Wednesday, March 26, 2008
AUZ TOUR 2/24
Jeez. This shit was over a month ago. I need to get on this.
So on this day I woke with a serious hangover from the previous night's festivities. Actually I was woken up in bed by our two Australian label bosses Marky and Nate. I threw on some clothes, took a berrocca tablet (kinda like emergen-C but they take it for hangovers over there), and left with them to go down to the JJJ studios for an interview. JJJ is like if 99X or Live 105 were a station that was nationwide. I was doing an interview with Richard Kingsmilll or something like that - who was compared to the John Peel of Australia or something insane like that. Who knows why the hell he wanted to interview me. Nate made us get there 30 minutes early and the security guy looked at us like that was the first time he had ever seen a musician show up early. The 60 or 70 year old man told us to leave and come back and gave us some nearby cafes to go to. Some pretty good fodder to make fun of Nate about.
Anyway, I got back and did the interview. It was taped and the DJ was in Sydney. It was pretty hilarious to hear him play Ice Water over national radio. The ridiculous guitar solo into an even more ridiculous sax solo. The interview went okay. I was super hungover and tired, so I wasn't really on top of it. The famous DJ was really nice though and seemed to genuinely be a fan of our ej's.
After the interview we headed to the Laneway festival in downtown Melbourne. A laneway is an alley in Australia. What they do is block off an alley or two and set up a stage and people cram into the alley and there's so many people that they go all the way down the block. The Melbourne one was set up with the main stage blocking off a major street, a 2nd stage blocking off a big alley, a 3rd stage blocking off a smaller alley, and a stage in a venue that was attached to the 2nd stage alley. We had a dayroom in a hotel across the street and I went there first. Our room was being shared with Starrrrrrrrz and a coupla Australian bands that I can't remember. Every time we'd get to the festivals one of the workers would bring us our rider (which only consisted of beer as opposed to other bands), and would be amazed when they saw how much beer we got. They'd usually bring us water too out of pity.
Starrrrrrrrz were having a massive band fight ("I don't want everyone to just fucking show up 15 minutes before we're supposed to play" - haha dude wouldn't last five seconds in Stirr Fryin'), so I left the bad vibes to check out the festival. We entered through the backstage entrance to the 2nd stage (where we were playing later that night) and it was so crowded that it took me 10 or 15 minutes just to walk down the alley out to the main street where the main stage was. It was insanely crowded in every inch of the festival with no escape. Bracken Satchel Scene were about to start on the main stage so I watched a few songs of theirs but it was too hot and crowded so I left. I went down the smaller alley and Don Deekon was about to start so I checked him out. He talked for about 15 minutes before he started and had people taking a knee and shaking their fist in vain at the sky and doing group chants and shit -- right in my wheelhouse. Really funny dude. Then he started playing and it was a bit much for me to handle after a few songs. It would definitely grow on me by the time the trip was over though. Plus, I had to take a whiz (which I don't even understand how the normal festival-goers even went to the bathroom that shit was so crowded) and drink some more brews to get into jamzone.
Back in the dayroom, I broke out a duty free bottle of whiskey and we were jamming on that. Then one of the festival workers cleared the rubbish off our table which included the cap to my fifth of whiskey. I guess that meant we had to finish the whole bottle before we left to play since we couldn't transport that shit. I think Phil poured some in a cup to bring on stage and then we finished off the bottle pretty much between the two of us. Fast. Oh yeah, I should also mention that while reading the itinerary that morning Gus and Tara happened upon a free boogeyboard on the sidewalk. The itinerary instructed me to "literally crowd surf". I was a little bit ticked, not because I was afraid of crowdsurfing on a boogie board and breaking my leg, but because I was afraid of having people make fun of me after I broke my leg. I will never hear the end of how injury-prone I am after my two freak accidents that happened pretty close to one another a year ago.
