Chronicles of The Merch Girl

With Full Force festival. Eastern Germany. Part . The last fling

2010-07-21T18:03:00.000+01:00

And so for the final entry I have for With Full Force festival. This finds my merchandise stand / trader family and me, shuffling around the Earache stand aimlessly, as the main stage area is shut down and the public hustled out. The cool thing about right now, is in all faces you can see the relief and joy peeking out through the utter exhaustion and dirt at the prospect of not having to do this all again tomorrow.

Ben, Kim and me have had the most fun. We have truly burnt the candle at both ends. We have partied like rock stars, met new friends and caught up with old ones. We have quite possibly been drunk for the majority of the weekend. But holy fuck have we paid to get to live this extraordinary lifestyle for the weekend.

We have been up at the crack of dawn, working right through till midnight for three nights on the trot. We have built a successful merchandise stand from scratch, which we also have to dismantle and pack away in the van. We have excelled in customer service, acting as the faces of Earache records, since we were selling their stock. We have networked and smiled and there has not been one strop or falling out between us. Everyone loves us; yet again Earache is the undisputed reigning king of festival merchandise stands! And all this in 38% heat. Phew. I’m all tuckered out just looking back on it.

And now? We sleep, ready for the drive back home. Ha-ha do we fuck! Round 4 fuckers, we ain’t going lying down!

I cannot recall how this happened, I was steaming drunk following my Slayer day, but somewhere after slayer, and somewhere after realising none of us had it in us to start packing up, I bumped in to James Hetfield circa 1985! I was with Kim, we were heading to the real toilets in the trader’s campsite and boom, there him and his little buddies were. According to Kim they wanted to know where the party was. At which I retorted that they had missed the party but that there was a lake 5 minutes up the road with our names on it. And then I was off. Kim was calling me back to go with her, but I was not going to let stories of polluted lakes or possible gang rape by strange and random German boys put me off. I had even run back to Kim and said ‘I hope I don’t get gang raped’ before smiling and running back off in to the dark apparently? Oh dear…role model I am not.

I didn’t get gang raped it’s o.k. No, instead I had an awesome hour of splashing around with only the moonlight to help us see in the dark. The lake was so super refreshing and relieving. Us four were not a lone soon; there must have been about a dozen people all skinny-dipping by the time we left. I kept my pants and t-shirt on of course. Stiff upper lip and all. Stiff upper lip until the next morning that is. Skinny-dipping with James Hetfield circa 1985, which by the way is what I called him the entire time, was the first order of the day. Do as the Europeans do is what I say!

And here we are, back at the beginning. What happened next? We packed the Earache stand up, and our tents, all in sweltering heat, hung over and tired. We got in to our van, and drove off kicking up dust clouds, through a ghost town of tents and rubbish, back off to England. We didn’t drink all the way there. We didn’t keep Kim company. Well, I didn’t. I woke up for food in Holland, and then again in Belgium. The trip back is always sombre. Like soldiers coming back from the battlefield! I hate when you have to go home.

With Full Force festival. Eastern Germany. Part 5. Slayer Day!

2010-07-21T17:37:00.002+01:00

It’s Slayer day! I have been a super lucky girl this year and had myself 3 Slayer days. Meaning I have gotten to watch them play 3 times and have built my whole day around this, ergo, Slayer ‘Day’. See!

But first alas we must start yet another roasting and boiling hot day with no shade. And our soundtrack for this morning gives us Mambo Kurt and Rockbitches. I was kind of intrigued by the name imagining some sort of awesome German Rockabilly punk get up, smashing us across the face awake with double bass and catchy riffs and 50’s styling dazzling us with light weight fun in the morning sun. Instead we got some lame cheap looking group that apparently goes round all the festivals in Germany and opens up, a comedy spoof act that I can only imagine might translate for us as The Mighty Boosh? Although even the Germans themselves who were busying our stand all day looked shamed and apologised.

Music wise the day was a blah for me. I looked forward to NoFX, The devils Blood, As I Lay Dying and Sodom, but nothing could capture my excitement because that was all reserved for Slayer.

I covered a hung over Ben and Kim for a couple of hours quite happily, pleased that I was able to make up for my absence yesterday.

The stand was doing really well, a constant stream of custom, plus re-stocking and re-hanging of t-shirts that were getting lose in the wind that had out of nowhere picked up later in the morning, meant that we were kept busy. Visits from Janet and Meeri, who became our glamorous assistants helped keep lagging spirits up, and when Kim and Ben rose all was back to good times! Hangovers gone, the stand doing excellently, and it is our last day. As much as this weekend has been both epic and amazing and crammed full with good times and hearty partying, I will not be sad to see the sweaty morning starts and the long arse working days gone. And I’m totally over toasted sandwiches.

I slope off backstage to see if the Slayer camp has arrived yet, with me a couple of boxes of heavy duty pain killers for my touring friend BC3, Kerry King’s guitar tech, who had asked me to, since his back was doing him in with their gruelling tour schedule.

I get to behind the main stage and cannot get further without a better pass or some basic knowledge of German, and stand there stumped for a minute. Slayer’s truck is half unloaded of equipment by the back of the stage, but no BC3 in it. I spot an old friend Simon, who used to be in Cataract and is dating my friend Therese, and beckon him for help. Bless him if he doesn’t go back in to the artist area and bring me out the security guard assigned to Slayer. I get walked back to Slayer’s private back stage area, as this massive dude tells all the security that I’m fine, and feel like such an important nobody I can’t help but start strutting and pouting behind my sunglasses. Then I hit an uneven patch of grass and nearly twist my ankle. Serves me right eh. If the strutting and pouting was in any way effective, pretty much everyone back there saw me stagger. Fail. Still the point is, I’m now in Slayer land!

Slayer, on the other hand, are not. The only one there at this time was the production manager, taking care of business all over the place. I’m way too happy to see him in comparison with his surprised yet nonchalant greeting towards me. Fail 2. He’s confused as to me being here, as have most the bands been that I’ve gotten to hang with. Which is great, it can only be a good thing to be seen out and about round Europe working different things and not just in London right?

I catch up with him for a bit and ask if he needs help with anything. He declines, so I push off back to the Earache merchandise stand and put in another 3 or 4 hours of ace sales time. And then the itchy feet start again, so yet again I’m off backstage to see if my friends have turned up. And they have! Win. I spot the tour manager across the way, cleverly sitting in the shade of a port cabin and go join him, catching up and chewing the cud…teasing with the on going ‘when are you going to hire me as your assistant?’ questioning which I always know the answer to ‘never’. He’s all like ‘have you seen Kerry yet?’ and I’m like ‘nah not yet’. ‘He’s sitting next to you’. I turn to my right and sure enough, Mr Kerry King…legend himself, is stretched out chilling in the shade.

I collect myself, and say hello, we chat for a bit and then he asks if tonight I’m going to join them after the show for shots because last time I didn’t. Kerry fucking King gives a shit! Holy fuck I nearly fell off my chair no word of a lie. I’m all trying to be respectful at the invite yet blasé and cool when out walks Dave Lombardo, on route to watching NoFX from the side of the stage. And he’s pleased to see me too! Dave is cut from the same troublesome cloth as me of course and I’m over the moon to see him. Hugs and excited hello’s out the way and he’s off with BC3, turning back and asking if I’m coming too. ‘I don’t have stage access dude’ is my reply. ‘Fuck that, come up with us’ is his reply. Have you any idea how much I nearly burst with happiness at that precise moment!

These guys are so fucking down to earth it is not even possible for me to explain how much so. They are so unaffected. Just dudes in a band that love seeing other bands as much as us ordinary folk do. Fucking epic. The next hour is a dream like daze of going up the stairs to the side of the stage, actually on the stage, with BC3 and Dave Lombardo, and watching NoFX. Not all of the set, I watched like 3 songs and then went back to the merchandise stand to put some time in before Slayer played. BC3 gave me his pass so I could get back on stage again and I hurried back to Earache petrified that some one was going to spot it and swipe it.

The next hour as NoFX finish up, set change happens, and Slayer get through the first handful of songs is agonising. I’m on the store, selling merch, trying desperately to contain my excitement. And the air is weird. You know like just before a storm when it’s been really hot and humid and you can feel that there is about to be a tremendous storm of epic proportions?
Finally I’m running back to the steps up the stage, petrified once again that BC3’s pass will either get nicked or when I get to the bottom of the stage steps, the security will see right through me and confiscate it. Of course they didn’t, he looked too busy not roasting in the now gone down sun to give a shit about the little things in life!

And there I am. Slayer are in my top 5 favourite bands of all time. I’m standing on the stage, to the side with my friends watching them play an almighty ear destroying set and there is lightening streaking the dark sky and the mosh pit is going crazy! Every hair on my body is up with goose bumps and I check myself. This is one of the most amazing times of my life. 14 year old me would be so stoked to see how well she does in the end!

After the set, of which I get to see all because I don’t have to rush off and prepare the bands dinner like when I worked for them at Hellfest, we all go back to their VIP area and hang out drinking till they have freshened up. Shots upon shots, stories and tales, copious drinking done, and Slayer are whisked away to the next lucky venue. I just stand there, in a daze, trying to take the last couple of hours in. Looking around me at kerry King’s empty dressing room with my friend Therese in awe of the conversations had. Kerry has even told me to take as much of the rider as I can, for me and my friends back on the merchandise stand. What a hero eh!

I truck back to Earache loaded with as much booze and mixers as I can carry. And plenty of still water of course!

With Full Force festival. Eastern Germany. Part 4. Booze and blood

2010-07-12T21:30:00.001+01:00

I came round and back to the land of the living in time for the sun to go down and cannibal Corpse to play. Ben had marked them as the band he definitely wanted to go in the pit for, so off he trotted, booze in hand while Kim and me realised we had missed our friends band play, Deadline from London. Duh. I think we had even taken a walk over to catch them but they finished as we arrived. Bit of a fail that.

Thomas Kupfer came to visit, laughed when he found out where Ben was. As did all Ben’s 'bromance' buddies. Cannibal Corpse played a mighty sick set; our stand allowed us direct acoustics, which was rad because we never missed anyone really, even though we couldn’t see them. Earache always seems to be given a good space, probably ‘cause it rocks ha! But then when they finished, Ben didn’t come back? Maybe he had been trampled to unconsciousness during the Cannibal Corpse ‘wall of death?’ or maybe he had done the rounds on all his 'bromance' buddies on the various different stands to show them his pit injury. Ben got punched in the face in the pit during Cannibal Corpse and was delighted with his black and bloody split eye. To be fair, it did look super fucking cool.

Couldn’t tell you a thing about Heaven Shall Burn, but Venom rocked my world for sure. Ben was unimpressed but he is a violent pit dweller so his opinion no longer matters. Venom are so amazing and epic but alas the young crowd who are mainly hardcore kids don’t know about them. Apparently, according to Janet from one of the other merch stands, who is completely 100% Metal, there were like 3 rows of people and then loads of space between the rest of the people milling around. Really sad. At the end was a massive fireworks display that we all watched from outside our stand. These fireworks were epic in size, colour and duration, no expense spared. And I tripped out one last time, but in a great cosmic wow type way.

We poured drinks out and hung out as the site got cleared by security of non traders and felt satisfied that we had yet again done great on the stand considering no one was really shopping. Earache merch is easy to sell because the bands are super rad and the t-shirt designs rule. Municipal Waste flies out the stand, Oceano a Deathcore band from Detroit did great, along with Gama Bomb and a heap of other bands. Vinyl was proving a success, box sets too.

Work done with, party time starts and with the tarpaulin over the front of our stand, everyone from our festival family joins us as the table full of rows upon rows of C’D’s becomes a bar area, with Luke becoming our bar tender. Him and Ben come up with many, many strange and glorious concoctions from our varied array of brightly coloured bottles of pure European filthy liqueurs. They pass them round in massive empty sparkling water bottles, the sparkling water fizzing away on the grass at our feet. Everyone would swig as much as they could in one go and then pass the bottles on to the next person. Drunkenness was not a long time coming.

Ben had barely eaten all day, none of us had in fact. Probably down to the 38 degree heat that had been hammering us since dawn. Rather we had been snacking and grazing on snacks that hadn’t melted in to oblivion. Ben had bought a bag of pink and white mice for his sister that had since melted in to one big swirly lump. Most of the cheese and ham was too dubious to eat, one of the other festival family saw our pitiful state of affairs and offered us space in their fridge the next day for anything that was still edible. Win.

So Ben had turned to eating Doritos crisps absolutely slathered in a mountain of hot chilli sauce and a pool of Tabasco sauce in the middle of that. He got hic-ups several times, his face went red several times, his breathing went weird several times, still he kept on munching. We decided that by the end of the weekend he had to finish the entire bottle of Tabasco. Next stop was one of the other festival families stand. We partied there with loads of people including my friend Meeri from Finland who I had met in Germany on the Evile tour, and Thomas Kupfer our new journalist best friend forever. I left them all to it to go find Happy and Joy and hang out with them some or arrange where we can all meet up on masse. Gwar would be playing at 3am and most of us wanted to watch them drunkenly.

Backstage I ran in to Joy, happy had apparently gotten lucky with a German girl. Exodus were all hanging out drinking too, hugs all round, chatter and bullshit talked. Good times right there. I arranged with Tom to meet at the second pole along the tent where Gwar were playing at 2.45am and that we would both bring our respective parties with us. Job done!

The rest of the night was a blur. We got to hang out with Exodus for ages, they even drank our vicious and potent cocktails from the bottles being passed around. By the time Gwar came on, everyone was arms round shoulders style, laughing and shouting and chatting and generally pissing about having loads of fun and relaxing. Interruptions for photos and autographs from fans pulled me back to the amazing reality that I am hanging with fucking Exodus like they were my school buddies. What an amazing night.

Gwar came on and none of noticed we having so much fun. I got a hotdog in a bid to sober up a touch, which started a food envy train to the hotdog stall for loads of others, and then Tom and me went in to the crowd to get closer to the mighty Gwar stage. Watching Gwar at 4am, still stoned but nicely, drunk and standing next to Tom from Exodus banging our heads and chucking the horns was possible one of the coolest moments of my life to date. And with that, Exodus had to leave.

On route back to the Earache merchandise stand having said my farewells to Exodus and Happy and Joy, I rounded a corner in the main stage area and rounding the other corner was Ben and Co. The side of Ben’s face other to the side already bruised from his Cannibal Corpse injury was covered in Mud or dust. He was happily drunk, as of course we all were, and explained that he had clear lost his feet from underneath himself and crash landed straight on to his face! Having laughed at Ben’s poor, abused face for a while, I took myself off to my tent and crashed out with my earplugs in, which yet again did nothing to dilute the noise and bass vibrations under me where I slept from the all night ‘D.J’ tent next door.

With Full Force festival. Eastern Germany. Part 3. The lost day.

2010-07-12T14:39:00.001+01:00

Saturday. Ah yes. Saturday went a bit wrong for all intense purposes. Started out, as it should, as one would expect it to. Hot, bit hung over, getting ready for the day ahead with lots of de-sweating breaks in between. Setting up the Earache merchandise stand for the day. Trying to drink sparkling fucking water without gagging. And then this happened. Exodus came to town.

Exodus came to play a gig and bought with them two old friends of mine whose names for the sake of this story shall be Happy and Joy. Ooh you know it’s a good story when I revert to code names huh.

Happy had apparently come by our stand when the Exodus bus rolled in but we didn’t hear him shouting. The next time he came by we were pretty much ready to trade, although the main stage area was still closed to the public, and I could be found sprawled out on a fold up chair in the sun bitching about sparkling water and why do we always forget to just open the bottle in the supermarket and check for bubbles. And then there he was, and I was overjoyed! One of my favourite people right here is our Happy. Happy is very troublesome, we are cut from the same cloth. Although Happy is from Holland, and always has fun things for me to play with on him if you know what I mean. So he hangs with us, I introduce him to the others and he goes off to get us cold, still water after having us in stitches for the best part of an hour.

Next visitor for the day to the blessed and holy Earache stand is the lovely Tom, drummer from Exodus. We chew the cud; shoot the shit, all that stuff. It’s good times when friends pop up like this at small festivals in the middle of Europe because none of you know the local language or that many people so you all stick together more.

Exodus are in my top 5 favourite bands and I have been very privileged to meet them on several occasions throughout the years, starting with working as a bouncer at one of their gigs in London and carrying on bumping into them spanning over, shit, about 7 years now. I still get star struck by them now, even more so because they are so down to earth and great people.

Happy, on return with water that gets guzzled down immediately, offers to get me breakfast. I’m well stoked! Backstage artist food is gonna be much better than our breville toasties we been boshing together for the last 72 hours. Off I trot, leaving the others behind with promises of great delights stolen from backstage.

Happy and me reach the coolness of the tour bus and I slouch down in to one of the chairs up front, hugging Joy and saying Hi as he goes through paper work. He is in work mode and so I sit there quietly while Happy goes to the back of the bus and opens up his present for me. Ffs. Space cake. Yep, Happy is giving me space cake for breakfast. I’m like ‘Dude I haven’t eaten this stuff for 10 years, it’s boiling and I have a full day of work ahead of me. Oh and it’s 11am.’ Happy and Joy then go about friendly bullying me with ‘eat it eat it’ till my arm is twisted and the cake is eaten. Didn’t have to twist much to be fair to them but still, would’ve rather just had more still water.

So you can guess what happened for the rest of my day. First off, after an hours nervous wait back at the stand which sees me apologising ahead of time to Ben and Kim for whatever may come of me in the following 8 hours and seriously contemplating making myself vomit, comes the giggles. I laughed so hard at absolutely nothing that I cried. I cried as Ben and Kim looked on at me in resigned amusement. I had to take myself off to behind the tent because I couldn’t stop laughing at the customers. I cannot stop laughing now as I write this. It was very fucking funny for me. Just for me one suspects though. Then, a brief spell of calm where I sat with the others and maybe even managed to serve a customer before the next stage kicked in. Intense paranoia.

I couldn’t look at the customers or people passing. I couldn’t look at Ben and Kim without seeing them passing looks of disdain between them; in my head they were rolling their eyes. Although, I can hardly blame them if they were. I couldn’t say anything because everything I said came out wrong in my head and I was questioning it all and how they might take it.

Then the agitated bit. I couldn’t get comfy anywhere. And the burning heat from the sun helped intensify this. I moved from the stand to behind the stand and tried to sleep it off in a tiny patch of shade, but the passing gen-pop could still see me so I got paranoid and moved to my tent, where I boiled and sweated. So I clambered out and laid down in a foot wide space between my tent and the back of the stand and stayed there for an hour or so. I think I kind of slept, or close enough to it. People came by to visit but I just stayed there feeling guilty for not working.

When I came to I sorted myself out. Kim came on a walk with me to the nice toilets in the traders campsite to help walk it off and also because I couldn’t figure out if I needed a piss or if I was just paranoid that I need a piss and concentrating on it too much. Jeez it was exhausting. On our way there we bumped in to Happy who was, very happy. The shit. Yes everyone was highly amused by my day except me it seems. Damn them all the fuckers.

So, there’s 8 hours of Saturday righteously thrown right out the window. Want to know what bands I missed? Well, Exodus for a fucking start! Ha-ha, yes I heard them but was wedged between two tents trying to chill out when they came on. I heard Walls of Jericho and Grand Magus. Their sets intertwined with the football that was being broadcast on the other side of the field and somewhere along the line, a trumpet joined in and I tripped out massively with all sorts of sounds and songs in my head. Fortunately the middle day is always a very quiet sales day. The first day is busy, second day everyone is browsing, and the last day everyone spends what they have left or comes back for what they have been looking at on the previous days. If this had happened on Sunday I suspect Ben and Kim would hate me forever!

With Full Force festival. Eastern Germany. Part 2. Sales and sun

2010-07-12T14:26:00.000+01:00

I am being roasted alive. Sweat is tickling my skin as it runs down my face and the sides of my body on to the floor of my tent. I cannot even bare to lie there and trick myself in to pretending to still be asleep for another minute. My tent flap is open, I must have opened it when the sun first rose and started slow baking me in a bid to breathe. There is barely a breeze even with the rape gate. I clamber out and locate the only shady area near, the side of our next door neighbours truck.

Ben told me of the rape gate last night at some point during our drunken ramblings when we were discussing this morning. That’s what it’s called when you leave your tent open at night apparently. We reckon we are safe though because our tents are pitched in a closed off area, and frankly, I don’t think even potential rapists wouldn’t bother in this heat. We had also decided that we would not have time for lake shenanigans today, the stand needs finishing. It can definitely be done on the next few mornings though since we will clearly be woken at 8.30am by the ferocious sun and the site doesn’t open till noon. Ourselves and the rest of the trader fam’ all agree that this will be the plan. Fuckin’ A!

But not yet fuckin A, oh no not yet. No, right now are very much bad times. I wake Ben up, who has also blown caution to the non existent wind and rape gated his tent, and then climb in under the tarpaulin to wake Kim, who is sleeping in the stand having not bought a tent the silly. We ‘wash’ with wet wipes, and curse the school boy error of buying dozens of litre bottles of sparkling fucking water which is both disgusting and not thirst quenching while guzzling it down anyway out of pure survival need. I have to take breaks between getting ready. Hair done, break to de-sweat. Make up done, break to de-sweat. Changed, break to de-sweat. As the sun continues to cook us, we quietly focus and finish the stand. No one talks much, we are just trying to get the job done and done well.

The site opens and the gen-pop (Ben’s amazing abbreviation for general population which we laughed at for ages, what a twat!) come tearing in. Oh no wait, no they don’t at all. They are all in the lake! Yes it becomes apparent that due to the heat, no one actually comes in the main stage area with its lack of shade until just before the first band starts. Very wise. And good for us because now we can relax a minute and put the finishing touches to the stand which looks super rad with all the Earache and Earache band t-shirts hung up, and rows upon rows of mouth watering C.DS’s and Vinyl. Our next door neighbours on one side are all sorted. Very posh with their fans and matching outfits. Wankers.

Sales start before the main stage area is open to the gen-pop with two Americans, the vocalist from Job For A Cowboy and the guitarist from The Faceless, who picks up some Cult Of Luna. Seemed like nice boys. We payed attention to their sets because they bought of us and they did a fucking sterling job, which is impressive when they were first on and had to play in that heat. Kirk Windstein and the hot brunette whose name I can’t recall from Crowbar come over and we chew the cud. I saw these guys at Hellfest last week so we talk about what we have been up to and the heat. They are used to it in New Orleans, but we all agree that sunburnt tops of feet suck balls massively, and with that they bowl off backstage.

Kim makes us lunch, we drink and chat to customers, talking about Earache bands past and present, haggling prices and practicing German and English. Before we know it the day is drawing to a close and we have done brilliantly! This is good, obviously. This festival is a first for us to have a stand at and it is crucial that we make Earache a profit so that it does not become a waste of time, effort and money. We tidy up the stand and close it down.

Then what? Jeez who knows, the rest of the weekend has eclipsed the relatively mundane Friday night. None of the bands were particularly interesting, and we got drunk and passed out relatively early. Well I say that, but we did find a skate park area where skaters were performing behind a fence for us drunks at about 2am and continued to sit on the grass whooping and heckling while guzzling booze for a couple of hours. I planned with Luke from one of the other record labels with a merch stand that whoever wakes first should come wake the rest of us and we can all go down to the lake for a couple of hours. Janet, who was with yet another label and is German, told us we were mental and not to go in lakes in Eastern Germany because they are all polluted. I died inside a bit. We watched Marduk but by then I was finished and sloped off when no one was watching back to my tent, washed my filthy flip flopped feet with wipes and crashed hard, dreaming of skaters on sand dunes, lakes and tumours growing out of my sides from polluted lakes.

Apparently Luke knocked for us. Didn’t hear a thing though and now he is all smug and freshened from his swim in the lake with Max and I am all sweaty and cranky and tired from being so hot in that tent of mine. On the upside, Ben, Kim and me feel happy that we can use Luke and Max as experiments and that if they are o.k. by the end of the day, then we will do the lake tomorrow. I’m not so much fussed at this point about the potential of the having future babies with five heads bit but rather that I don’t want the shits when I’m living in the middle of a field and the nearest non porta-loo is like a ten minute walk away. Fuck that.

With Full Force festival. Eastern Germany. Part 1. Booze and mileage!

2010-07-12T13:57:00.003+01:00

Where to start. I’ll start with this. I spent Monday morning this week by skinny-dipping in a lake in Eastern Germany with a James Hetfield circa 1985 look a like. Not a bad way to start your working week huh? I was hung over and slightly sun burnt, being slowly cooked in my tent that the sun was beating down on, and the Earache merchandise stand needed to be packed up in lieu of my two comrades and me driving back across Europe to good Ol’ Blighty. So I hit the lake instead of throwing up and dying inside. Reality can wait just a few more hours.

With Full Force is a gnarly little festival held on some airfield in Eastern Germany somewhere. Last week, having only just returned and certainly not recovered from Hellfest festival in France, I was seriously coming to the mind of not doing WFF (With full force) but rather staying put in London. Then, at some point during another groundhog night of bar work, while standing there pulling another pint, I suddenly had the overwhelming desire to get the fuck out of there and committed myself wholly to camping and eating noodles with stoic gumption that I usually have reserved for ‘right, tonight I’m gonna not get home till morning’ times. It’s fucking on people!

Work rota’s covered and bag quickly packed since I hadn’t gotten round to unpacking it from Hellfest, and I find myself waiting for my ride to turn up in Kent where the pick up is with nerves and desperation. I love leaving. It’s the best feeling in the world hands down. Finally, the van is here and my two comrades for the next 5 days jump out. Who have we got then…we got Earaches sales and merchandising manager, Mr Ben, and we got driver to the lower classes of Punk and Metal and Grindcore, Miss Kim. Ben and me get straight to work by moving boxes around in the back of the van that have fallen. So that we could rake out some booze of course! Can’t hit Dover empty handed it’s just rude.

Dover is Dover. What can you say? Ben and I were ready for the mundane and loooong arsed process of getting on a boat, and continued our drinking in earnest. We have started on sparkling rose since it was the only bottle we could pull out of the wedged up booze box at the bottom of a pile of boxes and take turns necking it back. Poor Kim is stone cold sober on account of her being the designated driver of this road trip and looks on at us and laughs, shaking her head in amusement. Ben and I have made a pact to stay awake for the whole drive and keep Kim company, I see a brief flicker of ‘oh dear god no’ in Kim’s eyes as we stand there discussing what booze to buy on the ferry.

The ferry ride for the most part sees us waiting for the duty free shopping to start, buying ridiculous amounts of cheap booze (2 crates of Strongbow, a litre bottle of Malibu and 2 assorted packs of flavoured Smirnoff bottles topped off with a litre bottle of limited edition Smirnoff vodka) and chain smoking on the open deck while tucking into the Malibu for me and the Strongbow for Ben. All the while surrounded by school kids blasting tinny R&B from their shitty stereo and looking as us warily. We already look like more trouble than their pubescent little minds can get round with our rocking hair, tattoos and devil may care attitude. Hey I might sound like an arsehole saying that but you could see it in their faces, they’re like 16, these things matter to them. I like to think we turned some of those kids to the dark side and away from wishy washy tunes with too many melodies of men crooning about how good they can please you.

Waving goodbye to England with our middle fingers up, we hit dry land and the beautiful joy that is European speed limits. Beautiful because none of us know what they are, no one else seems to pay any attention and this van can push 95, which is what it stays on. Kim drove us through the night; we left Kent at gone 7pm and arrived in Lypsik at 8.30am having only stopped for piss breaks. During this epic road trip we listened to 3 Finntroll albums back to back, then 2 Turasis albums and some hardcore and punk albums. We drank most of the Malibu, nearly a whole crate of Strongbow, and some Hoegarden that we bought in Belgium. We made dubious cocktails and chucked out metal moves while all squashed into the front cab area of the van, chain smoking and laughing and chatting and throwing the claw to the moon that lit the road until it fucked off and was replaced by the sun rising over open expanses of farmland.

Ben and I woke from a drunken power nap outside a Nettos in Lypsik, Germany. And at 8.30am,a very drunken Ben and a very exhausted Kim went supermarket shopping. I chose to stay in the van and sleep another half hour. Fuck that, I was done. I must have dropped off again. Waking up drenched in sweat, the van sitting in the car park right under the baking sun. One patch of shade at the edge of the car park would mean me driving only 6 meters but I was still drunk so instead went to investigate what the hell was taking so long in the shop. See, upon waking and feeling all disorientated, I had checked the time. Ben and Kim had been gone for two bloody hours. Hope some crazed gunman hasn’t held up the shop.

Ben is still drunk! He bellows across the store when he sees me that ‘it’s ok, we are just choosing mixers and we are out of here’ and gets back to concentrating on the countless bottles of god knows what in front of him. Kim shakes her head and grins at me. The trolley with them is full, including a crate of beer underneath it. There is food stuff in there, cold meats, cheese, bread, chocolate and crisps, some veg' and fruit. But mainly there is just a ton of miscellaneous booze products. One of the joyful things about shopping for alcohol in Europe is you have no idea what you are buying and have to either spend ages figuring it out or choose on the basis of the bottle being attractive and the percentage on the label. This option is our one of choice. It has seen us end up with chilli chocolate vodka, cherry schnapps and mint liqueur on several occasions. Where in toxic mind blowing cocktails are born!

I hurry them out, cranky from the heat and total lack of sleep and partake in some kleptomania by not announcing the crate of beers under the trolley, that I’m not sure that the others remembered they put there. Naughty.

As we approach the festival site, hordes of cars packed to the brim with metallers and hardcore kids, tents and sleeping bags, drive with us, kicking up dust clouds all over the place. Loads of them have got WFF gaffa taped to the back windows and everyone of them including us have various limbs hanging out of windows, attempting to stay cool.

And the following hour? Traffic jam on to the site big time. By the time we had gotten our passes, been wrongly directed to various points on the site and had finally guessed our way to the merch trading area, we were all completely exhausted and heat stroked out. Fuck our lives all over the field if we didn’t then have a bloody merch stand to set up before the van had to be parked at 9pm,the cut off curfew for having vehicles on site.

I mean set up from scratch too. If I hadn’t been so tired I would have had my wits about me and taken photos from the start of set up, when it was a piece of grass to the end result so that you could see the varying stages. We build the frame, get the tarpaulin up, and set up the stock, displays, and the lot. Kim got Bens tent out and passed out straight away, she totally didn’t need to help set up when her crazy arse had just driven us through 5 countries lets face it, the girl was way over due some downtime. Ben and I plugged on, until Ben’s body finally went on strike and he passed out on a pile of Insect Warfare t-shirts that had fallen out of the van. Safely in the shade I left him to it and quietly went about getting as much done on my own as I could, following info and advice from Ben in the van when we were talking shop, and then set up my tent behind our merchandise stand. A little back yard area closed off from the public with stands and a fence made for a perfect bunking down area and would eliminate us having to walk all the way to the trader’s campsite and back all the time. Ben has done this festival trading thing enough to know that those painful morning starts would be so much easier like this. Having received no information or help regarding anything to do with the festival, I ask our new neighbours what time the main stage site where we are will open and shut each day, where the traders campsite is, if there are any showers etc.

Good news. The site won’t open till 12 noon, which means we don’t have to get up at the crack of dawn! It shuts at midnight, but the party continues at the big tent next to the main stage area with bands until 6am so we won’t be missing the party either! Wait…I’m not finished. There’s a fucking lake ten minutes away! With a sand beach! Big ol’ dirty fucking win, my face is sore from smiling. The bad news, we are right next to a ‘D.J’ area, which never stops. 24 hour music blasts from it, the ground where we will be sleeping vibrating, oh and for the most part they seem to have a C.D on repeat.

The stand is coming along nicely when along comes our first visitor of the weekend, one of the guys from another label, who have a stand set up further towards the stage. Within half an hour we have half a dozen guys from there and our old friends from yet another European label too, all with beers in their hands catching up and joking around.

Festival families. They rock. Let me explain. Every year, you inevitably end up working many of the same festivals as the year before. Also within a summer festival season, the same bands play all the festivals, so you are bound to come across them several times. For me, getting to these festivals might see me helping Talita, the press officer at Earache with bands and press, or working backstage on dressing rooms with the bands, or like this time, working as a trader on a stand. You meet the same people, who do the same, and you form bonds and ties and friendships and stay in touch between festivals. This goes for the bands and other workers, crew etc. And they become your festival family. You only see them at festivals, and that might only be a few times a year, but you are comrades none the less and after living through a long weekend of wrongness together you feel like you have been to battle. So that is why all work on our stand has come to an abrupt halt and we are now just catching up and getting drunk with these awesome and crazy fuck ups! Let the good times roll.

Our motley crew of drunken merchandise bandits includes Max and Luke from Holland, Sparny, Renee, Joe and Janet from Germany and ourselves. By the time we hit the sack for the night we are all wasted and exhausted. Which is the second time for Ben and me today! Oops. Least the Earache stand had been christened as the best on site for another year running eh! Just how we roll.

Evile Infecting Nations 2010 tour.Vosselaar.

2010-07-12T13:55:00.001+01:00

Oh boy last night was crazy. A night with my buddies in Nashville Pussy saw drunkenness and debauchery all over the shop! Lyall and me were the only ones to trek to the venue they were playing at to begin with. We had hit up Nettos across the street for copious amounts of cheap European booze and were drunk before we got there. After hanging with the band for a bit, we went back to the bus and continued drinking in it and at the bar of The Bastard club, where we were last night. I was in my element , surrounded by punks, but at 10 pm we took off back to Nashville pussy, this time with Arie and Laux in tow. Arie puked down the side of the bus when we got back, Lyall wrestled him and Laux in the snow, we all ate the best kebabs in the world from a kebab shop in a bus and this morning the pink puke, pink from the cherry liqueur Lyall made him drink, had turned in to icicles. Chop initially thought it was me, seems I got me a rep! I remember watching some of Taxi Driver at like 7am ‘cause I was too drunk to sleep, and then going back to bunk as the bus drove off to Belgium.

