Thursday 24 June 2010

Evile Infecting Nations 2010 tour.Osnabruck.

Not again. seriously, I cannot be here again. I’m freezing, I’m dying with a hangover and I’m pretty sure that Aunt Flo’s just come to town. Oh, and get this. It’s so cold that the water in the venue has frozen and so we have two port-a-loos outside instead. Festival ones. The really shitty ones with just a bucket and a seat. The ones with no flush? Yep. Fuck my life.

And I was so super stoked to be coming back here, this venue is awesome, it’s got a live music area, connected to that a bar and a massive indoors skate park. And the manager, Schnarly, is awesome. I have quite possibly totally spelt his name wrong there, I’m spelling it out in my head and that’s what came out. On the down side, or weird side, is that this is the only venue on this tour that we last played on the tour that Mike died. So last time we were all here, was with him.

First off, Ben and Matt look to see if Mike or indeed any of them, ever graffitied the dressing room walls. After a disappointing find of nothing, I feel a decision has been made to always vandalise in future. Imagine if we had found a ‘Mikeism’ on the wall there. It would have been awesome and surely bought a tear to all our eyes.

Back to the cold. This building is basically a massive warehouse, sectioned off with plywood walls. It is freezing, absolutely fucking freezing. Hands are numb and stiff, breath is easily seen and toes and noses are hurting. I mean, the water has frozen type freezing, not some poxy U.K type ‘Ooh isn’t it cold’ type freezing. This is like survivalist stuff. Which makes setting up the merch stand really hard work, it makes everything really hard work. Little tasks become proper heavy duty.

Evile’s sound check is pure magic because of the cold. They are shivering under their scarves and hoods up coats. They can’t play fast enough because their fingers are too cold. Basically the sound check becomes even more redundant than it normally is. The guys are taking it well, laughing about it and all, but you can tell that this is going to be quite a massive fucking problem. Thrash being thrash, kind of need to be quite dextrous on the old’ strings eh. And the guitars are cold. They are playing badly for it.

I lost my gloves and my hands have gone purple. Dinner doesn’t even warm us up. I’m all over excited about the venue still though and up in the dressing room I say so. The response is, am I mad, it’s freezing and I’m like whatev’s still love the venue. I get quickly cut down by Andy who is like’ not whatev’s, how the fuck are we supposed to play in this?’ Which is a valid point and leaves me feeling like a total wanker. I slope off back to my stand in time for doors and wish the cold away. As I leave, the boys are all trying to warm their hands up on the little plug in heater.

A few of my first visitors turn out to be total winners, I end up chatting with them loads throughout the evening and even swap emails with the girl to stay in touch. They were a cool as fuck couple that loved metal and I thoroughly enjoyed hanging with them, talking gigs and travelling while drinking beer. Chop comes up to me and gives me my first valentine day’s gift. Yes, I get to spend that day with 15 men and you better believe I let them all know about it! I don’t even care for it really, but may as well make the most of the situation.

So Chop has given me the best gift. A toilet roll squished in to the shape of a heart! You have to understand that bog roll is at a minimum. And I am on. God bless that man, he really knows how to treat a woman. Note to self, remember to give him a gift back.

Elad comes and hangs out with me after an unfortunate stalker moment concludes in me giving the desperate help me eyes to far too many of the guys before Elad gets the hint. Him and Steve the driver. My heroes. See, earlier on in the night, some dude came over and saw me shivering so gave me a sip of his Whiskey, very nice of him. Then, about half an hour later, he bought me over a coffee. Again, very nice of him. With the second coffee however, he sat himself down, too closely and began an awkward ‘conversation’ with me. Awkward because he can’t talk English and I can’t talk German, although I probably would have pretended I couldn’t even if I could. He was basically a creep, trying to pick me up, paying no attention to the bands, why the fuck pay to get in if your just going to sleaze over girls? I cannot get over how Laux came over, asked me for his baccy, and walked off with it, the whole while I’m pleading with my eyes for him to cock black away! God dammit.

So there I sit on the steps that are behind the stand leading up to the t-shirt display, Steve on one side and Elad on the other, all trying to stay warm. Elad lends me his gloves bless him and we watch as Kevill dedicates a song to Chop the driver, who it turns out is down at the front with a beer, since he doesn’t have to drive tomorrow. He staggers out shortly after this and according to some of the others, stacks it. That is even funnier because his dedication from Kevill was to ‘the Lord and master’.

It’s too damn cold to write, I’m having a tough time even drawing tally lines down on the sale sheet so I can only imagine what it’s like playing guitar. It even gives me a headache.

Once off stage, Kevill heads over to the merch stand. With a bloody nose. This is how a good Thrash show should end eh! Apparently some kid down the front punched him in the nose by accident. Kevill is pretty fucked off until he realises that his Thrash points have just gone up and we take a photo. He then spits on one of my boxes and I slap him on the arm and tell him to stop bleeding and seating and snotting on the stand. In true comedy timing, at that exact minute, a fan comes up with his denim-patched jacket and asks Kevill to sign it and spit on where he signed it.

The crowd are fantastic for Evile, there a lot of people here who were here last time when Mike was with them and the support is phenomenal. By midway through there is a guy hanging off the rigging and mosh pits and stage diving and crowd surfing ahoy. The drunken guy hanging off the rigging becomes a problem and Lyall and Steve go get him off Joel’s mic, before his friend comes and takes him away. And guess who his friend is? My stalker rape ferry man! Ha.

Soon as the gig is done, it’s all about sales and packing up quickly so that I can get back to the heater. The Evile guys are in good spirits and end up getting told off for fucking about on the ramps in the skate park, chucking themselves at them at the top, and sliding back down like a rag doll.

Tonight, I am staying in. A lot of the other guys hit the town, different bars with the fans to get trashed and party ‘cause tomorrow is a day off and for once, not a travel day. I am filled with dread that we have to spend another day using the port-a-loos but have a big party to look forward to tomorrow night. There’s a punk night at this venue, and 10 minutes walk away, my old friends, Nashville Pussy are playing. And I shall be there to surprise them with a bottle of Bourbon and my drunken self! If they are anywhere near as cold as us, they will need it!


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