Time to jam. We entered behind our stage as Starrrrz was finishing. We tetrised ourselves on stage with amazing efficiency but the sound dudes couldn't get all the mics working and were bumbling around for half an hour. We started thirty minutes late, but as we took the stage they told us to just play our set. The alley had about fifty people in it when we started, and we probably knew most of them. Guess what? We were playing against Feyst on the main stage. That's a shit sandwich to swallow. But then something weird happened. As soon as we started the Following The Itinerary chant (I think this is what we started with), a fullblown river of people started flowing in. And we just jammed it. HARD. I'm talking one of our best shows of all time. Friends in the audience said that people all around them were on their cellphones imploring their friends to get the heck down and see us.
A few songs in, Phil started jamming with the boogie board ("Still Flyin'" taped across the blank side) and pitched it out into the audience. They started throwing it straight up into the air like a beach ball and it would nosedive on top of unknowing victims. By this point the alley was packed all the way back. Probably a couple thousand people? After the song was done I told them that we as a band do not advocate death so we'll need the boogie board back. Proceeded to jam the hell out of that alley. Then I had noticed a girl with a stuffed monkey in the front row (who later turned out to be in the Brunittes) and threw the boogie board to her and told the crowd I wanted that monkey to ride the boogie board all the way to Feyst and back to us. So the monkey on the boogie board went back so far it vanished from sight.
Soon after that our set was dwindling down and I made an announcement that I seriously needed the boogie board for a specific song and I honestly needed it back. Nothing. It got to the point where we only had two songs left - Ghost Town and Smokies. Smokies was the only song that had a large enough jammout section where I could leave the stage for a long period of time. I said that we had two songs left but that since I needed the boogie board for one of them, we were just going to skip it and play our last song. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Then someone started screaming at me from the side of the alley about 100 yards up. A dude had retrieved the boogie board (turns out he was a dude from Okraville Raver and he went into the venue that was connected to the our alley and got the boogie board on the 2nd floor of the venue). I pointed to the boogie board and the crowd went apeshit. I explained the boogie board situation and how I'd broken my foot during a show in a cave in Sweden and to please save me from the ridicule. We broke into Smokies and during the end of the song I literally crowdsurfed. Maybe the first time that's ever been done?
Here's some proof:
After exiting the stage I realized a shitstorm of semifamous bands were watching us for some reason. Okraville Raver and Brunittes and Don Deeken in the crowd. Clappy Hands and Bracken Satchel Scene and Kool Kidz and this Atlanta band Monchister Archestra watching us from side/backstage... Why the hell were all of them watching us? I have no idea. The dude from BSS said Feyst was too boring so he went to see us. Everyone fucking loved it. So weird.
So after our set Phil was sloppy wasted. We jammed the SHIT out of that show. People hung out in our day room for a bit and then most people headed out for dinner. I felt silly not watching more music so I went back to our stage and saw most of the Kool Kidz. Pretty good. Not exactly sure why they're popular with the indie hipster crowd as opposed to other rap, but still they were pretty good.
After the Kool Kidz I met up with everybody outside of the restaurant and we headed to the official afterparty. Big secret warehouse thing. When we got there it was pretty empty and lame BUT the drinks were free at that point and there was a big screen projecting waves so some of us starting surfing in front of the screen. Ice and I ended up doing some absynthe shots or something weird like that. It literally made my whole body numb. The place soon got packed and was sort of fun. But then a VIP room within the big warehouse opened up that they were only letting people with artist passes into. The DJ was a little bit better and the room was smaller I guess. So that was kinda the afterafterparty. After a while of drinking and dancing and partying it was dwindling down to nothing. 4am or so?
We took it to Ice and SM's hotel room for the afterafterafterparty. I fell down on the bed face down with my backpack still on. 12 or 13 hours of drinking had put me in shutdown mode. Some funny shit happened involving Gary trying to squeeze back into the hotel room through the window. After that we went to Gus and Evelyn's house for the afterafterafterafterparty. Whoa. Quite a day.
