Kingston feeling inebriated and sad. When we got back we unloaded the van and did our usual end of tour group hug. Phil still had some energy and headed out to a party, Gareth went to bed and I made myself a cup of tea in the company of a mouldy pot of stew.

Fin.

October Tour of England, Ireland & Northern Ireland 2010

2011-03-13T16:50:00.000-07:00

Please don’t be put off by my tone, it does start quite depressing but I can assure you that the whole time we were having fun…

23.10.10 St Austell – Staggs Inn

We didn't need to be at the venue until 8pm and even then there wasn't a rush to get the music started. We were told that it would get busy later on in the evening and we were impressed by this as this wasn't the case where we were from and it felt a bit like we were playing in Europe. The venue had made a bit of an effort for us and who needs food and beer anyway when they provide towels and water?

Machete were two things – really nice guys and a fucking good band. Mouth on the other hand were not to my taste but were pleasant people.

By this point not many people had arrived and the place had a handful of forty something locals and the odd clown punk*. When we went on there were even less people. The sound was great though and we just got on with it and had a mint time. One local felt like he should give us a bit of advice between songs and told us that we could make more money doing covers. Cheers dude! We hadn't thought of that. Another person, this time a haggered 50 something women told us we should listen to more ABBA and that we were shit.

I had it in my head before we got to St Austell that it was going to be great - I based that thought entirely on the fact that Tribute Ale is made there.

We still had a rad time, despite some locals inability to handle their alcohol. The sound lady was a good lass and offered us to go back to hers for a drink [she had a bar in her living room] but we declined as we had to make our way to Plymouth to hang out with Neil and Craig of Machete and drink some port. On the way we saw the aftermath of a horrific car crash, discovered a twenty four hour Tesco was closed and that Pirate FM, the local radio station, would have the audacity to cut out the rap in that famous Evanessance track that has the rap in it.

*You know the ones, coloured hair, silly clothes and scary looking at first but when you meet them they are just a bit silly and harmless.

24.10.10 Bristol Oxjam – Mothers Ruin

Machete had to pullout of this one but instead Consolation Prizefighter played – Craig and Neil of Machete's other equally as rad band.

Being that this was an Oxjam Festival my hopes weren't too high. The promoter wasn't there on arrival and never did make an appearance, apparently she had gone to see another band in a different bar. The loading in of the equipment proved a difficult challenge because of a mixture of a stupidly awkward layout and peoples reluctance to move out of the way. I'm not sure what the band before us were called [there wasn't much of a sense of community going on in there] but they had really nice leather jackets, stylishly greased hair and perfectly trimmed beards. It's fair to say that they weren't my cup of tea but the swarm of girls watching were getting something out of it.

Once the trimmed beards in leather had finished we removed the practice amps and set the stage up. There was still a bit of a crowd when we kicked into Loss and to my surprise, they waited until the third song to start their walkout. In fact it wasn't until the fifth song that the place had completely emptied out. A photographer, sound man, Consolation Prizefighter and their mate remained. Not only had we cleared the upstairs where the bands played but also the downstairs bar area had emptied leaving just the two bar staff and the Oxjam volunteer on the door.

The Oxjam volunteer tried to get hold of the promoter for us because that is where we were sleeping. Luckily our friend Nathan let us stay at his house in Birmingham, which considering it was a Sunday night, was a very nice thing to do. Birmingham was only an hour and a half drive away and it was the direction we‘d be heading the next day anyway. Nathan had work in the morning and needed to get some sleep but still managed to find the time to make us White Russians. And tell us a story about Noddy Holder shitting on a glass pane over a bathtub with some chap watching underneath so that Slade could earn enough money to catch a flight home.

25.10.10 Sheffield - The Red House

We headed into Birmingham city centre for breakfast with our good friend Tobias Hayes [ex Shield ‘em current Shoes and Socks Off and total lad]. Phil ordered the mixed grill for the second day running, Gareth got a jacket potato with a second salad and I went for the gourmet chicken burger. We don’t know what Toby had as it came fifty minutes late and we had to leave him in the Wetherspoon on his own because our parking permit was running out.

It was national Lets Drive Like a Prick Then Crash on the M1 Day. We got to see loads of crashes. Gareth wimped out and drove properly and we got to Sheffield without even a scratch. The Red House is a nice venue situated on a residential street with neighbours either side but the sound was very good and volume wasn’t an issue. Melt Banana were playing that night too [somewhere else, not with us] and it was a Monday so no one came to our show. Literally just us, Dog Canute, Nic’s partner and her sister. Actually, not even the whole of Dog Canute as the Bass player was genuinely unwell and was unable to attend so they played a remix set. We were feeling a bit down about it as it was the third badly unattended gig in three days but we soon got over it as we were in the company of top fellas Ziggy and Nic. We had a few beers with them back at Ziggy’s house after the show and in the morning discovered that adding sugarless peanut butter to Marmite was the best thing you could do to a piece of toast*.

*I later discovered that you can do the same to a jacket potato.

