Listening to: King Kahn & BBQ, Tin Armor
10/13/10…Canterbury, England @ The Chantry Social Club w/ Tremors, Human Junk, Ripped to Shreds, Man Hands, Mouth
Said goodbye to our pogger bastards. Had to show Ollie how to make coffee, who’s the pogger now? Got to Cantebury quite early. Nico and I ate at this crappy Chinese food place while the others went to a grocery store. Upon arrival the show was looking pretty grim. There was maybe 2 kids there and the bar tenders. We played pool for a little while and then darts. After that people started showing up. The crowd in Canterbury was very fashionable, very clean cut. Even though there was a million bands playing this show it was tolerable because all the bands were good. Tremors especially stood out. The singer was really intense. He grabbed some kid by his shirt as if the kid was going to sing a long and then just pushed him backward into a pint glass that shattered everywhere. Backed. The never again dudes were there, sucks they couldn’t play these last few shows. We will hopefully see them for their last show in Sweden. After the show we stayed t the promoters house. We got falafel at this place down the street. Nico got cheesy fries, cheesy cheesy fries.
10/14/10…Antwerp, Belgium @ Juegdcentrum Den Eglanter w/ Reproach, Get Wise, Bite Down
Woke up early and took the ferry back to mainland Europe. Laura Fox and Wim were doing the show tonight. Both of them have helped us out so much on this tour so far. From calling the people at the ferry to getting merch for us and recovering our lost luggage. We really owe a lot to them. We also had some duckets for Laura for selling all of her fanzines (Milkshake) in the UK. Laura made some delicious food for us. The venue was a youth recreation center. They had a big stage upstairs and a smaller one downstairs. We played the smaller one. The bands were all pretty good. Reproach killed it though really fast and a Lack of Interest cover. After the show we went back to Wim and Laura’s [place where Laura made us vegan Belgian waffles with vegan nutella chocolate spread and this called speculos. It was like cookie dough and teddy graham flavored peanut butter. So good. They were stocked with vegan goodies. Sleep was really good.
10/15/10…Bremen, Germany @ G18 w/ Plague Mass.
Woke up relatively late, ate breakfast and unloaded the stuff from the venue. In Germany most of the rest stops make you pay to use the bathroom. There is a machine that you drop money into and then you can pass through this gate. We have been just ducking underneath them all. Pay to use the bathroom? I think not. When we showed up to the show in Germany it was starting to get really cold. There was delicious soup waiting for us that the promoter made for us. The plague mass guys were really nice. One of them looked really familiar and I couldn’t pinpoint where I knew him from. He came up to me later in the night and I was wearing a Lemuria shirt and he said that he had played the Fest in Gainesville and that’s definitely where I saw him. He also said that his other band played the Electric Maid in DC and one of the ladies from New Habitat did there show. Small world. We played a few games of kicker and got our asses whooped by the Germans. They are naturally good kicker players so it was quite unfair. One of the guys was wearing a hat where he drew a coke bust logo on the brim. The show was pretty raging and the space filled up toward the end of the night. It’s been kind of crazy playing these shows and lots of people knowing the words to our songs. Definitely did not expect that. We had a really long drive ahead of us so we crashed early. Jeff stayed in the van because apparently the area was bad.