Jeez. This shit was over a month ago. I need to get on this.
So on this day I woke with a serious hangover from the previous night's festivities. Actually I was woken up in bed by our two Australian label bosses Marky and Nate. I threw on some clothes, took a berrocca tablet (kinda like emergen-C but they take it for hangovers over there), and left with them to go down to the JJJ studios for an interview. JJJ is like if 99X or Live 105 were a station that was nationwide. I was doing an interview with Richard Kingsmilll or something like that - who was compared to the John Peel of Australia or something insane like that. Who knows why the hell he wanted to interview me. Nate made us get there 30 minutes early and the security guy looked at us like that was the first time he had ever seen a musician show up early. The 60 or 70 year old man told us to leave and come back and gave us some nearby cafes to go to. Some pretty good fodder to make fun of Nate about.
Anyway, I got back and did the interview. It was taped and the DJ was in Sydney. It was pretty hilarious to hear him play Ice Water over national radio. The ridiculous guitar solo into an even more ridiculous sax solo. The interview went okay. I was super hungover and tired, so I wasn't really on top of it. The famous DJ was really nice though and seemed to genuinely be a fan of our ej's.
After the interview we headed to the Laneway festival in downtown Melbourne. A laneway is an alley in Australia. What they do is block off an alley or two and set up a stage and people cram into the alley and there's so many people that they go all the way down the block. The Melbourne one was set up with the main stage blocking off a major street, a 2nd stage blocking off a big alley, a 3rd stage blocking off a smaller alley, and a stage in a venue that was attached to the 2nd stage alley. We had a dayroom in a hotel across the street and I went there first. Our room was being shared with Starrrrrrrrz and a coupla Australian bands that I can't remember. Every time we'd get to the festivals one of the workers would bring us our rider (which only consisted of beer as opposed to other bands), and would be amazed when they saw how much beer we got. They'd usually bring us water too out of pity.
Starrrrrrrrz were having a massive band fight ("I don't want everyone to just fucking show up 15 minutes before we're supposed to play" - haha dude wouldn't last five seconds in Stirr Fryin'), so I left the bad vibes to check out the festival. We entered through the backstage entrance to the 2nd stage (where we were playing later that night) and it was so crowded that it took me 10 or 15 minutes just to walk down the alley out to the main street where the main stage was. It was insanely crowded in every inch of the festival with no escape. Bracken Satchel Scene were about to start on the main stage so I watched a few songs of theirs but it was too hot and crowded so I left. I went down the smaller alley and Don Deekon was about to start so I checked him out. He talked for about 15 minutes before he started and had people taking a knee and shaking their fist in vain at the sky and doing group chants and shit -- right in my wheelhouse. Really funny dude. Then he started playing and it was a bit much for me to handle after a few songs. It would definitely grow on me by the time the trip was over though. Plus, I had to take a whiz (which I don't even understand how the normal festival-goers even went to the bathroom that shit was so crowded) and drink some more brews to get into jamzone.
Back in the dayroom, I broke out a duty free bottle of whiskey and we were jamming on that. Then one of the festival workers cleared the rubbish off our table which included the cap to my fifth of whiskey. I guess that meant we had to finish the whole bottle before we left to play since we couldn't transport that shit. I think Phil poured some in a cup to bring on stage and then we finished off the bottle pretty much between the two of us. Fast. Oh yeah, I should also mention that while reading the itinerary that morning Gus and Tara happened upon a free boogeyboard on the sidewalk. The itinerary instructed me to "literally crowd surf". I was a little bit ticked, not because I was afraid of crowdsurfing on a boogie board and breaking my leg, but because I was afraid of having people make fun of me after I broke my leg. I will never hear the end of how injury-prone I am after my two freak accidents that happened pretty close to one another a year ago.
