European Transmission Part II

Its been a few days since I've had the time to put together a full update and so far Europe has left me with a lack of internet to do so on any downtime we've had.

Lets begin:

Nottingham was one of my favorite stops during the Warship tour last year and I was quite excited to head back again. The city is fairly cool but its more so the events that take place here that end up making the time spent here all the better. Last year we stayed up drinking late into the evening at a 3 floor, weirdo dance party that played a ton of 80s hair metal before heading back to the van to grab our bags. Pete ended up passing out drunk in the front seat and so we left him in the van assuming he would wake up and find his way to our hotel. When we arose, Pete was nowhere to be found. Turns out he was locked in the van due to child safety locks or something. Lets just say, he had a rough morning. This trip to Nottingham was equally as wonderful as the last. The show was a success and I ended up meeting this lovely young lady who was working the bar in the venue that evening. Beautiful she was. After the show we headed back to the promoters house where the guys decided to stay in and have a more chill evening. I ended up heading back to town with the promoter and said lovely lady. Evening was filled with drinks, dancing and wonderful conversations with Holly. I ended up not being able to find the promoter as he vanished with some friends and left me unable to return to our place of rest. I pulled an all nighter with Holly and met up with the guys at the Warsaw Diner, which was the same American/Polish diner we ate at on the Warship tour last year. We followed up Nottingham with a trip to Kirk's parents house outside of Birmingham to grab a few beverages and do some relaxing. It was quite nice and they had a beautiful home. So welcoming.

Next stop was Cardiff, Wales. What a beautiful city. I've never had the chance to experience Cardiff as we played Newport, Wales the last time around. One of my favorite cities in the UK, hands down. Can you really beat the castle either? so awesome. The show was great too. Ceri put on a wonderful show with wonderful hospitality. The support bands were pretty damn good as well. We met up with Kat in Cardiff who ended up throwing us the house show in Swansea later that evening. The hour ride west was filled with group discussions about our favorite bands and records. Swansea house show was filled with drinks, acoustic guitars and plenty of yelling. After the sets we skipped out and crashed. Next morning included a nice full english breakfast, walk around Swansea and a short but totally rad beach trip.

Birmingham turned out to be my least favorite gig of the tour but it was really cool getting to know the Shapes dudes. So nice and one hell of a band. Can't wait to hear their new record. We crashed with a friend in the Birmingham City Centre that evening and enjoyed more conversations and some brews. I awoke to my air mattress completely airless on the kitchen floor. Never a fun experience. Walking around looking for a quick bite to eat in the morning gave us some time to check out the city a bit. So much history. After grabbing a quick bite we headed over to Ibanez/Laney to pick up another guitar for Evan and started our trek back to London.

The Social in London was our next and last destination in the UK for a few weeks. Super cool venue. Really tiny but worked out really great. It was a busy afternoon and evening filled with acoustic sessions, photo shoots, booking/press talks and overall socializing with friends I hadn't seen in awhile. We crashed with our buddy Lewis (from the great bands Colour and Meet Me In St. Louis) out side of London. He made us feel right at home and was a great host.

The next morning was hell for me. Woke up not being able to swallow and with the worst inner ear pain. Being sick on tour is the worst. We had to get up quite early so Lewis could get to work and so we could catch our ferry over to France. I ended up passing out in the van right away and awoke as we were arriving in Dover. We tried to head up to the castle atop the cliffs but alas, this cost money and we decided to go find ourselves breakfast instead. After boarding the ferry Kirk and I shacked up on some couches for a quick nap but awoke to about 100 little school children yelling and running around us. Another not so fun thing to wake up to. We gambled a bit and found another set of couches to catch a bit more sleep. After a 4 hour or so drive we arrived at La Cantine de Belleville in Paris. Such a cool venue. Looked like a little dungeon or cave. The rider only had enough food supplied for the band members so Kirk and I headed out to find something to eat. We settled for a little Chinese place about a block away from the venue. I was enjoying a good Pho soup before noticing (after eating) that said soup had animal intestine in it. Kirk ended up eating the rest of this intestine as we finished up and headed back through the rain to the venue. Show went well and the french folks bought a lot of vinyl. Seeing this makes me very happy. The best part of this gig was the load of Americans that came out to see the bands. It felt very much like home. Seeing Martin and Mike Cella made my night. Always nice to see a familiar face when so far away from home. We ended up staying at Mike's place for two nights. He was a great tour guide and host. We had the day off in Paris and decided to see as much as physically possible in one day. We made trips to Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower, Louvre and more. A breathtaking city filled with an incredible amount of history. I ended the evening with a fever and sore feet. We all ended up going to bed at a decent hour and sleeping in for the first time in a long while.

Day off number two landed us in Lille, France. We arrived mid afternoon and grabbed a beer at a local pub while waiting for Jeff, our host for the evening, to meet us. Jeff plays in this rad band you should check out called Heliport. We hit the market and picked up some pasta, beef and other fixings for a home cooked dinner. We followed this up with a short trip over the border into Belgium to pick up some cheap and delicious Belgian beer. 2 euros for a giant Duvel? yes please. Dinner and conversations were wonderful. Jeff and his girlfriend have a great home and again, awesome hosts.

Doyle has now walked into the room to head to bed. I assume I should do the same.

Transmission III: Netherlands, Germany, Poland and more