26.10.10 Liverpool - The Caledonia

The quickest route to Liverpool from Sheffield is through the Lake District which, if you‘ve never seen any of it, is a beautiful place yet it is bleak, wet and misty. Not too dissimilar to what was happening to us - Meeting rad people and having a great time yet feeling a bit down as no one was attending the shows. Yes, maybe that was a shit metaphor but I won’t apologise as it made sense at the time.

When we got to Liverpool we met up with our friend Jon who was putting on the show. He informed us that due to a recent tragic death there had been a gig put on at the last minute in remembrance and that it’ll probably affect the turn out of our show. A bit of selfishness crept in and though we are not heartless bastards we still had unanswered questions like “why couldn’t they do it on the Wednesday instead?” and “why couldn’t they do it on the Thursday instead?” and “why couldn’t they do it on the Friday instead?”. It’s not the sort of thing you ask so we never did. They might have had a perfectly good reason and to be fair, when you are bereaving from a death, the attendance of a Silent Front show would not be your main concern.

After all the worrying it didn’t affect the show at all. When it was time for Specific Ocean to go on we went up stairs to discover a queue to get in and the venue packed full of people! There was a real nice atmosphere in there and the quieter parts of Specific Oceans set were not ruined by a hum of talking as everyone was digging them and giving them their full attention. Chrik played next and were also great, it was good to see them playing to a crowd as the first time we met them was on a previous tour in Derry (Northern Ireland) and there was no one at that show. When we went on the venue was still packed full of people whom sounded their appreciation and reignited our love of touring. We played the whole of Dead Lake and a new song called Nails. At one point Phil asked about how much time we had left and we were told that we were meant to of finished twenty minutes earlier, then told us to play two more!. Which we did, then played an encore. We met lots of lovely people and sold lots of merch and got to spend time with ultra legends Chez and Dave. They were the very first people to put us on in Liverpool many moons ago and we have been mates ever since. How lovely.

27.10.10 Belfast - Auntie Annie’s

We left Liverpool at 6:30am to catch our ship from Fleetwood to Larne. The crossing takes eight hours but they provide you with two hot meals and unlimited Tea and Coffee or Juice. As it is mainly a freight service only a handful of people were on the ship. We met a Roy Hodgson look a like and spent a good thirty minutes or so complaining about England with him. The Sea wasn’t too bad and we sailed past the Isle of Mann and the Isle of Whithorn without too much difficulty. If ever I find myself rich I’m going to buy a bit of rock on that stretch of water and name it the Isle of Thomas so that Gareth doesn’t feel left out whenever we make that crossing.

In February 2010 we did the Belfast to Larne drive in heavy snow and as we were doing the return Journey this time we had guesses as to which roundabout we nearly ploughed into the back of a stationary car (we pulled to the side at the last minute) and which roundabout it was that we did a 180º skid which left us facing the wrong way. Special thanks to our friend Rainey who had lent us his van for that tour.

This show was with Jackalfeud, Gacy’s Threads and Annapurna. The stage was ridiculously high off the ground and Phil and I were on the wrong side of it which was a shame but not a gig ruiner. The other bands were great and we met some lovely people in the crowd. We got beer’d, fed, paid and sold a load of Merch.

We went back to Ross’ house after the show (Annapurna, we stayed with him the last time we were in Belfast and he’s a top chap). He had moved house since then so there was no chance of seeing his neighbour who said she was 39 but was clearly in her late 40s that had taken a shine to me because she thought I looked like Axl Rose. Back at Ross’ we met one of the brothers or cousin or something of the drummer from Ash, I managed one beer and fell asleep upright on the sofa whilst everyone else partied around me.

28.10.10 Limerick - Baker Place

Belfast to Limerick takes about five hours so we headed off at midday to make it for 5:30pm. We busted our guts to make sure we were on time as we were told not to be late and managed to pull up to the venue at 5:25pm. We loaded in and the soundman told us he’d be back at 9pm for the sound check.

With three and a half hours to kill we headed into Limerick town centre for some food and see the sights. Limerick is fondly known as stab city but we managed to keep our skin intact for the whole time we were there. I suppose if Limerick was in England it wouldn’t be called such a name as we have other contenders for that title. We headed back to the venue and set up the merch and played a game of round the clock on the dart board. I destroyed Gareth in the early stages and even though he mounted a come back he was easily beaten. Winner stayed on so I played Phil. Phil is good at non physical games as a result of a misspent youth and the fact that he’d once worked as a caretaker in a youth club. Phil won but it was probably more down to me not being on the top of my game.

This show was The University of Limerick’s Music Society Halloween bash and they chose to celebrate it with six covers bands and us. We were given the hour slot but only played forty five minutes. We weren’t to everyone’s taste but a good number of people who came and spoke to us said they’d enjoyed it. We chatted with them, drank loads more beer and watched a few more bands taking pride in other peoples riffs. It got very late and I grew tired of the Rage Against the Machine covers band and the constant posing by the young crowd for their facebook profiles. So I headed for the van, opened a can of bitter and listened to the album “30 Something” through my headphones.