At the venue, I wash, eat and set up my stand and then go hang in the dressing room for a bit. There is a ton of band graffiti, a really impressive amount of bands who are now a big deal, and even some who are friends of ours, so of course it gets added to. I have done all I can to drop hints about the fact that today, is Valentines Day. Oh who am I kidding, I’m still banging on about it.

I have a great merch area today, it’s right next to the front door, opposite the bar, so lots of opportunities for people to be around the merch and therefore more likely to buy. At said bar, is Kevill, gripped to his laptop playing some online fantasy war game. Doors open and he’s still there, totally engrossed. There is a man who has toured so much he is completely capable of switching off and not giving a fuck.

A good, strong sales start and a great turn out makes for a happy vibe all round, and the next time I see Kevill, he is at my stand and on his 4th beer. We discuss how beer 1 and 2 are warms up, 3 and 4 are the ones that count. He is getting quite drunk and I love this ‘cause it means for an even funnier Kevill on stage. He is super funny at the best of times, but drunk, he is on fire. He makes up lyrics to The Fading’s songs and generally plays the fool, me laughing like an idiot all the while. We talk about last night and he informs me that I was both loud and obnoxious in my drunken post Nashville Pussy state. I mind a bit, and apologise, but honestly, Kevill is always drunk and obnoxious so I don’t care that much.

I get told off by the venue manager for taking up too much space, and promptly have to reign in my tables to suit him, which leaves me with a little slither of foot room. After cussing him under my breath for half an hour I stop acting like a teenager and admit that he is right, which kills me. I don’t admit that to him of course. Laux got to go to Europe’s biggest metal store and has a pile of C.D’s that he is showing kevill, which totally makes me jealous. Even if I had got to go I wouldn’t have been able to buy anything, I have spent all my money on booze. Tut.

Lyall brings himself and his laptop over to the stand and sets up camp for the night. I am stoked to have constant company and pretend that he is doing it because he likes my company and it’s Valentines day rather than the actual reason which is you can’t get to and from backstage without going on to the stage, which obviously is out of the question during show time. Still, we drink some beers together but mainly he is working or on facebook. We talk about how this epic tour is almost over, everyone is so bummed out by it, there’s a real family unit going on here and although everyone is up for getting on with it so they can do the next thing, it’s hard not to get attached and sentimental.

So I have most the guys with me throughout the night due to the back stage restrictions, which is awesome except for two gripes. One, they block the merch area and therefore, I worry, get in the way of me making merch sales. Two, they keep putting their fucking drinks on top of the merch that is displayed on top of the tables. Some of which is their own, idiots. Other than telling them off for this repeatedly, I get to spend my Valentines Day with 15 of my favourite men. Lucky me.

Kevill is getting loads of drinks bought for him and for sure is going to end up super duper trashed tonight! He gets up on stage for Shark attack time during Evile’s set, which I’m over the moon about because so far I’ve missed it when he does this. And soon enough, there is an almighty run of stage invasions as kids stage dive repeatedly. I look back down over all my displayed stock to check on it and would you believe it, some cheeky little beggar has nicked a sticker. I reckon I can live with that, fuck it.

Hanging at the stand, I also get to meet all sorts of cool people, one of the many perks to the job. And tonight I get to meet a Brazilian chick called Lucy! She is awesome and we chat for a while over drinks and swap details. Yet another new friend I hope I hear from but probably never will! Before we know it, the night is over and its time to pack up. As I do so, I have a fan club of young metal boys sitting at the bar watching, turning away every time I look at them the little cuties. I finish up and head back stage to find the best Valentines gift to date! All the guys have signed a drum skin with the message ‘To our hot merch girl, we loves ya!’ Awwww bless them, they were listening!

Back to the bus of love, back to we love drinking, and on to the next spot! Love it!

Evile Infecting Nations 2010 tour.Osnabruck.

2010-06-24T23:53:00.001+01:00

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!

Evile Infecting Nations 2010 tour.Weinheim.

2010-06-24T23:50:00.001+01:00

Being freezing wakes me up this morning. Well, this afternoon. The bus stopping outside the venue probably had something to do with it too. How lazy. Load in would have been way more painful today if it wasn’t for the fact that not many people were up, the ones who were, were all slow motion and quiet and every time I went in to the venue to drop stuff, The Jimi Hendrix experience played through me from the speakers. Heaven. Everything is slow mo’ and hazy.

Food is being laid out for us as we load in too, and the best thing happens, the kind of thing that only happens now and again. I have been craving scrambled eggs for a few days now, and lo and behold if that’s not what is sitting in a bowl on the bar. Joel, Ben and me are beside ourselves. Doors aren’t till 8pm tonight, so I have loads of time and don’t have to rush for once. The extra half an hour or hour you get with a 7.30pm or 8pm start makes the world of difference to your working day. And 9pm openings are the dream! You can set your shit up, do work you don’t usually have time for, shower and jazz yourself up, eat slowly, and still have time to surf the net and bum around with your mates and sometimes even go on a wander. 9pm starts are a real rarity though. They are not to be expected but rather enjoyed when you are lucky enough to get one.

I grab the shower next, I usually manage to get in them before everyone else using the reasoning that once doors are open I’m stuck on the stand till close, where as everyone else can go whenever. They are all happy with this, since none of them want to do the stand while I shower. Of course the shower is freezing, I have come to expect not much better than this, lukewarm is hitting me for a short while, but freezing dominates it’s arse and pushes through, speeding me along while I thank God I didn’t need to wash my hair.

Freshly preened, I warn the others of the impending shower doom and trot off out to the trailer to grab stock and hunt for the still missing Evile backdrop. Still missing since Irun, 4 nights ago. We have turned the bus inside out looking for it, well Lyall has. He’s asked me to double check the trailer in case he missed it. This is major stress for him, the management back home are mega pissed about it because Evile need it for the two months they will be spending touring round the States straight after this tour as they are pretty much unknown out there. I get some of The Fading out with me, to keep watch while I’m raking around in the boxes. Safety first eh. It is a very silly and lazy idea to be pulling stock out of the trailer on your own when you have thousands of pounds worth of stock and many, many bored men sitting around inside the venue who own said stock. It may be snowing and shit, but you have to drag their arses out. They don’t mind once they are there, all they’re doing is sitting there, smoking and watching the world go by while you talk to yourself out loud.

Once in side, I start setting up the merch stand, which for once, is out of this world amazing and has been designed specifically to be a merch area. We are talking a massive counter, which is hollow for boxes to be stacked underneath, and a raised lip for coat hangers to hang off the front of. Then behind are poles running horizontally across the balcony overlooking the stairs, three rows to fit all your t-shirts. And finally, a massive stage light to illuminate your wares. Oh, and not only can you use gaffa tape, they also sold me 5 rolls! I am in merch stand heaven, plus this is the foyer to the live music stage are, where everyone comes out to chill and smoke between sets, great location, plus, I can smoke!

I sit down to dinner at the long table in the middle of the venue and watch The Fading sound check while eating dinner with Lyall, Joel and Warbringer. The food gets washed down with Plop beer, I can’t recall what the food was, it was some form of slop, tasted nice enough but couldn’t tell you what was in it. Home made is always like that, always nicer too though, certainly better for you than buy out, mainly because that usually goes on pizza and booze.

I’m still really sniffly and coughing loads, so are quite a lot of us, but I’m trying to eat well, drink plenty of water and green tea and get some decent sleep every night so fingers crossed I won’t get as bad as Laux for example. He is suffering, has stopped drinking and everything in a bid to not get full blown cold or flu, whatever it is that is threatening our bus with its Germania. So again, I’m well chuffed my stand is not down some drafty cold hallway. It’s great to be back in a venue that is built for live music and travelling bands, it really is. Makes a huge difference to your day.

Doors open and I got Shaked, Adam and Joel all chilling out next to my stand at a seating area, that and messing about on the fuse ball table, all the while smoking away and chewing the cud. It’d funny, no one recognises them really. Joel is new boy, Shaked is in the opening band, and Adam has his hood up and hat on. I stick a price tag on Shaked to see if we can get him a hot Jewish girl, but to no avail. Gave us all a laugh though. See these times during the days are just peppered with boredom and hanging around and then silly little things like that. It’s almost like being on detention and having to get on with whatever your homework is, sound check, setting up m=the merch stand, practicing riffs, until the teacher leaves the room and you all start pissing around with each other for 5 minutes. It’s mostly monotonous work broken up with random acts of childishness. And a lot of the time, you really have to be there to get the joke.

Some kid asks me if he can interview Warbringer for his fanzine, so I cross over to the ‘backstage dressing room’ door and find one to come talk to him. This kid is proper rude to me, can’t get his head out of Warbringer’s arse, but is fucking rude as, to me. I wish his fanzine nothing but failure until he learns some fucking manners. Daddy must be rich if he thinks he can talk to the ‘hired help’ like that. Spotty little cocksucker. Of course I can’t say shit because I’m representing all three bands and blah blah blah, so I turn my attention to the low attendance and worry about exactly how good sales can possibly be when there are so few people here. Oh jeez not again.

Adam is my new BFF for many reasons, one of which being that he hangs with me on the stand and chats shit with me a whole heap, tons more than any of the others. Today we talk about shit we miss and shit we are looking forward to doing when we get back home off tour. He can’t think that way because he has 3 more weeks out in Eastern Europe to contend with, but me? I’m all about cranking the radiator in my room up to the max, having a bath and blaring Jimi Hendrix out through my sub woofer for an afternoon. I miss my music so much it hurts. Some light-fingered radio bitch at Download stole my ipod last summer, and I don’t have the income to get a new one. My dad has apparently got me one for Christmas but forgot to bring it when I had lunch with him before I went away. And I haven’t managed to move my music library from my old computer to my laptop yet, so I have like, a minimal collection to choose from. Most of it is Thrash, I already have a high intake of that daily so I’m kind of shit out of luck.

I am mainly getting drunk German guys hanging about around the stand rather than any serious buyers. Sods law, the night my merch is presented to the max, looking amazing, there is no one here to see it. I sell like, a patch. One of the guys tells me he thinks I am wearing a very sexy outfit, which would be lovely and all except that he is a middle aged creep and looks like he has a bit of the Fritzel about him. Adam puts his used wristband on the stand to sell so that he can buy a pack of cigarettes and sure enough, they sell. This causes much more amusement for us, along with the Fritzel dude, and the pace for tonight is set. It’s chill out, right off night. Lyall tries to explain tax law in European countries to me, he is on a hugely steep learning curve on this tour, and honestly, I can’t keep up. I tell Laux how much I enjoyed listening to The Jackson 5 while showering today, he’s the only one that pisses about with music really. I also voice my disappointment that no one is here to see my amazing stand. A drunk guys wanders in to the dressing room twice by accident while looking for the bathroom which causes much comedy for me because no one notices, all the guys in there are on their laptops online and don’t even look up to notice! The second time, it’s me that goes in and points him out, staggering near the entrance to the stage!

So we have a week left, and talk is turning to that throughout the days. I know I’ll be stoked to be home for a week, then bored the next week, then desperate to get back out the week after that. I’m so jealous of Evile who will have 10 days off and then jet off to the States for 2 months. I’m not jealous of Warbringer who downsize in to a splitter van for a further 3 weeks out after this one finishes.

As I mentioned, by the time Warbringer are halfway through their set, I have sold a patch. One little patch. I am freaking out inside, there’s nothing worse than not being able to do anything to make a bad situation better, I just grab a stool and sit there stewing it over in my head for the rest of the night. Yep, I broke one of my cardinal merch stand rules tonight. One week left and I give up, I need to sit down. I believe that working the stand is like working the bar, you never sit down, and you never do something that does not relate to the job at hand. You should be enjoying, or pretending to be enjoying the music, chatting to people, or doing work sheets, stock ups, tidying boxes. You should not be reading, feet up, looking bored shitless.

There I am though, sitting down. In my defence, it ‘s a stool that I place at the side of the stand, so I’m still approachable and not in the way of the products. This guy comes and chats with me, a local and gives me some light as to why it’s so quiet. Apparently the heavy snowfall has meant that many of the people that he knew were coming, have not managed to get there. He says that usually everyone car pools, or comes in mini vans, and that most of them couldn’t get through. Sounds suspicious to me, very London, ooh it’s snowing, let’s cancel everything. It’s all I’ve got though and as I pass it around, everyone seems to ease up and chill. It’s acceptable to admit defeat to Mother Nature.

The end of the night draws in, and Adam has run off to the bus while I pack up to stick a note on the tele, saying him and me are picking the movie tonight. We are always last on the bus, him packing the trailer and me finishing up the merch money and sales stuff, so we never get to pick.

We find ourselves instead, squashed on to a three seater sofa with Joel and Laux around my laptop, Lyall and Ben on the other side of it, drinking large measured spirit and mixer drinks and knocking back shots of Jager, all the while watching kids programs on Youtube. See, turns out Adam and Laux have never heard of the Moomins! So that gets played, and immediately loved. Then we move through Jamie and his magic torch and so on, until finally ending up at ‘Look around you’. That couple of hours was awesome fun, not getting hurried out of the club so getting to mess about online while getting trashed. By the time we got on the bus we were wrecked and soon enough we pull in to a service station and all drunken hell breaks loose. I really shouldn’t be allowed in service stations in Europe when I’m drunk.

We left with more booze, a massive stuffed R2D2, a sperm with some alcoholic beverage in it, a small man in a hat in a box and some sweets and crisps. Back to the bus and the kitchen party continues, upstairs the movies are rolling but we are too fucked to care now. At some point I push off to bunk and get some sleep. The strangest thing happened though, I woke up pretty soon after, the bus was stationary and I needed to puke. So I hurled myself down the stairs and threw open the door ready to vom’ only to be confronted by Chop and Steve the drivers, Adam, Laux and Lyall, all still up. I got massive stage fright and wandered back upstairs completely mortified and embarrassed. Jeez, can’t a girl get any fucking space to herself anymore? I did sign up for this though huh.

Evile Infecting Nations 2010 tour.Paris.

2010-06-24T18:14:00.001+01:00

YEAAAA Paris! I got out of my bunk so fast that I gained many, many new bruises and carpet burns. As soon as I saw Talita from Earache records, Evile’s label, and Louise Brown, Editor of Terrorizer magazine standing there in the car park, I couldn’t feel a god damn thing accept over fucking joyed! My girls! God I’ve missed them, 15 men for company gets kind of tiring after a while. I have watched all the Back to the future films, X-Men, Indiana Jones and so on. I need some drunken girl time!

After many screams and hugs we settle down in a smoking pagoda just out side of the venue, surrounded by snow and regale each other with recent triumphs. The launch night of Terrorizer’s club night, Grindhouse, at the Hobgoblin pub in Camden was an outstanding success, of course! I missed a good one there, and I fill them in on what every one has been up to on the road. They get to hear stories that will go no further forever more! Talita gives me the package my mum sent the pub where I work to me, contact lenses and my punk sleeveless jacket that’s patches were falling off and I didn’t have time to sew up. She fixed it bless her!

Talita whisks the Evile camp off to do press in the nice part of Paris and Louise joins Laux, Elad and Paul from The Fading and myself for a jaunt to the local laundrette. Why the fuck is this the second time of two times that I have been to a laundrette to do not just my own but many other band members washing? Oh yes, I’m a girl. Pff.

One of the guys from the club very nicely shows us the way there, because apparently it’s really rough round here, and then says he need not to have worried when he see’s us all standing there. I wouldn’t fuck with us.

No sooner do we step out side of the venue then a massive snow blizzard kicks off. No word of a lie, I felt like I was in 'The day after tomorrow'! Instead of Jake Gynalhalelflahrehf whatever his name is we had Paul wearing a t-shirt with no coat though, silly billy. Not a happy Russian. Once at the laundrette, which smelt amazing, this dude got the little Asian guy to show us what to do and within 5 minutes, 4 of his machines were pulling us in to a hypnotised state of being 5 again and we all just watched the washing machine windows, transfixed.

Laux stripped in true Levi jeans advert and so found himself freezing in basketball shorts, wandering around the next few streets with Louise and me to find food. We were starving and clearly missing the usual spread of ham and cheese sandwiches at the venue. Every diner was shut for food orders since we had missed lunch, which was bizarre, but we eventually found a little Chinese buffet place that we managed to take some plastic containers of food away with us. I had some sort of potato salad and coleslaw, it was heaven. I’m lying, it was all right, but I totally got food envy for Louise and Laux who had opted for hot food. Hate food envy, always get it, and never learn.

We fucked about in that Laundrette for a couple of hours, trying to stay warm by sitting in the tumble machines after taking our dried clothes out, shoving our heads in the still hot and just dried clothes, anything, we were freezing. It’s not a straight off the bat idea of a good time in Paris, doing loads of laundry, but I think we managed to have a relatively nice Parisian afternoon.

Back at the venue we raided the food that was left, attempted to get connected to the net and I set up the merch stand. I have a pop at the venue for their no gaffa tape on the walls policy and do my best to set up band merch in the seating alcove opposite the bar. By the time I was finished I had missed dinner, and no one had saved me any, the bastards. Chop had put some to the side for Steve and said he didn’t want it so I took that and straightened my face. I even argued with Shaked after he came up to the stand when I was clearly stressed and rushing, and started going on about who the owner of a pair of gloves was? I snapped at him, he told me to fuck off and stormed off.

I rush back stage to the Evile dressing room and come across the best dressing room snapshot ever when I open the door….Evile are having a full on Birthday party with hats, streamers, tooty whistle things and children’s presents like plastic bows and arrows. There’s booze and a massive cake to top it all off. It’s Joel’s birthday! Joel is certainly cramming in a lot this tour, first tour with Evile, first child born, and a birthday! They all looked like such a bunch of kids, all thanks to the lovely Talita! Awwww! I wish I had time to enjoy but doors are upon us and I’m not ready.

The doors opened and Lyall had to cover me while I went back stage and got changed. I found Shaked and apologised and we hugged and it was all forgotten, as I ran off to use Warbringers dressing room they all shout that they love me, family right there. I had to get changed in Warbringer’s room ‘cause Evile were doing an interview in theirs and rushed back to the stand quick smart. With magnificently big bed hair! My hair looked rad that night. I love it when that happens.

This French journo, Jessica came and hung out on the stand with me and the biggest win of all was having Louise hang with me. She even wrote notes in my book when I went for a ciggie break and she looked after the stand!

I get this often. When the guys look after the merch stand for me I come back to find rude entries or scribbling about how great they are or how much I love them. Louise on the other hand drew a heart and kept me up to date with what I missed, bless her. Girls are better. Here’s what I missed. Warbringer made everyone sing Happy Birthday to Joel, who came out and laughed his arse off! I didn’t really miss this though because I could hear it all the way out in the smoking area! Louise did make a fantastic merch girl for sure.

Talita is in such a cheeky mood, what with being in Paris, which she loves, and seeing all her mates, who I’m sure she missed as much as we missed her. She’s off doing filming and taking photos but still manages to get Louise, herself and me a black Russian from the bar that is so strong and potent and delicious that I thin it is now my new favourite drink. Yum.

It’s unfortunately quite quiet tonight. The problem being that although we are finally out of Hicksville and back in a big City, there are two other metal gigs going on within 20 minutes of us. One of them being Dillinger escape plan. Bum. Still, The Fading get the crowd that is there warmed up, Warbringer get a stage invasion.

Rumour has it there is a 3am bus call tonight, and at least two parties that we can go to after the show, one being Dillinger escape plans after party, so everyone is full of energy and ready to misbehave.

Kevill’s arm is chopping through the air, and I pay particular attention to his moves tonight after having a conversation with him the other night about what moves he likes to do on stage, where he got them from and what he doesn’t like to do or see on other singers. Apparently although once totally put off by singers doing the air guitar along with their band’s solo’s, he has now fully embraced it after seeing some one do it who looked rad. I guess if you’re up on stage listening to music you love, you want to rock out too right? Kevill fucking kills it on the stage always, very infectious.

Evile come on to rapturous applause and Adam comes to hang out at the stand with me, only to be left all on his lonesome while I skive off for a smoke. It’s so icy out, that I very nearly go arse over tit, much to the delight of Nic, who catches my clumsy slip save. I’m pretty sure everyone saw unfortunately and I go hide in the pagoda to smoke away my shame.

I come back to the stand to find Louise with her laptop still trying to get Internet connection, and I go to get us another couple of black Russians from the bar. Evile are killing it on stage and find themselves surrounded by stage divers while watching crowd surfers in front of them. And the lighting is amazing for once!

So instead of getting another round of black Russians, Louise tells me to get this typical French drink called a ‘Pastis’. Lyall comes over to ask if I have seen the Israelis, seems they went to use the shower at the hotel room which the venue provided us with about 20 minutes away and have not returned. I am standing there looking at what can only be described as the juice of some young man. Louise Brown is the Devil for making me drink this. She has written down here that it is indeed a French tradition, when in Rome, she says as she mock voms’. I have then written back to her that it is the colour of sperm. (Loud music, writing is easier) She has retorted with ‘Thanks Luce! Not gonna help it go down that observation eh?! The only thing ranker than that drink is my hand holding it that is currently and has for the most part been sporting what I like to call the festival manicure. Dirty, filthy finger nails. Eww. I learnt a few days after that how to clean them with a biro pen, don’t worry.

The Israelis are back! Turns out there was football on the tele so they ended up staying and watching it for a bit, Lyall goes nuts at them and they skulk off like teenagers who have just got a bollocking of their mum. Louise and me laughed while trying to knock back the vicious Pastis drinks without looking at them. or tasting them.

After the show, Evile have another interview. It lasts forever and is quite possibly one of the most mind numbingly dull situations I have ever felt myself in. It is up there with waiting at A&E to get my foot X-rayed last year when I broke it. Someone fell asleep. 10 years later, it ends and we crack up open the Champagne that the lovely Jessica has bought the band and we talk about hitting the town. We ended up on back on the sodding bus didn’t we. The interview took so long that by the time we were ready to go anywhere it was 1.30am and there was no time to be getting taxis and gallivanting around gay Paris. Talita and Louise eventually had to call it a night and I saw them off at the road as the snow kept falling. The rest of us hung out long enough to get completely wasted and chain smoke profusely under a tiki hut by the bus. Joel even managed to write his name and Evile in the snow with his piss. I think he did a pentagram too, which Ol said Mike would have loved. Back on the bus it’s all rowdy and loud. People are wrestling each other and all sorts. I get attacked by Ilia who takes great delight in covering me in colouring pens, drawing smiley faces and writing The Fading on me, and although there were photos put up on facebook of this, we have since taken them down because they look a lot more frisky than what was really going on, innocent childish fun.

I can’t remember anything past that I’m afraid. Nobody chucked, I think everyone kept drinking till the booze ran out and then went to their bunks? Tomorrows gonna be hangover City though, that’s for sure. Good job Paris.

Evile Infecting Nations 2010 tour.Luynes.

2010-06-24T18:11:00.001+01:00

Yoz. That’s Laux’s views on Luynes apparently. I got a bit more to say. First off, yesterday was another fucking travel day. We watched a whole run of movies in the back lounge of the bus, where the wide screen tele’, hard drive and wrap round sofa live. Sounds rad but when you try and cram in as many people we do, it tends to get quite cramped and uncomfortable. Plus you have the squabbling over what to watch. The Israeli’s are always in there en-masse, so you kind of have to sit it out and wait till they all start skulking off to bed to get more space and more say over what goes on. The only thing I can recall watching that was worth noting was ‘Role Models’. Had us in stitches pretty much the whole way through, I’ve seen it before and still laughed my arse off. Highlights include the battle talk, the Kiss speech and the little black kid.

After the movie, I write some till I get bored and push off to sleep in the lounge. I can’t though, ‘cause Lyall and Adam are twatted and being loud enough to keep me from falling in to a deep sleep. At 7.30am I finally crack and tell them to fuck off and shut up. Lyall offered me his bunk but I’m all mad at him so cut my nose off to spite my face. 5 minutes later, Adam lets me take his bunk and I eventually get some sleep.

We get to the venue, in the back of beyond and follow through the usual routine of load in and make ham and cheese sarnies with the rider provided. I find myself wet wipe washing and fake tan spraying in a storage cupboard with a broom wedged against the door as a make shift lock today. No showers here. No toilet seats either. There’s a lot of this no seat malarkey in European venues. The pub I work in has to replace seats a lot ‘cause idiot customers abuse them so much and so it seems Europe has stuck two fingers up at the drunks who misuse their property and don’t bother replacing them at all!? Ha! Makes no difference to me. I live on a bus with 15 men. My standards are low as far as user-friendly amenities go.

As a desperate last ditch attempt to make a half decent merch stand, I use masking tape to attach the t-shirts to the hand railings running along the back of the table and crack on with the Warbringer stock check that their people back home have requested. Kevill does the stuff in the trailer and I do the stuff on the stall. They definitely need more stock. They don’t even have any C.D’s at this point in the tour, and after the Evile tour ends, they stay out a further month to do as much of Europe as possible before heading back over the pond.

I’m so fucking horribly exhausted today from my total lack of sleep. This lounge sleeping is a nightmare only ‘cause there’s always someone up till the next day watching movies or being drunk. I’m so knackered I even sent myself flying backwards when I hit my head on the staircase on the bus. I sat on the stairs dazed for a bit, shook it off and tried not to cry like a bitch through fatigue and frustration. Tonight, I am taking whoever is up lasts bunk for the night. I need a bunk night. And I fucking hate this bus’s bunks!

Back in the venue, everyone is piss bored. Halfway through the tour and even the food is getting hard to eat because it is just so fucking boring. Ham and cheese sandwiches run through my dreams alongside t-shirt designs that morph in to band members and scream and shred like wild eyed lunatics, all clinging on to the back bumper of a rickety rickshaw come night liner, bumping along dirt tracks in the middle of no where. One more sleep till Paris. One more sleep till we are out of Hicksville and back in a City.

Kids have begun turning up outside, which always bodes well, as I stomp up and down outside of the venue trying to locate a missing parcel that my friend was trying to bring to me in Paris. This is yet another strike against today, no parcel, which has a pair of much needed clean and new leggings in it. I packed for two weeks you know! And my mate has gone all the way up to the pub for no reason now, bollocks. Giving up on getting any joy out of it I hit the stand just as doors open and resign myself to having to do laundry in Paris.

As The Fading goes on stage, a huge plume of dry smoke is released around them and they disappear for the first part of their set. Fucking cowboy whoever did that, although it was quite funny. Laux is shuffling around muttering something about having not practiced for two days and how he is letting it slip. We all are, it’s tour lull time. Bound to happen, at about the half way point you just cannot be arsed. Every day is the same. The lifestyle that is amazing when you compare it to office work and the like, suddenly becomes as monotonous and mundane. You do the same thing every day, eat the same, with the same people, hear the same songs, and do the same job. Then you mentally shake yourself and berate yourself for being so damn ungrateful! I learnt a lot from Laux being all pissed at himself for not practicing for 2 whole days, the guy is seriously focused and I think that is a route I will take when I get back home. Practice does make perfect.

Kevill as always brings me out of my mood when he comes and hangs at my stand as the rest of Warbringer set up their gear. We talk of ‘Rape tractors’ fuelled on hash, of the logistics of them possibly staying with me in March when they come through London and we play 1 2 3 shit your pants with a German accent attached. No idea, but god that man makes me laugh.

So this is a small venue, and lets not make any bones about it, it’s not exactly full. The people that are here are mostly at the back, and even with Warbringer on stage, they are stiff. Until of course they get hypnotised in to a mosh pit frenzy they are! Ha, yes Warbringer, show ‘em! The fuckers, we aren’t in England people, no place for stiff upper lips here. Kevill dedicates ‘Pray for death’ to the kid that sage dived when there were like 3 people willing to catch him with the introduction of “This songs about starvation…sorry about that”! Kevill’s usual infectious, over excited demeanour has once again won over a difficult audience.

Between sets, the vibe is terrible. These fools here don’t put any music on between sets, I’ve never heard anything like it at a Thrash gig, quiet. WTF? No one is buying and I suspect this could be the worst sales night yet. It is certainly going to be in the top 5.

Warbringer come and hang at the stand, a wise tactic that helps encourage sales and we all piss about, discuss the night etc while they sign stuff. Kevill calls me a ‘silly goose’? Cannot for the life of me remember why but it cracked me up, and Laux informs me that when he was staring at me like a madman, that was the queue to let me know the next solo was dedicated to me, ‘cause I asked for one out of boredom before they went on. It was an epic solo, I was dead chuffed.

Evile are up next and the crowd is still being difficult, yawn. Matt asks who has the new album and 4 people put their hands up, he retorts with “Selling well then!” You can’t help but laugh, laugh or cry right, laugh or cry. It’s almost a first time reaction that Evile are getting. What I mean is when a crowd doesn’t know you, they just stand and stare and listen. That’s good, they are taking you in, and they are taking it seriously and paying attention. The Fading gets this. The headline act should not be getting this. I mean, there’s a bit of reaction, some head banging, but that’s pretty much it. I think we were all glad when the night ended. It’s tough when nights go like this because you still have to perform to the best of your abilities, and it’s hard to since so much of a good gig is based on crowd participation.

I pack up and sit on a step while the guys finish putting their gear away and find myself getting chatted up by a cute French man that I have no interest in. He has beautiful eyes and a lovely accent but I just want to get on the bus and hang with my mates. It’s amusing to be on the other side, and see the perspective of the band and their crew who leave you wanting more.

I love that I’m not the one being left behind, it’s one of the reasons I got in to touring in the first place, I fucking hate it when the party ends. This way, I just get on the bus and am part of the party, on to the next stop. Which in this case is Paris! Thank fucking god. I get to see one of my favourite people ever, Talita from Earache records, and hopefully do some washing, and hopefully the gig will be banging. If it’s not? We got 10 dates left, some of them have got to be great right.

For now, it’s on to the bus to sit myself in the kitchen and write while Laux plays music through the speakers from his ipod and we knock back vodka and just chill. Steve, our second driver comes and joins us and puts on some blinding tunes we would never have thought to and when my eyes get too tired to focus on the screen any more I kick back in the lounge upstairs. Adam is watching Leon and we all agree that Natalie Portman was one sexy damn 11 year old before I hit the land of nod. It must be a bummer to be at your sexiest when you were 11. I wonder if I should be on the sex offender register for that comment? Whatevs’, tomorrow Paris, and rumour has it a certain Editor from a certain metal magazine will be accompanying miss Talita, fuckin A.

Evile Infecting Nations 2010 tour.Irun.

2010-06-24T18:09:00.000+01:00

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.

Evile Infecting Nations 2010 tour.Lisbon.

2010-06-24T18:07:00.000+01:00

I hate waking up feeling sweaty and clammy and filthy. On this occasion though I feel a sense of hope. Can it be? Are we somewhere warm? I can’t believe that this could be true, so get changed and sort myself out quick smart and fly out of that bus in to…..The glaring sun! Yes Lisbon! Ben has already got his clothes hanging out on some building site tape tied to the lampposts on the pavement right out side to where the bus is parked up. On the other side of the pavement to us is a massive, dirt football pitch. And the glorious sun is shining down on all of it. On Ben, febreezing his stage clothes, on Arie and Joel and me wearing our sun glasses, heads tilted up towards the blue sky while we chuff on our tabs. I take a photo of some genuine Portuguese dog shit and of the sun.

The bus doors are wide open, airing it through, and I go up the front to see Chop and Lyall. Ben is there too, and they are all laughing at Chop’s laptop. As soon as he pulls it round for me to see, I understand why all the laughter. I cannot share with you what I saw but it was a tattoo that I for one have seen in Tattoo mags' before. I in turn, show my pics' of Kevill from the night before and they in turn laugh their arses off. I ring my mum and have a quick catch up with her, and then go and see if I can rally the troops for a jog round the football pitch. 5 laps later, Matt and me are feeling a little healthier and happy with ourselves. This is a good thing because, as expected, half way through the tour, everyone is coming down with cold.

The venue is a walk up some rickety, metal stairs, down some uneven concrete stairs, past a barking dog, past a huge, lush green football pitch and down the side of a row of little houses with lemon trees in their back yards. A lovely 5-minute walk.

I immediately move all the merch boxes over to where some guys are setting up a row of white plastic garden tables for me. As I’m sorting through, one of guys comes up to me and says he knows me. Small world moment. This dude, Rick is the stage manager of the venue we are in tonight. We met through Arch Enemy’s old tour manager who was also managing Rick’s band at the time. He brought them all down my pub last year some time. Love small world moments. They are another of the fantastic sides of touring.

Ilia and Nic are playing football outside on the green pitch with a couple of local kids, the doors at the side of the venue are wide open bringing in the fresh sunny afternoon breeze and I can hear the guys on the pitch. It’s all very tranquil and peaceful. Laux is practicing his guitar skills out on one of the football benches. I set up the merch stand in record time. It’s a massive blank wall with a washing line. No need to play Tetris with boxes today.

I shower in the football changing rooms and enjoy the sunbeams coming through instead of shivering. When I get back, the guys are playing football indoors while Warbringer practice a song.

The girl in charge of catering, Valu, and Bruno, the promoter for tonight, takes us all to dinner. It’s a cool little walk up the hill at dusk and the restaurant is empty except for us. We get a long table and fed gorgeous soup, Steak with rice and chips, chocolate mouse washed down by red wine and beer. We talk about the Over kill tour. Chop our driver tells us funny arse stories of other people he has driven, all the stories based around the no poo on the bus rule. I ask him is I am snoring when he walks past me in the lounge in the morning and he says that they are lady snores and not to worry. Bless. Good man right there. have to rush it all unfortunately so that I can be back in time for doors, which I am and it’s gig time.

Valu bless her comes by and leaves her perfume on the stand for me. I had said to her earlier in the day how lovely she smelt. Having been solely surrounded by men for the past three weeks, so she bought the perfume over for me to put on. After doing so, I try to hand it back to her, but god bless her, she tells me to keep it and wear it for the rest of the tour. And that whenever I wear it, I’ll think of her! Awww. Unlike the guys, I did not take this as some lesbian thing but rather a kind act of generosity within the international sisterhood. Thanks to her, I can smell girlie everyday.

