6/2/2001 – birmingham, academy

since our last diary entry we have been working hard to be able to present something new in 2001… the set has been revamped (to include binary 101 and yellow fever), we have a stage set of sorts, our friend ‘nomad’ has composed interlude music to save karl the embarrassment/trouble of contrived interaction with the audience and we have finally given in and hired some crew…

we had a brief test of the new set at nottingham rock city last week with an impromptu gig… in typical et9 fashion we organised to have a production rehearsal at the illustrious venue without taking into consideration that there is no in-house p.a.! so we had all our equipment / lights / crew / soundman etc onhand and ready to go and nothing to actually play through… as luck would have it though pissing razors had cancelled their show for that evening and only their support (sleath) were playing… a few judicious phone calls and we were added (unannounced) to the bill…

in typical nottingham fashion our musical ministrations were viewed and considered by ‘a select audience’ only… but for once it didn’t matter… it was just a good chance to try out the new set and to get dufus (soundman remember?) familiar with all the parts… added to which we were awarded with several crates of lager and a bottle of sparkling perry for our troubles…

anyway, onto the psi tour…you’ll need to aquaint yourselves with a few new monkeys for the purposes of concise story telling, so here’s a rundown of the guilty parties:

george – tour manager

dufus – soundman

alex – crew (and singer in hardcore nutters 3^rd stone)

simon – lighting bloke (and sometime employee of the aforementioned rock city)

can you remember that? good, then i will continue…

the journey to drab birmingham was pleasant for si, karl and myself as we accepted a lift in the gloriously comfortable psi tourbus… however the rest of the guys had to undertake the pilgrimage in the confines of the mini-bus…before long we were admiring the expanse of the brum academy in all its audience free glory… it is a big, big place… these dates look to be exciting…

psi’s stage set was in place when we arrived and pretty damn impressive it is too… they have two immense projectors blasting out 20ft square images right behind the band… add to that a handful of epilepsy inducing strobes and a meaty p.a. and you have the recipe for a fine night out…

we said our hellos to old friends on the psi crew and then manfully squeezed our bags into the inverse-tardis like dressing room… the realisation was made early on that our rider for this tour was likely to resemble a solitary pre-schoolers lunch box… but this is, of course, a mere blip in the sea of calm that is life in et9… no tantrums were thrown and alex spent £5 of band money on bread, peanut butter and bananas, so everyone was happy…

welsh loonies lost prophets eventually arrived, squeezed so tightly into a van that we felt the need to applaud the comfort they obviously felt in their sexuality… we all watched as si and mike (their tub thumper) ummmed and ahhhhed over the premier drumkit they have been lent for this tour… nothing like observing drummers conversing in their native tongue…

the rest of the day was the usual rigmarole – boredom interspersed with horrendously loud pa/sound checks… we wandered… we read… we talked rubbish…

i was saved from total mental shutdown by an interview with ra ra fanzine… two young ladies probed and prodded for half an hour… enough to keep anyone on their toes…

lost prophets played to a hero’s welcome… it was a joy to behold… this band will explode – you mark my words…

…we managed to out-do them by actually exploding (the backline power anyway!)… yep, si’s home-made strobe shorted the power mid-set… faintly embarrassing all things considered… karl entertained the hordes with some 50’s style crooning as crew types beavered behind the scenes to rectify the problem…

we were soon up and running again and everything was going swimmingly… until some disgruntled punter decided to chuck a pint of beer at karl… his obvious dissatisfaction at our band was equalled only by our amusement as he was immediately collared by security and thrown from the building… oh, how we laughed…

you know, it feels like we have made some kind of transition… we have reached a new level of success… people are beginning to hate us, and that can only be a good thing… continual exposure to the world at large means that the brainless sheep who need written directions and a chaperone to find good bands have discovered our music and just don’t know what to make of us…fine by me…

aside from these unfortunate incidents the gig went well… the weird interludes helped build a more cohesive set, and it was exciting to play the more challenging material…

pitchshifter played a blinder to a rapturous reception… the very thought of their demise (brought about by their label’s decision to drop them) is a nightmare of monumental proportions… we need bands of this calibre to fly the flag across the world stage… luckily it seems that psi have no intention of stopping and the mca situation is just another blip on the lifeline of an already colourful career…

 