29.10.10 Cork - The Quad

We knew this show was going to be mint the moment we saw that Tad Doyle was doing the sound. His real name is Keith and he had a no nonsense approach which meant we were able to set up and sound check in under fifteen minutes. He liked to talk a lot so luckily he was the sort of person I enjoy listening to. Good lad.

Before the show started [Doors 10pm] we headed to Seb and Peter’s house and met up with the rest of Slugbait and drank some beer. Slugbait enjoy the same childish humour [and the sort of humour you wouldn’t want your child to hear] as us so we got on well. We also had a conversation about Coronation Street which Ian from Slugbait is a big fan of. When I say conversation it was more just Ian telling us how good it is and that we should watch it.

The venue filled up and Slugbait went on. They were definitely not At The Drive In meets Glassjaw like advertised and they didn’t think so either. I’m not good at band descriptions myself so Rad meets Excellent will do. The crowd were brilliant and we had an amazing time. We played the whole of Dead Lake except Moving Hands but we did do Nails. Our Merch box got lighter and we were overwhelmed by the nice comments and general friendliness of the people there. Though, one was maybe a little too friendly… As I was manning the merch table I was looking around the room and made eye contact with one chap and as you do, gave a smile. This was taken the wrong way because he stood up and came over and sat close next to me on the sofa behind the merch table. It wasn’t the usual “well played” stuff either as he had come into the bar after we’d finished playing and was asking questions about how long I was staying in Cork and what I was doing there etc. I made my excuses and left him by the merch table. I felt like a div because maybe he was just making friends but later on in the night I was again listening to Keith and the same chap came over to me and said in a cocky tone “have you found any women yet?” and walked away smiling, like I’d missed out.

I haven’t yet mentioned Darragh, he oversaw the show so a massive thanks to him for doing so. Also a big thanks to Alan as he organised it but was unable to attend. They put on most of the good shows in Cork, or so it seems, as we had a look at the posters around the venue and they were responsible for all the awesome shit.

We went back to Slugbait’s and partied some more, Gareth nearly pulled, I spent most of the evening talking about Football with Pete and telling him about the future of English football (Jay Emmanuelle Thomas, Chuks Aneke, Benik Afobe and Emmanuel Frimpong) and Phil was indulging with the others in the sort of humour you wouldn’t want your child to hear.

30.10.10 Dublin - The Lower Deck

This was another Halloween show and the people of Dublin take it very seriously. Fireworks are a big part of Halloween in Ireland which probably has something to do with the fact that they don’t have a Guy Fawkes night. Upon arrival at the venue, we found a man in his 50s standing outside having a cigarette and lighting fireworks and throwing them in our direction like it was a perfectly normal thing to do. In England, this is frowned upon and even playing with sparklers is seen as a big risk.
The show was rammed full of people with another thirty or so spilling out on to the streets. Children Under Hoof were good again (we played with them last time) and so were Elk (we’d actually met them the night before in Cork which is where they are from). Even Total Winners were good and they were a covers band! Pretty much everyone was in fancy dress and we made a bit of an effort ourselves with some face paints that Phil put on us - we looked crap but at least we’d made the effort. Dublin is one of our favourite places to play and it was nice to see some of the people we’d met the last time we were there.

After the show we went to a party. We were supposed to be sleeping there but it became clear quite quickly that it was never going to happen due to the sheer number of people both inside and outside the house. Getting into the house took an age and once you were in you had to squeeze past people and there was no point at which you were not pressed up against someone so we spent the night outside in the rain with some people we’d been chatting to on the way to the party. One of the girls I was speaking to kept mentioning the potato famine which got a little boring, I took the blame as I couldn’t be arsed to tell her that it wasn’t my fault and that my ancestors have never been in control of England and have never been the ones making the decisions in Westminster. I spoke to another chap about Shield Your Eyes and Nitkowski and he claimed that his three favourite UK bands were us and them, though I suspect he added us to that list as he was chatting to me.

Phil got friendly with a lass called Robyn from the band Children Under Hoof and we were invited to stay back at her house. Phil and Robyn went ahead as Gareth was a little drunk and was insisting that he was going to stay at the party. The party had thinned out and we were able to get inside so we stood there for a bit until I convinced Gareth that it was a good idea to leave and get a cab back to Robyn’s. Gareth and I slept on a sofa bed that dipped in the middle so that we were touching. Gareth wasn’t comfortable with that nor my snoring so he headed downstairs and slept on the sofa.

31.10.10 Kingston - Home

In the morning we got a cab back to the venue and loaded our gear back into the van. We looked for something healthy to eat but had to settle for a subway sub and then headed for the ferry. The ferry was busy and Phil spent most of the journey on the interweb, Gareth slept in the interweb room on the floor and I stood watching football in the bar. Going home after having so much fun is always depressing. We disembarked in Wales and our first stop was a McDonalds that looked just like every other Drive Thru McDonalds and bought a ton of crap as we had a long drive ahead of us. When we hit Birmingham Gareth said that we were nearly home, which we weren’t, but in a weird way and considering the massive journey we’d been on, we were.

Good times.