There are worryingly few people coming in when the doors open. Fair play, the venue is a massive hall but still, aghh. I’m looking forward to seeing all the bands play the huge stage though. It’s the biggest yet, has different levels and massive speakers at the front that the band members can get up on to and be right up there.

It was so good to have a sit down, proper meal too. Bruno the promoter knows how bands roll. Never eat properly, spend your entire buy out money on booze. Rick, the stage manager comes and gives me a C.D from his band, we are the damned. We laugh about stories from the road, specifically concerning band members getting arrested and crossing borders. We laughed are arses of about people we know and the funny scrapes they get themselves in to.

So I estimate we have about 50 people in this 800 capacity venue. Still, there is a definite vibe going on. All the guys in here are excited, there’s that buzz you want. That contagious buzz. I spot Nic from Warbringer at the side of the stage, practicing while The Fading are on. After watching him for a while I realise that he’s actually drumming like for like exactly what Shaked is drumming up there on the stage! How fucking cool. I smile to myself and have a little moment.

So like I say, it’s pretty fucking darn empty up in here. But the people who are here? They fucking love it! They love The Fading, who go on to have their best merch night so far. Of course they should love it, The Fading fuckin’ rule! Arie pulls out an amazing guitar solo that the crowd go nuts over. Ilia stands back like a proud dad and obviously is still really in to watching his band mates play night after night. A true metal head right there.

Some stupid drunk fuck tries to steal Joel’s bass strings from off my stand. Na a ahh…no you didn’t! Pulled him right up by the forearm and reigned down my hateful angry eyes in to his soul and he mewed like a fuckin' kitten and put it back.

Warbringer have them a crowd surfer in to the second song ‘Whirlwind’. I would! Actually I wouldn’t ‘cause I’m a pussy. Still never have surfed. In my dreams of course, when I’m the front woman of the best punk thrash band in the world that does TLC covers, I’m always crowd surfing. Because I’m gnarly. That is all.

Bruno drops by from time to time, asking if I need anything, which I don’t but it’s still nice to be asked. I am thoroughly enjoying Portugal. I don’t know if I’ve been her before, I think my parents bought me her at some point during my upbringing? I love it though for sure.

As predicted, all the bands are making the most of the massive stage and all the levels that they have at their disposal. Andy, the bassist of Warbringer really comes in to his own for me tonight. Like, he’s so quiet and keeps himself to himself. But tonight on stage he is owning it, up at the front on the speakers rocking out, shaking his mane of hair about as he head bangs through the set. Totally in his element. Him and Adam are all over the right hand side of the stage, completely owning it. Laux is owning the left hand side.

Time for another top merch tip. The true worth of any good merch girl, is to be able to watch both the stock and the gig, from start to end. Multi task the fuck out of the both and you’re in for a good night.

By the time Evile come on, I feel a definite stage invasion coming on. Between the acts, Gama Bomb’s new album is blaring through the speakers. God their new album fucking rocks. Leaps and bounds man, leaps and bounds. So we got approximately 200 people in now! Phew. I pop backstage to use the facilities, and come across a very ill John Laux. The first of the bus to come crashing down with the cold that is beckoning to all of us, teasing us with runny noses and chesty coughs sporadically throughout the days and nights for the last couple of dates. He is knocking back the green tea and has hit the smoking on the head for the time being, in a bid to win the war against the plague. A true touring pro right there.

Evile experience crowd surfing and stage diving from the get go, they are clearly loving the massive stage space, prancing about like ponies on a summer afternoon in a dandelion field. Ol even jumps over a photographer mid song.

Anyway, back to me. I get asked for photos with me and when Matt attempts to embarrass me with his “tall blonde merch girl” shit, I get fucking wolf whistles dude! Wolf whistles! For me! Sick. Ol is flying about the stage all over the shop and everyone is chanting Evile between songs. I feel like at some point during the Madrid show, Evile got over a hump. A massive hump of burning pain. I feel like I literally watched them over the last two dates, become the new Evile. Don’t get me wrong. We talk about Mike all the time, we wish he was here to see the bad and the good. ‘Cause we know he would find the funny side of both. I won’t fill in the place names on my sales sheets until the day, not wanting to jinx the tour. God I wish Mike was here. Ol still dreams about him nearly every night like he is on the tour. Wakes up and realises he isn’t.

Everyone is chanting Evile though. The show must go on. Ol plays along with the chants, to which of course he gets a great response. They play Metallica’s ‘For who the bell tolls’ and fuck around the whole time. Throwing two fingers up at each other, laughing at each other. It’s so good to see. They deserve it, they really fucking do. It’s been a shitty past 6 months. The shittest. Up there, on that big stage tonight, they look like fucking rock stars. Proper legit.

The drive out of Lisbon takes us over a massive bridge that looks like the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. I’m sitting up the front typing out my notes and listening to Crack the sky, dreaming of my bedroom and the radiator in it. At some stage I give up writing, listen to some more music and then make my way down to the back lounge to see if anyone is up. Ol and Adam are sitting together, thick as thieves, drunk out of their trees, calling themselves the ‘Strong Bro’s’ I sit back and enjoy the drunkard entertainment of them until my responsible side takes over and I send Ol to bed.

Evile Infecting Nations 2010 tour.Madrid.

2010-06-24T17:59:00.001+01:00

The coffin I wake up in has made me freak out throughout the night, the ceiling is so close that if it were made of glass it would be dense with my breathe. I have carpet burns on my knees from trying to get undressed for bunk and dressed again in the morning. And I feel horrible, after sweating too much due to the total lack of air or ventilation. Fuck this, the suns out and I’m getting out of this hell on earth bus. Oh no wait, South Park is on in the back lounge, I’ll just watch one.

Paul got no sleep last night, sleeping against my advice in the front lounge. He was freezing, it was loud and there is no curtain across the front window. The fool. We will for sure be swapping back tonight. Now I’ve experienced the nightmare bunks, I’m happy to go to the back lounge instead.

Madrid is warm and sunny and we are on time which means one thing is finally able to happen. Stock check of the trailer. I been needing to do this since Wolverhampton but weather has not permitted. The label and management probably hate me by this point. It takes under an hour to get done, and I make sure I have a guy with me the whole time to keep an eye out for thieving scum while I rummage through disintegrating boxes and count.

I set up the merch stand and stress about the lack of lighting, this is another ‘do what you can’ night. No Gaffa tape rule. Nico, the Spanish promoter bought me some today bless him, at least I don’t need to worry about it tomorrow. Today though, is a bit messy with regards to displaying the t-shirts and I give direct instructions to Elad from The Fading and Kevill from Warbringer not to come and interfere with stupid questions about how I’ve displayed their merch.

I’m selling all three bands merch, which is cool until you get them coming up thinking they know better, which they don’t. You don’t see me going up on stage and giving them stupid arse pointers while they play. It will invariably be about how one of their t-shirts doesn’t have both front and back displayed. Because there is no room.

The rules are as followed. Headline act gets first display, opening band last. That means that often, the opening band will not have much room. Headline act always gets both back and front shown. The other two will if room permits, otherwise not. Stuff like that, all pretty obvious. I keep butting heads with these two though and it’s starting to get on my nerves. I am here to sell Evile merch and while I am more than happy to do the other bands too, especially since it brings me more money sorely needed, they also need reminding now and again that they can do it themselves if they are not happy with my work. Which of course shuts them up since no one wants to be stuck on the stand all night having played a show too.

The venue is filling up fast and there are cheers and chants as The Fading walk on. Spain just fucking loves it eh?! God love them! The Fading are clearly stoked and play a blinding set, while down at my stand I get a photo of two cute Spanish girls in their newly purchased Evile tops. Thought the guys might enjoy this during one of our slideshow moments. My laptop has a slideshow option with the funniest lounge, Jazz music behind it, and we like to upload my photo’s and play them through every couple of days, laughing at each other and the lame arse shit we have been getting up to when bored.

The Fading singer, Ilia brings up the whole football thing again, this time evoking boos and hissing. Best leave that one in Barcelona eh! Other than that they played their usual strong set and left the stage to rapturous applause. I start chatting to a guy at my stand with an American accent and turns out he is a scout for Road Runner records. So of course I give him one of my flyers and tell him to check out my writing. Never know, he might want me out with one of their bands?! Fucking hope so, I’m loving this road life. Do miss being warm though. And comfortable when I sleep.

So I spend the most part of the night feeling completely inadequate because the bloody Spanish chicks are so damn hot. And Thrash Spanish chicks? I just feel like a fat and pasty, beached whale, beast of a sub human next to them. Above the audience, the bands laundry is hanging over the balcony, attempting to dry. I say the bands, I think it was just Joel’s. I’m pretty sure Warbringer wash but don’t change their clothes for weeks at a time, and The Fading bought enough clothes for six weeks, being their first tour and all. Not that anyone smells. No so far anyway.

Earlier today, before we were let in the venue, a bunch of us watched some Pantera documentary that was on the bus hard drive. We were talking about how gnarly the shows looked, and Kevill made a very valid fucking point. Now days you can’t get close to the crowd and go all out with them ‘cause there’s a 10-foot pit between you and them. And most venues have banned crowd surfing or stage diving. It’s fucking bullshit. The spirit dies with that sort of rule making.

Big turn out tonight, the biggest we have had to date. By the time The Fading are off stage, it is full house. 200-300 crazy Thrash fans! Tonight is rocking, everyone is happy and in good spirits, this is what it’s supposed to be about. Not fucking Kerkrade with its empty room. Not fucking Wrexham with its cold and empty room. Not Sarrbrucken with it’s stiff as corpses audience. This. Madrid. Packed with good people.

I’ve had an idea that I want to patch up a pair of my denim hot pants and stud them and that. I love denim waistcoats covered in so many patches, you can barely see the denim. Ones that have taken years to get like that. I want a pair of hot pants like that. I also want to make a massive Vivienne Westwood-esq', ball gown made out of denim and patches. That would be fucking rad. Not for me to wear, just to do.

Back at the workstation I have embraced my Spanish brothers and sisters by learning how to say fifteen in their language! I am terrible and learning languages, I still can’t remember any of the Hebrew that the Israeli bunch have taught me and they talk it around us all the time, so this is a big fucking deal form me. The whole front 5 rows cheers when Ben from Evile comes on stage to help Shaked change the drums with Nic. They are all sharing Ben’s drums and have different requirements to play so help each other with change over’s. I don’t know if Ben notices the cheers but it was fucking epic!

What is also epic is Warbringer’s stage entrance. They all go off after tuning their instruments and walk back on together. The audience loved it, I laughed my arse off. Kevill’s voice sounds totally distorted from the get go, massive delay going on, makes it sound like they are playing a stadium This does not stop the mosh pit of course. I wonder if he asked for that or if it’s the soundman on Acid? A kid up the front gives Laux some of his beer and Matt, Ol and Joel all watch the first bit from the balcony. The crowd are surfing by ‘Total War’ and I drift off in to my own world of girl. I want some red spandex. I miss my perfume. I miss getting drunk at the Crobar.

I get pulled out of my little dream state of getting drunk at the Crobar with all my friends while rocking red spandex and smelling all lovely and fresh by some dudes who want a photo with me. With me! Safe bruv, lets go. Earlier today some dude who had been watching a parking space for us all morning, had been insistent in us all signing a flyer he had. Including me? I explained I wasn’t in the band but Ben was laughing his arse and got me to do it. Weird guy.

Some hot girls come by and get a couple of Warbringer t-shirts in XL so that they can cut them up. Like their style, it really is the only way to rock the band tees in a stylish way. Warbringer do an encore and Kevill wraps up the set by diving in to the audience and crowd surfing for a while.

Everyone rushes to the merch stand and the air con unit above me is pushed up a notch in to full blast. Oh joy of fucking joys, I’m freezing again. Another couple of people ask for photos with me and I’m starting to feel more comfortable with it. I think it’s mostly ‘cause I’m tall and blonde and they are not. This didn’t happen as much in the Scandinavian countries when we been. Also I am a banging hot Thrash chick! Ha!

Evile prompts crowd surfing immediately and everyone is singing along to Infected Nations. They give their most amazing and mental performance to date and the room is electric.

Two girls ask to get their photo taken with me, I am on fire. That or I am a freak show hag in Spanish land and they are all laughing at me behind my language barrier.

Ol pisses around between songs, playing the riff from Fear of the dark, which prompts the crowd in to singing along and raises the vibe in there even more. An inevitable stage invasion starts and I am desperate to go and join the mosh pit for a bit. Can’t we all just stay here and the three bands can have a residency? I could work the bar, we all learn Spanish and live happily thrasher after.

I am still fucking freezing under this fucking air con unit, why is it always me? Of course I have started drinking, the vibe is too good here not too, and I’m hoping it will numb the coldness. Honest. I get a shot off the barman who has helped me with change all night when I give him discount on a t-shirt too, which doesn’t help the drunkenness.

It was such a shame that we had to leave straight after. We got to piss about and drink for a while but an early bus call was needed so that the two drivers, Chop and Steve, could get to Lisbon for the next day without fucking up their Tacos. Don’t know what that is, some sort of card that they have to swipe every time they drive to make sure that they stay within E.U regulations and don’t drive dangerously long.

We clamber on board and continue drinking while watching Predator. Kevill is wasted ‘cause I gave him vodka, which is apparently not a wise thing to do because he can’t handle it. This makes for hysterical commentary throughout the film, banging on about how “that’s our fucking Governor man!” Very happy with the Arnold as Governor situation. “Our Governor won vs. the Predator dude!” Hw wants to do the merch money for the night with me but I have a rule. I like to do it on the night, give the bands their money. But not three hours after the show when I am knackered and he is twatted. He is insistent that he is not and I say fine, after the film.

After the film, Kevill is out cold. The next day we all thoroughly enjoy showing him photos of his Chaplin sharpie 'tash and the poses we did around his passed out self.

I kick everyone out of the back lounge once ready for bed except for Adam, who is my favourite and fall asleep in my bench nook while he drinks the rest of the vodka and watches the Time Bandits. At some point, I come round to him and Joel laughing at it and tell them to wind it up, I need to sleep and it’s too noisy. And bloody 7 in the morning. Turns out the drunken fools had the surround sound on.

Evile Infecting Nations 2010 tour.Barcelona .

2010-06-24T17:53:00.003+01:00

Last night I slept in the back lounge of our new bus, wasn’t too bad really. Noisy, lights flashing past, sliding around on the wipe down seats. Actually it was pretty depressing. At some point during the early hours, I found a comfy nook and slept great after that. Arie and Joel are always the ones up early and as soon as Arie was up I asked if it was all right to go sleep a bit in his bunk, which he was cool with so all good in the end. Bit of improvisation needed is all.

Yeah so yesterday isn’t even worth commenting on. Long story short? Sat in a truck stop service station for 5 hours waiting for the new bus to arrive. Took all our shit out of one and in to another, every one got their bunks sorted but me. I sat feeling like one of those adverts for ‘just two pounds a month’.

I sit myself up in the front lounge of the new bus with my laptop out on its work desk area and write until we reach the venue. Ol is with me, working on some rock guitar hero thing. Ilia is playing Fantasy Football. The dude loves it. Seriously, spends hours on it every night.

Soon as reach the venue we hit a snag. No parking near the venue, can’t even get the bus near it till some cars have moved. Ben, Joel, Adam and me walk it with any personal stuff we will need for the evening since the bus will have to go park miles away. I get in the shower soon as we reach the place and get that out the way while the guys load in. I have to wash my hair today. That means brushing it out, then drying it after. Fucking long and boring task that I try and get away with only doing once a week. I don’t care how skanky that sounds, my hair looks rad with a weeks worth of products in it.

By the time I’m done, it’s getting cramped in the ridiculously small dressing room, so I push off to the upstairs bar where we can use the Internet connection if we buy a drink. I get a Jim Beam and coke completely forgetting that they free pour here in this wonderful Country. Several emails, photo uploads and spread sheet work later, I’m pissed. Ha! Off to set up the merch stand then!?

Problem. Massive donkey arse of a problem. Huge un-interupting wave after wave of a problem. I’m shit out of Gaffa tape. The tool of my trade. Shit. I check the local supermarket, nothing. The club usually has some, but this one is out. Shit, shit. Serious improv’ time. I have one stupid little table and three bands to cater for. Shit, shit, shit. At the last minute I recall seeing some stage extension type structures in the back room, and Lyall helps me drag one out and put it up. It’ fucking huge. Sweet, do nicely. Everything is hung up haphazardly on random light fixtures or old hooks. Everything else is laid out on the table, with nothing keeping them down. Shits going walkies tonight trust me. I can’t stock up either ‘cause the sodding bus is miles away. Wing it night it is then. On the upside, Spain hasn’t become a no smoking Country yet, so smoking indoors is perfectly acceptable! It’s the little things in life I think.

There are cool little Spanish Thrash kids here, and I feel completely relaxed and at home here. Got just the best easy laid-back vibe going on. My boxes have given up and I have no stinking Gaffa tape.

Paul, the guitarist from The Fading comes up to me and says that he wants to trade with me tonight. I can’t believe my ears. He reckons he can’t sleep in the new bus bunks ‘cause they are way smaller than the last ones, very coffin like and claustrophobic and without a little window. Says he wants to try the front lounge. I’m like insisting that if he is doing this for some gentlemanly reason and not a selfish one then I will not accept. He insists that he is not being a gentleman and I am over the moon if not slightly uncomfortable about pushing some one out of their bunk. I make him promise that if he can’t sleep, he will tell me and we can swap back. I also advice him against the front lounge, who’s cushioned couch, bench thing is way too thin to sleep on, and to take to the back lounge instead, where the seats are wider. He won’t have it of course, and yes, the next morning he shook his head when I asked him if he got any sleep. And he nodded his head when I asked him if he wanted his bunk back.

The Barcelona crowd are immediately receptive to The Fading. No fucking about here being shy. Yes Germany, that was aimed at you. All the guys are in love with the hot Spanish barmaid, as am I ‘cause she free pours me another whiskey and coke. I well want to live here. Paul’s solo rocks and Ilia talks with the crowd about what a big fan he is of their football team. This gets a massive cheer, as does when he dedicates the next song to some Spanish football player. Totally lost on me. Mr Fantasy Football man. Ilia is also in to drawing attention to me and making me say Hi to the audience, joy. I hate loads of people starring at me, freaks me out and gets me paranoid. That’s hwy I’m not in a band! Elad is rocking a Bonded by blood t-shirt which I fucking love, why didn’t I nab one off them when I did their merch stand? Idiot.

There is a mosh pit as soon as Warbringer hit the stage. It’s like these people needed to let off some steam and Warbringer are a great band to do that to. Kevill and Andy both have really long hair and are quite tall which combined with the tiny stage and small ceiling means quite a lot of hair getting caught in it!

Lyall brings me down the most delicious burger and chips to chow on the stand while the soundman scoots in and out through it, under the massive table so he can get to the stage quickly. Laux is in the crowd on the first fucking song and the crowd is going demented. Barcelona loves it. Kevill is in the mosh pit with them during War to end all wars and by the time they are done, the venue and all the Thrash kids in it, looks like a bomb has hit it.

Evile smack it, Infected Nation, their first song just fucking kills it. It is sickenly strong and amazing and I never get bored of it The crowd goes absolutely nuts over it and I try to focus on my easy to nick stock rather than their amazing show. Nothing has been nicked yet which is shocking, although when Lyall covers me for ten minutes so that I can take a load off because my feet are sore in my new converse, I do nick a t-shirt without him watching just to wind him up. Mystery shopper style! Lyall is in and out, under the merch table doing monitor checks other than that.

Matt takes his opportunity to point me out to the crowd, the fucker and they all find it hysterical how nervous and uncomfortable I get. Picture a rabbit in headlights. Devil nation is epic, and at the side of the stage I spot a Thrash kid on crutches head banging away. Thrash kids got soul. My friend Olivia in London lived in Barcelona for a year, and has told her mates to come say Hi to me if they are at the gig. Sure enough along comes one of them and I’m mega pissed that the parking is so fucked up and we have to get out quick rather than kick back and drink with him.

Armoured assault finishes up Evile’s set, one of the songs having been dedicated to the hot barmaid, who is over joyed once the sound man has translated it for her. In fact, I think for the first time since this tour started, Evile are relaxed and have enjoyed themselves. So much so, Matt forgets to introduce Joel. That has to be a good sign in my books, that they are starting to become a unit.

I learnt an invaluable merch tip tonight too. If you don’t have the size the customer wants, don’t say that. Give them the one up or down and explain that you don’t have the one they want and they always buy the other size anyway!

Quick pack up to get the bus away from the police eyes and ticket people and all on the bus is happy and tired. The best night for every band hands down. A few of us watch Severance; I fall asleep, wake up and climb in to my bunk for the night. Thank you Paul!

Evile Infecting Nations 2010 tour. Munich.

2010-06-24T17:50:00.001+01:00

Shit needs to get done! I am wanting today to be up and out of the way, Munich it is and Munich is not somewhere I want to be hanging around. Got some ghosts here right. Need to get this shit done, and get the fuck out of here. Also, it’s fucking freezing. Like so fucking freezing. I blog the shit out of that morning, feel a fine sense of achievement right there. It’s too fucking cold to type after a while and so I go for a wander round the venue. Kevill and Arie are in there trying to get net connection and failing so I don’t even bother in fear of getting too angry too early in the day and breaking shit, like my laptop. Back in the bus front lounge, I continue writing until the dressing rooms are opened and haul all my shit in. Breakfast / lunch, brunch is served and we got scrambled eggs and teeny tiny sausages. They went quick, followed by croissants, jam, chips with dips, oh man it was amazing. Absolutely amazing. I set up my merch stand with the help of some random employee who is either security or crew? Yet again, I had run out of gaffa tape, the single most important tool to my trade other than the stock!

Wait, I missed this joyful moment! Our bus is parked right round the fucking corner, so in the pissing snow and ice, we have to trudge through it getting all the equipment in to the venue. Bad mother fucking times right there. Thanks Bastard club.

Merch stand set up out of the way, I finally get a stock check done on the merch I have with me, in lieu of doing the stuff in the trailer next. No such luck ‘cause once again it is dark and snowing. Head office loves me right now I bet. I get some facebook shit done, upload some shit, do more boring shit, ooh and catch up on how the Terrorizer night at The Hobgoblin went. Fucking brilliantly it sounds! Sweet!

Lyall covers the stall for the first 15 minutes while I finish getting ready, no dinner again, and then off I scramble to the venue across the courtyard. There is a massive fucking queue! Not for us, bloody 69 Eyes are playing in the big room aren’t they! Lyall is hating on everything when I get to the stand. Too much to do, and too little time. Off he races to crack on, leaving me to observe the chaos of the stand that he has left behind. And I realise that I have lost a sodding glove, dammit.

Once again it is bought to my attention what a great scene the Thrash scene or indeed any metal scene is for woman to hang out in. There are like so many more men than women in this scene, the ratio is definitely in our favour. Tonight is a shining example yet again, there’s like half a dozen women.

I put out my new flyers, which is totally embarrassing but I think still a good idea. They are little, shitty, punk style leaflets. I quite like them. Someone does take one, which makes me mega excited and blush.

So everyone is getting a bit tetchy now, we must be about halfway through the tour and it’s starting to show in each of us a little, that we have no personal space ever, the closest to that being your bunks or when they are on stage and I’m on my stand. Tonight I am losing my patience with the interference from the band members at the merch stand big time. Thank god we have a day off in a couple of days, it’ll be nice to not be on a strict and tight deadline for a night. To chill for a minute. At this point, I am over having to set up the merch every night and stand there watching them play every night. Which I know is just needing a day off because I love watching all three bands play.

His girl comes up to me, one of the only ones in there and says that She knows me from London. The Crobar to be exact. Through a mutual friend, Jerry. I can kinda recognise her, and when we chat for longer I recall who she is, Isa, and am over the moon to have a girl to hang with tonight! She buys me a beer and goes off to watch Warbringer, a favourite band of hers.

As soon as the Fading start up, there is someone furiously banging their head at the front of the stage, I don’t think we need to worry about a repeat of last nights shit crowd participation. The stage is ludicrously tiny, a little bitty triangle, so a normal very active Ilia who finds it hard to stick in one place, is pretty much having to. I reckon at times like these there is only one thing for it; the singers should join the crowd on the floor, hardcore stylee. I used to work at the 12 Bar in Soho, had a tiny fucking stage, so that’s what the bands would do, half of them would just get on the floor with the crowd. It always looked awesome and the punters fucking love it! My God, I do love a bit of synchronised head banging and The Fading are on it! Nic from Warbringer is sitting up on the closed off balcony, warming up. He catches Shaked’s eye, points his drumstick at him and smiles. Shaked is smiling back from behind his kit. One big, happy, fucked up family. I realise at that moment that Shaked is wearing a Warbringer t-shirt, which makes me crack up laughing right there and then. So many of the guys are wearing each other’s bands merch now, free, clean clothes eh! I have to total it up soon and give them a heads up to watch it a bit, they are fine for now though fuck it!

The head banging has spread throughout the crowd and when they finish, they come cover me on the stand so that I can grab some chow and smoke quickly. I get back two Warbringer songs in and already there is a mosh pit! And we have a circle pit. Not only do we have that, but also some dude clambers up on stage and taps Andy the bassist to move out of his way so that he can stage dive! Ha, too funny. The audience, well about 8 of them carry him impressively and everyone is shouting ‘combat shark’, all good things considering that the venue isn’t packed.

20 Seconds in to Evile’s first song, Infected Nations and we have yet another mosh pit! These lot fucking love the Thrash, it’s awesome.

I have got most of The Fading and a Warbringer on my stall and it is driving me up the wall. Not so much them being there, not only is their company excellent, it is important for bands to meet and greet the punters to help with greater merch sales. What I do not want is this, standing actually behind the stand, so people are crowding over the table to talk to you and I cannot see the stock because you are in my way. Telling me that the person who you are talking with wants such and such, when I am quite clearly serving someone. Standing on the stand doing one or both of the above things when the other bands have just finished is also rude in my books. Bad band etiquette was all over the merch stand in Munich. Oh, and don’t fucking tell me how to display your stuff. If you don’t like how I do it, you can do it yourself. I wouldn’t dream of coming up to you on stage during one of your solos or something and telling you how to roll. Fucking tested my patience that night. I speak to Lyall about it and ask him to have a word to the guys about this, he has noticed it too and it is mucho better coming from him.

I go outside to have a couple of back to back smokes and calm down when I spot the same security / crew guy who gave me a roll of gaffa tape earlier. A massive poster of Method Man has caught my eye, and he says that sure I can have one, and that he will bring one over for me to the merch stand! Sweet! So far our bus has pics of Pammy, Hasslehoff and Slayer up. I think this will be a fine inclusion.

Killer from the deep means mosh time and I feel again, how lucky I am to get to watch these guys play every day. They really are fucking good. The Fading get back from showering, and the stand is covered in a lovely just washed smell that I look forward to getting myself at some stage. I’m just so fucked off with tonight, I can’t snap out my bad mood that the people around me have put me in. Watching Joel play takes my mind off it for a bit. On the last song, his hand is moving so fucking fast it is literally a blur. The kids in front of him look like their eyes are about to pop out of their skulls in disbelief! Nic comes over and pisses about with me; he is fucking great at making me laugh the silly beggar. Then this kid gets up on stage, dives off, but his mates don’t catch him so he goes crashing to the floor. Even Evile stutter a laugh and wince at it. These kids certainly have some big ol’ Thrash souls in them! I torch flash Lyall who is across the room so that I can point out Isa, standing in front of me. She is well his cup of tea, come to think of it; any girl is well Lyall’s cup of tea. Isa has eyes for Kevill from Warbringer though so ah well.

After the gig, Isa stays behind and keeps me company while I pack up, then we get the fuck out of there and go hang backstage in the production office with Lyall. A bottle of Jager is out and opened by the time I finish working out the figures for each band, and with an hour we have downed the lot, with the help of Ol and Laux and Kevill. I chain smoke horrendously ‘cause I know bus call is on it’s way and we fuck about till bus driver Steve comes and gets us to go having eaten and shit.

Up to the front of the bus to continue drinking, it seems our group of badness is now Lyall, Laux, Adam, Ol and me! Sweet! We drink and talk loudly and obnoxiously till who knows what time and fall in to our respective bunks in blurry drunk hazes yet again. When will we learn, I think my money is on not in this lifetime!

Evile Infecting Nations 2010 tour. Saarbrucken.

2010-06-24T17:47:00.003+01:00

I get up before everyone today, what with my early, sober night last night. Everyone except Arie it turns out, who is outside scuffling around when I go out there to begin in earnest another unhealthy smoking day. I get all my shit together that I will need for the day and hang out with Steve 2 for a bit before hitting the laptop to get some writing down. Joel comes out and we venture in to the venue to have some quality toilet time in a toilet you can actually fully use, only to be greeted by a massive Doberman cross puppy. Its paws are fucking huge man!

Ana the puppy Doberman is the most adorable little dog to have confront you at a club ever. Awww bless her, she loved getting a fuss!

Once in the venue officially, I get soup and bread and shower and write to my family. You know, I’m fine, haven’t been gang raped by the bands, and am eating, am not on skag blah blah blah!

This venue is tiny, so we will be rammed tonight, and my merch stand is taking up half the sodding venue! Oh well! I am sharing my stand with a local band that go by the name of Godslave, by the time I have finished hanging everything, there really isn’t much room for them. Again, oh well! Their merch is rad, I’ll give them that, band fucking sucked balls though.

By the time doors open, I have had a beer but no time for dinner. Although I do get upstairs and get some to put in the dressing room for later. Adam, my fave from Warbringer, comes soon after I start and The Fading are on, to cover me so I can go eat and have a smoke. Yup, we are back in the land of no smoking in doors. Urgh. I have a cig’ with Laux and try and send some work related emails, but to no avail. Tis very frustrating not being able to get information to people who are waiting and relying on it. This tour has been a scary wake up call as to how dependent I am on the Internet. I can’t get any fucking emails sent, any photo’s uploaded or any blogs up. Fuck it, it can die.

I catch the last of The Fading, the crowd isn’t moving much but the merch sales are really impressive so who the fuck knows? This is supposed to be the Motherland or Fatherland or something right? What’s wrong with these people? It’s a really tough crowd. They are boring the shit out of me. Even Warbringer can’t get them going. No circle pit tonight. Warbringer does seem more popular for merch here. Evile is strong too on the ol’ merch sales so I chill a bit and go for a smoke when Adam comes back to rescue me. About 5 minutes after I’m back I unfold the bottom blank bit of my sales sheet and find that Adam has drawn a little character of me! Awwww bless him; see why he’s my fave? Very thoughtful man right there, of everyone around him.

The crowd tonight is boring the shit out of me; Laux tells me later that it was too packed and boiling hot for them to pit it. I don’t buy that although I do feel guilty for a bit. I have to say this, as gay as it is. I feel incredibly privileged and honoured to be on tour with these guys, to know that some of them will end up as long time friends and that I’m part of the team, when I see them up on stage. They are a very talented bunch of fuck ups and I am a lucky girl to be able to muck about with them everyday. Of course, they are lucky fucking bastards too, they got the mighty me! Physc!

Anyway, I digress. Where was I? Oh yeah. Tonight is shit boring the shit out of me. I guess the Germans are very reserved though? I don’t even fucking care at this point, I’m too tired to care. God, I am n such a wanky mood tonight! And, my spandex clad legs look like fat blubbery seals bickering over a streak of sun. I have got to stop eating as much while I’m not at home. I’m eating the same amounts but because I’m not doing any exercise, I’m piling on the pounds.

So finally the crowd are in to it, singing along, chanting etc. Another Metallica cover and we are done. I get packed up quick smart and go upstairs to finish my dinner and attempt to use the net again. No joy there, so I hang in Evile’s dressing room and piss about with Ol and Joel, pretending to exercise with Ol while Joel films the whole sorry mess. Did I mention that one of the things on Evile’s rider is a poster of the cast of Baywatch. Today we have the walls covered in pictures of David Hasslehoff in various poses and states of undress. There’s even a pic’ of him naked with two puppies strategically placed on his nether regions, which just makes him look like he’s practicing acts of bestiality. So we do some sit ups and that, and Ben shows me his hilarious stick men drawings that he does on his laptop when he’s bored, all good times!

Bus call forces me in to blog writing mode, up the front of the bus. Along with this, Lyall and me get the new European sales sheets for Evile and Warbringer done, currency changes and all. Who have I got here with me? We got Ol, and then Kevill joins Adam, then Laux, and then us. And the vodka is out. What convo’s did we get under our belts that night? Well, I bought some pretzels and found some dib dab sherbet bags that I got as a pressie for the cool crew. Although it should be noted that the illustrated kids on the front of these bags are well hot and not childlike at all? Go figure.

Ben comes and joins us and the gang of us cover semen piss? / Favourite films / thrash now compared to back then, i.e. Metallica, Slayer / the ‘put the lotion in the basket’ part in Silence of the lambs and finally Adam comes up with a great idea, tour wipes! We have got to get them made, for all your cleaning necessities! Other topics were covered but shall never be spoken of again, partly because I can only vaguely remember them and partly because they would get us in a lot of trouble and or be highly frowned upon!

Poltergeist is put on downstairs but I can’t be arsed, tis bunk time for me.

Evile Infecting Nations 2010 tour. Prague.

2010-06-24T17:47:00.002+01:00

So I wake up feeling a bit ropey right, no worries, not unheard of. Fuck that anyway, I’m am mega excited about today, we are driving through the Czech Republic to play in Prague! I have wanted to come to Prague for fucking ages, so I get up quick smart and join Arie and Joel to watch the world go by at the front of the bus.