Time to jam. We entered behind our stage as Starrrrz was finishing. We tetrised ourselves on stage with amazing efficiency but the sound dudes couldn't get all the mics working and were bumbling around for half an hour. We started thirty minutes late, but as we took the stage they told us to just play our set. The alley had about fifty people in it when we started, and we probably knew most of them. Guess what? We were playing against Feyst on the main stage. That's a shit sandwich to swallow. But then something weird happened. As soon as we started the Following The Itinerary chant (I think this is what we started with), a fullblown river of people started flowing in. And we just jammed it. HARD. I'm talking one of our best shows of all time. Friends in the audience said that people all around them were on their cellphones imploring their friends to get the heck down and see us.
A few songs in, Phil started jamming with the boogie board ("Still Flyin'" taped across the blank side) and pitched it out into the audience. They started throwing it straight up into the air like a beach ball and it would nosedive on top of unknowing victims. By this point the alley was packed all the way back. Probably a couple thousand people? After the song was done I told them that we as a band do not advocate death so we'll need the boogie board back. Proceeded to jam the hell out of that alley. Then I had noticed a girl with a stuffed monkey in the front row (who later turned out to be in the Brunittes) and threw the boogie board to her and told the crowd I wanted that monkey to ride the boogie board all the way to Feyst and back to us. So the monkey on the boogie board went back so far it vanished from sight.
Soon after that our set was dwindling down and I made an announcement that I seriously needed the boogie board for a specific song and I honestly needed it back. Nothing. It got to the point where we only had two songs left - Ghost Town and Smokies. Smokies was the only song that had a large enough jammout section where I could leave the stage for a long period of time. I said that we had two songs left but that since I needed the boogie board for one of them, we were just going to skip it and play our last song. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Then someone started screaming at me from the side of the alley about 100 yards up. A dude had retrieved the boogie board (turns out he was a dude from Okraville Raver and he went into the venue that was connected to the our alley and got the boogie board on the 2nd floor of the venue). I pointed to the boogie board and the crowd went apeshit. I explained the boogie board situation and how I'd broken my foot during a show in a cave in Sweden and to please save me from the ridicule. We broke into Smokies and during the end of the song I literally crowdsurfed. Maybe the first time that's ever been done?
Here's some proof:
After exiting the stage I realized a shitstorm of semifamous bands were watching us for some reason. Okraville Raver and Brunittes and Don Deeken in the crowd. Clappy Hands and Bracken Satchel Scene and Kool Kidz and this Atlanta band Monchister Archestra watching us from side/backstage... Why the hell were all of them watching us? I have no idea. The dude from BSS said Feyst was too boring so he went to see us. Everyone fucking loved it. So weird.
So after our set Phil was sloppy wasted. We jammed the SHIT out of that show. People hung out in our day room for a bit and then most people headed out for dinner. I felt silly not watching more music so I went back to our stage and saw most of the Kool Kidz. Pretty good. Not exactly sure why they're popular with the indie hipster crowd as opposed to other rap, but still they were pretty good.
After the Kool Kidz I met up with everybody outside of the restaurant and we headed to the official afterparty. Big secret warehouse thing. When we got there it was pretty empty and lame BUT the drinks were free at that point and there was a big screen projecting waves so some of us starting surfing in front of the screen. Ice and I ended up doing some absynthe shots or something weird like that. It literally made my whole body numb. The place soon got packed and was sort of fun. But then a VIP room within the big warehouse opened up that they were only letting people with artist passes into. The DJ was a little bit better and the room was smaller I guess. So that was kinda the afterafterparty. After a while of drinking and dancing and partying it was dwindling down to nothing. 4am or so?
We took it to Ice and SM's hotel room for the afterafterafterparty. I fell down on the bed face down with my backpack still on. 12 or 13 hours of drinking had put me in shutdown mode. Some funny shit happened involving Gary trying to squeeze back into the hotel room through the window. After that we went to Gus and Evelyn's house for the afterafterafterafterparty. Whoa. Quite a day.
