Thursday 24 June 2010

Evile Infecting Nations 2010 tour.Irun.

This venue is bizarre. By the end of sound check, there are like 30 random middle-aged men at the bar watching. They all look like they are Basque Mafia. I am totally getting ‘Rape ferry’ vibes while setting up my merch stand. A few of them have big fucking dogs too. They keep crossing over through the dressing room to this door at the back and leaving this huge Doberman in there, and then taking it out, putting it back and so on and so forth. I reckon they got drugs and Arms in there man. I reckon when it gets dark it’s also all gonna get mighty Dusk till Dawn up in here. I predict we will all be dead by dawn. Fucking Basque vampires.

Of course that doesn’t happen. I get to feel incredibly uncomfortable setting up my merch stand as they walk past me slowly starring every fucking minute, but that’s about the furthest I can take my complaints. I’m late getting on the stand because I was told the wrong door times, which is always fun. I love being made to look like a hack by other people’s incapability’s at being professional.

The word for the night Ladies and Gentleman, is uneasy. The shittest night for me by far. Way worse than sodding Manchester. Tonight I am just by the front door, which is open all night so I get to see my breath it’s that fucking cold. I am also down a corridor outside of the room the bands are in so get to see nothing but a corridor for the whole night. When the door opens I peak at banging heads, but I’m afraid that’s all I can give you. Such is the life of a merch girl. I’m lucky this doesn’t happen more often. My space is so inconvenient and tiny, that I have boxes stacked on top of one another. Hope no one wants a hood, will take me forever to rake out.

We get €10 to spend on Chinese take out. When it finally comes at half fucking ten, Lyall comes to so generously ask me, like he’s doing me a favour, if I would like him to bring it down to the stand so I can eat it there. This is the same stand that I am shivering on. The one that I am standing at looking at the breath come out of me.

I am in such a bad fucking mood tonight. Mainly because I’m in a shit spot, but also because yet again, The Fading are bitching about the way they’re fucking merch is being displayed. Again. Again, I explain how it works. Headline act gets both front and back of every piece displayed. In the best, well lit part of the stand. Then the next band. That band cannot rely on getting both back and front displayed. They also cannot put out more than the headline act. The last band, the opening act is frankly lucky to get a t-shirt space and a C.D space up let alone the two that The Fading have, plus their hood. Oh, and a free merch girl. I don’t charge them ‘cause they aren’t making enough yet. They are being so fucking ungrateful that I suddenly realise, this is their first tour, and they know nothing! So I give them the low down, in all its ugliness. I tell them how little room Evile were given on past tours. About price matching the headline act. All that shit. Then I make them cover me for near on an hour. Little taster time needed I feel. Needless to say , they are way more appreciative after, and we have definitely hit an understanding.

To top my night off, I also have the pleasure of some stupid dumb drunk fucks loitering by the stand all night. I’m not even sure they caught any of the bands. I know this. When Kevill came by after Warbringer had finished, they demanded a photo with him and took five photos of themselves because they were too drunk to realise that the camera was pointing at themselves, not Kevill. Even after he pointed it out! Ha! Fucking idiots. Then they hassled him for a guitar pick, clearly didn’t watch Warbringer then, he’s trying in vain to tell them he’s the singer and therefore doesn’t have one. They won’t have it. He runs away. They cornered Matt too, before Evile played. Just shouted Infected Nation in his face for 5 minutes. He looked horrified.

I just realised something. This time last year I was sleeping on a sofa too. My mates sofa ‘cause my life was for shit. Exactly a year later, I’m on a fucking night liner travelling around Europe through Countries I’ve never been to and never thought I would see. Life sure is a funny one.
I pass out drunk from too much shit red wine some time during some film on the bus. I wake up, peel my contact lenses off my eyeballs and go back to sleep, Adam, Lyall and Laux sitting next to where I lie watching Brass Eye.

Tonight was pretty gash. The less said about it, the better. The only funny bit there could have been, I never got to follow up on. When the dog was barking in the room next to our dressing room, I looked for Ben so I could tell him to shut his mum up! We laughed about it later, but it’s not the same.

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