I am feeling slightly concerned with regards to last night, there is a definite blank spot near the end when I can’t recall a thing. Never a good sign that, never. Hopefully I wasn’t too loud and obnoxious, I didn’t wake Joel and he sleeps above me so I can’t have been that bad. I did wake up with a bin outside my bunk though, so you know, the jury is still out.

The Czech police pull us over at a service station, which is kinda unavoidable when you’re a massive tour bus with U.K plates. They want them some money bruv! I seen this in The Long way round so was quite excited by the whole thing. They took Steve our driver in to their van to haggle over how much money they could get out of him, 200 Euros I believe. Anyway, during all of this, I’m still sat up front feeling like death warmed up, and finally have to give in. I can’t stay on the bus anymore. It’s time to spew. I scramble off the bus and make it to the toilets just in time.

Bad roads and snow make the following 2 hours of that drive utter fucking hell for me. I sit up the front with Ben and Joel, trying not to listen to them rabbiting on about local Czech delicacies like deep fried cheese and stuff. The windows on the bus are filthy and we can barely see out, but as we near Prague, a valley down below us, the sun shines down on it, the first time we have seen it in about a week. I feel kinda happy at the moment but don’t dare get all excited for fear of puking.

As soon as the bus stops outside the venue, I run out and hit the toilet with furious, angry vomiting. 3 vomits later and I walk out to where everyone’s loading covered in sweat and shivering. This is not a fucking hangover. This is an avalanche of illness from my body packing up and leaving me. So lets have a look. Throughout the gig last night I had two vodka and mixer. On the bus watching Ghostbusters I had two more and some Jager. Ill, that does not make me. I had eggs at a service station last night with Steve the driver and Laux, but if it was that I would’ve chucked straight away. Diagnosis? I have been drinking heavily every night, bar two for the duration of this tour. My body fucking hates me. It hates me and it wants me to suffer for the brutal beating I have inflicted on it. Another vomit later and I’m defeated. I get it, time to bring it back down to 7.

I manage to eat some ready salted crisps and keep the second packet down, unlike the first, along with a cup of tea. I’m fucking shaking badly and it is such a mammoth task to set that fucking merch stand up. On top of this I have to do new labels and work out price changes for my new currency. Urgh. FML. Pizza is today’s dinner, I can’t face it yet so keep on my stall away from hungry men.

Surprisingly, I start selling as soon as doors open. This is unexpected. People round here don’t have much cash and all the bands have been saying to me all day that there is no point even setting the stand up, which did wonders for the state I was in. Thoughtless bastards. Having said that, they do check in on me regularly and I start eating my pizza, slowly but surely. It’s better working when you feel this rough ‘cause you don’t have time to dwell on your pain! I have to get to the toilets a lot that night. That was bad times right there.

Some guy tried paying me in U.S dollars, which made my night, how fucking dodge man, I came across illegal U.S dollars! Love it. The crowd is filled entirely with men, there must be like 6 girls including me and the barmaid in the whole place, which would be rad ‘cept the dudes are all older and stuck in an Eighties mullet world. They are obsessed with taking photo’s of the bands, the band members with themselves, getting autographs and guitar picks and drumsticks and so on.

I have a great idea for a short story. About a man who was the king of the metal social scene back in the Eighties but is now an aging computer analyst. So he sells up and takes his metal possessions to the Czech Republic, where the Eighties have only just started. Here he can strut around, mullet and all and be King forever more!

Then I throw up. No, I’m joking, I’m all vom’d out. Here’s how it goes on these here gig nights of ours. The Fading gets the crowd from walking corpses to fist pumping, head banging Metal worshippers. Warbringer gets them from fist pumping, head banging Metal worshippers to a frenzied, sweaty swell of Thrash madness and by Evile they are warmed up, ready to be taken in to absolute destroyed Thrash mayhem. Great success!

The Fading get the star treatment at the merch stand, as do Warbringer, and Evile can’t even get there, they are cornered on the stage by the frenzied crowd. I can’t help but smile whenever these bands are on, they are so fucking entertaining. Warbringer out right make me laugh. Laux was shredding away on his guitar and the guys in front of him all had they’re arms stretched out, air shredding at him. One guy was watching his fingers go and looked like he was about to internally combust with the sheer speed. We get mosh pits, the lot. Fantastic audience participation and the kids are stage diving throughout. Fuck man, I want to be in a band!

I think that I really should have flyers for my blog site on these merch stands and Lyall says we can knock up some on our laptops and print them off ready for another day, which is awesome.

Paul from The Fading hangs out with me on the stand and tells me about the friends he has lost in Tel Aviv to suicide bombers. These kids who are at house parties and someone walks in and blows them up. Jesus fucking Christ, it’s intense, I can’t even begin to imagine what that’s like. The closest thing we have were the IRA and I nor they, or any other bombings ever directly effected none of my friends.

Because of the way the venue is set up, I get to watch Evile from the side of the stage and even get to film bits, although my camera was not designed for this so the sound is utter trash. I can’t take photo’s ‘cause I’m still shaking, Prague fucking loves it! An awesome night, not bad merch sales at all and after I packed up I even got a chance to wash my spandex in the sink! Nic is on top comedy form all night and entertains me throughout with stupid white boy dancing and general fucking around being a silly sausage! Adam cheers me up to when he tries to take some photos but they come out blurry, thank god it’s not just me. Misery loving company and all.

By the end of Evile’s set, a guy has jumped on stage and grabbed the mic and is leading the rest in a chant of more, more, more. Here’s the thing. Evile are basically a new band in respect of having just found Joel and only having three weeks to practice with him. They don’t have endless songs, and after an hour set they are pretty much all out. Bring on Metallica cover time! They cover ‘Creeping Death’ and the crowd loves it, singing along and pumping their fists. Ol is shredding away and the mood in the room is electric. I have the best job in the fucking world moment and beam at the craziness in front of my eyes. Adam is keeping me amused informing me that he thinks I should be working the stand dressed like a mighty Valkari. Evile finally make it over for more photos and signings and eventually I can pack up, sort out the money and call it a night. I get 1000 Koruny for my trouble, which is this great purple note, buy a bad sausage I end up throwing, do some writing and hit my bunk. Today was pretty brutal. Still, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Evile Infecting Nations 2010 tour. Aarau.

2010-06-24T17:36:00.002+01:00

Opening the curtain in my bunk, I get blinded by the bright white light to the point of getting a migraine, Snow! Fuck yeah! Have to stay in bed for half hour with my eyes shut and chill to get rid of the distortions going across my eyes but then I’m up asap and changed, barrelling off the bus with a smoke in my mouth to lob some snowballs around. I nearly get Arie from the Fading in the face, score!

The venue today, here in beautiful Aarau, Switzerland is out of this world outstanding. Yet again, we are getting treated like royalty ‘cause Europe does it better. Wicked dressing room has a huge room attached with bunk beds in it and everything! There’s a fucking Mac there for us to use, we pretty much all got laptops but still, how thoughtful. Everything we might need or want, at our fingertips. And the staff? So fucking helpful and pleasant. Damn we have got a lot to be learning from these Euros I tell you. Hospitality reigns supreme.

I put ‘Bad News’ on play on my laptop and we all have some laughs while setting up our all our personal shit. I send emails, do spreadsheet work, upload photo’s, answer emails, change currencies with the venue from Euros to Swiss Francs, write out new price stickers and then fuck off in to the venue to set up the merch stand. Get changed, go grab dinner in the canteen, cooked and laid on for all the bands and staff! Right!? Bish bash bosh all over the shop.

The doors are open and the first band on is local, and not my cup of tea at all. Might go as far as saying they were shit? One of them was wearing a fitted football shirt? Call me shallow but this isn’t band rehearsal love, your getting to open for some pretty awesome bands, make an effort why don’t you. The lighting man is way too trigger happy on the ol’ buttons, which is a shame because he had potential to be great. I’m trying to get used to the new money by the time the Fading have finished and come to hang with me. We are selling well, all three bands and all is good in the land of us.

I’m still not bored of watching The Fading, they rule, they truly do. The strangest thing happened during their set though, check this. The sound woman, who looks like a Librarian, walks on stage in the middle of a song after Ilia points to monitor problems. She’s there, standing behind him trying to listen like there isn’t a fucking metal show going on! It was so surreal I laughed myself stupid. She was up there for ages, Ilia and the rest of the band were all like what the fuck with their faces, comedy value full throttle. I have never in my life seen a sound person do that.

The audience are proper stiff, and the stage is really wide, so Ilia is all over it. By the time they finished the crowd is chanting for more. Weird that, when they didn’t fucking move during the set. Guess they were just taking it all in. I am blind by this point from the strobe lights, nice one lighting man. Dick.

By the time I come back up from hanging wet laundry out, Warbringer have got themselves a crowd surfer! Good job! There is actually not enough people for crowd surfing but if your hearts in it and your 5 friends are willing, you away. And leave it to Kevill to get a circle pit going. He is off the stage and down on the floor moshing with the crowd and by the last song there is an almighty circle pit going fast and strong, fuck, Warbringer is awesome. The room are chanting for more so they do a one-song encore, Adam drops a heavy guitar solo and Kevill admits that he is wasted and pours a beer over his head.

Down on the stand, Kevill forgets himself and flashes my boob. See I have on a lace leotard under one of the bands T-shirt with the arms cut off really low, so you can see some side cleavage. For some bizarre reason Kevill thinks it’s O.K to pull my t-shirt to the side. No one saw; thank god, and Kevill got bitch slapped. He apologises and it’s all over. He really is pissed bless him, the next thing out of his mouth was “It’s party night….are you ready to watch the end of The Last Crusade?!” Ermm…yeah, no I’m gonna turn that one down and maybe self harm up the front of the bus instead love. These two boys ask to have their photo taken with me, maybe someone did see the boob flash? And Evile starts their set.

There is a circle pit on the first song, Infected Nations! You can’t fucking hear Matt though ‘cause soppy tart sound woman is still fucking around with god knows what. They get a stage invasion and halfway through the set, there is still a circle pit. A fucking killer set, which I spent a lot of doing a stock, check of what Evile merch I have on the stall. Which was fucking redundant because I was so busy enjoying Evile that I forgot to update it when I sold stuff. What an idiot.

There is no way on Gods green earth that our sopping wet laundry is going to be dry by bus call, bring on the horrible pissy dried too slow smell, Yay!. I have no time for a shower either so another day of wet wipe washing is upon me. Touring really is not for the faint hearted or picky. It’s basically festival living for six weeks. Some guy keeps coming back to the stand to chat me up, says I remind him of Pandora? Don’t know what the fuck he is on about, but I smile sweetly and decline his generous offer to stay and live with him in Switzerland. Why are they never hot or the ones you fancy?

I get a total strop on now because it’s quick load out time to meet an early bus call. I am getting rush rush rushed and not enjoying it one bit. I am not packing up the fucking stand when I’m still selling, that’s just not gonna happen. By the time I get to the bus I am mega wound up over the nights happenings. I’m still bummed out over Kevill flashing me, shows a complete lack of respect when I thought I fit in as one of the boys and I had to rush packing up which means it’ll be a total chore unpacking tomorrow.

I feel really fucking ill, so watch Ghostbusters with a bunch of the guys and have some Vodka and Jager to relax, but by the end of Ghostbusters, I’m in my bunk with a bin next to me feeling like I might vom’ any minute. Joy. I’m not even drunk.

Evile Infecting Nations 2010 tour. Kerkrade.

2010-06-24T17:34:00.000+01:00

I remember the first time I watched Spinal Tap. I was really young and my brother was laughing all the way through it and so I laughed when he laughed ‘cause I didn’t get any of it. In fact it bored the shit out of me. I was super young and had no knowledge of music and bands and the comedy was too grown up for me to understand. Tonight we lived through our own Spinal Tap night and this time I got it. What a funny, fucked up, fucking night!

I wake up literally at load in time, I am dying inside with hangover and dehydration. Living in this bus means I am living with 16 men, cramped conditions for one long arsed stretch of time. So first things first when you wake up after a particularly laree night of debauchery, apologies for being noisy to everyone. Urgh. Repeat to self, you not in the band, you are with the band. Turns out no one heard me or gave two shits and there were a few others feeling pretty ropey too! Win!

The venue fed us the most delicious Chinese, which I had to eat slowly over the course of the night what with my body being in such a wrecked state and all. It was mighty pissed at me and I didn’t trust it to not get me back for abusing it so mightily last night. The staff were fucking cool as cool can be, what with getting to be born and raised in Holland. The Dutch are all cool as cool can be, I’m totally proud to be a half breed of them!

I chop up the Fading’s new T-Shirt they got, a classic white with thrash illustration on the front which goes some way in cheering me up. Until I have to leg it to the toilet to get some privacy while I get bitch slapped every which way but Sunday by my angry insides. Me and my insides have officially fallen out, they can’t look at me they’re too angry. Oops.

My tiny little merch area in this tiny little venue gets set up very slowly and quietly and feeling really ill, I do myself up in an attempt to not look as bad as I feel. Blow-drying your hair upside down is not good times when you’re hung over. Got that shit down, being the pro that I am and get back to the stand as the doors open.

Nothing happens. No one walks in. I’m in place, the barman is in place, the ticket lady is in place. Nothing. Half and hour later. Two people. Everyone is looking at each other with their mouths and eyes open wide in a ‘wtf’ expression, slight bewilderment and humour. I say everyone; I mean the handful that was there.

Funny thing is, the Fading guys, who are about to go on, watched Spinal Tap for the first time last night, and now here we are, smack bang in the middle of our own Spinal Tap moment. You have to laugh man, it was fucking ridiculous. Of course we are stressed about the obvious lack of money that will get earned tonight but it’s still really fucking funny.

The Fading start their set like true professionals minus the bouts of laughter and sniggering come from them throughout, especially when Ilia asks the crowd to pump their fists in the air, he cracks up as all, I don’t know, six of us, start pumping our fists and shouting in time with him.

I take the time to look through our Tour Itinerary book, which we have now received and everyone has been having a chuckle at. I can see why, our European booking agent has had a field day writing it! The ‘Rules’ page is off the fucking hook. It covers stealing each other’s riders and therefore asking for a war that he will not believe, “Do not tease the animals”. Stuff about not attempting to bring illegal substances across the national borders. That if you bring girls on the bus, they must have I.D and “Dr Lyall George” must give them a “venereal health check” first! Ha! Awesome.

So we can smoke in here, even when the doors are open?! Although you would think that this fucking rules big time, it actually kinda doesn’t. See, I can’t enjoy my smokes ‘cause I keep thinking I’m going to get told off for smoking inside. Plus the smell is over whelming. It’s getting in my clothes and my hair, and all the merch stock. God I sound like a non-smoker, but England has programmed me in to hating smoking in doors. And it only gets worse ‘cause you get used to it, so that when we hit a venue that we can’t smoke in, it’s like cold turkey all over again. Urgh, long.

Ilia’s voice is amazing, I mean I actually get to watch their whole set through, with no interruptions and the Fading are awesome. Not really thrash, more melodic death metal. They put on a great stage show. Elad the bassist walks straight off stage while playing and comes over to me and says Hi! Silly beggar, it really is that empty! We are all in stitches at this point. Ilia interacts with the whole band, bounding around the stage between members, hitting the symbols with his mic, getting Arie, one of the guitarists to shout some of the lyrics. The Fading play a really strong set, and there are now just over 20 people. It is a credit to a band when they play their hearts out to A. An audience that is less than 12. And B, to an audience that is totally non-committal and just stands there starring.

Man I feel ill. Warbringer come on stage to between 30 -40 people, and The Fading come past me on their way to get stoned. They all seem in good spirits and joke with me on the way past.

John Laux is straight on to the floor with the audience from the get go, the guy in a wheel chair in front of him is getting the full might of Laux’s guitar shredding solos right up in his face, Laux windmills and head bangs his way through the songs as back up on stage, Kevill introduces the next song ‘Living in a whirlwind’. I fucking love this song, its rhythm section is awesomely tight and intense and I’m fucking loving it. Warbringer are so contagious to watch. Sometimes, Kevill reminds me of a young Mike Pattern on speed. He is truly a righteous front man.

The Spinal Tap qualities of the night continue to unfold around us as, a group of four normal looking girls make their way to the front, to the stage and just start dancing like they are at a school disco. Nic spots them from behind the drums and starts laughing. Kevill looks bemused but carries on and Adam does a double take when he comes up from under his long head banging hair for air. Lyall and me are pissing ourselves, the Evile guys are at the side of the stage pissing themselves, and as soon as the Fading come back and spot them, they are too.

Finally, some one comes and buys something! This fella with a strong American accent and a short, back and sides. Army!? Sure enough , he is Army Police, based up the road and loves Thrash. I introduce him to Kevill, who has just rocked up to the stand having finished his set. The dude was up the front the whole time rocking out. Random meetings of random people on tour fucking rules, other peoples lives are so interesting to pass through I think.

The normal girls have been discovered by the Fading and are in the process of being chatted up. Apparently Laux put them on the guest list? All the guys are taking the piss out of them so much I think he is slightly embarrassed and seems to make himself scarce somewhat! Adam comes to hang with me and bum a smoke, he reckons he only managed 2 of his 8 solos ‘cause he was too stoned and played shit. I’m not musically educated enough to have noticed and tell him so, whatev’s’ eh.

Just as I dash of to the toilet, again, I notice The Fading’s guitarist Paul taking some normal girls up in to the bus. When I get back I give Lyall the heads up and he marches over there and turfs them all off. Too many personal items on that bus to be having groupies on it that no one knows. To the dressing rooms instead. Bless! Lyall and me suspect we have a case of the ‘tom tits’ which doesn’t bode well for bus call, which is creeping up fast.

Evile have the biggest audience, ooh 40 maybe?! The mix of music played over the speakers between sets is bizarre to say the least. Melodic death metal tracks followed ‘My Sherona’ followed by Volbeat? The merch sales are quite expectedly utter shit, Wrexham 2 for sure. I pack up, we load out and I hang out with Matt at the front of the bus.

Just to top this shit but amusingly shit day off, I watch the crystal Skull with some of the others. Laux can’t watch it again, apparently it’s so bad he had to go out and get wrecked after watching it when it came out. 15 minutes in I can see what he means. God it really is shit. I want that bloke who did the Phantom Menace reviews on You tube to do one on this, he might explode with frustration at it’s shitness having said that and be unable to complete a full critique.

Evile Infecting Nations 2010 tour. Tilburg.

2010-06-24T17:29:00.000+01:00

So Tilburg has broken me. Well, the ‘Mayor of Tilburg’ a certain Mr. Fozzy has. Fozzy is a good friend of mine who I met years back when he was drum teching with maybe Deicide? I was a bouncer at the place they played in London and we have bumped in to each other at parties ever since. At some point we started keeping in touch via email and I go to any gigs he works in London. The tables have now turned it would seem though because for the first time, I am in his hometown working with a band and he is on our guest list and coming to see me! Needless to say mayhem and trouble ensues, but first the day must begin and play out.

Freezing fucking freezing. I get up early after setting my alarm, which isn’t that early because I never changed time zones on my mobile. Dick. I sit myself up front, everyone else is pretty much asleep still I think, and I write blogs for hours. I am so absolutely freezing that this becomes a heinous task, my fingers are numbing, my toes hurt, I want to be warm so badly.

On arrival of Tilburg, and the venue we will be at tonight, I am over whelmed by how fucking great Holland is. In fact, I don’t want to leave. I want to live and work in this venue for the rest of my life. The best dressing room in the world is at our disposal, it’s not even a room, it’s like the entire fucking basement level of the venue. Showers, a kitchen with Chef, each band has its own fully stocked and spacious dressing room, wi-fi that works, and smoking rooms. Even Lyall has his own office!

The smoking room is a big glass box, with sliding door and massive ventilation duct, like a powerful as fuck distracter fan thing. It’s fucking rad, and they are all over Tilburg. Why for the love of god do we not have these in England. Other than the fact England is shit because the government don’t treat us plebs to such wonders in case we all suddenly become happy. Bastards.

I shower and spray myself yellow / orange and trot off upstairs to set up my merch stand. In the bar tonight so no gig watching for me alas. Not that arsed, Fozzy will keep me company. Near door opening time I start getting mega stressed. See, today I have to work with Euros, so all the labels need changing and I have to get used to another currency. I’ll be fine in half an hour but right now I’m freaking out. I get my food before the kitchen shuts and leave it in Evile’s dressing room ‘cause there ain't no time for eating right about now! It’s a go go situation and I’m on the stall just as people start streaming in.

I’m kinda nervous about the currency thing and it takes me about an hour to learn all my coins and then I’m all good. Warbringer are selling more, they have four European tours under their belt and Evile expected this but it’s grating on me that I’m not repping the Evile camp better. See, every night I wear a different bands t-shirt, and tonight I’m rocking Warbringer. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that doesn’t effect sales, even though I’m banging hot and all but still, feel like I’ve defected slightly.

I stock up on Evile tour shirts during Warbringer’s set and these start flying off the shelves. Thank fuck. Once again there are minimal visits from any of the bands because the dressing rooms are so darn nice, which is fair enough, I wouldn’t leave them either. Fuck ‘em anyway, Fozzy is here! Turns out, Fozzy is going to be drum tech on the Over Kill tour coming up, the same one both Evile and Warbringer will be on! Sweet, I have to get myself on that tour, it’s going to be fucking insane.

At this point in the evening’s proceedings, I just want to pack up the stall and go out partying with Fozzy, especially since we have a poxy 1 am bus call today. Boo that. Ah well, work is work and mine fucking rocks. The sound in this place is off the fucking hook, all the live music from next door is fed through the speakers in to the bar area where I am and it sounds like a C.D playing. It is the crispest sound I have ever heard in a venue, it blew me away and helped me come to terms with the fact that I am going to buying every album on this fucking stand with my measly wage. I can’t skank any more off them, I already have t-shirts, there’s only so much you can get away with eh!

Adam comes see’s me after the Warbringer set and says he thinks it’s the best he’s ever played ‘cause he could actually hear himself. Laux on the other hand, freaked out because it was such clear sound quality. Perfectionist.

I introduce Fozzy to everyone throughout the night, he already knows Lyall form the Exodus, Over Kill tour that Gama Bomb were on so they chat for quite a bit and I introduce him to Evile after I have packed up the stand. Near the end of the evening, a young man named Rolf comes by to purchase some thrash goods and get this….He asks me if I’m the Merch girl who writes on Terrorizer’s website!? I’m fucking international ya’ll! So Rolf, I said I’d put you in, your taste is clearly impeccable, and hope you had an awesome night my friend.

We also had a couple of thrash kids who had been at the London show. How’s this for dedication? They bought flights and tickets as soon as the U.K dates were announced, only to find out later that the bands would all be playing their home town. So they came to both! And one of them was ecstatic to have broken his finger in the mosh pit during Evile’s set, winners! He was over the moon bless him.

Packing up time and you better believe I got that stand down quick smart. I take Fozzy down to the dressing rooms with me where I go about posting U.K blogs and fuck that up momentously because I had him breathing down my neck and telling me to hurry up the whole sodding time. I literally posted the Bristol gig and haven’t even finished writing it yet. Loser. I’m not even sure I spell checked a few of them? I have an impatient party buddy right here though, one that I rarely get to see and I have less than two hours to get fucked up with him and whoever else is in, so fuck it, rock n roll living must always come first.

And it does, I start getting pretty trashed immediately, along with Ol and Ben from Evile, Laux from Warbringer, Lyall and a friend of Evile, Mirna. Before we know it, Fozzy has got us all on our way to a blinding bar, The little Devil.

Holy fuck we got out of our minds wasted. We played pool and talked utter shit for hours. All shop talk about touring and music, which is proper sweet, about Over Kill, Exodus and any other bands that any of the guys there have toured with. Fozzy is full to the brim with funny tour stories, they were swapped, laughed at and forgotten through drunkenness all within the space of that evening. We were having such a good time that we didn’t even notice that bar had shut at some point and they were so lovely, they let us stay! Shots ahoy eh!

Too soon but probably a good thing since we are fucked up, bus call creeps up on us and we taxi it back to the bus. Fozzy comes in for a bit and we carry on drinking, listening to music and generally fucking about and behaving badly. I see off in his taxi and Lyall and me stay up god knows how long, shooting the shit until finally reality calls us to our bunks and I fall in to one of those uncomfortable drunk sleeps which you just know can only result in the worst hangover of your life. Ah man.

Evile Infecting Nations 2010 tour. Part 10.

2010-06-24T17:27:00.001+01:00

Standing outside of the bus, shuffling to keep from freezing while forcing in as many cigs as I can during this short stop with some of The Fading guys and a Warbringer, we look up and through the clear night sky a huge falling star shoots past us. Later England, Europe is already kicking your pasty fat arse.

Long story short, I am staying on the infecting Nations tour. Hopefully this tour will end at the end of February with everyone coming back in one exhausted and smelly piece.

When we woke up yesterday we were in Royston, home of our bus driver Steve, which was lucky ‘cause the bus broke down again and he knew of a farm that he could pull in to and wait while the tour bus mechanic came out and helped him fix it. So I wake up on some random farm, Arie and Elad from The Fading outside my window teasing a little Jack Russell that won’t stop fucking yapping. Still I’m out the door quick smart to irritate it too while getting in the first smoke of the day.

This farm is really random, we do not belong here at all and even the fucking dog knows. I do, having said that take this opportunity to steal a couple of wood palettes for the merch to go on top of in the trailer. As it currently stands, about 40% of all stock is getting fucking trashed by the water that sits on the floor of the quite clearly, leaking trailer.

Laundry gets done by Steve the driver, Elad from The Fading and Matt from Evile and myself, very rock n roll manly time going on right there. We dream of pub food up the road that we won’t have time to eat, we wander round some bizarre little odds and ends shop and buy stupid gifts for some of the others and we hit Tesco where I score two bottles of wine, all before driving off in to the sunset to Dover.

Me and Adam and Laux are drunk as fuck by the time Dover approaches, and spend the ferry ride stumbling around getting food, buying more booze, smoking and generally stumbling around drunk without our sea legs. And then, it became the Rape Ferry. Oh fuck not again.

The last time myself and the Evile lot experienced ‘Rape Ferry’ was going over from Denmark to Sweden or Finland or something. Scared the shit out of us. Turns out, it’s all about timing rather than geographical tendencies. There is a pattern. Between the hours of 11 pm and probably 6 am, it’s ‘Rape Ferry’ time. I walked up and down corridors just to show the guys this. Lone, stray men standing around, loitering all over the fucking shop. Even by the ladies toilets, which was a nice touch for my experiment I think. Although it was funny to come across it again, it was still fucking petrifying the amount of sexual violence these men had in their eyes towards me and once again me and the Evile guys shuddered with fear. Fucking ‘Rape Ferry’.

Back on the bus, I’ve cracked open one of my litre bottles of Malibu duty free purchases, Malibu is always the cheapest option and you can cheerfully drink it straight out of the bottle, eliminating need for cup and mixer which on tour is handy to say the least. I sit up the front with Joel, Adam joins us and we drink, they chat, I blog, and the ‘Front bus gang’ is formed. I blog until I can’t physically type any more from sore eyes and tired brain and take myself off to bunk leaving the other two talking about music, sipping on Joel’s not so secret and soon to be redundant stash of red wine.

Next stop, and first gig of Evile’s first headline European tour, Tilburg Holland. And we all know how Holland rolls!

Evile Infecting Nations 2010 tour. Part 8.

2010-06-24T17:25:00.000+01:00

Evile will be playing Leeds today, which is as good as a home gig for them. The last time any of us were at this venue was for Mike’s memorial tribute show. Mike’s family and friends are coming tonight and I think it’s fair to say that there are nerves and sad feelings all about us.

Every day of this tour each of us has spoken about Mike, about how we keep expecting to see him, and the stabbing pain that quickly follows when you realise that of course, he isn’t coming out to smoke, or drink or help load in or eat with us or sound check or any of those things. Some of us see him in our dreams, that are so close to reality, like just dreaming about mundane day to day activities that when they wake up, they have to check themselves for a minute and remember that it was just a dream.

The Evile fans have been amazing, they are so supportive and sympathetic. Matt says a little something every night on stage and they play Mike’s song every night. He introduces Joel and the gig goes on. I guess I’m nervous tonight that some one will say something tactless to Joel, or that Mike’s family and friends get really upset seeing the band play without Mike, this is going to be a tough one for everyone I guess. Still, the show must go on.

Showers and food and setting up aside, we are surrounded by lots of friends tonight, and they turn up in dribs and drabs throughout the day. The most exciting and amazing visit however was easily won by a certain Miss Zeva Lilly and mum Hannah. At just a week old, we get to meet Joel’s adorable little new born girl in all her tiny glory! She is so cute I really had to hold myself back not to kick her carry case ‘by accident’ just so that she would wake up. My girl slept through Ben drum checking! She was in the hallway but still, little champ was like whatever Uncle Ben I’m sleeping! Awwwww bless her little tiny….I have got to shut up, jeez get a grip I don’t even fucking like kids. She was proper cute though.

Tony Drake came down early too and it was awesome to catch up with my ‘adoptive Dad’, he used to do the merch when Evile were starting up and so I can talk shop with him endlessly! Fucking blinding guy, could hang out with him all day listening to stories. I definitely have that whole ‘don’t want to let him down’ thing going on too though so I feel a bit star struck unworthy at the same time.

Sales are of the hook from doors open and Leeds proves to be the best merch night for all three bands by the end of the night. By a long shot. Fuck yes Leeds. I even get me some glamorous assistants throughout the night to keep me company and help out which is fucking rad and I’m over the moon to get some quality girl time in having spent the last week living with 15 men.

It was really nice to hang out with mike’s best mate too, although outside talking about him got me all welled up and the tears were never far off throughout that night. A tough night for everyone for sure. Joel found people couldn’t look him in the eye, Mike’s best mate had a hard time listening to people who had met Mike at gigs talking about him like they were best mates and mike’s family were amazing throughout the evening, talking to Joel and supporting the band. If I’m honest I was glad to pack up and get on the bus by the end of it. Me, Matt, Joel and Adam watched Clockwork Orange and passed round a bottle of Jager over greasy kebabs as the bus pulls off and we make our way to the next stop, Bristol.

By the time the next film is put on, Poltergeist, I’m tired and bummed out after listening to talks of Europe and how the guys are going to handle the merch stand since I am not able to join them outside of the U.K. Our current bus, which is big enough has to go back to the garage to be re-furnished, and the next bus will be smaller. To travel round Europe, each person has to have a legal and designated sleeping area and the downsize of the bus means less bunks and so unfortunately there won’t be room for me. This has been an on going up in the air situation since the start of the tour and it burns me thinking about having to get off at the end of the U.K leg.

I have made such good friends already within Warbringer and The Fading and will sorely miss all of them when we part ways in four days. All depressed, I take myself off to bunk and fall asleep listening to music, watching the road through my little bunk window.

evile Infecting Nations 2010 tour. Part 7.

2010-06-24T17:24:00.000+01:00

Today we find ourselves in Nottingham, home of Thrash metal label Earache, the label that had the good foresight to sign Evile and put them on tours like this one! This is almost as exciting as getting to see my family in Manchester, me and Ol are up and changed quick smart so we can stroll on down to the Earache HQ and say hi to everyone.

Earache HQ is like a boys dream office. It is floor to ceiling Thrash C.D’s and posters and all sorts of cool bits and bobs. If you are lucky you can get to go in the stock room and grab a few t-shirts or C.D’s too. Tis a dream grotto in there, everything from Napalm Death stuff to Muni’ Waste, Iron monkey and of course Evile, stacked up high, wall to wall. I want to sleep in there.

Hugs and hello’s all round and the next half hour is spent talking business, Matt and Lyall came too so we get to go over merch sales, stock needed, tour itinerary and general queries about the up coming dates.

Digby himself gets out of a meeting and takes us to lunch at Pizza Express where the shop talk continues which is fine with everyone ‘cause we are totally loving what we are doing. The only time the re was silence at the table was when our food came which was for the most part massive pizzas. We say our goodbyes till this evening when the office will be coming to the gig pretty much on masse, and get our food coma arses back to the bus to load in. I have just eaten the most amazing pasta dish of life, I’m so sleepy I’m finding it massively hard to keep my eyes open. I’m getting tired just thinking back on it.

John Laux is jammin’ away on his own in some random part of the cold and empty venue so I go and hang out with him for a bit and shut my eyes for five minutes while I listen to his electric guitar. Could’ve stayed there all day but rumour has it this place has a washing machine so I pull myself up and get to the bus to gather my dirty laundry together with everyone else.

Merch will be found gaffa taped to brick tonight, in a relatively well lit back corner of the main area, where if I stand on the bench running the length of it, I can watch the whole show. Sweet. I get all ready and go next door to the rescue Rooms for dinner with Joel, Ol and Adam. Adam went to the oldest pub in Britain today, apparently it was fucking awesome and I’m kinda bummed I won’t get a chance to check it out for myself. I don’t get time to finish my dinner so take half of out in a doggy bag and race back to the venue to get on the merch stand, which Lyall has been covering for me while I eat.

A funny little constant puff of dry smoke is coming out from the top of the venue, left side of the stage, which in it’s pointlessness makes me laugh throughout the evening, and Kevill comes and entertains me heaps with his abundance of energy and brilliant Americanisms and all the silly shit we have made up in the last week. He never calls me Lucy but instead has christened me Lusar, which always puts a smile on my face and we go in to our stream of bullshit talk about FIB, a made up club him and Matt from Evile came up with on the first night who’s motto has over the last week become ‘Strength unt Honour’, said with meaning , purpose, German accent and fist in the air. You will never know what FIB stands for alas, that one stays on the bus.

Sales have started off well enough and The Fading are playing a fucking brutal set. The crowd are definitely in to them and they are getting stronger each show they play. I get a shout out ‘cause they can see me and Kevill up on the tables and chairs pumping our fists along with them and all is happy and well in the land of Thrash tonight.

