| 8 August 2011 Oh where does one begin? I am writing to you from an island somewhere in Sweden. I thought I would try to explain a bit or two about our recent trip to 'Orstralia' and what went down there down under, but shit is a blur! I found some cocktail napkins in my pockets so seems like I only have to stitch it together and we will see if it makes sense.
Somewhere over Mongolia, 20 July 2011
We are at some preposterous altitude or other and the outside temperature is below the below-est. I am eating some fancy chocolate with hazelnuts I picked up in Frankfurt and drinking some red wine. The last few days seems hazy since I left the Greek islands and flew to Stockholm and then straight out to the Swedish islands, only to get up at 4.30am to go BACK to the airport in order to board this Frankfurt-Singapore-Perth flight. Feeling upside down but Australia never let me down before. Onwards and upwards!
Perth, 22 July 2011
We flew into Perth a day early in a futile attempt to cope with jetlag. I feel good though, Rested and strong. Nicholaus and our Lightning Engineer Mr. Cheese has been surfing and I have had a pretty spectacular lunch in the city and gone swimming in the outdoor pool at the hotel. Funny Australians. They think this is winter. I had the whole pool area to myself. All mine! Tomorrow we play at On The Brightside festival with Pulp, Tame Impala, The Kills, Modest Mouse and Warpaint among others. I like them all, positive little shit that I am. Chris talks about getting a bike and going around but wakes up late afternoon so it doesn't happen. Our Website Design Platoon, Knucklehead are hanging out as they are locals.
Tis all for the day, my friends.
Perth, 23 July 2011
Just got back to the hotel. Show was a gas! Friendly bands, great crowd, good veggie burger. After the show we went to a crazy-kitch-tiki-lounge-soul-boogaloo-transvestite-nightclub and had drinks. A good old style soul covers band with the unfortunate name Stratosfunk played and we danced. Some. Much fun had by all. Will try to upload some video or something of it. Maybe I will have to ask a professional how to do it.
Our soundman Dave tells me a hilarious story of when he went to a club in Stockholm and saw an amazing Yardbirds cover band. He goes up to the drummer to congratulate him on the great show and how they really do sound amazingly like the Yardbirds. Turns out IT IS THE YARDBIRDS and the drummer mutters something and leaves. We then get out of the club slightly drunk and stand around for a while trying to come up with ways to get around the decibel level limitations on rock shows in some countries. I have recently started using a dB meter in airplanes and it is usually as loud as those rock show restrictions. 90 dB. A flight can be 12 hrs, a rock show usually 1. You do the math. We think maybe we will try to pretend Dave is blind and cant read the meter. We start thinking about putting some Braille on the mixing desk and everything. How supposed 'drunken geniuses' like Van Gogh did any genius things while drunk is beyond me.
We get back to the hotel and get the horrible news about Norway and Amy Winehouse dying. So sad. No words.
Adelaide, 25 July 2011
Adelaide looks a bit like southern USA. Feels a bit gold rush. I have completely lost the ability to sleep. It is always the case. You think you beat jetlag because you slept well once after a 30 hour flight but then you are screwed. Just lying in bed hour after hour watching awful news about Norway all night does your head in. We also had the most depressing dinner conversations of all time last night. All war, famine, nuclear disaster, starvation, outfishing of the seas etc. Ugh. Really need the onslaught of signal substance and synapses firing in all directions and adrenaline and feeling of empowerment that I get from the shows. It is the reason I can't stop. I hear people sometimes say things like: "Why don't the Rolling Stones stop? They must have enough money now" or "Can you believe AC/DC are still touring?" This is always from people who have no idea what it feels like to have 50 000 people screaming at you and playing rock n roll through a loud PA. Yes, it feels good. The best actually. Chris and I go to a bicycle store. They are really happy there. An Orstralian won the Tour de France last night. Congrats! Cycling is Chris' latest hobby. It is very Kraftwerk of him. I have a hard time trusting professional sports. Especially cycling. I am willing to bet my nuts that they are on drugs. Otherwise they wouldn't win against other people on drugs. Maybe they should just let all that shit loose and bio-engineer man-monsters that we can all watch in arenas do amazing stunts? It sort of appeals to the 80s-post-apocalyptic-movie fan in me.