10/16/10…Gothenburg, Sweden @ Nordengarden w/ Anchor, Stay Hungry, Never Again, Common Cause, Royal Rumble, No Cause
The 8hr drive turned into almost 1 with traffic and taking the ferry over into to Denmark. On the ferry we were trying to scour for leftover food but had no luck. I got really nauseous on this trip. When we got to Sweden it was super cold. Something like 28 degrees out. I was definitely not prepared for it. Justin Jardine from Wisconsin was there! He is studying abroad in Germany but I guess was around for a short vacation. Good to see him. We got there as the 2nd band was playing. The promoter Marcus said he was starting to get worried that we weren’t going to show up. This show was an “Edge Day” celebration. So all the bands were straightedge. Lots of distros, food, and 2 tattoo artists. Lots of regrettable tattoos for sure. The kids in Never Again are good people. It was nice hanging out with them. Never Again and Common Cause stood out the most for me. Playing after Stay Hungry was pretty intimidating because they seemed to be the local favorites and everyone knew their songs. When we played the place went off though. The tom holder broke while I was playing so I just took it off, the drums were moving all over the place because the stage was falling apart and I eventually put a hole in the bass drum. Fortunately that came at the end of our set. Marcus and Steffan put together a really good well run fest. It ended up being a lot of fun . Nick and I got in these inflatable sumo costumes and wrestled each other in the back area for a little while with jubert jumping in here and there. There was also a kid who took an 18 hour train ride from Umea just to see us! He looked very much like Orion from Ilsa. I was also super surprised as to how many people knew the words to our songs and called out songs while we were playing. After the show us and the Never Again guys went to this burger joint that they were pressed on that apparently was “really good”. In reality it was just a 2nd rate mcdonalds called “MAX” that had some vegan options. Pogger bastards. Another thing worthy of mentioning is that the people who work at fast food places in Sweden are 1. Generally good looking 2. Wear nice uniforms. We stopped at a Mcdonalds to use the bathroom on the way to the show and the people working there were wearing these hip checkered button ups. The people at Max’s were wearing fancy chef garb. It was quite strange. We were also told its very hard to get a job at these places. Apparently they are “good jobs over here”. When we left there was this group of hippy kids in front of us wearing drug rugs and one of them threw his trash on the ground and we gave him shit. He ended up jokingly sieg heiling us and saying a bunch of stuff in Swedish. Swedish hippies are interesting. We stayed with Marcus and his girlfriend that night.
10/17/10...Karlskrona, Sweden @ Oden w/
Woke up to a nice euro-breakfast. Steffan came over to an interview with us for his fanzine. The itinerary for the show tonight said something crazy like load in at 16, food at 17 and show at 19. That’s a lot of time to load in and eat, right? We showed up around 18:00 and still waited around 2 hours for the show to start. The average age was about 17 years old. The first 2 bands were around that age. The second band kind of sounded like ETA and then covered a municipal waste song haha. The kids ended up raging when we played and it turned out to be pretty fun. We went looking for food after the show but everything was closed. We headed back to the youth center where the show was and the kids gave us the ok to rummage through the cabinets to cook something. I whipped up some pasta with some veggies. The youth center was huge and kind of creepy. So many locked rooms and empty dark echoey halls.
10/18/10…Hamburg, Germany. @ Rote Flora w/ At Half Mast
Woke up early as hell to catch the ferry. I’m so sick of eating French fries. French fries being the only vegan thing you can get on those things and at most rest stops. The area where the venue was pretty hip. Lots of fancy clothing stores and coffee shops. There was a burrito place (nick, Jeremy, and jeff went there and said it was terrible as id imagine a german burrito would be) right near the venue. The venue was a squat with a food co-op in the back so there lots of folks coming in and out of that place. There was also a group of dudes running drugs in and out of it and for some reason kept offering them to nick. The at half mast guys let us use their equipment which was really nice. We played with them a few years ago in some backyard in Fresno, California. The venue started to fill up pretty nicely. I played like shit. My bass drum pedal snapped in half while I was paying and lug nuts were literally falling out of the tom head as I was playing it. Not to mention the bass drum was sliding everywhere. Story of my life. Before we played they served food in the food co op but the line was super long so we had to wait for awhile. It was a pretty wild mix of homeless, crusty kids, traveling anarchists, random passer bys, and the bands eating. I only ate a few bites because if I eat to much before I play I play slow and sloppy. Soi put the rest on this seat next to nicos distro. I later find out that he knocked it over, probably on purpose because he is such a spiteful bastard. Just kidding, totally on accident but I made him feel bad about it hahah. Afterward we crashed with these ids who helped with the show. They were all vegan, so they had a wide selection of weird german spreads. I ordered flowers to be delivered to Sheena’s work for her birthday a while ago. I hope they got there.
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