So the bands played really fucking well tonight but the merch sales were wank. This a weird anomaly that happens now and again and totally bums me out for the next 24 hours until I get to do another merch stand and do better. It never fails to stress me out and I spend hours trying to figure out if it’s just that everyone is broke , in which case they could buy a sticker for a quid or a lighter for two or even a patch for three. Or is it ‘cause the merch stand looks shit? Everything laid out neatly and in an organised fashion though? Is it ‘cause they are spending all their money on booze? Joel say’s that the average gig goer will take 30 quid to a gig. Of that they will probably spend half of it on booze and save a fiver for getting home. So by rights each person has a tenner to spend on merch. So why the fuck are they not dammit? Stressed. And I’m pretty sure a kid nicked a lighter too the little fuck.

Still, I got to replenish the Evile hoodies when Earache brought them down. That’s how blah I feel about the merch tonight, excitement at more stock. What a gay. It was a fucking sick night with the Earache massive. Of course we got pretty steaming in the dressing rooms after the show, courtesy of our lovely friend Jager again and it was cool to hang out with friends and not get rushed out of the venue.

We hung out for ages and hit the club for a bit of stupid dancing to Emo. I nearly got in a fight at the bar with some lone dodgy Asian dude, and shoved him flying in to the people on his other side when he continued to act like a sex pest twat and bother me relentlessly. Then I had a row with the toilet attendant lady ‘cause she wouldn’t give me any bog roll without me giving her money. WTF? Bitch. Then I went with Adam and Joel and Lyall to the rave area and lo and behold bumped straight in to sex pest man again. At this point I grounded myself to the bus for fear of flying of the handle and kicking off properly. Everyone in that place seemed to be a complete cock that, since I am capable of humility, means it was probably me! Tut tut, off to bed.

evile Infecting Nations 2010 tour. Part 6.

2010-06-24T17:23:00.000+01:00

So far, Manchester has been awesome. Yesterday was our day off and I got to bum about all day with Adam and John Laux from Warbringer. We had brunch at a mediocre student pub since we are bang slap in the middle of the university student land and then went for a wander up to the centre but only got as far as the first music shop. We spent the following couple of hours looking at instruments and the guys had a go on some beautiful guitars. Fucking geeks.

We headed back to the bus in time for my big bro’ to come pick me up and I spent the rest of the evening hanging out with my niece and nephew, aged two and five, eating barbecued jerk chicken and being tattooed by them with biro all up my arms.

Back to the bus and I’m drunk having put the little fragils to bed and knocked back a bottle of wine with my brother and sister in law, and after a fail of an attempt to find somewhere good to party I end up hanging out in the kitchen of the bus with Lyall, doing work and listening to anything but Thrash. I’m talking The Grit and the Dirty Dancing sound track. Ha! What? Don’t give a fuck. I was pretty drunk having said that. Jager sponsors Evile’s merch, so we have plenty of the wonderful nectar on the bus and are managing quite happily to cane a bottle a night at this point.

Having woken up the next day, me and Ol hit the same generic pub for grub and poo time. Unfortunately we do not miss load in, so that’s next. I set up the merch stall, another fucking hallway. The dressing room is forever away and the shower is a floor down from the dressing room. Still used it though since I never did get round to getting a bath at my Bro’s place ‘cause I was too busy getting pissed with him. A bad fake tan spray follows, which I will not know was bad till the next day when I wake up with soiled looking arms and hands, and back to the merch stand to realise, to my delight that I am down a hallway that no one even needs to walk through to get from the entrance to the stage. Fucking great. This is going to go well.

I have stocked up because the pre-sales were outstanding but I’m dubious as to how well I can do on merch sales when I might as well be in another fucking building. The security guy fucks me off as well, stared at me the whole time I’m setting the stall out. Fucking sex pest. I couldn’t even set up till late because the area had students walking around so I would have had to just sit there for an hour after. So I’m rushing to get everything sorted on the shittest merch stand ever to date, and I’m pretty sure I’ve said this before but this is the new winner.

On the upside I get to see Dan Brown, a friend of mine who did work at Earache, which is rad ‘cause he’s a real little sweetie and I can trust him on the stall while I go for toilet breaks or ciggies.

To be quite honest with you, what can I say about Manchester. I was down a hallway on my own, bored shitless. I made good sales for the bands. I was bored. I was bored. I was bored. Very fucking bored. Even Vodka and Coke couldn’t alleviate my boredom. I nicked me some Warbringer merch to butcher with some scissors and rock out in on another night. I packed up. I went to bus then went to bunk. Laters.

evile Infecting Nations 2010 tour. Part 5.

2010-06-24T17:21:00.000+01:00

The stillness of the bus wakes me, the stillness and the quiet. There is some distant thumping around, some one down the back of the bus is stumbling out blearily trying to assert themselves. I need a smoke so bad right now and wish for the umpteenth time that I don’t have to trek out in to the cold lunch time air to have one.

Biting the bullet, I chuck some layers on, roll a smoke and practically fall out the bus looking like some skag head fiend desperate for their next fix. As I light up my ciggie, I look up and from under my hood see half a dozen young boys dressed in their Evile t-shirts looking over at me with their mouths hanging open in pure shock horror. Oh fuck, just ruined so many school boy fantasies, sorry, my bad.

It is fucking odd having fans waiting around before the bus has even pulled up though that’s for sure. Going for some dinner after sound check leads to kids stopping which ever band member you’re with for photo’s and autographs and excited banter on their part met with confusion on the bands part. It’s pretty surreal but nostalgic at the same time. I used to turn up to gigs early and stay late, hanging around in the vain hope that you will get to meet the band and some of that rockness will rub off on you.

In Manchester we had these kids outback who were there when we got up playing their music out of a ghetto blaster, drinking beers and totally not interfering in any way. Just chilling, making a day of it. Fucking ruled, that’s some passion right there.

Back in side the bus I sit down for the next instalment of childhood boydom with Joel and Adam and watch back to the future 2. What the fuck, that film is off the chart confusing! We are literally in hysterics at the ridiculous time travelling misadventures of Doc Brown and Marty. Just watching these two is exhausting, remember they still haven’t stopped since the beginning of the first film. Jeez. I bosh down a Burger king meal before load in ‘cause I’m so hungry I don’t think I can actually get load in done without eating some sort of shit in me.

Tonight we will find ourselves at Newcastle O2 Academy. That means we get some tasty dressing rooms with showers thank fuck. I have the best shower in the world ever and get some spray tan time down, slut it up and get up to where my little merch stand will be based this fine Geordie eve. Oh fucking grand, I’m in a hallway. Joy. Fun times ahead.

Seriously though, one of the most boring times of my life right there. And I’m tired, so fucking tired. The two just go hand in hand skipping throughout my sub-consciousness. Tired and bored, bored and tired. The funniest thing that happened to me that night was this…..Halfway through Evile’s set, some little kid came tearing out of the main stage area, stopped just short of my stand, bent over and puked his little thrash guts up three times in a row all over the Academy flooring. Ha!

Awww bless the little fucker, I did let him know that if he swung round there was actually a bin behind him but I think he was pretty much empty by then. Ah well thought was there, unfortunately it wasn’t too useful ‘cause it didn’t come out my mouth till I had stopped laughing.

Back to the dressing room though ‘cause some important shit went down, a discovery was made. Phantom Menace has the most amazing rogue reviewer covering the whole shit shebang from start to finish, picked apart in seven genius parts. Oh how we laughed. I don’t know why I’m being sarcastic, we laughed are fucking arses off, I watched it again later with some of the Warbringer boys and laughed so hard all over again that nearly wee’d my pants. I believe at this point, everyone on the bus has seen it and enjoyed it to the point of tears. Look it up.

Yeah so Newcastle was piss boring for me, I was stuck in a hallway, it was all a bit corporate, but on the upside I had a lovely shower and fake tan time and spent the night safe in the knowledge that the next day would be a day off in Manchester Thank fucking god, I am so God damn tired.

The routine is as follows, as it has been every night, pack up, load out and hit the booze. Tonight though is different, I genuinely am too fucking tired. I traipse after the other usual losers I love because I’m too weak willed to just stay in, but, after 10 minutes of walking in the freezing fucking cold, I turn back and admit that tonight I am a big gay and need to be in the bus.

A McDonalds later I’m tucked up in my lounge clothes and thick socks in the kitchen with Adam and Joel my movie buddies and Lyall and Evile’s long time friend Alex, ready to watch Back to the future three! I’m well loving being a boy, usually fucking hate Back to the future, Die Hard and all those boy flick types but I am totally in to it now. Shit. Back to the future is a hell of a lot less confusing than the second one thank fuck. I mean, I watched all these when I was young but years of toxic self abuse means I cannot for the life of me remember any of them so it’s all fresh and new yet familiar at the same time!

Back to the future done, it’s upstairs as the bus pulls off to watch Planet Terror. I get so near the end but fall at the last hurdle and sleep, pack myself off to bed and dream of my day off in Manchester where I will get to see my big Bro and little niece and nephew, have some home cooked food and possibly even a bath.

Evile Infecting Nations 2010 tour. Part 4.

2010-06-24T17:18:00.001+01:00

Dude so I got to bed fucking early last night ( 4am ) and wasn’t drunk but still didn’t wake up till noon today. What a lazy bastard I am. On the up side…we in Glasgow innit bruv! Fuckin’ love Glasgow! Last time I was here was with Bonded By Blood and Cauldron and I had the best time. Plus, Lyall lives here. Plus, Evile have always had a blinding time here. WIN.

First stop after the usual ritual of falling out of the bunk and chucking jacket and boots over track suit I’ve slept on, is cross the road to The Goose pub to grab some grub and use their bathroom facilities. I get the Sunday roast, ‘cause apparently it’s Sunday, who’d of guessed mate honestly, no idea what day it is. Kevill gets some pie shit and The Fading get told to leave ‘cause they are wearing tracksuit bottoms? I mean dude I get this rule if it’s evening time but it’s fucking noon. Jeez get a grip Goose staff. Needless to say they end up changing and coming back. I chow down, food doesn’t hit the sides style and get my skaggy self upstairs to fix up.

I bump in to Adam outside the bus and we have a quick jaunt to Superdrug to pick up some shampoo and then I have a fucking blinding ‘me time’ style browse round Fopp wishing that I had money to burn. A massive book later it’s back to the bus lounge to work on some writing while Laux plays the Blues C.D he bought at Fopp. I finally finish a blog and get to post it, which is immense ‘cause it took a lot to get that fucker down. I feel a massive wave of relief and bum around for the next hour setting up my merch stand, getting changed and slutting myself up.

Matt read my blog ‘cause I’m stressing about it again and says that he thinks it’s good and flows better than the other ones I’ve done, awwww bless him. So I hate it and he likes it, which is good enough for me and will have to do ‘cause it’s up now eh! I write some more blog shit, pour a drink and hit the stand just as doors open.

Sales start immediately and are fucking amazing from the offset and the verdict is in, Glasgow Cat House rules. And by the by, I seem to have got myself a security fan club going which can only ever be a win situation right?! A couple of them are actually cute as well. Fuck yeah I can see some quality flirting time coming my way.

I took myself off to grab a sarnie and pour a drink and got to meet one of Evile’s fans that had been following my blog on Terrorizer on the last tour. It has amazed me how many people have come up to me over the last week and asked if I’m Merch girl and complimented me on my writing. It also throws me when they talk about my last blog after Mike’s death and how choked up it got them. This bloke in front of me was welling up, it was proper intense and I felt really bad ‘cause I had to get back to the stall. Made a real mark though.

All the bands played a fucking amazing show that night for sure, the whole night and everyone in it was in sync to be their most awesome gnarly thrashness including the people who came to the show. The Warbringer fans were funny as fuck, the guys signed the usual tickets and C.D’s and also got to sign some white high tops, which I thought was fucking genius! The stall did so well we had to replenish it with Evile stuff during the evening and by the time I wrapped it up, it was clear that it was the best sales night yet and time to get trashed to celebrate! Jager test tube shots backstage courtesy of the lovely Jager people who sponsor Evile’s merch and the party had officially started.

Get this though, The Warbringer lot and The Fading lot don’t want to come out? I think we broke them, we being me and Lyall obviously. So off we trot, and sure enough within the next hour the usual suspects are out on masse and it all goes pear shaped as we know and love it to.

The 3am bus call is met, with a motley crew of drunk fucks aboard it having danced and drank the night away, and I fall asleep in my bunk all snuggled up looking out my little window at the dawn rising over the beautiful Scottish landscapes.

Evile Infecting Nations 2010 tour. Part 3.

2010-01-19T20:40:00.000Z

Fuck about last night was vicious! Hang over city on the bus this morning I can tell you. And, the bus is in total darkness ‘cause we can’t get hooked up to the clubs power ‘till some one comes and opens it. And, I have just come on my period. Today can die.

Chucking my clothes on as fast as I can in such a hung dog state, I bump in to Lyall in our little bus hallway and ask where the public toilets are. He starts telling me, I yell at him quietly in true maniac pre-menstrual womanly finesse that he can fucking come with me ‘cause I’m not about to wonder round his home town in this state looking for a necessary convenience that one should not have to leave one’s abode to fucking use.

We are in York, hometown of our formidable Tour Manager Lyall and Britain’s most haunted pub. Apparently. Blah. York is fucking beautiful and the other two bands enjoyed wandering round it.

Lyall quickly becomes my hero for the day by telling me that we are going round his mum’s house to grab a hot shower while everyone is still asleep and I try and hold it together and not cry! I haul my shit together at the bus and curtail it out of there and on to the more normal run of the mill bus up to Lyall’s mums house.

I could not get out of the shower, it was like the best thing in the whole fucking world and the first time I had been warm in what seemed like forever. If it wasn’t for Lyall needing it next I would have stayed in it till the water ran cold for fucking sure! By the time he’s done, I’ve pimped myself up and look decent enough to d=face humanity again.

Tesco’s gets a visit for a fry up but fails to deliver and we are left eating shit macaroni cheese and potato’s instead. Adam, the guitarist from Warbringer rang to tell Lyall him and The Fading boys were off on a wander and I took great delight in telling him about my hot shower incurring plenty of name calling off him. Adam is my fave I reckon, he looks like Jay from Jay and silent Bob and is funny as fuck. Proper dry, British sense of humour, sly like. He’s great to hang out with and chat, him and Lyall have been up till the morning chatting about random shit every night so far. Very intelligent guy.

Slowly but surely the stories of last nights shenanigans start to creep out of our mouths. We are still coming clean about our crimes and sins on the bus back to…the bus. Turns out there was way more misbehaving than I was aware of, and yet again I feel proud and honoured to be amongst such bastions of society! I think Lyall didn’t notice the old grannies sitting around him as he regaled me with filthy antics although knowing Lyall he probably wasn’t that arsed anyway. Needless to say I laughed till I cried and suddenly the world was O.K again! Filthy beggar.

Back at the bus I power napped away the next three hours in a bid to stop feeling like such shit and Lyall woke me after the load in had been done, bless those boys I really needed to not be loading in. Win.

So still I’m finding it difficult to write but finally I manage to get some words down on the laptop and before I know it I’ve actually posted! Thank fuck for that. Jeez. I set up the stand, get my shit together and go outside for one last ciggie before doors open. There are already people queuing, which is rad, and York turns out to be a successful merch night and a great gig for all three bands. In fact it was the best so far.

The Fading get a great response, Warbringer get a circle pit going and we find out later that Lyall’s mate Richard broke two fingers in it! Awesome. The Fading are getting so much better with each gig, it’s amazing to watch the progression. Warbringer are a fucking shit hot band, Laux is an outstanding , mesmerising guitarist, Kevill is totally with the audience the whole way through to the point where I always think he’s about to launch himself in and join them, Adam is banging his head throughout and Nic is holding it all together at the back.

A tired but very happy bunch of metal misfits traipse on to the bus after loading out and after a couple of hours of chilling, of video games, a few drinks, and some net surfing, everyone’s wanders off to bunks and all is quiet at a reasonably early time of about 3am.

Evile Infecting Nations 2010 tour. Part 2.

2010-01-19T20:38:00.001Z

Wrexham. Wales. I wake up all cosy in my bunk, at some point I must have stopped being freezing and started being boiling in my hoody, tracksuit bottoms and socks ‘cause now I’m sleeping in a reasonable amount of clothing. I climb out and stagger to the toilet, head fuzzy with a bit of hangover and find a delightful notice stuck to the seat informing me that the toilet hasn’t been emptied and is full of wee. Lovely. Seems Steve our driver didn’t count on us drinking quite so much and therefore having to get rid of quite so much eh! Tut tut. I chuck my bon Jovi boots on, that Lyall put in the freezer last night when we were all drunk, throw on some layers and trek off to find a café that will let me use their pisser.

Me mum gives me a call, to see not just how I am, but how the guys are holding up. She met them and Mike when they came to pick me up on the last tour and being a typical mum is full of worry and concerns. Bless her. I’m not sure that when she was raising me she would have been happy to know that one day she would be talking to me over the phone while I’m wandering around Wales looking for somewhere to piss, you know the tone of voice I’m talking about! Still, I tell her last night went well and promise her that I will behave ( Don’t worry, I crossed fingers) and head back to the bus.

Matt, the front man of Evile and Joel are watching Back to the Future in the kitchen, so I sit with them and watch the man flick while at the same time being horrified by how many microwave burgers are being zapped by The Fading. The smell is rank and me and Joel have to step off the bus several times to get some fresh ciggie air.

Once the venue is opened, we unload the gear in yet more freezing weather. Warbringer sleep through, jet lag and hung over no doubt! I find the ladies toilets and set about baby wipe washing since there are no showers for us today. I feel worrying clean and refreshed after that but still look forward to Manchester where I can drop in on my big bro’ and have a bath!

The venue we are in tonight is weird, one of the staff is shit and I’m feeling a bit off about the whole thing. We chow down our food, which has been cooked by the café attached to the venue while watching The Simpsons and then all get about our tasks, sound checking, instrument maintenance and merch stall set up.

Setting up the stand tonight is way easier ‘cause I know all the stock and I packed the boxes the night before, it looks pretty rad and I start getting excited about the night ahead. Until that is, I find out some rather worrying news. Low ticket sales. Fuck. By the time Evile come on stage, there are fifty-one people. 51 fucking people. As you can imagine, I sold out of stock completely and we all went home. Sold out of all three bands stock. Did I fuck, jeez, the few people who had come were obviously so broke they couldn’t even shell out a quid for a fucking sticker.

So I’m just kicking back really, getting a bit tipsy, watching the show. The Fading Bassist has been playing bass for Warbringer too. Warbringer’s bassist is unable to make the first two weeks of the tour due to health reasons and so Elad has amazingly learnt all the songs and is playing both gigs every night! What a fucking legend. There have been drum kit issues too. Ben from Evile is letting the other two drummers use his gear and Nic from Warbringer is having trouble working on it. Other than this the gig is going well considering there is barely anyone there!

During Evile’s set I start missing Mike massively. Then I well up. Then I have to go to the toilet and I lock myself in a cubicle and fucking cry like a bitch. This would be the low after the high of last night. I was so intent on last night being amazing, first gig back and all. So intent on being all stiff upper lip for the guys, who rightfully do not need people around them who are finding it hard when you can only imagine what this is like for them.

Tonight was the bitch slap, wake up call, loudspeaker in your face…Mike’s not here. Evile are on tour. Everything reminds you of Mike, of Sweden and that day in Sweden, at least half a dozen times a day you catch yourself thinking where’s Mike? Forgetting that he isn’t on tour. I still expect him to be there, it’s fucking weird and upsetting. I get it out my system, and get back out there. Lyall is right, there’s only one thing for it, drink a lot.

We pack up and hit the bar in earnest. I am a serious drinker at the best of times but tonight I’m trying to forget that this tour is actually quite fucking sad and hard and that subsequently I have severe writers block and still cannot write anything.

Drinks and dancing later and it’s off to bed. Only joking, not gonna leave out the good stuff eh?! I was necking back the vodka from the rider with Dr.Pepper, there was Jager all over the shop, Lyall and Kevill were doing drinking competitions, Joel and Ben were chugging away, even Ol was out. The Fading and Warbringer boys were all out and the club quickly filled up around us.

Look see, as we all know, what happens on tour, stays on tour. And I realise I’m writing about what happens on tour but you better believe there are juicy bits left out.

Many, many people got lucky that night, some with more than one person, there may have been vomit, there was a stupid fucking amount of booze and eventually there was a ridiculously loud party in the back of the bus between bands before finally everyone resigned themselves to the fact that it was the morning and way past bunk time.

Evile Infecting Nations 2010 tour.

2010-01-19T20:36:00.001Z

“A woman walks in to the bar and asks for a double entendre, so the Barman gives her one”. Oh Ol Drake you winner you. Least he’s awake and he’s telling jokes, but jeez, bad joke man, bad joke. The dude is not asleep so I’m letting him off. Just this once mind.

Ladies and Gentleman, The Evile infected Nations tour 2010. We have just left Luton Airport and the 18 man Night liner that we are travelling in is packed to the rafters. We have Steve the driver, Lyall the tour manager, Warbringer from L.A who are the main support and The Fading from Israel, the openers. All along for an Evile adventure. Oh and me, Merch girl.

I’m back kid’s, for two weeks only alas, but two weeks none the less, for the U.K leg of a six week tour. First stop, Cardiff, Wales. Nice.

O.K so let me come clean. Cardiff turned out to be such a fucking outstanding night of debauchery that this blog did not get written. And Wrexham? Wrongness till the morn’. So here I sit, still fucking shivering and freezing in Fibbers in York attempting to get everything down before my fingers go numb. Let me tell you what when down…

First sleep was Wednesday night and it was fucking freezing. That’s for starters. And we were only in London. I literally woke up shivering on way too many occassions throughout the night, parked up there in the underground car park. Kinda dreading getting up North to be honest because this is only gonna get worse, especially when you add lack of sleep and food in to the equation.

The bus dynamics are predictable for day 1, the Evile lot are up at the front chatting, The Fading are in the back lounge chatting and Warbringer are scattered between. There’s not a huge amount of mixing, everyone’s being polite and shit, pleasantries are made but other than that it’s all a bit new and weird. Exceptions there are, of course and the exception to this rule is one Mr John Kevill, front man of the mighty Warbringer. The guy is fucking hilarious. He is bounding around the bus between bands, I can tell out right that he is going to be the loud one that wakes everyone up all the time and trashes the bus but for now he is on fire. Totally laid back and chatty and definitely helping to ease the rest of the bus in to the same laid back manner.

The Cardiff Barfly is sold out and we are late. The pressure is on to get everything sorted before doors open. As soon as we have unloaded all of the three bands worth of equipment in to the venue, me and Lyall get straight in to the joyful task of stock check. Fuck My Life in the back of that trailer. In the dark and freezing cold we spent over an hour counting every bit of stock for Evile and Warbringer. Stock checks are depressing at the best of times but that was one of the most miserable times of my life right there. Thank fuck I don’t have to do it again until Wolverhampton. Fucking winter.

I set the stall up in record speed at the back of the room while the bands finish up sound check and start clearing the rider in to the bus. First set up is always long, getting shirts sorted in to workable piles so you know where everything is for quick sales. Just as I’m finishing sticking prices up and scribbling down a sales sheet, the doors are opened and people start spilling in.

I’m selling for all three bands, and all three bands sold well. Sweet start to the tour!

The Fading get up on stage and by the end of their set they have the crowd worked up in to a thrash frenzy. Turns out, this is their first ever tour! WTF? They did such an amazing job, English is their second language but they chatnervously between songs and are brilliantly received.

Warbringer are fucking A all over the shop! They definitely remind of Bonded By Blood but way more evil and I think that’s just the L.A connection too. The laid back style. It’s cool to see them performing it’s very removed from just hanging out with them on the bus.

By this time I have cracked open the Vodka and am in full merch swing. There’s something not right though eh? Mike’s not here. Evile have a new bassist, introducing Joel.

Joel is one cool motherfucker. From the minute I met him, he was laid back smiles, open with a spark in his eyes. Check how gay I am for him! I guess because you can still see the nerves in him, this is a big fucking deal after all. Obviously I was intrigued to see what he would be like on stage, what the chemistry would be like between them all. First couple of songs in there are nerves for sure. An amazing reaction from the audience helps no doubt to disperse this. Matt says a few words and bam, they are in full thrash swing, new songs and old for the next hour to a killer audience and the whole place is sweaty and buzzing and chanting by the end of it.

We pack up, I sort out the merch money and hand it out and then we take as much of the rider as we can carry, including Evile’s Baywatch posters and hit the bus. Pammy goes up in the toilet and drinks are poured, cans cracked open and…this is where it all goes wrong!

Wrong in the best possible sense of the word of course. We were down at that bar making the most of the cheap Welsh drink prices till bus call at 2am. I don’t know how many Jager Bombs we knocked back? I don’t know how many cheesy 80’s Metal tracks we danced to? I do know that the last men standing so to speak were Lyall, Adam and John Laux the guitarists from Warbringer and me. All stretched out in the lounge on the bus drinking even more and chatting about god only knows what.

Good times in the venue before that found Ben the drummer from Evile, Joel the new boy, Nic the drummer from Warbringer and a couple of The Fading out on the dance floor or propping the bar up till the end! A fucking awesome first night and definitely a great way to start a difficult tour. Difficult because Mike is all around us in his absence.

For example, he was one of the party crew for sure. One of the reliefs that I have about Joel, is that he drinks and likes a party. See, Mike was always Bens drinking buddy, and one of the worries that me and Lyall had about this tour, was that Ben wouldn’t have that. It’s not gonna be the same, Joel is not Mike after all, but Evile are in a new chapter in their lives and it helps that although Joel is a new member, he bares striking similarities to Mike. I don’t know if that sounds stupid or not, but it’s all the things that matter, not just the big things, but the little things too.

I guess in a sub conscious way this is another reason why I have writers block. I am finding it so fucking hard to write about this tour. It seems wrong to have fun, to laugh. It seems wrong to talk about Joel in a positive way. It seems wrong to mention that Evile are O.K, wounded and scarred but getting on with it none the less. And it is incredibly hard to write about Joel without drawing comparisons to Mike. Anyway, enough for now, time to finish the story….

I wake up around 6 or 7 in the morning passed out cold in the lounge, my throat is dry so I’m pretty sure I’ve been snoring, I look over and Laux from Warbringer is passed out too, Adam is shuffling in to his bunk and we come to, stagger up and follow suit. Man this is gonna hurt when we wake up.

When we do wake up, we are in Wrexham. A shit night that ends well will be what today brings us.

Evile. Day 8.

2009-10-18T23:45:00.002+01:00

It’s snowing! This time last week we were just setting out on tour, driving to Dover and now we are deep in the North of Finland and it’s fucking snowing! Not a bad way to start your Monday all in all. Wake up in a motor home with your clan, outside the venue you rocked last night, get ready and drive off through Finland to do it all again! Hell yeah that’s how we roll fuckers!

Then I fall asleep again, and when I wake, no more snow. Fuck. Snooze you lose. I stay in ‘bed’ drifting in and out of consciousness till I finally pull my lazy arse self up and get in to a fit state to clean up in yet another service station wash room. Get this, Lyall and me only go and spot a Moomin comic hidden amongst all the other crap on the magazine shelves. A genuine Finnish Moomin comic!

Back on the road, we enjoy the last of the Finnish scenery before driving through in to Sweden where suddenly it’s all doom and gloom and dead babies everywhere. Jokes blood, it looks the same as Finland did!

Lyall, Ben and me pull over and get out to take pictures of lakes ‘cause we’re well gay for tourist snaps and then scurry back in quick cause it’s fooking freezing.

Sweden is pretty fucking rad so far, and once again, just as I start to drift off, we reach the venue. We are an hour early to when they let us in so again, Lyall, Ben and me take ourselves off on a wander so we can get some fresh air and stretch our legs. Take in the sights and generally not be cooped up in the motor home. We bumped in to Victor from Entombed and he’s up for coming for a run with me, which is cool cause the lack of exercise is doing my head in.

L.G had stuck his head in the driver’s window when we pulled up and had asked us for a ciggie, still not on top of that whole quit smoking thing huh. He points which way we should go for a wander and once parked that’s just what we do.

Mike just died.

I was in the middle of writing this in the dressing room when….I don’t know how to write this yet.

We are going home.

Mastodon’s ‘Crack the sky’ album is playing through the ipod. We are somewhere in Sweden, making our way from pretty far north back down again.

I keep drifting in and out of napping dozes. Last time I was awake, less than an hour ago, there was no music. I don’t know if that was because we weren’t ready for music. To have an artist propel us in to their story. To be suggested how to feel, what to think about.

None of us know how to feel or what to think about and at the same time we are feeling so much and thinking about everything.

This motor home, this small and claustrophobic space feels so unbearably empty. Stiflingly heavy. The silence will not quieten down so that you can hear yourself think. So you can try and attempt to register what the fuck has happened. But maybe that’s a good thing for now. Maybe that’s your head not letting you compute because it knows that you can’t handle the conclusion.

And so the numbness is bombed repeatedly by raw emotions, and these bombed repeatedly with numbness throughout every waking hour. Waves of awareness at what has happened hit you and you can see it in each persons eyes. Raw and red. Stinging from tears and insomnia and emotion and pain and shock.

This motor home feels like it’s stuck in this one time. Like we have been reliving this day for weeks. The same roads that led us through spectacular scenery a mere week ago now seem monotonous and never ending. This journey home where none of look like we want to go anyway.

Nine hours of this. Lyall drove us through nine hours like this. The first part was the worst. The burning absolute fucking agonising pain of leaving Mike behind. Trying to control the tears but they run free when they please. Everyone is exhausted. Just gone midnight we pull in to a service station to sleep. The absolute emotional exhaustion is a blanket over the whole motor home.

Wednesday. I think it’s Wednesday. The tour seems a million miles away. A million years away. There’s a gentle, subdued and eerie calm about us today. Texts are coming through but I’m loathed to pass on messages of condolence. No one has talked much yet. Mike and thoughts of Mike are being kept within each of us individually.

It’s like we need respite for a bit, ‘cause we know that if we vocalise anything to do with Mike, the rawness will come screaming back. There is an elephant in the motor home and no one is willing to point it out. Nobody needs to.

Two films, two books, god knows how many albums and a worryingly in depth and intense discussion over beer about tea and how to make the perfect cuppa, gets us through the day. We have made it to Denmark. Lyall drove us a further 11 hours away from the pain.

We have reminisced about mike. At some point today that became O.K. With trepidation. By the end there is laughter following silly stories about good times with Mike. We are massively relieved and at the same time pained to get on the ferry and leave Sweden. We stand on the deck and watch it disappear and say goodbye to him.

I get news from Victor that two major Swedish newspapers have covered it. The headline for one is ‘Rock star dies on tour’. He is going to keep it for us so that we can pass it on to his family. Word has come through of all the coverage, that a fund has been set up. I feel like this helps in some small way.

Tonight we will spend in a trucker’s lay by. I would usually say that it’s a perfect location for a horror movie but we are already in one.

We are nearly home now. In Holland. I can’t wait to get out of this fucking motor home and at the same time I can’t face the daunting task of being at home. Apart from knowing that the wound that we have done our best to dress while it heals, will be ripped and torn opened again when we have to face the reality of normal life and everyone in it, where as so far we have been cocooned together away from all that, there’s also the mammoth task that I for one am in no state to handle. I left everything I had in London frozen, safe in the knowledge that I’d be gone for a couple of months. Now what?

The guys feel like they have lost a limb that they can never get back. I feel like I’ve had my insides ripped out and stuffed back in and nothing sits right. How can anything else matter? How can anything else possibly matter right now?

Of course Mike can answer that. He already has. Mike died out on the road. On tour doing something he loved.

Mike and me were chatting earlier in the week about touring and how you cannot describe it to people who haven’t experienced it. We were banging on about how much we love going on tour, how much we love being on tour.

Mike didn’t die on the sofa, in front of the T.V watching some one else’s life playing out while talking about what he wants to do, what he’s going to do. He died while he was experiencing his own adventure. He was out there, chasing his dreams, he knew that they won’t come to you while you waste your life away doing nothing about them.

What happened to Mike could’ve happened to him while he was at home doing nothing. But he wasn’t. He was about to play a rocking fucking gig, on a European tour with his band, his mates, his brothers and he was living his dream.

I guess what I mean is that you don’t know when your time is going to be up, and I for one am going to do my damnedest to make sure that I’m as rocking as Mike when it’s my turn. As cruel as it sounds people, tick tock, tick tock.

We just reached Dover. God I wished it was the 24th of November and there was six of us.

R.IP. Mike. x

Evile. Day 7.

2009-10-18T23:41:00.001+01:00

And….we’re back people. Not gonna lie, just had a bit of a gathering round our gaff, the ol’ motor home with some of the crew and Entombed guys. Just how we roll…what!?

Tonight fucking rocked. Yes sir it surely did. Bad side though, I think I have a bit of a crush on some one on this tour and that’s a big ol’ fat no NO! Good luck me with that one eh.

Sold enough, drank enough, head banged enough, chatted enough….and so on and so forth. As I said, tonight was fucking A. Last night in Finland, land of the Moomins too, so I’m glad it was able to leave an impression, lord knows last night was wank.

The drive to the venue had been particularly mundane. No snow, just rain. There had been lovely snowy vistas apparently but it was proper early and I had still been asleep. Fail.

You know the score by now right? Service station stop, shit, shower ( baby wipes ) brush teeth and coffee. Thing is, the washrooms in Finland are badass. The toilet cubicles have little showers in them, they are always clean and that’s because people seem to look after their facilities better than us Brits. Bit more respect for each other. I have been trying to remember not to litter, to put my fag ends in the ashtrays outside and that, cause that is what people do here. It’s dead odd.

Also, I’m doing well on the ol’ food intake so far. It’s really easy when you’re on the road to eat utter shit all the time. Especially if you’re with men. They can, for the most part eat whatever they want, faster metabolisms, us girls cannot keep up with this if we don’t want to get all wobbly fat fucker on ourselves with volcano’s all over our faces.

