Saturday, May 14, 2005

Stockton-on-Tees, England @ The Georgian Theatre

Heat lamps, people, theatre. –Adam.

Long drive straight to Gatwick airport in London to fly home. Do you have any idea of the geography in England? Stockton to London is a hell of a drive, esp. after a show with an early morning flight to catch.

Friday, May 13, 2005

Oldham, England @ The Oldham Castle

This was an amazing night! I’m going to write down my notes here and then expand, rather than try to tie it all together.

Simon and Rigby Came. – Simon and Rigby are our friends from Wigan (where we recorded our album), they’re also in a great band called Moco. Every time we come over we find a way to get together and hang out, this time we didn’t have time, but they surprised us and just showed up to our gig….good lads!

Great Show!! Great Crowd!! Lots of dancing. – This really was an exceptional crowd and show. Not only was it packed, but everybody was dancing. We were on! Really great atmosphere!

15-20 people on stage – At one point Brad invited people on stage and it got crazy. At least 15-20 people jumped on the stage (pretty small stage) dancing and jumping and singing. The mics and guitars kept getting unplugged, shit was getting knocked over…….the stage crew looked pissed and terrified at the same time! Good fun!

Most fun show on the tour…and top 10 of all time – it was.

Line of the day = Ryan “I’m piss in the sink drunk” – After getting back to the Rossall Tavern, I started watching some awful British programming as I zoned out to fall asleep. 15 minutes earlier I helped Ryan into bed. He stumbled into the doorway and looked lost. I said “hey Rye, you wanna watch some tv?” He replied “I’m piss in the sink drunk” Adam “Did you piss in the sink?” Ryan “No”, then he wandered back into his room. I hope he doesn’t mind me including this in the diary, but it’s far too funny to leave out. Maybe you had to be there….he looked insane.

-Adam.

Thursday, May 12, 2005

Leeds, England @ Royal Park Cellars

This show is a blur….so here’s my notes on it:

Leeds
Very loud room!
Good show, good energy, tight.

Ta Da! –Adam.

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Fleetwood, England @ The Rossall Tavern

Tonight we all got pissed and played a really fun show at The Rossall Tavern. This is where we live when we’re touring England. Our good friend Maurice owns the place and we live and sleep above the pub. After the show Maurice had some kebabs delivered. He said they were the best around and they quite possibly were. Once again, thanks Maurice! You’re the best! –Adam.

We did a radio show the night before this one as well, Brad played 2 songs live to air.

Sunday, May 08, 2005

London, England @ Dublin Castle

Went to Buckingham Palace….we never have time for this touristy kind of stuff….but today we somehow managed. We stumbled into a VE Day Parade. Later we hung out with the Spill Magazine crew and had a few beers. Then we ate terrible Thai food with Scott Shields (mixed our record). To the show….kinda. A couple years ago we were in London hanging out with 54-40. At least half the crowd was Canadian and although we (Canadians) obviously travel abroad, I thought it was strange that you could find so many under the same roof in another country. On this tour we experienced the same thing….on a smaller scale. Tonight and throughout the tour, fair sized groups of Canadians seemed to be at most of the shows. Weird. Anyways, Canadians, 100% energy, good show, Brad and Ryan sleeping in the cargo van the entire ride back to Fleetwood. That’s all. -Adam.

Saturday, May 07, 2005

Guilford, England @ Star

Before the show we were introduced to Andrea, a Canadian girl who re-scheduled her European vacation around tonight’s show. We hung out with her and had a few drinks. The show was presented by Spill Magazine, so it was well put together and promoted. Nice turnout. In the middle of our set the monitors kept cutting out one at a time, then completely…. Ryan had to stand next to Brad’s amp to hear the guitar….it was a little strange playing blind to each other, but what can you do…shit does happen…and after all the gigs we’ve played together if this was a serious issue, we’d have real problems. After the show we watched the other bands and for the third time got harassed by the bar staff about the beer the promoters bought us for our rider…they thought we brought it in off the street and were threatening to kick us out. Anyways, I’m not trashing tonight at all, it was a really fun night and good show and the promoters treated us very well. –Adam.

Friday, May 06, 2005

Sheffield, England @ Grapes

England has terrible street signage, I already knew this from prior tours here, but we never managed to get as lost as often as we did this trip. Doing 30 miles/hour, if you squint hard enough, you may or may not be able to see the sign built into the wall of the building across the street, half a block down…..behind a bush….and that’s if the street actually has a sign. There rarely is. That was negative….I’ve heard people say I complain a lot in these diaries, so here’s a positive note. A cool thing about venues over here is that they usually have a completely separate room dividing the venue section from the pub. I know the argument against this is that the bands technically play to less people….not everybody’s hanging out in the venue area. However, the good thing is that everybody that’s in the room wants to be there and watch bands….it makes the room have good vibes. To tonight’s….details. Really old pub….really old! Huge staircase to climb with our gear. After load in and soundcheck, the venue sent us down the block for free food. It was rice and ground beef, Yummy!…While eating dinner, we chatted about the elderly and discussed how humane/inhumane it is to place/move family members into retirement communities…..just trying to make a decent sized entry. We played the show. As always we were absolutely stunning! We played new songs. Dazzled the crowd with our brand of up-tempo rock, and…..that’s about it. –Adam.

Thursday, May 05, 2005

Preston, England @ 12 Bar

The 12 Bar was a really nicely designed and decorated venue. The show was alright, but I don’t really know what else to say……England Election night. Labour party winning……-Adam.

Wednesday, May 04, 2005

Wakefield, England @ The Snooty Fox

Tonight was one of the weirdest shows I’ve ever played. It was sort of a warm up gig for the rest of the tour, to work the jet lag off, check our UK gear etc. My notebook says “Jam night?!” and that’s what it was, a jam night that we were headlining. I’m not going to name any names, but we played with hands down the worst band I’ve ever heard or seen. I’m very polite, but they were so bad I couldn’t help but watch in horror and awe. Like a car accident or a house burning down…..I was watching and desperately trying to hide my astonishment. The other really strange thing was the camera setup. Wakefield isn’t a very big place and the venue was quite small, but it had an incredible hand built sound, light and camera system. So, after the show we received a DVD of us at the Snooty Fox. Complete with 7 camera angles, smoke, mood lighting, camera effects and full on laser show…..hopefully soon we’ll add a couple of live video tracks to the media section….keep an eye out for that in the next little while……Jam night?! –Adam.

Tuesday, May 03, 2005

Winsford, England @ D. Bee’s

When we got to soundcheck I started unpacking the drums that I was supplied with in England and realized they were incomplete. I was missing a stool, high hat clamp, rack tom mount, etc. So part of every show on this tour had drum issues. Issues like I needed to borrow somebody else’s part and it didn’t fit, or they didn’t bring it and on and on…..In the end it all worked out alright, so this is my last mention of it. After soundcheck we went to the pub next door and watched the Liverpool vs. Chelsea (Football/Soccer) semi final game. Brad’s the only one in the band who knows a respectable amount about football, so he was routing for Liverpool because he liked them, I was routing for them because they had pretty uniforms and I don’t know what Ryan was hoping for…..Liverpool won 1-0…..tonight show was good. The crowd was smaller than I hoped for, but they were really into it, great vibe!……good night! –Adam.
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