We go to the 'venue' as it is called in our line of work and meet the support band The Grates. They are really pleasant people and have a good high energy sort of Pixies thing going on. The guitar player plays a Silvertone guitar that has a cool sound and the girl who sings has a sort of Siouxie Sioux number on. The Adelaide crowd takes some warming up but then we get that surge where we bring them over the cusp into hands-in-the-air screaming mayhem. We make our way back to the hotel for another sleepless night.
Melbourne, 26 July 2011
The cool thing about playing Orstralia is that you can't really play every day since the cities are so far apart. Usually the time off would make us sad and restless but there is always nice stuff to do here.
Uh. Someone please fill in. Cant remember Melbourne much. I´ll call Nicholaus!
-Hey Nicholaus!
-Hey.
-I can´t remember what we did in Melbourne. Why can´t I?
-Not that much happened. The dressing room was cold and we only flew in and flew out on the day.
-Oh. Now I remember! All that really happened was that we stayed super high up in that hotel and that I eat a very sophisticated-table-manners-pinky-in-the-air lunch of tasmanian oysters and tea sandwiches.
-Uh. Maybe you did. Show was great though.
-Yes. Yes I guess it was. Thanks Nick. As you were.
-(click)
Sydney, 27-28 July 2011
Me and Nicholaus get up early to go surfing at Bondi Beach. I do the session of my life. This basically means I stood up quite a lot. You can't be a good surfer in Sweden. We need hurricane strength winds to blow in one direction for 3 days in order to get even a small wave in one specific location and it is exactly as rare as it sounds. We then have breakfast with a really nice local guy who works with sponsoring action sports "dudes". He tells us fun facts about that crazy world over some of the best eggs and coffee we ever had. Among other things those motorcross guys that do double backflips on motor bikes etc. You know the ones! Most of them cant walk properly after a 10 year career. I start to wonder if James Brown ever hurt his knees and question if I will sustain permanent damage from rock n roll (too late Pelle.)
We then walk along the beach talking about everything from dying to our forthcoming album. We meet Vigilante and one of our backline ninjas, Svala. They both have gotten free tattoos from a nice gentleman called Johnny Casino. Thank you, Johnny!
Nicholaus has asked our tour manager Zok to score him an Orstralian Rules Football outfit. Zok's nephew apparently is some form of star in the Sydney team. The preoccupation with sports with some of the band members worries me slightly as I can think of nothing more difficult to talk about. It doesn't matter though because tonight we PLAY! We meet some kids outside the venue and invite them in to see the soundcheck. They request a bunch of songs we have not played in 10 years and we do sort of passable versions from our dim memories. The Sydney show is really fucking fun! We are doing quite well despite the fact that none of us sleep properly anymore. Lots of energy from the crowd and us. The backstage scene is pretty intense with lots of characters: some Swedes that snuck in, some quite large and very well built Orstralian Footballers, a tailor, an exotic dancer, an actual rocket scientist, The Grates etc. We buy The Grates some champagne and celebrate the last bit of our little tour with them. Thank yous and hugs all around.
Brisbane & Woodfordia, 29 July 2011
We are now scheduled to play the Splendor in the Grass festival along with Modest Mouse and Kanye West. We are all a little tired but load up with whatever sustenance we can find while doing interviews. Me and Chris in one team and Nicholaus, Vigilante and Matt in the other. Our team rules. We watch some Modest Mouse and talk with Allison from the Kills. She is a little bummed about the sun during their set which we missed. Don't miss them. They are highly recommended. Sun really is not a good idea for Rock n Roll.
We watch Kanye's 18 locally supplied ballerinas warm up and his huge lights set up get built behind us as we are about to go on.
We kick some awesome assnut on stage - it is a slightly tough crowd. After a bit of wrangling we get them to give it up completely. The people who ran the lights at the show are terrible and don't show up to man the spotlights. We suspect bribes by headliners for a bit. It looks like our set is lit by the lamp in your bedroom, 2 candles and a flashlight but we make up for it by shining our God like grace over the proceedings and using our super powers. So there!
We drive home through the Orstralian countryside happy and at ease and cracking jokes and finally, in the distance, the shadow of the tour's first kangaroo in the wild.
See you next time Orstralia!
Kiss on the cheek.
MUUUUUAHHH!! |
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