Worryingly enough, I’m actually eating better on this tour than I do at home. I eat a couple of pieces of fruit a day, always found backstage, which I cannot afford at home. A proper meal at night, at home I get something worse cause I’m working at the pub so it’s shit from Sainsbury’s or some other crap dependent on how I’ve done on tips. Other than that it’s nuts and ham sandwiches. Sometimes crisp sandwiches. Score. I reckon if it wasn’t for my obscene alcohol intake every night, I’d definitely be losing weight on this tour!

The venue tonight is in Oulu, and in our tour book, it has the biggest capacity. 2500. It’s a massive warehouse type thing outside and when we walk in we are greeted by a fucking massive stage in a huge space. Wow. There’s a heavy, black curtain down the far end that cuts off the whole room. Behind that is another stage, the little runt brother of the big macho one. We will be playing on the runt one. Ouch. Apparently if it was a weekend night then the bigger stage would be getting used but Sundays are never busy enough.

It’s an early start tonight so rush rush time. I dump the merch stuff at the stand and go sit on the Evile equipment to finish writing up my blog, send emails and all the rest. The equipment keeps being taken from under me and soon I’m crossed legged on the floor with my laptop on a box in front. Dressing rooms give you cabin fever, and after the motor home I need space, lots of space. Tom, my merch buddy comes by and ruffles my head and says Hi to us all, I’m so chuffed I get to work with this dude every night.

We find our dressing room and once I’ve got my fucking writing out the way I head in there. I wrote on my own in the venue while Amon Amarth sound checked so I could concentrate, rather than get distracted in the dressing room pissing about with the guys.

I’m really running low on time now, I get dressed, make up on, hair brushed and shovel some food down in light speed time. The merch stand gets set up, we got more space tonight and it looks fucking sick. Evile are on the table again but actually it doesn’t matter, it looks great all laid out and I think it would get lost if it was up on the wall with the other two bands stuff.

Enough time for a quick smoke and sit down back stage in the loading area, where there are loads of old sofa’s against the walls running the length of the ramp while Evile finish up sound check and Bam….doors open time.

While I was setting up the last of the merch stand, the dude from Apocalyptica who plays the cello comes over and has a browse over the Evile stuff. He has been guest starring on the last three nights during the Amon Amarth set cause he was on one of they’re albums or something. He only fucking buys both albums! No shit, I was like I’m pretty sure you can just have them, and he was like I’m pretty sure I should pay for them though and I was like your call dude. What a fucking legend!. The guys were proper stoked.

So, I have already sold by the time the first of the customers comes up. Good times. Olle, the drummer from Entombed, Victor the bassist and some one else who I’m mot sure of hang out for a while with us, getting a t-shirt for their mate and we cajole Victor in to doing a beer run for us. Poor Tom is parched over here. We laugh cause it looks like it went straight over his head. Bless him he only comes back with two beers a bit later on.

Allow me to introduce you to some one though. Miss Beer Nazi. Seems you can’t have alcohol near the front door or some fucking shit, Finnish policy. Ooh I think I smell a jobs worth. So Victor has to turn around and go back. Me and Tom are well bummed out. Fuck that bitch though man. ( The venue crew informs me later when I’m banging on about it that she’s actually a very nice girl. I’m sure she is but she was a fucking cock to us and needs to drop the ‘tude. You ain’t Demi Moore in G.I Jane love. I could kick you in to next week easily.)

Like I said though. Fuck that. I got Lyall to go back stage, empty some water bottles and fill them up with my Raspberry Vodka and lemonade and bring them over to us. Safe blood, Tom and me got wasted right in front of Miss Beer Nazi all night long, Ha!

We are selling more tonight. Lots of hooded sweats and beanie hats for Tom and L.P’s and all sorts for me. Me and Tom, of course are having the (your mum)* time our lives. Well not the time of our lives but we’re having quite a good fucking laugh.

The Evile boys get proper bummed out during their show, apparently the immediate audience were totally non moving, non reactionary which is weird cause for the rest of the night they are asked for a whole bunch of autographs and pictures. Go figure.

The gig is over and the packing up is under way. Everyone is chilled and cool, ‘cept Mike who is feeling ropey. I help pack up the merch stand with Tom, who has a much greater amount to do than me with my two boxes. Then I piss about. Yeah, just piss about really. Get a ride on the trolley off one of the venue crew and shenanigans of that sort.

I’m pretty fucking drunk I reckon. I’m inviting whoever I walk past back to the motor home for drinks and then completely forget and after mincing around outside having a ciggie with some of the crew, am quite shocked to open up the motor home door to find people in it!

We got Victor from Entombed, Steve the stage manager, the soundman Paul and Amon Amarth’ drum tech! Full house!

Drinks all round, we’re having a fucking blast. Stories are being spewed out left, right and centre. Just as we are about to continue with more drinks…… bus call. Can you Adam and fucking Eve it?! Jeez time flies when your having fun eh. The guys all hop off and over on to they’re bus and before you know it they are gone and it’s just us left. Ho hum.

*Ben wrote that. Let me explain. Not much to explain really but he has reminded me of something I have forgotten to add so far. Your mum jokes. All over the fucking shop on this tour. We are all over them like a rash. See what he did? I turn my back for 5 minutes and he’s written it on me blog the cheeky begger.

Evile. Day 6.

2009-10-04T14:30:00.001+01:00

When I wake up, the motor home is pulling in to a service station and I rake myself together and stumble out bleary eyed with the rest of the band. We slope off to the washrooms to clean up, brush teeth, baby wipe wash and the like. Top up on petrol, bread and ham and back on the road.

Finland is just so fucking beautiful toady. The sun is out even though is freezing and the scenery makes you sure a grizzly bear will scamper across the road at some point. Don’t think that will happen since it’s not bear Country but you still expect it. There are warning signs for Moose but we never spotted any. L.J from Entombed assures me we will definitely see reindeer at some point, and probably hit one. Errmm…nice.

The other bands are already at the venue by the time we pull up. It’s a massive hall that looks like a run down disused school in the middle of nowhere. We are feeling more and more like we are in Black Metal land.

The venue is fucking sweet, massive with a phat stage and loads of seating and tables dotted about the place. Members of bands and crew are scattered about doing their things and chilling out, killing time. It is split in to two parts with crowd barriers. One has the bar within its enclave and is for the adults, the other has the stage in it and is for anyone without a drink. All ages gig. Interesting set up.

I can’t help noting the set ups of the venues we visit cause I have worked in live music venues for years and am always intrigued to see how other places rock it. Bit of a fucking geeky thing to do but you never know when you might find a cracking idea you can take back home and claim as your own eh!

Victor, bassist from Entombed is walking in from his their bus when we arrive so hellos all round and he shows us in. Hello’s and hugs to the rest of the people we have gotten to know a bit so far and it’s straight down to the business of unloading all the gear.

Me and Tom, my merch buddy are at the other end of the hall to the stage. Looks like I’ll be getting table space only again tonight, no worries, it looked pretty sweet last night so I know I can do it.

Steve the stage manager is stage left fiddling with technical stuff and shows me wa blow with that. Amon Amarth have stage left and Entombed and Evile have stage right. He tells me where our dressing room is, also sharing with Entombed, poor lads!

First task, as always is getting online on the wi-fi and answering emails, sending reports and figures and writing to the familia to let them know I haven’t been gang raped yet, I’m in one piece and that all is well. I think we are all really aware that we are sharing with the mighty Entombed and so no one looks massively relaxed at first.

Our dressing room is up some precarious steel stairs stage left, fuck I bet I end up stacking it on these bad boys. The room has windows over looking the stage with curtains across. Later on I will be peeking through them watching a bit of Entombed without realising that the singer from Amon Amarth is next to me doing the same. We are still not chatting freely with the AA massive. They are the lions and we are the cubs type thing.

Entombed are fucking blinding blokes. Tonight I get a chance to chat with them a bit more and they are a proper laid back and easy going bunch.

Dinner is burrito’s or tortilla or cheeseburgers and chips. My burrito is the best one I’ve ever had, not a fan of Mexican food , find it too rich so probably this was a really shit one. Wash them down with a beer and sweet as a nut it’s wash time.

Seriously feeling like a right scum fuck toady. The shower has no door so I take over the whole locker room making sure everyone knows I’m in and that it’s out of bounds till I’m done. Matt is the nearest to it, pissing about on his guitar so I double check with him that he’ll make sure no one goes in. Victor lends me his hair band, the one bloody thing I forgot and I’m good to go.

That shower was like heaven. I did not ever want to leave it. Running short on time though so bish bash bosh it and crack on with making myself up so I don’t look and feel like I been living in a motor home for the past week.

Merch stand is set up pretty much the same as the night before, sound checks out the way and it’s doors open time. Bigger capacity tonight and after doing so well last night I’m feeling kinda cocky.

Fucking shouldn’t have. Check this out. I sold nothing for the first hour. I literally wanted to kill myself. I’m selling Entombed and Amon Amarth but no Evile. Finally after an eternity of pain, I start selling. By the end of the night I have nearly reached the labels target, thank fuck but I’m hoping and praying that this will be the worst sales night or we are screwed and I’m going to have to go on the game.

There are a whole lot of absolutely wasted Finns coming in and Tom my merch buddy is looking pretty strained too so there’s nowt else to do but pull out the vodka and beer. By the time Entombed come on stage we are both merry and taking the piss out of the idiot drunks who keep falling about the stand and trying to barter prices down.

I skive off the stand a whole bunch cause there is nothing to do, no one at it for huge periods of time, and go for smokes out the dressing room window, drink, watch the bands and check my emails, but generally skive, it’s just too depressing.

Evile leave the stage after they’re set to the crowd chanting ‘more more more’. Fuckin A. I get a lot of creepy drunk men asking me if I want to come have a drink with them, jeez, it’s like being behind the bar for fucks sake. I wouldn’t mind but they’re not fucking buying anything, just wasting my time. Buggers.

The staff there are fucking genius, and after all is packed up I hang around and smoke with them, people are so friendly when your out on the road and not from around their parts. Tonight we were very definitely in Black Metal land. As the kids walked past I wondered which ones have burnt down churches and have serial killer tendencies. Quite a fun game as it goes. I’m pretty sure I nailed it on a few of them.

Me and Tom have for sure bonded now. He is a fucking winner and I’m well chuffed I get to hang with him every night. My new drinking partner.

I got to chat with Alex form Entombed tonight for the first time too. The fucking coolest guy. We chatted about family and tattoo’s and travelling, he has this kind of quiet Shaolin monk vibe going on. All wise and knowing but with smiley eyes. He seems kinda unapproachable on meeting, but he is proper fucking laid back and helpful and totally has time for us Evile minions.

L.J is also a number one legend. He is just the fucking sweetest guy. Well chatty and friendly. He’s quitting smoking so isn’t buying them and now and again will pop up on the scrounge for one, all apologetic like. Funny as fuck. I got to meet the drummer too, who’s name I can’t spell, Ollu or Olli? Well funny guy. And Victor, although not reliable for a beer run, is the sweetest guy. Tom and me pull him up on his hair. It’s fucking long man! We are standing at the merch table deep in conversation about it for far too long before catching ourselves, laughing at how gay we are and shrugging it off with shuffling feet and drinks to mouths.

Basically a really cool group of mother fuckers, which is sweet cause all this can be a bit daunting.

It’s pissing it down with rain, I have no idea how all those people got there, and how the hell they all got home but its lights out and off to the motor home. Ol is already in bunk, Matt and Mike are making sarnies and Ben is stomping around cursing, trying to get his broke arse phone to work. Lyall is chatting away and all is as it should be as we get ourselves tucked in, gas heater on, ready for another much needed sleep, all be it cold before we do it all again tomorrow.

Evile. Day 5. Part 2.

2009-10-03T16:35:00.001+01:00

A whole lot of fucking waiting around now folks. We all make the most of the free wi-fi but then that’s done and boring, there’s only so long you can stay on facefuck banging on about how you’re in Helsinki. I send my merch info and post my blogs from the last couple of days and generally just sit behind my laptop watching all the goings on. Oh and I’m drinking. Good times. Amon Amarth eating, Amon Amarth chatting, Amon Amarth watching DVD’s on their laptops. Entombed eating, Entombed chatting. Entombed watching DVD’s on their laptops.

Outside I had met a few more people, one of whom is Steve, the stage manager and guitar tech. Small world time, I know him from years back when I was a bouncer at The Devonshire Arms, and more recently the Big Red. Diamond fella is Steve. Had a catch up, turns out like so many of our British men, he found himself a gorgeous Swedish girlfriend and moved over there.

So Amon Amarth and Entombed will know that I was a bouncer, this helps in my bid to get taken seriously as one of the crew and not a groupie, since I am the only girl on this get up.

My merch buddy for the tour will be Tom, from Sweden. Previously done merch for Machine Head and that level of players so I’m excited to see what I can learn of this dude and also nervous to make a good impression. I go and introduce myself to him and explain that he is the Jedi to my Padawan self. I think he thinks I’m a fucking lunatic. We are gonna get on just fine you’ll see.

Again, I cannot set up Evile merch until Tome has finished setting up Amon Amarth’s and Entombed. So it’s more fucking hanging around which means, more drinking. We finally get to hit up the buffet, by which time we are fucking starving. Rice, chicken, salad and bread . I pile my plate up high and go up the balcony with a beer to watch Entombed sound check while I eat my dinner. Not a fucking bad way to live eh!? The chicken is the most amazing thing I have eaten in a long time and Entombed are sick.

I ask Steve if he can point me in the right direction for a Dentist when we get to Sweden and he calls the Amon Amarth singer over, who has apparently just been himself. This is getting twilight zone stylee. Does a visit to the Dentist with Amon Amarth await me? What la fuck?

I fuck off outside for a tab and to collect myself and then set up the merch stand. Evile have to sell at the same price as the other two bands, which is a bit nerve racking. There is no wall space left for me to hang t-shirts so I present everything as best I can on one of the long tables. Evile sound check and by the time they have finished, doors are open and there are loads of people buying merch and waiting to get in to the gig area.

In the short space of time before Evile play, I pass both the labels daily sales target and mine!. Holy fuck, what a fucking relief. I’m also helping Tom with sales of the other 2 bands, since I’m not going to get all arsey when a customer asks for that and not Evile stuff. That makes no sense to me. Every merch stand I’ve shared before, this is how I’ve rolled. You help each other out for an efficient night with maximum sales for all.

Tom seems perplexed by this, so maybe that’s not the way on a tour of this scale but I’m grass roots so whatever, that’s how it is rolling and by the end of the night he an I have shared booze and the bonding is done. We are brothers in merch arms. We fucking ruled that night and I know that for Evile we surpassed our sales target 3 fold. SWEET! Still, don’t count your chickens too soon or something, I’m not going to assume that every night will be this good.

All the bands rocked the fuck out of that Finnish venue and the mood was ace by the end of the night. Everyone was drunk and happy. Mike more so than the rest. Mike managed to cane his entire bottle of vodka, what a fucking legend.

At some point during the night, Tom and me are sell sell sell all over the shizzle when down the stairs in front of us saunters Mike, who starts jigging away like he’s Christopher bloody Walken in the Fat Boy Slim video, a cheeky little glint in his eye. Right up to us he comes, and smiles at us both, pointy finger dancing about on the spot “ I’m dunk” Yeah you are!. No shit Sherlock! Ha! Fucking legend. He amuses us for a bit then swaggers off elsewhere to bring joy and festivities in to the heart of others. Funny drunk Mike.

A couple of hours later, one by one I get reports of the rest of the band that , yes indeed, Mike is drunk. So drunk that he has passed out in the dressing room after puking down himself and is rolling around on the floor. Then an ironing board fell on top off him and he just lay there laughing his arse off along with the other guys who were watching the whole sorry affair. Bless. What a bunch of fucking losers, you gotta love it.

We pack up and I hang back to help Tom clear up. There are random drunk as fuck Finnish people dotted around the venue. Finnish people like a drink man, very funny bunch. I’m quite drunk myself by now and we debate going to a rock bar round the corner.

It is fucking freezing, so we pour in to the motor home parked outside behind the other bands night liner and put the gas heater on while we figure out what we are doing. Ben is drunk *and has already gone off to the bar with a bunch of people. Ol has gone to bunk and Mike is passed out cold in the front seat. Apparently he had opened the door earlier to be sick but fell out instead. Win.

We get a knock on the door and it’s Steve. In the end we didn’t go out. We sat there prompting Steve for tales from the road, the man has worked with everyone. We heard about Anthrax and Slayer and all sorts. Suddenly I’m feeling drowsy, either a contented tiredness or too many painkillers on copious amounts of booze. No matter, I’m done for. A quick ciggie outside and time to make up the bed.

We all nestle in with our gas heater on and sleep. It is 4.30 in the fucking morning people. Gods honest truth I thought it was about 1.30. That’s how fucking amazing tonight has been.

* Ben: “ I wasn’t fuckin’ drunk!”

Evile. Day 5. Part 1.

2009-10-03T16:34:00.001+01:00

I don’t think anyone slept well on the majestic Galaxy. The pillow we each had disappeared under any weight and the bunks were well uncomfortable. This is coming form a bunch of people who have just spent the last week sleeping in a motor home you know! Of course it didn’t matter all that much, we had to be up and out by 6 AM and in our vehicles waiting to pull out.

Finland. Land of crazy Metal heads and expensive booze. And Moomins most importantly. I bet Moomins fucking love Metal. They must do, probably black metal or some such kind. A Moomin mosh pit. Now there’s a thing to see. I might get that tattooed on me next time I’m drunk.

Sorry, I digress. We are now in Finland. Ol is asleep, shockingly, Mike has taken himself off to Matt’s bunk and Lyall is at the wheel. Matt, Ben and me are chewing the cud.

We reach an interesting conundrum and a realisation that none of us ever thought of. After talking about having sisters and brothers and how much you used to fight when you were younger it comes to our attention that sister hitting is really the only acceptable form of physical violence towards women.

Like, if you were to say “oh yeah me and my sister had a massive fight and I chucked my drink over her so she kicked me in the nads, so I jumped her and Chinese burned the fuck out of that bitch and wacked her upside her stupid fucking head”, you wouldn’t be shocked and like ‘what the fuck ’ at all right? But if you were like “ oh yeah me mum slapped me cause I was rude to her so I slapped her about a bit”. Not o.k. Same goes for “I beat my girlfriend / daughter / Nan / any woman. But your sis’ is o.k. Weird.

We all sit there with furrowed brows thinking this through for a while before committing to standing by such an outlandish claim, but I think we are all quite confident that for some bizarre reason it is indeed o.k. to be physically violent towards a woman as long as she is your sister.

Even more shocking than this sudden realisation is Matt has a can of cider. It is 7 AM ish and Matt and Mike are drinking cider. Wonders never cease. God I’m fucking proud.

After this I take me self off to bed. Ha! Not because I was so shocked and outraged by the sister-beating thing, was just feeling a bit sleepy is all and have a big night ahead.

I tried the bunk above the drivers seat and found it surprisingly comfortable, like being in a little tree house. It had always looked well claustrophobic but now I’m pissed I can’t sleep up there all the time. The boys are all still talking and fucking about with music. We had gone through all of the Bill Hicks that Lyall had on his ipod in Sweden and were back on to random song changing. I stretched out with my Lester Bangs book and after a couple of pages gave up and shut my eyes.

When I woke we were parked outside the venue in Helsinki and the guys were getting their stuff together to go for a wander. Ben needed a new drum skin and all of them wanted to bask in the glory of unbearably hot women everywhere. I was all snug in my bunk so fucked it off and left them to they’re boy time.

When they got back I was over the whole bunk thing and itching to get out with cabin fever setting in so off we went back out to a Metal shop they had found with a signed copy of the new C.D to give to them and some flyers to litter the town with. Dunno why, tonight is sold out motherfuckers!

We bump in to the singer from Amon Amarth, who has just bought himself some bed linen for the night rider they are all on cause apparently the sheets are “scratchy”. Awesome.

After hanging out at the Metal shop for a bit, we stroll back to the venue to unload but see the pecking order has changed my friends. Evile are now opening not headlining, bottom of the ladder so to speak.

This means we cannot unload till the other two bands have, obviously Evile sound check is last and we cannot eat till they have eaten. We meet the tour manager, Wolfgang, who seems pretty cool and definitely knows his shit. He wants to know who is in charge and so Lyall goes off with him to see the dressing room and get the lowdown. We will not directly communicate anything to Wolfgang but will go through Lyall. This is to avoid confusion, not because he is a cock. He isn’t, this is just a really good level of organisation and professionalism. What a fucking winner. I already like him.

Our dressing room is the laundry room. Sweet, we get all our sweaty clothes and take the opportunity to do a bit of washing! The rider is lots of beer and a bottle of vodka for Mike, the bassist. Mike is going to get fucked up tonight. Hell yeah he is.

Evile. Day 4. Travel Day.

2009-10-02T12:46:00.001+01:00

2 AM. We are still driving. Well, Lyall is. The ferry port is ahead of us, where the first of three ferry rides awaits us. I am going to try my hardest to describe to you the following hour but I’m not sure you will ever truly believe what Evile, Lyall and me experienced.

We had left Ol asleep in his bunk once we had been shuttled on to the ferry, got out and headed up for a wander. I was still dressed in my merch outfit, in hindsight not the best idea but it just didn’t cross my knackered mind to put some proper trousers on.

As soon as we get in to the main area of the ferry, where the food court is, we notice something. This boat is only carrying lone men. Truckers and the sorts. A whole lot of immigrants. There is a smattering of women with children. None of these people look Danish, where we are heading, or German, where we are leaving. They look like ghosts. And this is the ghost ship.

Nothing is open. Most seating areas are closed off. The ‘trucker lounge’ is open, with a tele'. Seriously, it is called the trucker lounge. Only truck drivers are allowed in it.

People are just standing around. Lone men. Turkish, Algerian, African, al sorts. They are suddenly roaming around in packs. And I am there, in my fucking shorts. I have high denier thick black tights on, you know the ones. Doesn’t matter. To these men, I have prostitute written all over me. I don’t think I even have that about me actually. I think I have dead in a ditch use my body as you will written all over me. I can see it in their eyes. I am a hole.

I know right, I’m being over dramatic. No. I hoped so, but no. I turn to the guys and they all have shock and fear on their faces too. We are walking down a corridor looking like rabbits in headlights. Really slowly. It’s like time has stood still. It’s that bit in the Western when the saloon doors open and everyone stops drinking and turns and stares at you. It’s the mother fucking Green Mile.

I had Lyall and Ben in front of me and Matt and Mike behind me, we had just come from upstairs where we were hoping to find some seats in a corner where we might be less conspicuous but alas all we found was ‘Rapist lounge’ with a bunch more dodgy lone men, some were bigger than me and I’m quite a length.

So back downstairs and along the corridor. I can’t believe we didn’t get mugged or attacked, seriously. It was proper laree. There we are at the end of this corridor of terror, and we have nowhere else to go. We aren’t allowed in the Motor home while the ferry is moving so for the next half hour we just stand there, with our backs to the wall shaking our heads in disbelief and cracking wise arse jokes and probably quite racist ones in hushed tones at each other, then sniggering under our breath. We debated the possibility that they were as petrified of us as we were of them, if they were just as startled and just as intrigued by us. But no, I'm afraid not. I have travelled a lot and seen a lot and I know a stand off when I see one. There was nothing nice about the vibe on that ferry. The Rape Ferry, as it shall be referred to forever more.

As we scarpered back to the motor home, looking over our shoulders, we joked about how Ol had slept right through it all. Then someone pointed out that they might have found him, he could be mutilated and violated in his bed, and it would all be our fault for leaving him alone on the Rape Ferry.

Of course when we got back in to the safety of the motor home, Ol was tucked up fast asleep and I hid behind the curtains till we were far, far away. We still speak of the Rape Ferry with fear in our voices today. Thank fuck we are not going the same way home.

Shortly after this and about half a dozen chain smoked ciggie’s later, I asked Matt if I could take his bunk for a couple of hours shut eye and took myself off to the bunks. When I woke we were stationary at a service station and everyone was asleep except Matt. I gave him his bed back and curled up on a seat till Lyall woke up. Freshened up in the ladies bathroom and threw some jeans and a hoody on. The climate had changed, we had finally reached Sweden.

The drive through Sweden went like this. I wrote thousands of words while sitting up front chain-smoking with Lyall. The others slept, played computer games or stared out the windows. Now and again I would do the same. The landscape of Sweden for the most part was trees. Miles upon miles of massive trees. We stopped a bunch of times, I had to shit 3 times that drive. 3 fucking times. Jeez. We grabbed a MacDonald’s, where Lyall and Ben met some random guy from Derby, who now lived in Sweden with his girlfriend.

Other than a massive choppy lake that we drove alongside for at least half an hour and reminded me of The Pacific Coast Highway, there really wasn’t anything notable of our Sweden drive. We got to the ferry port in good time and boarded the mother ship of all ferries, the Galaxy.

Now this is a fucking ferry. We park up, collect our overnight stuff and walk past a night liner to the stairs. We are not the only band on board. We suspect that Entombed and Amon Amarth may well be here somewhere too.

We have 2 cabins, 3 bunks in each. You can just about swing a cat in them so we are feeling spacious and posh. Well, I am anyway. After freshening up, Lyall, Ben and me get straight down to business. Duty Free. A fuck off bottle of raspberry vodka and a whole heap of tobacco later I’m good to go. The boys settle on a crate of cider and we all knock some back in our cabin before hunting out some grub.

Dinner tonight consists of over priced meatballs, sauce and smash. Not bad, will be hard to get drunk after this though. Dammit. Schoolboy error. Next is the hunt for Internet connection. Yawn. It is available in all public area bars so we set up and switch on. And wait. FOREVER. My fucking Spectrum was faster than this.

After a long and frustrating time I give up and go find the bogs to get rid of this bladder full I been sitting on for far too long. I walk past what looks like The Entombed massive and sure enough when I get back to where me and the guys are sitting, they are too. We all meet and introduce ourselves, mainly through the Bassist, Victor, who Evile know from previous tour days and before you know it we are kicking back chatting about the tour.

Parting ways due to an obscenely early start ahead of us, all seems well in the camp. Except my fucking mouth. My teeth on the left side feel dangerously like they are loose and once again, I am in fucking agony. Still, at least I have a litre bottle of Vodka and we aren’t on the Rape Ferry.

Evile. Day 3. Hamburg.

2009-10-02T12:39:00.000+01:00

So we made it through the night people! No one got mutilated, tortured or chased around the desolate space that we called home for the night. Winners. No, we slept like babies and got up needing shits and net use. All but Matt, the singer got our shit together and headed up the road and round the corner to find a café and an internet café that we had been told was near by.

We stopped at a pharmacy and I stocked up on painkillers, Mike got some mouth gel for his outbreak of ulcers that were attacking him viciously and then crossed the road to the Internet café. It is exactly like the ones you find in Kentish Town and that. Some old Muslim dude pointed us to a couple of filthy desks and me and Ol set to on updating everyone with wa blow in the Evile camp. We made it swift cause the toilet really was number one priority.

On the walk back we talked of how Matt had better of got up and prettied up the motor home. Set the table for breakfast and be wearing a piny. Of course he wasn’t. The motor home is still not too smelly and messy though, it is only day 3 to be fair though eh.

We hit a service station and go about our business and then off we go, Hamburg just a 4 or 5 hour drive ahead of us. We all had little naps, Matt and me took turns sitting up front with Lyall, listened to music on the forces radio and before we knew it the docks of Hamburg were looming up ahead of us.

Lyall had been cursing the road we were on, saying how it was always congested and traffic jams ahoy cause of the docks and I didn’t really pay him much mind till I saw with my own eyes what he was banging on about.

Hamburg on entry is quite some fucking sight. Massive fuck off cranes on conveyer systems run the lengths of the docks. Gigantic fucking ships loaded with unbelievable amounts of container crates wait to be unloaded or loaded. Impressive railway lines and highways criss cross all over the shop and it all has this weird sort of grace about it.

I am just staring out the window with my mouth hanging open as we hit the Elb tunnel that cuts under the water and soon we are back out and within 10 minutes we are pulling up outside the Ballroom, the venue for tonight.

It’s a shame that we didn’t have any spare time, Hamburg is definitely a place that would be ace to have a wander round. As it was we were kinda late, so got straight to it, unloading and setting up for sound check.

Drone were already there and the singer was his usual obnoxious but charming self. My merch buddy, Costa was all set up so I cracked on did my thing while the band set up.

This place had the dressing room downstairs, which was fucking huge and had showering facilities so as soon as I had the merch stand done I grabbed my girlie shizzle from the motor home and waited till Lyall got done with his cleaning time.

Let me explain how the land lies at this point in the tour. Till this point it had been all about baby wipes and sinks at service stations. We have only been out 3 days now but you feel scabby proper fucking quickly when you’re on the road. On top of this we have a big ol’ drive ahead of us starting immediately after this gig, going through the night, right through the next day, the following night, till Friday. So everyone wants a shower. Next opportunity will hopefully be on the ferry from Sweden to Finland. But who knows.

So, while the guys sound check I get Lyall to put the door that was leaning against the wall, back in to the doorframe behind me and wash, shave and fake tan. By the time I get out I am refreshed and dressed in my slutty bar clothes, now slutty merch selling clothes and the guys have finished sound check.

Evile don’t fuck about when it comes to sound check. They bish bash bosh it. They all take turns showering and the rest of us hunker down around our laptops, making the most of the wi-fi. Loads of emails from the record label await us, interview times given for when we reach Helsinki and queries over merch sales.

One of the frustrating parts of touring is the incessant need to be online ALL THE FUCKING TIME. See, now days everyone has a blog to write for….daily. And, the record label expects updates on everything….daily.

Two things. First off, you don’t always get the luxury of wi-fi. Also, when you do get it, it’s when you are at the venue and therefore quite tied up with the job at hand, putting on the gig that you are there to do. It is hard to understand that when you’re at the other end and not on the tour.

Secondly, you are on a fucking tour man. It should be about scandalous debauched rock n roll living, not sitting around bent over your fucking laptop doing the ‘paper work’. I mean fuck. Seriously, by the time reports have been done and sent and updates made to this that and the other, you haven’t the fucking time to let loose and make some fucking legend stories that will follow the band for years to come! Still, here I am, writing. If I’ve just shattered any dreams and illusions don’t worry, I am also currently drinking. For the team eh.

Dinner tonight consists of pasta with tomato and basil sauce. There is a whole lot of plate and not so much pasta. I cooked better than this at Uni', and I can’t cook for SHIT. Who cooked this? Were they not aware that they were cooking for two metal bands and the crew, 6 people of which are relying on this as they’re only meal of the day before a long gig and an even longer fucking drive?

On with the show, empty stomachs or not. Doors open and a smattering of people come in. Bad ticket sales don’t dampen the metal spirit and the show kicks off strong. The owner of the club is not down with the smoking ban and so everyone is lighting up lie it’s the nineties. Hell yeah, I chain smoke all over the shop with my merch buddy, drinking and dancing and head banging.

Evile have a front row of head bangers tonight instead of a bunch of prom queens and so the set is filthy and raw and strong. I get some great footage on the camcorder, mainly cause some dude came introduced himself for filming all these big band names and pushed his assistant towards me who took the camera and went about getting crotch shots and close ups and all sorts. Genius.

She had said that from the side I look like Cyndi Lauper and he said that from the back I look like his mate Mike. I made him buy me a shot for that. Touché.

Lyall had taken himself off to bed after ‘dinner’ and as soon as the gig finished we started packing up and our promoter took him a coffee to wake him up. I came in just under the labels target so was bummed out but who was there bought something so what can you do?

There was a fella who had missed Evile play twice, once in Bradford 3 years ago when his car broke down and once when they were supporting and the whole gig had been cancelled. He was pretty fucking cool, bought some stuff, so when Mike came upstairs I introduced them and mike took him off to the dressing room to hang with the band for a bit. Of course they were for the most part busy on the laptops doing work, which probably killed the dream a bit for him. Ha!

All packed up, goodbyes done and off we go. Well, we get jammed down a one way cobbled street with a taxi coming our way but after that….whoosh, we are outta there. Other than Ol, we all stay up, drinking and chatting and pissing about. Me and Matt take turns playing D.J and generally the mood is one that we are all in this together, side by side. Lyall has to drive for two days and there is no way on gods earth any of us will see him sitting up front on his own for any of that. There’s one of the other beauties of touring for you. Comradeship.

Evile. Day 2. Osnabruck.

2009-10-02T12:36:00.001+01:00

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…”

Evile European tour. Day 1.

2009-09-30T17:58:00.000+01:00

The petrol station where we have just pulled in to for the night is playing Gloria Estefan; The rhythm is going to get you. Oh Belgium. Belgium, Belgium, Belgium. It’s the little things like this that make touring the stuff of dreams I tell you. One of the joys of Europe is that the radio stations are stuck a decade behind, so little gems you haven’t heard or thought to ever listen to again crop up all the time. It’s a guilty pleasure for all of us. There is no pisser though. Which could prove problematic.

So let me explain. I’m here in Belgium with U.K thrash metal band, Evile. They are supporting Amon Amarth and Entombed for the next couple of months on a European tour and at the last minute, asked me to come along and sell some merch for them. Oh go on then.

First stop is North Germany, Osnabruck. The Bastard Club. So far we have got over the channel on the ol’ ferry from Dover to Calais and driven up to this random motorway petrol station that we find ourselves parked at right now.

The guys picked me up from Canterbury West train station where I travelled down to from London the night before so that I could catch up with me mum. She was so nervous for me all of Monday that I nearly had to slap her about the face and tell her to snap out of it, bless her cotton socks. Not gonna lie, I was bricking it slightly too. Quite a bit really. This is the longest I will have been away for and my first tour round Europe. Two things are crossing my mind.

