I hate to bang on about winey fucking ailments all the time but you have got to fucking know how much I am freaking out about my mouth here. It is fucking face splittingly killing me with pain. All I can think about is how I have to get through a little under a month before we are back on a weeks break and I can get it fixed.
Till then I am hoping that my heavy self-medication of hard liquor and painkillers wont do me too much long-term damage. We are driving to Osnabruck in North Germany and I am miserable. I am finishing this tour. I can’t believe its only day two and I ‘m already thinking that I might have to go home. I am not going home. Everyone is a bit frazzled after our bad sleep night and the band seem quietly subdued. Later I realise that this is nerves. Tonight they will play they’re first European headline gig and are quite rightly a tad dubious about the whole thing.
I take myself off to a bunk at the back for some sleep, I cannot keep my eyes open any longer. When I wake up…. I feel cool. I mean, I’m feeling kinda good here. I just slept a good couple of hours, proper good sleep. Nice little dream and everything. My mouth isn’t hurting so much. Fuck yeah bring it the fuck on, she’s back. I make an executive decision that along with painkillers and drink, a positive attitude will clear this right up. From this moment on I will tell myself that my mouth is getting better.
Welcome to The Bastard Club. I know right!? You have got to see this place, it’s like if Biker Grove was built by the Beastie Boys and Motorhead coming together with some Anarchist squatters and thought that they should give something back to the world by putting something together ‘for the kids’.
This is in my top favourite venues list along with The Bannermans in Edinburgh. It’s basically a massive old warehouse covered in graffiti. At the front is the foyer area, where you pay to get in. It’s like a little bus shelter, shack thing covered in old posters advertising bands playing there, stickers and more Graff. There is a gym bench against the wall facing out and in the corner, an old fucked up stuffed armchair with no legs. An upturned metal waste bin is where someone sits to take the money. There are some skaters scattered about having a smoke.
You walk through in to the gig area. The stage and merch corner is here. Other than this there are some old three-piece suites lying around that have seen better days and loads more posters and Graff. Up the stairs at the side is the bar. It runs the length of the room down one side. Down the other side is a Perspex wall with some tables and chairs. Through that window is a massive fuck off indoor skate park! Past the stage, through a door is that skate park, the toilets, a fuse ball table and some really fucking dodgy looking steep stairs. Up these is the dressing room. Again, everything is covered in old posters of bands who have played there, Punk, Metal, Hardcore, all sorts. And a ton more graffiti.
When we arrive there is a skateboarding lesson going on for little kids. Lines of little 5 year olds or something are taking turns to go down a ramp. We are all cooing over this until it is pointed out what a shame it is that kids cant just be kids but are now being pushed by their ‘cool’ parents in to doing shit like skate boarding when they look like they have only just learnt how to use a toilet.
The bar is laid out with stuff to make sarnies with and there is lovely German beer in the fridge. After a quick break and wander round we unload and start setting everything up for sound check.
I get my first look at our merch and go through it taking out stuff with Lyall to use for the night. I make up signs and a sales sheet and then tart myself up in a bid to not look like I’ve been in a motor home for the past 48 hours. Then I go and perv at the skaters who have taken over the park now lesson time has finished. Sweet.
The support band turns up and unloads too, Evile have met them before so there’s chatter and those who haven’t met are introducing themselves and shaking hands. Drone will support Evile tomorrow night in Hamburg too, and then one last time further along in the tour. After Evile sound check, hot food is put out along the bar. Dinnertime is rice and some kind of broth/stew thing. Dunno what it was but it tasted it well nice. We sit in the bar and watch the skaters flying up and down, up and down while bolting down our grub.
Some final bumming around, tweaking and finishing touches and doors are open. Drone play an awesome set, I seriously enjoyed like all but a couple of songs. They seemed proper tight, very lively and fun to watch. By the end of they’re set I was looking forward to watching them again at Hamburg. What a touch.
The singer was a right funny little fucker. Kept banging on a bout cocks and had his video camera out taking quite obvious shots of my cleavage, his eye level. Can’t blame him really, they are fantastic. He still got several slaps though. Think he may have enjoyed that too, can’t fucking win sometimes I tell you.
Evile merch is selling fucking brilliantly even before they have played which is sweet cause we still don’t have the new album with us.
They get up on stage and open with Infected Nation, a song from the new album and immediately a circle pit starts up. Everyone is fucking crazy for Evile from the start which is awesome cause they got they’re first 1 hour and 20 minute set to get through so need all the give back they can get.
Me and Lyall have a good laugh at the expense of some girls down the front who are just standing there swooning around and sweeping their hair back now and again looking thoroughly bored. They looked like they were at a fucking school dance waiting to be approached by some dude. Why do girls do that? Well I mean I know why, they want to catch the attention of the band in some really gash attempt at playing groupie. Girl if your arse is going down the front you need to get gnarly, get down with your bad self sister, no ones going to ask you backstage if you look like your standing waiting for the fucking bus love.
Merch is still selling and soon enough I’ve hit the record labels target that we have to meet if we are going to cover petrol and food expenses. My target is higher though so on we go!
Evile pull out all the stops and both them and the crowd are dripping in sweat going crazy at each other. Skaters wander through every now and then to get to the park and for a brief minute you can see them fall off they’re pedestals of cool as they crash down and get violated by some good old fucking thrash shenanigans. They collect themselves and saunter on looking slightly bemused.
The set finishes and the merch table picks up again. My target is met. Win. The guys chat to audience members and start packing up equipment. The European promoter helps us load up and we get it in the trailer quickly in the pissing rain then retreat back in to our motor home for the night. We are sleeping outside the venue and pushing off in the morning to Hamburg after locating an Internet café to check emails, send info and post blogs.
For now, we hunker down, knock back tasty German beers and watch a DVD of Big Train. I go outside for a ciggie and all is quiet and dark ‘cept for a little light on the outside of the warehouse. It’s still, raining and kinda creepy. There is laughter coming from inside the motor home, so I flick my stub, step up inside and tell the guys how we are prime candidates for a fucking blinding horror/ slasher movie scenario right about now.
“A Band a long way from home, an empty warehouse in an abandoned and disused waste land. They think it’s a safe place to sleep for the night. They were wrong. From the makers of “Not more Gore Porn 1,2 and 3” and award winning “Stuck in some Eastern block Country with some hot chicks who turn out to be chemically enhanced mutant robots” comes this Summers sickest horror to date. Petrol money will be the last thing on they’re mind by morning……if they make it that long…”
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