First up, after many months of tooth pain, I thought it wise to get the offending fucker ripped out before being stuck in some corner of Europe in agony. Out came a wisdom tooth less than a week before we set out and by Monday, pick up day, I am in fucking agony. Shit. The dentist does some concentrated fluoride jobby that “should last you a couple of months” and I am assured that all will be well in me mouth.

But, more importantly than that I am going to get to see a fuck lot of Europe. In no particular order we will be hitting: France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Holland. Of course I will not see much of any of these places, such is the nature of touring but hey, it’s a damn sight better than never seeing them at all.

So. Mum has waved us off with sarnies and pop and soon we are on the ferry. Ol is trying not to puke, he doesn’t travel well it seems, sucks for him that all we will be doing is travelling for the next couple of months really eh! Ha! Still, although never finding his sea legs he does soldier through and the ‘vom’ count stays at nil.

Me, Ben the drummer and Lyall hit the duty free shop for booze and end up having to browse it for 20 minutes cause regulations won’t let you buy any plonk till your such and such and blah blah whatever type thing. Ben is musing over travel monopoly and I am musing over the fact of life that there is something about these types of shops that overpower your mind in to believing you need a fucking miniature bear on a key ring, or a piece of lavender and camomile soap. A fictional book on child abuse where the main character overcomes her/his past and is eventually capable of living a normal life. (Seriously, on the special offer books section by the till there were three of these types of books. What la fuck?)

These fucking shops are just filled with crap and I want to buy it all. I need perfume that is now €62 instead of €69. I need a travel gift pack of eau de toilettes. And I need cuddly fucking toys. Lots of them. Also I need country fudge and shortbread in fucking tins and tea towels with quirky images of bears and the Towers Of London on them. I need Polly pocket vets surgery and shopping malls and matchbox cars and a Harry Potter wand. No wait, I need some fucking liqueur, snap out of it girl, don’t fall for their whily selling techniques. They won in the end of course, I left with a ltre bottle of Malibu?!

Lyall, who is our driver and tour manager is an old touring buddy of mine in a sense. We worked together over the summer at a festival in East Germany. After checking on the band, we find the open deck where we sit on a bench chain smoking, me drinking Malibu out of the bottle as the lights of Dover move further and further in to the distance.

We catch up and talk about the months ahead and both admit to feeling quite melancholy, watching our homeland retreat in to the horizon, knowing that we won’t be seeing it for quite some time. Then we have another fag, I swig some more Malibu in a bid to numb my throbbing mouth pain and we forget all about England. I mean jeez, it’s still gonna fucking be there when we get back eh! Truth be told I can’t fucking wait to leave it.

I would say that I woke up Tuesday morning and then go on to tell the tale but I don’t think I ever properly went to sleep. The first of many firsts you see. Last night we had pitched up at a petrol station in Belgium and it was the first night sleeping in our trailer trash motor home. It’s fucking tiny. Five grown men and me. And I take up a lot of space.

Right, what we got? We have two single bunks at the back next to the ‘bathroom’. Then, in the middle is the kitchen area and opposite that is a table with seats that all needs to be dismantled and turned in to a double bed. Above the driving seat is another bunk that can be pulled out to make a double.

Ol and Matt, Evile’s guitarist and singer are getting the bunks at the back cause they always go to bed before everyone in the whole world probably. Lyall is above the driver’s seat and bizarrely, Mike the bassist is sleeping in the passenger seat. Apparently he sleeps sitting upright. There’s a lot of ‘Vietnam vet’ about Mike. Me and Ben top to tail in the middle bed, the one that used to be a table and chairs.

Lyall, Ben and me take ourselves off to a bench outside and drink for an hour or two and then call it a night. Between the absolute fucking throbbing agony that has now spread all up the left side of my face, the new surroundings and company and being paranoid that ill move around too much in my sleep, I barely get any sleep. You know the sort. Disjointed and unsatisfying where you’re not quite aware of if you did actually get any sleep or you were just trying to. Probably I was in and out every hour. The last couple of hours I’m literally just waiting for when it’s time to get up and have completely given up on sleep.

Finally we all get up and stagger off to use the restroom in the now open restaurant. Teeth are brushed, poo’s are had and coffee is bought and off we go. Next stop, Osnabruck, North Germany.

Evile video shoot. Infected Nations. Shepperton Studios. Warehouse 7.

2009-08-21T17:22:00.003+01:00

Smoke. Lot’s of smoke. And a cube. A really big fucking cube. A big cube big enough to fit lots of smoke and a thrash metal band. Welcome to the Evile video shoot for their upcoming single Infected Nations off the new album by the same name.

An early meet at Waterloo station finds me running the length of it to make the 9.42 am train with Talita, Evile’s press officer, Julie, their manager and Tom roadie to the metal massive. I just make the train as it pulls out and by the time we hit Shepperton, the middle of nowhere I have pretty much woken up. I can’t complain though, Evile have been at the studio since 8.30 am. Ouch.

Studio F, where all the magic making is happening is basically a massive empty warehouse. In the middle, a 15 ft Perspex box has been erected, and inside that…Evile. There are 4 huge lamps beaming down from above the cube, with a camera mounted on a trolley, and one on a crane that swings about while Evile pretend to play, so as to catch different angles from all sides of the cube.

There are about a dozen people working behind these cameras, the director, the assistant, runners, grips and god knows. All studiously nit picking and pouring over every detail. Muttering amongst themselves whilst squinting into their lenses, pointing and agreeing and moving stuff, taping stuff and then squinting again.

When we arrive, Ben’s drum kit is being assembled inside the cube. He is busy gaffa taping the symbols to deaden and muffle their sound, and a studio hand is putting dead skins on his drums. The rest of the band, Ol, Matt and Mike are wandering around aimlessly plucking away on their guitars and bass, chatting and generally killing time till they are called for again.

We catch up briefly and then go sit at the side, out of the way and get ready to watch as the guys all walk into the box before another studio hand tapes up the opening behind them. Why? For the smoke! A smoke machine pumps in a blast of smoke and within seconds you cannot see the band at all. As the smoke clears, silhouettes appear, holding guitars, a bass and sitting behind an almighty drum kit. There are shadows of the guys all distorted from the lighting and the whole set up looks badass mother fucking ninja sex cool! Already I can’t wait to see the final cut and the thing hasn’t even been made yet.

There are many stops and starts, as goes with video shoots. The band start, the filming starts and then…cut. Something gets shuffled and it’s back to square one. Within an hour we all know the lyrics and riffs and beat. See, this still isn’t any hardship though, the song rocks, and as I said, the video is proper dark.

At noon we start getting calls from extra’s who are beginning to turn up to play the role of ghostly ghouls that will eventually end up hurling themselves in to the box at the end of the video after much zombie walking and banging around the shop.

Originally, Evile had asked their friends to do the extra work and initially had the full quota, but as it got closer and closer to the day people inevitably end up dropping out due to other commitments and so come the morning of the shoot we were in dire need of a handful more.

We ended up with the required fifteen which included a couple of U.K thrash band Mutant, the guitarist from Juggern0rt, a whole bunch of London based friends from facebook, Tom the roadie and me.

Our outfits for the day were massive black cloaks with huge hoods that had been borrowed from a Harry Potter film and black tights over our faces. Sweet! We soon all get in to it after some initial trepidation and could be found fucking about like monsters and zombies for about an hour, then we could be found sitting in the hallway outside the studio looking piss bored.

The extra’s were awesome, a few of them had books but for the most part they all just chilled out chatting with each other, about metal mainly and were total soldiers to the cause. No complaining or winging, fucking troopers the lot of them.

We had taken a break for lunch and hit the canteen, proper school dinner grub for all. So everyone is chatting away, shovelling food down their throats when it suddenly becomes apparent that a couple of the guy’s friends have managed to pick up a random stray on the way to the studios and have no idea who he is but are quite sure that he is not entirely compus mentus. So, off I go to investigate. Ha.

After some awkward silences instigated on my part, he leaves. Turns out he just tagged along, when I asked him what he was supposed to be doing that day he replied “drinking”. WTF. Care in the community at it’s finest. Freaks and food over, it’s back to the film set darlings.

More of the same really eh, that’s video shoots for you, lots of hanging around doing nothing, feeling a tad nervous for your upcoming ghoul debut but equally trying not to fall into a deep staring in to space coma. Eventually, it’s the turn of the ghouls. The Evile massive have been filmed from every angle and the video is in need of some ghostly figures creeping around with a menacing manner about them.

The director calls in two, then four and then all of us, she directs us to move slowly like zombies towards the box of Evile and then mock thump and bang on the Perspex walls but not too hard or the whole thing will collapse! We do this a couple of times, then get to shove our heads through cling film which is imitating the Perspex walls of the box. I got to head butt my bit of cling film but it took too long to break through and I’m pretty sure I got relegated to the bench. Ouch. Goddamn stage fright.

Suffocating slowly in our tights, reminiscent of all great failed bank robbing head gear, and sweltering under the heavy cloaks, every one is sweating heavily and agreeing we feel mildly chuffed that the poor Harry Potter cast will be having to don these at some later date.

I, at this point had to bid my farewells and leave the shelter of Shepperton studios back to the reality and grime of London and you will never guess what I fucking missed….they got to ram the Perspex in! They got to charge it, ram it and collapse it! On to the band! HA! Fuckin A. cannot wait to see this video. It is going to be the stuff of legends for fucking sure.

L.A. Part 5.

2009-07-20T00:34:00.002+01:00

I wake up feeling worryingly spritely and bouncy and dare I say, breezy. You know when you do that after a heavy night drinking and only a few hours sleep, you just don’t trust yourself right? That hangover is somewhere lurking. I’m in L.A though and this is my last few hours here so I’m gonna brave it out with Talita and hit that sweet roof top pool one last time.

I can’t bloody swim of course cause my foot is freshly inked, I have to sit on the steps with my right leg hanging up on the side, still, better than a kick in the teeth.

We don’t hang about long up there, getting back to the hotel room asap to change and pack cause apparently we have a breakfast date with Chad and the lovely Miss Alicia at Mel’s diner on the Hollywood Blvd. Erik is dead, so we leave him so till we are done being girls, kick him awake and roll on out.

A taxi ride later and shocker, no Chad and Alicia. My money is they’re dying in bed. Ha! I too at this point am feeling slightly peaky, and a walk up Hollywood Blvd does nothing to help alleviate the waves of nausea and dizziness overcoming me. Here it is, the result of hard partying that I was dreading.

Erik’s mate plays Jason from Friday the 13^th on the Blvd, so we go and check him out, get some pictures and I reach breaking point. It’s hot, I am dying and this place is so crowded I don’t know if I’m going to chuck or faint. My companions take their sweet arse time in getting to a cab, although I was such a state it may not have been. We did seem to stop loads for one reason or another many times.

Finally in the taxi, I start getting anxious about the time, we planned on leaving the hotel at noon, to get to the airport for 1 pm, to ensure fire exit seats for all of us together. That taxi ride took forever. At the hotel I wait in the lobby while Talita and Erik go to get our bags down from the room and Nick turns up and fills me in on what he got up to that morning. 20 minutes later and gone noon, we are still waiting, I swear they have gone back up to the bloody pool.

On the up side, I meet Edgar. Edgar who has worked at the Hyatt for 35 years. Who, once trusting that I genuinely wanted to know the dirt, spilled the good stuff! Led Zeppelin burnt the 5^th floor down. They also had the most groupies. Robert Plant went back there 3 years ago and him and Edgar had a chuckle about the crazy old days. Slash used to rent a room 2,3 times a week just for the afternoon for him and his fiancé. Sometimes he was so drunk they had to walk him up there. The Who used to drive their motorbikes through the lobby. I nearly got kicked out! I am in heaven. Satisfied, the others finally reappear and we hug it out with Erik and drive off in to the sunset, back to good old grey London. Well, not so much in to the sunset as along it.

See what I did there? I don’t care, I miss L.A. The plane ride back was shit and my ankles turned in to cankles. And the plane was going away not towards L.A. It was shit. I heart L.A forever! And I got my right foot to prove it!

L.A. Part 4.

2009-07-20T00:10:00.000+01:00

So my favourite keeps changing when it comes to White Wizzard. We got John, who I could chat with all day, I love listening to him tell stories and he has been an exceptionally gracious host.

Then there’s Erik, who is like your naughty little brother’s friend. Can be totally endearing and equally be a complete dick. But again, totally cool to hang with and definitely loves to drink. Erik will definitely love London.

Wyatt, the front man is legend. He is from Florida and has a full on Southern drawl thing going on. He called me maam. Ha! He served in the Army and fought the first time over in Iraq. When Nick asked him if he had ever killed a man he looked thoughtful and we all thought he was going to come out with something like ‘ I don’t want to talk about it’ or one or two but he answers ‘bout 30, it was them on me’. Legend. And, he looks the spit of young Dio. Cannot wait to see him perform.

Chad is a diamond. He is so much fun and a total pro, he couldn’t have been more hospitable and his girlfriend is the shit! British girl of course!

Last but not least is Jesse, the drummer. He was a slow burner, very quiet and then POW, put him in a bandana and he becomes Bruce Springsteen. Funny as fuck that dude. Proper interesting guy, lots to say, seen a lot and done a lot. He even knows Pamela Des Barres. WTF!

I’m so relieved they are not a bunch of dicks, and the fact that all of them are cool is such a rarity, I am definitely keeping my fingers crossed that I get to tour with them at some point. The feeling is mutual, Jesse, Erik and me were talking on the ride back from the photo shoot and they too were relieved that we weren’t dicks either!

Anyways…back to the story telling at hand…Chad’s!

Back at Chad’s gaff and he has a pretty full house going on. Bonded By Blood, me, Nick and the White Wizzard massive all in his front room drinking beer and shouting over each other. His girlfriend comes through the front door and bless her, looks totally shell shocked by the amount of people in front of her. She takes it well and retreats to their bedroom to get ready for the night of debauchery ahead of us. I, on the other hand start flagging. Oh shit, jetlag wave crashing my way. Fortunately, Chad and his girlfriend, Alicia are fucking sweet as a nut and let me kip on their bed, I ask them to wake me in half an hour.

I come to now and again to the sounds of laughing and shouting and music, I can recognise Alicia and Nick well in to it all and sleep chuffed that everyone is carrying on like they have known each other for years. At some point Alicia comes in with a beer and leaves it on the bedside table for me, and eventually a couple of the BBB boys and Alicia wake me with a shot. I sit up, knock it back and I’m up just in time for the taxi arriving to take us to The Rainbow. They let me sleep for an hour and a half. When I came out the bedroom they had on the Iron Maiden 666 DVD. Bless, bless and more bless!

John manages to get Bonded By Blood in, some of whom are not legal in the States yet by saying we are buying food, so buy food we did. Just a massive pizza between all of us though since we were all pretty much still stuffed from the Mexican. Everyone is mega excited and quite drunk by this point, bouncing about, taking photos and acting the fool is the general order of the day, we are all over the shop, those of us who smoke especially, popping out to the outside bar to do shots and chain smoke.

Suddenly the lights come up and the music has stopped. What the fucking fuck is going on? It’s closing is what the fucking fuck is going on. Yes that’s right people, The Rainbow shuts at 2 am. As does everywhere down the strip apparently. What sort of a rock n roll town is this? Seriously, I am shocked to the very core. All those legendary hell raisers went home at 2 am. Oooo out of control!

Fuck that, I finished my drink and banged on for a bit about ‘for the sake of all that is good in rock n roll, why are we getting told to leave at 2 am’ etc and then left. The ‘Riot’ Hyatt it is then!

Or not, as the case may be. We must have been in our hotel room mere minutes before the first knock at the door. We hide in the bathroom, behind the bed, under the desk and Talita opens the door. Reception have had a complaint from our neighbour about the noise. It’s the fucking ‘RIOT’ Hyatt hotel and it’s only gone 2 in the morning you pricks, why are you staying at the ‘RIOT’ if you want a good nights sleep? Jesus don’t you people have any respect? Yeah, yeah, we’ll keep it down blah blah blah.

Of course within half an hour the other bloody neighbour has complained. We are too drunk to remember to hide everyone and are informed we are only allowed 3 guests in our room. Ermm…excuse me but how the fuck is one supposed to have an orgy at the ‘RIOT’ if one so chooses to with no more than 3 people? Not that we were going to, eww, but still, hardly the point, WTF?

But get this, on the up side like. We are told by the ‘Riot’ Hyatt staff that if they have to come up again, we will be asked to leave the hotel! We would be turfed out for being too rock n roll! Fuckin A, how bad ass are we!

So we leave. We literally get all our booze, pour it in to the posh hotel glasses and waltz right on out of there. Fuck them, this party is going to the sidewalk and the GTO parked outside.

We must have pissed about out there for at least an hour and no cops came by! Still though, doesn’t mean we can’t prank call the Earache head office in Nottingham and tell them we have been right? What it’s about the time they are all in now? So John rings and informs them that the old band members had turned up at The Rainbow, started chucking some harsh words about and that I squared up to them all rowdy like. One thing led to another, Talita was trying to diffuse the situation but to no avail and I bottled one of them. We have both been arrested and need $5000 bail. John is in shock and doesn’t know what to do. At this point I am in howls of laughter and ruin the whole shebang, closely followed by everyone else. This had, sadly enough been in plans for the entire trip only this was the first night we could manage to stay up late enough to carry out, what with the time difference and all.

With this, Nick retires to bed, as do Chad and Alicia. We spot Nick up in his room pulling his blinds, wave and moon him and then push off to bed too. Erik is too fucked up to drive so kips with Talita and me, but doesn’t really. We kip, he gets up sporadically to drink more and talk to people who don’t exist. Don’t ask, no idea.

L.A. Part 3.

2009-07-19T23:26:00.002+01:00

It is Saturday night, I am back in London town and have just finished work behind the bar at my shitty little metal pub. That and the jetlag has prevented me from regaling you with what happened over the last 48 – 72 hours of my time in L.A. Already it seems a lifetime away, fortunately I can just look at my right foot for the rest of my life if ever I want to remember it. Let me divulge dear reader…..

Wednesday morning finds us wide-awake at a ridiculous hour again but this time we are ready to use it to our favour. Talita takes us a short walk up the road to Mel’s Diner on the strip for breakfast American style, round 2.We are clearly tourists cause no one walks here, unless it's that stupid power walking thing. This place was in American Graffiti and is totally the epitome of fifties America.

We seat ourselves inside even though it is a beautiful morning so that we can enjoy the full experience, the décor, the staff etc, and boy do they not disappoint. Janet. I think Janet should be called Dolores, so will call her that for the rest of this. She was our waitress and blew my mind. Primarily because as Talita pointed out, she is quite probably me in 30 years time.

How to describe Dolores? Know now that I cannot possibly do her any justice. She is Patsy out of Absolutely Fabulous had Patsy been dragged up rather than brought up, moved to L.A as a teenager to become a ‘star’, got a job at several shitty diners like Denny’s while trying not to stray in to porn. She then would have fallen for a string of ‘wrong’ men, who promised her the world, gave her nothing but took everything. Probably she would have done some go go dancing and made a few infomercials.

Before old age crept in she landed her current job at Mel’s diner and is so enchanting she manages to keep getting loans out to feed her addiction to staying young and beautiful with cosmetic surgery then spends gruelling hours on her feet trying to earn the money to pay the loans off. Probably she has a few men in her life who throw money her way but I suspect she grafts for it. Probably she has grand children she never sees on the other side of the Country but sends them thoughtful cards and trinkets none the less and is thought of fondly if not patronisingly, similar to how I think of her.

What a woman. I am completely entranced one hundred percent. I can’t put an age on her. Her arms are young, mid 30’s say. Her hands, though accessorised with long acrylic talons in dusky pink look about 50. Her figure under her tight trashy uniform says 20’s. Her neck says 60. Her face is caked in make up, she has false eyelashes on, a massive injected pout and a forehead that hasn’t moved since 1992. Dolores is some kind of beautiful tragic. I want to take her home as a souvenir.

Somehow I manage to eat, hard when there is so much to take in. When we are settling up the bill there is a comments bit on the receipt. I get my eyeliner out and write ‘we love Janet’ and we leave. Hope she doesn’t think we were taking the piss, she is a goddess. I mean shit, I just wrote 5 paragraphs on the woman!

We schmooze on back to the hotel, i can feel the weight gain with every passing hour i stay here, and yet again I can’t believe I’m staying in the Riot. Gets me every time. I have been intending on finding some one who works there to fill me in on all the sordid history of the place and have a few names of staff to ask but keep bloody forgetting.Edgar is the man in the know apparently, 35 years under his belt, the man will for sure have some great tales to tell.

We still have a couple of hours until all the boys are turning up to hang out and so hit the roof top again and hang out in the blistering sun, fuck about in the pool, I wee’d in it, much to the horror of Talita who went scrambling out…jeez that’s what chlorine is for, anyway my pee is pretty much pure Jack D at this point! I dry off in the sun and go kick it in the hotel room and do some writing. I have had zero chance to get this done as of yet and this will probably be my only chance till London. I get a couple of hours work done over a 3 hour period, popping back up to the roof to smoke and splash about a couple of times and having posted my writing crash out on my bed, only to wake up when Talita and Erik, guitarist from Whitt Wizzard come bounding in to get cleaned up for the evening.

Worryingly Talita has not had a siesta after all, so jetlag city is bound to be getting her at some point tonight.

Tonight we will be joined by none other than my tour brothers, Bonded By Blood, fucking A. We are all going to eat at a Mexican restaurant on Melrose, I could take or leave Mexican food but this aint my show so tough shit. Erik takes Nick, Talita and myself off up Melrose in his Ford pick up truck and we do some window shopping, have a rake around some vintage shops trying random crap on but not really finding anything to purchase as souvenirs of my L.A adventure. Really we just spend an hour trying on the most hideous things we could find. Fun but a fail none the less. The stuff that I would have bought, like a slutty fur coat that would make me look like a Russian hooker were too expensive. Bugger.

Impulse buy I guess, though it was no shocker, I kind of knew this was coming, Talita too, I ended up getting me a little tattoo to commemorate my first and hopefully not only time in Los Angeles. Only half an hour’s worth cause we were low on time and money but a little tattoo on my right foot none the less. Of an eyeball with wings.

The tattooist I chose because it had a barbershop in it run by Richie the barber who had tatt’s on his face and a gelled gentleman’s moustache. He was dressed in Sweeny Todd type get up and was so fucking cool it hurt my eyes. There he was working away with a shiny blade, he loved my idea and I was sorely disappointed that he wouldn’t be the one doing it. My tattooist Looked like he had maybe had a tough night on K or his girlfriend had just walked out on him and had taken the cat with. Or maybe he was just stoned? Whatever, he did a good if quiet job and bish bosh bashed that bad boy out. I sat reasonably well although my fucking foot did start jumping 15 minutes in. Loser foot. I held it well though I think.

Cling filmed up, Chad had arrived mid tattoo and we all trundle off up Melrose to the Mexican place, and who should I spot across the street but a bunch of Mexicans. Bonded By Blood people!

I haven’t seen these guys since I toured with them and I’m well syked to see them, everyone’s hugging and shit and off we go on mass after introductions between the two bands. The restaurant gives us our own private room with a long table. It’s a very grand room with walls covered in pics of the govenor with different characters and the furniture is all this heavy wood. Mood lighting sets off the feeling that we might be sacrificing some one in here tonight, I think I watch too many movies.

We drink Margaritas and beer and shots of tequila. We eat too much and we take a ton of drunk photos. Then jetlag hits Talita. Bum. So she gets dropped at the hotel for a couple of hour’s sleep and the rest of us pile in to cars and drive to Chad’s place near Hollywood Blvd. Ahh sweet, a house party is always a must on the tick list of things to do in other people’s countries, to get a real sense of their culture right…….

L.A. Part 2.

2009-07-16T00:13:00.002+01:00

I am a Moomin, hibernating deep inside a fluffy nest, all snuggled up with a slight breeze brushing past my forehead. Oh wait, no I’m fucking not. I’m curled up in a massive bed surrounded with sumptuous bed linen with the air con breezing about me. I’m in L.A!

I feel like I’ve been asleep for a million years and am pretty sure I have over slept. Talita has been softly padding about the room for a while now and I have my eyes tightly shut waiting for her to tell me to get up and be all go go go. This doesn’t happen. She is back in her bed, I reach over to my phone and holy shit it’s bloody 7 am? How the hell has that happened. This is unheard of, my mum and dad would literally not believe this. It can only be that sodding jetlag me thinks, working is crafty way about my body like some uninvited rash oblivious to the naked eye. Bugger.

At some point last night we all arranged a time for John to come and pick us up and take us somewhere for breakfast, but since being so mega drunk none of us can recall exactly what time that was. There is a potential 2-hour window that the meeting time falls in. Fail.

So at 11 am we wait, I’m pretty sure it was noon, nothing. Finally we realise that we can actually phone him and he’s 15 minutes away. I knew I was right.

My fake spray tan is working a treat so I brave getting the pins out and spend the next several hours going from paranoid to not giving a shit if L.A is sickened by my thread veins that look like a map of the greater London area. This is what L.A does to me, makes me all mellow and devil may care. Sweet. John is taking us to the Griddle, a pancake institution apparently. We park up, get ourselves seated and look around us. This place is fucking cool, the waiter is hot and the smells coming from the kitchen are to die for, what a result. I take Johns advice and get the ‘Yellow brick road’ pancake stack and share it with nick cause these blighters are huge. I get a side of scrambled eggs and bacon too cause this is the next step in American food exploration. Pancakes, sweet, with bacon?!

I’ve noticed that I get really antsy having to wait to be served, to get the food, to get the bill, to get out of there. London time is definitely quicker than L.A time. I try to chill out but once I’ve eaten I just want to get the fuck out of there and do something else. Maybe it’s just that we are here for such a short time and I want to fit in as much as possible cause it’s ace over here!

My breakfast was out of this world, although by the time I admitted defeat I felt like I was going to throw up! The experience did not let me down in any way and I can leave The Griddle safe in the knowledge I will probably never eat there again.

After we eventually get out of there, it’s back to the hotel to meet up with Neil, the photographer who will be doing the shoot with White Wizzard today. Yes we do actually get some work done during this trip you know. Granted it’s the best work ever so barely counts but work it is none the less.

While waiting for the band to turn up we all hit the roof top pool, feel free to go chuck up somewhere, I know how sickening this is trust! Frolicking in the pool with my girl Talita is the most fun. We have a cabana overlooking L.A and I work on the potential of skin cancer by sun bathing till I’m too hot, pissing about in the pool to cool off and then sun bathing again till I'm totally dry. I’m intrigued to see quite how red I’ll go. Before we know it the guys have all arrived and are chilling out on the sun lounges. We all introduce ourselves to each other and chew the cud for a while before sorting our shit out and hitting the road for the location shoot.

After a drive that takes us through L.A and then along the Pacific Highway coastline, we pull up on the side of the road amongst the most beautiful and intimidating rocky, craggy mountains climbing up from the road. The GTO gets positioned in front and the equipment set up. The guys all pose around the car and the shoot is underway. The photos, through the camera look amazing and I can’t wait to see them properly. A couple of hours later and it’s done and dusted. The guys loosened up throughout and by the end were really going for it Metal stylee, fucking winners!

Not knowing that I’d be out all day I didn’t bring tights or a jacket and it’s turned pretty chilly now, so I forego the GTO and shotgun Eric’s Ford pick up instead. unfortunately there is a big seat divider in the middle and no back seats, so poor Jesse the drummer has to perch on that, I feel guilty but not that guilty I guess or I would have gone in the other car. We hit the beach quickly before dinner and me and Talita have our shoes off quick smart wadding in and pissing about.

O.k so check this. The day we arrived in L.A there was an earthquake. A small unfortunately, so we didn’t get to feel how that is, but one strong enough that coastline had loads of ocean life washed up on the beach cause the tide had rushed in and then out again really quickly.

All along there were these bizarre looking things that looked like a cross between a jellyfish and a purple liver. Nick accidently trod on one and his shoe got covered in purple dye. It wasn’t until a bit later when were trying to dig a trench for one so that it would role back in to the ocean that we noticed they were sea slugs! Weird fucking things I tell you. Jesse showed me how to catch sand crabs, that’s not a euphemism, they were little crabs that dig down in the sand and leave little bubbles on the surface.

Anyways…drink time! The guys have been banging on about this German pub they all go to and so off we speed for food and booze and for Nick to get his Kerrang! Interview. Not such an exciting place I found, simply cause we have loads of these places back home. Of course I tell the guys this, ha! What an arsehole. We all chow down our dubious German grub and are joined by friends of the band and some girlfriends and have quite the corner party going on. These lot are definatly gonna love Europe. We are all mega excited and everyone’s chatting and shouting and laughing and generally having a ball. Karaoke tonight for sure!

Nick gets his interview started and then, and then me and Talita fall asleep. At the table. We fall asleep. What fucking parallel universe is this that I am keeping the same fucking hours as an OAP? Fucks sake. Seriously, the barmaid came over and told us we couldn’t sleep there! Ahahahahahaaaa, my how the tables have turned, it’s usually me doing that!. Needless to add to this but shock of shocks, Karaoke did not happen. We got in the GTO and sped back to the ‘Riot’, detouring down Hollywood blvd to look at all the freaks and went straight to bed. What a bunch of losers. Tomorrow we are having a siesta so that this does not ever happen again. Ever. I’m ashamed of myself. I know better.

L.A. Part 1.

2009-07-15T21:22:00.000+01:00

If immigration and customs ask, ‘I’m here to visit a band’, the more I look like a stupid, dumb groupie, the more likely they will find it amusing and get all flustered and embarrassed because they will be assuming that I am a groupie and therefore sex fiend harlot and ergo, the quicker I will get through the whole ‘Are you here on business or pleasure?’ type questioning, which is some what difficult to answer because it’s work. Although it is quite pleasurable work?!

Oh I’m terribly sorry, how rude of me! I haven’t said where I’m off to……….

L motherfucking A motherfuckers!!!!!

Indeed, life seems to have taken a rather joyful turn and I’m spending the next couple of days on the Sunset Strip in L.A at none other than the “Riot” Hyatt hotel itself. I actually want to explode with excitement.

After 11 hours of plane malarkey we are landing at LAX. Through the little window I can see L.A surrounded by mountains and a thick layer of smog sitting in the air above it. The landscapes through that window have been for the most part, tremendous the whole way there. Apart from clouds I have seen ice caps, mountains and deserts, the most breath taking views of parts of the world I’m sure I’ll never see from ground level.

I drank 7 free Jim Beams free poured, ate 2 dubious and questionable meals, worked for 5 hours till my laptop died of juice, read for about one hour and watched a movie that made me very depressed. ‘He’s just not that in to you’ or something. Jeez, why bother was how I felt after watching that. I mean, why fucking bother.

And here I am. Customs are surprisingly cool it turns out. I got some Eastern European silver fox taking my piccy, fingerprints and asking what my intentions were. He was like “so Lucy….are you going to be getting up to any mischief while you are here?” Fuck man, dude saw right through me! Ah well.

Outside John, the only original member of Earaches latest gem, White Wizzard, greets us. He seems nice enough, till he walks us to our ride. Then he is King. It is the convertible GTO from the song ‘high speed gto’, the very same one in the video. Me and Talita are suddenly carrying on like little kids bouncing about the place with glee…oooh if the kids at school could see me now stylee!

We drive through L.A, which is an odd experience cause you feel like you have been there before just cause you’ve seen so much of it in the movies. I am silent taking it all in barr the occasional eye locks with Talita as we both silent scream at each other.

The Hyatt hotel. This to me is like a temple to a monk. Do you know how many orgies, drug overdoses and deaths have happened within these walls? A lot my friends! This place is so steeped in Rock n Roll history not even the refurbished décor can hide the debauch lifestyles carried out in there. It just oozes badness. It makes you want to have unprotected sex with a stranger, have the love child, name it Flower, even though it’s a boy and move to a commune where you spend your days on Opium and teaching Flower how to crack safes, all the time waiting for some film writer to discover you and write the whole shebang up in to a blockbuster movie followed by a tell all book. I would be played by Megan Fox. Obviously.

For the time being however, we check in, with our complimentary glasses of wine and go check out our rooms. We are on this trip not only to meet the band but also to accompany a journo’ from Kerrang! Magazine, Mr nick Ruskill. Nick’s room is on the penthouse floor and one wall is a glass window looking out over downtown L.A. the bastard! It’s fucking amazing. At this point we all wonder to ourselves if perhaps the Earache boss is on crack. If so, I think we will all happily help feed his habit if this is the outcome! What a touch, we are all totally loving Earache big time! It is decided that some one has got to have sex in that room before we leave. Once in our room, which overlooks a car park, we freshen up, I get out of my ‘please upgrade me’ outfit and in to my ‘sunset strip hooker outfit’ with Iron Maiden vans and we go out for dinner. At the Rainbow. The Rainbow. Fuck yeah!

Got to be done the ol’ Rainbow right. I always knew it wouldn’t blow my mind just cause again, I’ve heard so much about it. Everyone bangs on and on about it. Plus Lemmy is in the U.K so I knew he wouldn’t be propping the bar up. It was cool, we got a massive pizza and shared it, also very cool being my first of many American food musts on the list. No wonder these people have a massive obesity problem, the food is ridiculous.

It is my opinion that free pouring is the way forward and probably the answer to peace on earth. When I ask for a Jack and coke, I feel very happy and warm inside upon discovering that what I am given is a triple Jack and coke. Mainly cause I am automatically drunk. Blissful times at the Rainbow. More of the band join us, the singer Wyatt and guitarist Eric and we all move to the outside bar area to drink more and smoke before we hit the karaoke upstairs.

Karaoke never happened. I’ll tell you what did happen. Fucking jetlag happened. What the fuck? One minute I’m taking it all in, chatting with the band and bar staff and the next…. The next minute I’m floored. I tried a Jager bomb, I tried a coffee, and nothing was even denting the flood of exhaustion that had washed over me. How incredibly fucking gay.

Needless to say we hit the road back to the hotel where everyone can continue partying while my bullshit self sleeps. I am with Eric and John, who stop off at a convenience store so we can buy booze and fags, another exciting experience for my unashamedly tourist arse. Even that was fun.

I buy a $10 Jack and coke at the hotel bar and we all trundle on up to mine and Talita’s room, who has gone AWOL. Soon enough we find her, passed out cold on her bed. That bloody over priced drink didn’t even get finished before the boys all got shifted out to Nicks room and us girls fell deep in to la LA land. What a fucking great place to be!

Madness and mayhem with Municipal Waste.

2009-07-14T19:09:00.006+01:00

Municipal Waste are gonna FUCK YOU UP! Not if I don’t get there first they won’t. The Wasters are back in the Big Smoke for one week only on an intensive press trip to promote their new banging album, Massive Aggressive and I shall be doing all I can to help earache press girl about town, Miss Talita out as much as possible because not only do we have those troublesome deviants to entertain and bring to the masses but we also have Evile, promoting their new album too! Wowza.

Day two of the week of wrongness is where I am going to pick up from, the day of the Muni’ Waste listening party. WoooHoooo that’s right, partying with the Richmond, Virginia massive! This is a day of extreme heat, extreme amounts of interviews and extreme volumes of booze. Holy shit, this is going to get messy.

First off, this week is full to the brim with early bloody starts. Sleep is not what it should be in this heat, waking up drenched in sweat one minute and too cold cause you opened the window and kicked your sheets off the next is really quite exhausting. Following this I am cycling up to Bloomsbury, where the hotels that are putting the lads and journo’s up are situated. The itinerary is out of control mental, half an hour to an hour slots with one band and then escorted to the next band at the hotel round the corner.

In to the afternoon and I’m walking back to the office. I need to get the Municipal Waste album to The Crobar, find out what drink specials we can get and verify the invoice for the money that is getting put behind the bar. Finally, posters need to be put up about the bar and I need to not look like the sweaty exhausted mess that I actually am.

Once all the interviews are done, we make our way over to the bar only to find it’s kinda empty at this time. The listening party doesn’t officially start till 7 pm and it’s an hour till then so Tony and Ryan of Muni’ Waste fuck off elsewhere for a while, recovering from an intense day ready for a night of carnage and hanging out with friends and followers.

My job for the evening is to film, record and photograph the whole messy affair. That is my brief and I’m not gonna lie, I’m feeling a bit out of my depth, lost if you will! See, it’s still early. It’s still daylight! So I start by filming the front of the Crobar, which looks a bit gash what with it not being night but hey ho. Then I film the wristband on someone’s wrist which is pretty sweet and says ‘i'm a ligger give me booze’. Then I get the poster advertising tonight. Then I get some of the patrons, who are too sober and look like rabbits in headlights at this point in the evening when faced with a camera. Then I, then I’m stumped mate. There’s just not much to film at this point. It just hasn’t properly started. Yet!

Once people start arriving however, the filming comes along nicely, I’m hanging back until they seem to have consumed an efficient amount of booze that they make for more interesting footage. A mega turnout has ensured that the vibe is banging and everyone is shouting and mingling and chucking beer down their throats all the while talking about Municipal Waste and such related topics. Sweet!

Eveyone who is anyone is there, and all are fully into the banging album been played on 11. There are Waste t-shirts all over the shop, head banging and fists pumping in the air.

Then it happens. The camera dies. Shit shit fucking shit. Out comes mine and onwards and upwards with more filming. ( I will later completely forget about this until it comes to long after the editing of the first camera footage is done, when I’m going through footage on my laptop of the night and realise with horror my epic mistake)

I hang out and catch up with a whole bunch of cool cats, the famed Digby of Earache records, the Terrorizer crew, Crobar friends, Mutant…I even try to start a circle pit with Mutant, didn’t go too well with only three people shockingly.

Everyone is pretty trashed and although I managed to refrain from getting plastered until around 10.30 pm, I suddenly out of no where have one of those epiphanies. I’m fucking drunk. So was everyone, early start and a free bar will do that. Digby had gone AWOL, Ryan had done a bunk and Tony was catching up with all his Crobar mates at the bar. Everyone else is wasted and wildly gesticulating with their arms as they shout their conversations at each other in drunken abandonment. Within half an hour we were done for, totally wiped out and very aware that tomorrow would still be boiling hot and would still be full to the brim with interviews.

Added to this we had some new and rather alarming information come to light. Tomorrow would be the Crobar birthday celebrations. Shit, shit fucking shit that is going to be an out of this world filth monger of a night. Tony, Ryan and I can see it in each other’s tired and weary eyes. We are so not missing that party for the world. Dammit. It’s all gonna go horribly wrong!

But before bed can be considered, we eat. A bunch of us do a runner to China Town on some drunken food binge crusade type mission led primarily by the Terrorizer magazine crew. Trouble them lot I tell you. Soon enough there is all manner of staggering down the road going on, heckling and slurring. I kinda feel sorry for the poor Chinese restaurant that got us, mind you we were very well behaved. We just ordered a whole heap of food, far too much, eyes were definitely bigger than our tummies and talked about Municipal Waste like the geeks we are.

We chowed down, pissed about a bit, chewed the cud and chucked the left over’s in a doggy bag for Tom from Mutant, who’s brother Josh had joined us. A stagger back and we try to get in the spirit, in the swing of it all but we are beat and that mass of food has tipped us over the edge. Before you can blink I’m on my bike cycling as fast as my weary legs can take me to my little bed where I can pass out cold for a good nights sleep, only to dream about interviews and hotels and circle pits in hotels during interviews!Phew.

Hellfest Festival. Clisson, France. Oh dear...Part 4.

2009-07-14T18:33:00.000+01:00

The final day thank fucking god. Holy shit I have never known anything like this weekend. I can’t believe I’m actually thinking this but I’m looking forward to getting back to being a lowly barmaid for a while. Bit of normality.

Sunday is weird. We did some work, obviously, but we were also given a whole heap of time off, a good chunk of the afternoon found us messing about together, just us girls. It was the best bit of the whole weekend easily. Apart from catching up with the man of course. No, it saved the weekend for me.

Mastodon was in the house, played an awesome set and were great fun backstage. Brent and Pat found each other and kept seeing them throughout the day knocking about together thick as thieves. We ate with their tour manager, nicked a bottle of red and ran off to watch god knows who!

Cathedral rocked, I missed Brutal Truth because I had to do some work at some point, sucks. Hatebreed were fucking A and Suicidal Tendencies found me on stage with everyone else screaming S….T…S….T!

Scarlet was back, so everything was well more chilled for a start. And I think Talita, Rachel and me must have looked like the dead on our feet walking that we felt, ‘cause everyone was so lenient on us. And we took bare liberties!

Sunday found us on our little grassy knoll, opposite the VIP backstage area, with a little BB gun shooting at passers by. I got Wino from Saint Vitus, who I had met the day before from quite impressively far. He retaliated by coming over and beating me about the head with his magazine. I laughed so much that day. Myself, Talita and Rachel were joined by Louise, editor of terrorizer magazine and we all just fucked about on that grassy knoll, kicking back and catching jokes. Even the security guard for DreamTheater or Europe came and hung with us. Can’t remember which it was. By the time we had done with that little knoll, loads of people were on it! I hung out a tone with Michael from Volbeat too, who I had met at Download festival previously. He knows James Hetfield! They are mates!. Lucky beggar. We got trashed and by the time Manowar were half way through their set, we were all sharing a taxi out of there. Done mate. Totally over it.

The day had managed to be one long succession of pissing about acting like children with access to their parents booze cabinet. Everyone, bands, tour managers and crew seemed to be in the same boat on Sunday. Laid back don’t give a fuck attitude. Now that’s fucking Rock n Roll.

Next morning, I leave with guilty festival secrets safe in the knowledge that so has everyone. I pack up my tent with help from Olivia and Shane, who are fucked up too. We start our long and tedious journey home. This time with the added pain of feeling like we have been in a war zone. We are joined by Tom and Stu’, friends of Talita’s who Shane and Olivia have hung out with a lot this weekend and who by the end of our journey when we go our separate ways, are definitely friends we will be hanging with a whole heap more in the future.

To top the pain of the journey off nicely, I come on. I am sitting on the Euro Star, packed with screaming chav kids in absolute fucking agony. Amusingly I think it quite a fitting end to such a pained weekend. Like childbirth, during it I swear blind I will never do it again. By the time I hit Kings Cross, the appropriate hormones have made me forget the shit and just remember the good parts. The people I worked with. The bands, the crew, my mates, the drinking and related shenanigans, the comradeship, the music, the all of it! And sure enough, I can’t fucking wait till next year.

Hellfest Festival. Clisson, France. Oh dear...Part 3.

2009-07-14T17:20:00.000+01:00

Ahh a new day a new dawning of debauch rock and metal mayhem ahead of me. Fantastic. We only trot up to the Hellfest backstage area to day at gone 10 am since it took us hours to get a ride home last night resulting in not getting to bed until 5.30 am. 4 -5 hours of sleep a night during this weekend is the norm. I’m in a pretty foul mood. My feet are killing me, including the fracture I incurred a month ago and my impressive collection of blisters, my feet do not want to be encased in Chucks today and certainly do not want me rushing about on them all day.

Today is Marilyn Manson’s day. He is the diva we shall flit around. He is the ungrateful sod who will never know that no one is being paid except for his staff. He is the one therefore to never show any appreciation or thanks towards us and is more likely to be quite rude to us. I mean, who are we?!

Wanker. He is getting minimal input from me I tell you. Rachel on the other hand is in heaven to work with a hero of hers and happily takes on the main role of assistant to his assistant.

Leaving me free to work with some decent bands, get drunk and fuck about some. See, last night Pascel rubbed me up the wrong way somewhat. Accused me of being drunk when chance would have been a fine thing. I as a half-breed Geordie find it incredibly offensive to be accused of being drunk after a couple of drinks. Mr, you don’t know me and you certainly don’t know how much I can put away. I’m a barmaid for Christ’s sake. I’ll take anyone on. So I’m damned if I’m gonna break my back for the ungrateful and offensive bastard today! Instead…I shall get drunk, show him what drunk is since apparently he has no concept.

This is a relief though, that he has been pulled down somewhat off the pedestal I had put him on. And that this festival is such thankless work. Cause now I can take the piss a bit and not feel guilty!

On top of this, Scarlet, his right hand woman is away today. Picking up the slack is Greg, a funny French guy who is not really ready for this newfound responsibility. Due to this there are far too many times during the day which find us all being sent on the same bullshit task, or running around needlessly.

Fortunately my mates are at hand to help me loosen up. Nashville Pussy are the best fun to hang out and knock back some drinks with, as is my new friend Pat, and of course staggering around all over the shop is Orange Goblins Ben, Crobar’s Steve and Nathan, looking progressively funnier and worse for wear every time I bump in to them. Then there’s Olivia and Shane, who it ravelled here with and who my not yet used tent is pitched next to. The Terrorizer magazines massive are here, as is Alice Delal and co. There are plenty of people to spend time with, all of which are for the most part kicking back in the backstage garden area getting wasted.

God Forbid have gone, the bassist for them was a great one to have bumped in to and met yesterday, taking the piss out of my limping around and spending time chillaxing together was cool. I don’t think I’ll be seeing him again till the next time they tour the U.K but will definitely stay in touch on the ol’ web.

Machine Head have turned up, yeEAAAA! I fucking love Machine Head, they rock. Their tour manager is an old face I bump in to a lot so it was great to work with him, and of course fuck about U.K stylee! They are one of the headline acts that I have been looking forward to working with and are a total pleasure to do so.

Clutch are also here, who we all love and make sure that they are happy and that we catch their show. Everyone was at the side of the stage when they played, it was great fucking fun. Everyone was mega trashed by this point too, maybe had a little something to do with it eh!

One of the bonuses to festival season it is becoming increasingly clear to me, is that you see the same people and bands etc throughout the summer and so do end up becoming friends of a sort and staying in touch with each other. Of course the other side to this is that there are some bands and people you don’t want to be continuously seeing. I heard a few artists breathing a sigh of relief that they would not have to hear Trivium play that weekend merely cause they have hit the road so hard they have been pretty much everywhere.

Today I only have thoughts for one person in particular though. And he is guitar teching for Sacred Reich, who has just turned up, finally. They’re O.G’s turned up a few hours ago and have been sizing me up and acting strange around me. O.G standing in this instance for old groupies. Still, they are nice enough and I’m frankly completely uninterested in them so whatever. I met the guy I’m waiting for at a German festival where he was stage-managing a month ago and have been in contact ever since. As soon as we see each other we are pretty much inseparable, as much as our jobs allow.

So forgive me for skipping over the best part of Saturday evening, but some things never leave site! Quality time was spent and by the time he left I was on cloud nine is all anyone needs to know.

Marilyn Manson’s staff are fucking well funny. They were like ‘just so you know, he is just like what you read..he’ll probably trash all your hard work…he usually does’ I was like honey we don’t give a shit, don’t worry none of us are taking massive amounts of pride in our work anymore. His staff looked down trodden and miserable, unlike the xanax chirpy of Beth the day before. They happily fill us in on what an arsehole he is and tell stories from their time with him much to our amusement. He turns up, and although a short 30 second walk to the main stage from his dressing room, insists on the tour bus taking him between the two and also that the whole back field is cleared. What a twat! Ha!

By the end of Saturday, we are all wasted, exhausted and ready for bed. Ready for home to be honest but tough shit, one more day of Hellfest, literally is left ahead of me.

Hellfest Festival. Clisson, France. Oh dear...Part 2.

2009-07-14T17:12:00.000+01:00

Early to rise Friday morning. Well in rock n roll land it is. We are on site by 10 am and it’s already buzzing backstage with crew, I’m excited cause a lot of my friends are due to turn up today but for now we have been spotted by Pascel and are drafted to various bands and jobs. We are free from more Motley Crue bullshit until later in day when Beth turns up and knowing how demanding she is, go about trying to get as much done everywhere else before hand.

Alas is pissed it down last night and most of the hard work and little details that were carried out yesterday for the Crue have been ruined by the rain. Ha! Fuckin funny, dunno why, I’ll be the twat having to re-do it all. Still my heart is joyful for a minute looking at the mild destruction of their little home away from home!

On with the business at hand. Heaven and Hell! Talita is obsessed with Dio and so is totally on that from the get go. Barr stocking the fridges and arranging fruit and the like I don’t think I had much to do with them. They certainly didn’t seem anywhere in the region of demanding like Crue. Each member had their own dressing room and a couple of them are totally T-Total.

Massive containers are the first thing to be rolled in when the travelling circus that is the tour bus turns up. The ones put in the dressing rooms open up in to little closets, reminding me of the Barbie houses you could fold up and carry away. Of course I touched the clothes. Nikki Sixx’s, Dio’s etc. Very much in a look both ways ,shoot your hand out and then withdraw it back behind your back whistling and looking about you as you go about your work. Totally shifty really. God’s honest truth, I expected some one to jump out at me and scold me and send me to prison forever and ever!

As I mentioned I had expected many of my friends to turn up today, some from back home that I often hang out with and some who I only see when they are touring. Orange Goblin arrived with Steve of the Crobar and Nathan, ex Capricorn drummer and waster like myself at some point. Those guys are like a shinning light to a religious fanatic if your me cause it means only one thing…time to get fucked up! They are all seasoned Pro’s like myself. Bring it on. Iv’e already started making use of my drinks tokens and of course the free red wine cartons at lunch in the crew mess tent. Between the two I’m buzzing a bit. My first drink of the day is kindly poured in some splitter van by a guy who I should know the name of, who’s band was playing that day, Karma to burn maybe? He ran off to get me a large Jack and coke while I was labouring away for Crue and actually did bring one back with him! What a legend!

This morning, when I thought it would be raining all day, I took a piece of advice given to me by an O.G in touring that you should always wear flip flops cause then you won’t be wandering around in wet shoes all day. So here I am, late Friday afternoon in me flip flops with the biggest blisters I have ever experienced. I end up hobbling around with a bandage wrapped around one foot keeping the plaster in place simply because it’s so dusty the last 3 plasters have fallen clean off soon after application. Drink of course helps stave too much pain off. Medicinal.

New friends surprisingly included Buck Cherry. I say surprisingly cause it didn’t cross my mind to ask what band or capacity they were there in was. Not until much later in the day was it bought to my attention who these silly beggers that I’d been knocking about with were. I don’t know why I never swapped contact details with them, they were mega fun and fingers crossed we will cross paths again in the future for more drinking shenanigans. In the meanwhile, we watched Motley Crue from the side of the stage and took stupid photos together to document what we will probably all forget due to excessive drinking at some point. Excessive drinking and an apple pipe. One would imagine. I would certainly speculate at any rate!

Another new favourite person I met was Pat from Eye hate god. What a fucking legend. We are definitely cut from the same raggedy cloth of over excess. I was introduced to him and within minutes we were pissing about like old buddies at a reunion. He reminded me very much of Brent from Mastodon, who was also due to arrive at some point soon.

Artists that I had hung with several times before over the last couple of years that I was over the moon to see were Nashville Pussy for sure, and Mastadon, both fantastic revellers and hell raisers. Sweet.

By the night time I was so fucking over Motley Crue and Beth’s demands. I wasn’t holding it against them, she is a doll and I understood the thought process behind the madness but it wasn’t for me. I was sick to the back teeth of running around for these pouncy bloody artists and their ridiculous needs. I have absolutely no interest in it at all. When Motley Crue pitched up and I, along with anyone else who was in the VIP tent area was turfed out, very improperly like we are groupie stalker scum. I couldn’t fucking believe it. It veered on humiliating to be honest with you. I could give two shits about meeting any of Motley Crue, further more they were utter shit on stage, I watched about 3 songs before I got got bored and wandered off to see wa blow elsewhere.

I find my own Motley crew and proceed to get wasted with them and generally hang out and have an awesome time in their company.

So Friday night finds me pissed off, fed up, in agony and totally and undeniably over it. Bad luck for me really cause I got two days left.

Hellfest Festival, Clisson France. Oh dear...Part 1.

2009-07-14T17:03:00.004+01:00

Tent. Check. Lamp for tent. Check. Train tickets. Check. Passport. Check. Hellfest here I fucking come!

Thursday morning and I’m going through security at Kings Cross Euro star station with my mates and fellow bar staff of the Crobar and Hobgoblin, Olivia and Shane. In our eyes you can tell we are all mentally going through everything we have on us wandering if we might be carrying any left over’s of anything that might get us in trouble. Check.

Once on the Euro star, Shane intersperses dying slowly with chucking up a lot for pretty much the whole journey to Lille. Olivia and I on the hand chat, drink and piss about for pretty much the whole journey to Lille! Hung over and exhausted or not, we are soldiers to the cause!

Another train from Lille to Nantes, and although we are fading we continue forward, on yet another train from Nantes to Clisson, we are really heading for the back of beyonds now. After our final mode of transport, a shuttle bus laid on from Clisson train station to the site, our journey is done and in front of us are hundreds of metal heads carrying crates of booze and tents and behind them….Hellfest . Being guarded by security walking along the perimeters with big scary muzzled dogs. Damn, note to self, don’t fuck off the security. French police do not fuck about, and security are people so bad not even the police will hire them!

After meeting up with Talita and getting our passes, we find a spot to pitch our tents and then I’m off to the backstage to start work. This weekend I will be assisting one of Europe’s biggest names in Backstage crew work and his team. He has worked with everyone who’s anyone including on the recent Metallica tour. This is going to look shit hot on the ol’ C.V. If I don’t fuck it up that is.

The back stage area is vast. There is a field behind the two main stages and one of the tents. Behind that is a building, which is split in to two halls. One for artists, one for bigger artists. Between the two is the VIP bar and restaurant. Outside of that round the front is the office where all the passes are and across from that is the headliner area. A collection of porta-cabins and a marquee linked with a decked area furnished with wicker armchairs, leatherette sofas, plants and coffee tables all accented by bloody candles all over the shop. Parked outside the front of this, next to the round the clock security is a massive truck filled to the brim with food and drinks supplies from the many riders. The riders are books. Like as in big fucking hardbacks.

Too soon I realise what I’ve signed up for. Myself and friends Talita and Rachel are working with the headline acts. Both of them have done this before so pretty much know the score but for me this is all very new and very odd.

First bands on the agenda, Motley Crue. Heaven and Hell, Papa Roach and WASP. I am designated wardrobe assistant to Motley Crue and Talita and Rachel have the others. The woman I am assisting is Beth, who runs the behind the scenes show for Crue. She has been in the game for around 20 years working for bands like Rolling Stones. She is very L.A and completely adorable to us ‘girls’. And so the madness begins. We are ticking off produce from the rider like specific vodkas and whiskys, fruit platters need to be made up, food cooked and laid out just so, specific brands of condiments. This is just for crew. It’s a whole other ball game when the crew are fed and watered. For the band it’s the same plus lots of room temperature Evian water. And then some….

Right, lets see what we have here. The marquee is mainly for Tommy, who likes to chill out and listen to music after his gig. This needs to be entirely draped in swathes of luxurious velvet, silk and chiffon to resemble a harem. Nikki Sixx on the other hand prefers a moody pirate theme to his porta cabin come dressing room. Further swathes of velvet, brocade and silk are draped along with printed skull and cross bones fabric. Lots of black and dark reds. All this draping malarkey takes up approximately 7 bloody hours stretched over two of my working days. By the time we finish up on Thursday it is early Friday morning and I’m slightly shell shocked at the level of work that goes in to the back stage area. The staff to these bands run around all over the shop like headless chickens, desperate not to fuck up and lose their jobs I guess, and get a mighty bollocking from the prima donna artists they work for.

Not naming names but one of the bands that headlined that weekend refused to play until they had a particular bottle of red wine. This was at a time when everything was shut, Clisson is in the middle of no where. Fortunately after much head scratching, one of our French co-workers called their sister who was convinced to go to the closed restaurant where they were work, check for the wine and buy it at the full wack of135 Euro. No one lost their job and the band went on stage as scheduled without the audience being any the wiser.

Although the bands are getting paid, the headliners quite a generous amount I would imagine, and they have fields of fans waiting to see them play and chanting their names, they just couldn’t possibly be expected to go and perform to the best of their ability without smooth not crunchy peanut butter, this vodka over that vodka, lemons not cut up but ready with chopping board and knife. Right?

I’m being slightly naive I realise. Most these guys have been on the road for near on a year, few days off, mostly stuck in a tour bus when they do get a day off. For the brief hour that they actually ending up spending in these porta-cabins before they go on stage it must become incredibly tedious, one looking exactly the same as the last one, and the next one. And that hour being the one in which they need to syke themselves up for a massive show, get in the zone, find that head space blah blah blah. Don’t spose a bare porta-cabin is going to help much eh. And then at the end of the day, they are paying their staff very well for this service. These minions are big players in their own rights, on big wages, themselves living like rock stars.

I guess my end feeling on this massive culture shock though is this, I could never do the job of backstage dresser or whatever the job title is as a full time career. Hell no. Think I’ll stick to dipping my toes in once a year at Hellfest. Although by the end of day 2, Friday, I will be ready to pack the whole thing in.

The golden Gods Awards and after party. Part 2.

2009-07-11T22:58:00.000+01:00

The Embassy club is phat! And, for one night only, I will be gracing its front door with my skill wizardry at keeping out unwanted scum mwah ha HAAA!

It’s all pretty self explanatory really, if you have a white wrist band, you’re in. If you turn your coloured wristband inside out so it shows white, you’re not in. Unless your hot and or looking like a cool floor filler type. Then ill let your cheating ways slide. If your name is on the list, you’re in. If you’re in a band, you’re in. If your industry, your in. If you’re a hot groupie, you’re in. If I know your cool and everyone doesn’t role his or her eyes on sight of you, you’re in. See it’s quite lenient, ‘cept when it starts filling up and then your shit out of luck ‘cause I’m saving the rest of the capacity for any late arrivals who are more important than you!

All this lateral door thinking leads to a good balance of people inside which, in turn leads to a banging party you see.

By 11.30 pm most people are in and my first pangs of jealousy are rousing inside of me. Truth be told it kinda sucks watching all these mega cool, hot and attractive people go in and mingle, leaving you behind on the door with your glass of Jack D hidden in a plant pot ‘cause your not supposed to drink on the door, looks uncouth innit. Don’t want to sound all dramatic and that but I’m not going to lie, I felt a bit like Cinderella. Sure enough I’m wishing the following couple of hours away till I finish and desperately hoping everyone hasn’t left by then.

Friends pop out every now and then to see how I’m doing which is difficult because I have to tell them to piss off because I’m working. What an ungrateful bitch eh, really don’t want to give anyone any reason to complain about my work tonight though, I am taking this very seriously peeps! Also, I am no where near as drunk as everyone else.

I see a bloke, who’s name has escaped me that I crossed paths with several times over the weekend at Download and who is sporting an Iron Maiden tour jacket, which upon commenting on, (along with praising his lovely thick head of hair ) tells me that he works for them in some type of managerial capacity and was on their recent world tour. I go fucking crazy at this, obviously. I’m well gay for Maiden. At this sudden display of excitement, he goes on to inform me that the drummer and guitarist, Nicko and Janick are only bloody inside! Along with my ex, who also works for Maiden! Wow! How the shitting fuck did they get past me? Before I know it this bloke has gone inside to drag out the ex, Dave and see if he can find a Maiden member for me!

Tonight is looking up my friends! Sure enough out trots Dave, hugs and shouts of ‘shots’ and then….Nicko! Standing in front of me. As in Nicko. Nicko drummer Nicko. Drummer of Iron Maiden Nicko. In front of me! And he’s lovely of course. Introductions aside I get a hug from Nicko, way more exciting then getting one from Dave, no offence love. Heads up people, according to Nicko, if he was twenty years younger….! Yeah he would!

Lady Starlight comes out and is even gayer for Maiden than me and so was proper chuffed to meet them, wins all round I’d say. Dave goes off to get me a drink and the madness subsides and suddenly I’m back on my own wishing that I was inside partying and being fabulous. The party is starting to die down as people start filtering out and all the faces start leaving. A boy gets turfed out by one of the security and soon after Nicko comes back out, asks to know what is going on and on hearing that the boy is being chucked out retorts with ‘no he’s fucking not’ and drags the kid back in. Turns out it was his son! The head doorman is shaking his head at the security saying ‘of all the people you could have chucked out you fackin’ idiot’. Nicko is such a hero. Swoon. The son hangs out with me for a while, funny lad and too soon even Nicko is leaving.

An eternity later and along roles 2 am. I am proper clock watching by the time this happens and race in to catch up on valuable party time. Alas, it’s pretty much done. Only the soldiers remain, The Fuel girls, the governor of Earache, Dave and Janick, some other faces I recognised. The fuel girls were heading out to The Sanctum, an exclusive rock n roll hotel round the corner with a Gallows member and I said I’d meet them up there for the after after party once I’d filled in my invoice. I hung out with friends for a while, did massive great Jager shots with Dave and then gate crashed the taxi Dave and Janick were getting in and got them to drop me at the hotel as I was very much not suitably dressed for walking the streets on my own. Less of course I wanted to earn some money. Or get raped.

I think we should stop and take a minute here to appreciate the fact that I shared a cab with a member of Iron Maiden. I know, he’s just a person too, but he’s a person who is in mother fucking Iron Maiden what! Yeah bwoy!

I arrive at The Sanctum with glee and anticipation and a massive rip/hole/tear down my nude tights, which is now pushing the fat from my thigh out in to the open in a horrifying bulge of cellulite. Class.

First things first when I reach up to the roof where the party is happening is to make a swift beeline to my mate Al and ask him if I can borrow his room to change my tights. His room is the fucking bomb. There is a roll top bath in the bedroom with a curtain of beads hanging down around it. Luxurious furnishings, a massive bed, beautiful lighting. Shame we don’t fancy each other. Hopefully he got some use out of it at some point.

Freshened up, I hit the after after party and started some serious mingling and schmoozing. Not really, got drunk didn’t I! As did everyone else, in my defence. I bounced between the various groups, high end business group talking shop, band group pouting and talking about their show and in general themselves, groupie group looking everywhere but at you, other fellow flutterers. I knew half the people there, within 3 hours another quarter, the rest didn’t take my interest frankly.

Debauchery was awash up there I tell you. No details of course. Needless to say.

By the time day dawned the party was still in full swing. Not until several hours after we spotted our first office workers in the neighbouring buildings at their desks did people stat drifting off to hotel rooms or who knows where.

And then there were 3. My two mates and me. Hot tub time. Ahh the good life. Some one else’s on loan but none the less the good life. We only scuttle off to the hotel room after the staff kick us off the roof . In the safety and warmth of the plush room we ramble on about everything and anything while balancing on the edge of the roll top bath hanging our ciggies out the window and eventually , after a couple of hours admit defeat to the reality of jobs and concerned partners.

The bus jolts me awake a short drive away from mine, and I manage to stay awake and not miss my stop. Up in my flat I look in the bathroom mirror at the dishevelled mess staring back at me and smile. I look like a zombie who’s just come back from ‘Nam with a touch of butchered hooker Halloween about me. What a fucking legend of a night. Bring on next year I say.

The Golden Gods Awards and After party. Part 1.

2009-07-10T16:12:00.001+01:00

It’s noon on a beautiful sunny and warm Tuesday and I’m floating in and out of sleep on the 159 bus travelling form Oxford Circus homeward bound to catch a couple of hours sleep before work behind the bar tonight.

My eyes, heavy with night time make-up are hidden behind a pair of aviators. My legs, last night clad only in back denim hot pants are now pulling less attention with the adage of some black tights. Finally, my leather jacket is zipped up tight disguising the fact that I am wearing nothing else.

See, a couple of hours ago, before reality reared it’s ugly head, I was living the dream. I was on the roof of a posh and cool rock n roll hotel in Soho, Jack Daniels in one hand, smoke in the other, kicking back in a steaming hot tub with a couple of my mates wearing my spandex slut all in one leotard as a swimming costume. And now here I am, oh how the mighty fall.

How did this come about? Let me rewind to a month back when I get an email off a certain Mr. Milas, editor of U.K Metal Hammer magazine. He wants to know if I still have my SIA licence from my days as a bouncer and if I’m still up for doing some door work. Alas no is the answer to both these, although I’m intrigued.

Turns out he is looking for someone to do the guest list at the Golden Gods after party who has experience of working the door, won’t take any shit off blaggers and knows who is who with regards to industry and bands. Interesting. Especially since I am usually one of the blaggers, and had every intention of being one this year too. That said, I’m pretty much sorted for both the awards and the after party and have been looking forward to the night for months so am loathed to miss it cause I’m stuck outside on my own playing Nazi girl.

Anyways, after much to and fro regarding venue, pay and time of job, I humbly accept.

It will be held at The Embassy club in Mayfair. Touch. I will not be standing outside on my own missing the party of the year. This venue is laid out so that I will be standing right next to the outside seating/ smoking area so loads of people will be around me. The pay is a third of my rent. Nice. And the hours are 10.30 pm to 2 am, so I will be able to catch some of the awards before I start and the after party will still be in full swing when I finish. Sweet!

So for the following month I tell as few people as I can get away with in a bid to not lose all my friends and not end up hated by everyone because no, I will not let you in if your not supposed to be there my friend, I cannot fuck this up. I wont get paid, I wont ever be asked back, I definitely won’t be able to blag it in next year and I will be held accountable for fucking up a very expensive and important party.

Before I know it, Download festival is out the way, I have for the most part managed to keep the task ahead under wraps. There were a few close calls, a bus journey found me involved in an amusing yet simile awkward conversation with possibly the worst groupie in London who is also quite possibly a bit psycho. She revels in telling me how her and her equally skanky mate are getting in to the awards and will blag it in to the after party no problem. Mean while I revel in the knowledge that no love, you won’t.

Over the Download festival weekend I got the chance to verify how I should run the door with the people at the top and the level of trust I have been given is slightly disconcerting. Oh fuck I am so gonna end up letting the power go to my head and be a right arsehole. Shit. Note to self, play nice.

The morning of the awards and I’m fast asleep having only got back from the Download festival at about 5 am. The washing machine is on, I shower, lie in the bath, dress like an eighties hooker and hit the hotel where Lady Starlight is staying to complete my transformation in to guest list girl.

The Earache massive are waiting for us in the lobby bar and we convince them that we have to get a cab all the way out to the O2 Indigo venue since we are totally not dressed appropriately for the underground. We are running stupidly late, much to my horror and I have a sinking feeling that by the time we get there all the bloody free Jager will be gone. I knew I should have stuck to my original plans of meeting up with my mates in Soho and travelling down but hey ho, too late now.

Far too late in fact. We are supposed to be in the venue by 6.45 pm and it’s half past now. Fuck. We all finally ready to split up in to two cabs that are not trying to make us wait 15 minutes, charge us 3 times the wack and take 4 years to get there ( no thanks hotel concierge, prick ) and zoom off in to the depths of South East London.

By the time I get in there, the jager is gone, the free booze has been downed by the less tardy of us and I have ooh about 45 minutes before I have to leave and get to the after party to set up. I’m so hating this so far. That 45 minutes finds me trying to cram in getting as twatted as I can without being so to the point of incompetence for work and catching up with all my mates. Who are way ahead of me in the drinking stakes. Gian from The Rotted is there and I’m always over the moon to see him since he is my un-official drinking partner in crime. He is completely munted! What a legend. All my favourite people are there and I’m mega pissed I can’t spend more time with them. As always the main opening question amongst everyone is…’have you recovered from Download’? The main answer being a mischievous knowing laugh accompanied with a suck of air , a possible raised eyebrow and a ‘I might still be drunk’.

I manage to slip in to the VIP bar area in my continued hunt for jager and find a whole heap of mates back there too, sweet! Got some jager too!

As I’m outside smoking a ciggie with some friends the girl who will be assisting me on the door tonight taps me on the arm and so drop everything so I can get the tube with her rather than brave it on my own looking like a tranny.

Next stop, work. Blah.