7/2/01 – southampton, university

another day, another gig. after a dull cross country trek we ensconced ourselves in the psi dressing room and pilfered nibbles and copious amounts of coffee from their rider… (hey, they invited us in – we weren’t stealing)…

karl had a series of convolutions as our new merch arrived (wrong colours, wrong sizes, blah blah… even some of the condoms we had done (!) were out of date)… but the rest of us laughed as the ‘novelty cock’ and ‘pussy fix’ logos looked great!

all in all it was a pretty relaxing day. i had a brief (but enjoyable) interview with dsyfunctional riot fanzine, but nothing else interrupted my day of laziness.

the gig was rammed to the rafters… the welsh contingent played another scorcher and won themselves yet more devoted fans… it was wonderful to watch them get accosted the second they left the stage… does nothing ever go wrong for this lot???

things certainly go wrong for us as si’s strobe again blows the power in the opening barres of p.r.d. chaos… arse… more embarrassing than yesterday and slightly annoying given that no-one knew si intended to use it again… the offending article is banished to the back of the van for the duration of the tour… (it will surprise no-one that the strobe has been nicknamed ‘the sodomizer’)!

luckily our daily disaster was served up at the very start of the set, and the remainder goes smoothly… it was certainly strange to see a pit developing for both ‘binary 101’ and ‘yellow fever’. not sure how to take that… part of me feels that we have created this nu-metal impression of our band by never playing the more esoteric material live… i would hope that people would take pleasure from music in all its many forms and feelings… not everything is about immediate physical response… but hey – whatever dings your bell…

psi cavorted about the stage in such a mental manner that the local crew was sent scurrying off to find more industrial fans to cool them down! and the crowd looked like they needed some fresh air too – they’ll be a lot of sore bodies tomorrow…

i spent the majority of the gig behind the merch stall talking to some familiar names (now faces) from our messageboard… it was cool to meet up and the conversation was stimulating…

 

8/2/01 – oxford, brookes university

today’s show was exciting for me on a number of levels… one – i love oxford, so it was cool to see a little of the place, and two – one of best and oldest friends actually works at brookes, so i got to meet up with her…

to help entertain everyone else i took along my scooter, and, as anticipated, it occupied the monkeys (errr, including myself) for hours…

while everyone else twiddled their thumbs i met up with alison (my aforementioned chum) and had a drink in the university bar…now you can’t argue with behaviour like that…

gig time rolled around quickly… i missed lost prophets as i was warming up, but i could hear the cries of approval… karl took to the stage in some splendid attire (perhaps inspired by the knowledge that our label, distribution and friends had attended this show!)… he was wearing a thin, rolled headband (a’la ‘fame’) and one of the new et9 ladies skinny’s! oh, it was a sight to behold… didn’t seem to go down too well with certain factions in the crowd (one lady was heard muttering as she left ‘i waited 2 years to see et9, but i did not want to see that!’), but we can live with that… challenge those preconceptions…

can’t comment on the ‘shift at this show because i stumbled back to the bar to save my friend from suffering a heavy metal overload… i was impressed that she (and her friends) lasted our whole set!!!

three down, three to go…

 

9/2/01 – sheffield, corporation

third (or maybe fourth) time at this venue, but our first chance to play on the big stage… sadly the dressing rooms are exactly the same for both (ie very fucking shite), and lost prophets and ourselves would be better off sharing a suitcase… not a lot of room then…

but who cares about that? joe, george and i escaped the boredom by searching out a retailer of coffee…never underestimate the ecstasy of caffeine…

the gig was slightly subdued… certainly not in the class of the previous shows… it is the first time i have seen the prophets get a less than rapturous reception… the audience just didn’t seem up for it…

obviously we were going to face an up hill struggle, but we did our thing and left the stage content that we had confused an entire room of new people… the odd looks we got for not blasting out a set of nu-metal jumpiness only fuelled us further… listen, we like heavy music a lot, and there are times when the visceral release of a blasting tune is unbeatable… but we are about more than that, and we enjoy playing all of the songs we have written…if you want to bounce about for an hour hire a fucking trampoline…

psi took the bull by the horns and proved exactly why they are such a great live band… js clayden has a masterful control over his audience… it was exciting to watch him lead and cajole the crowd into life! for psi at least, this was victory snatched from the jaws of defeat.

 

10/2/01 – nottingham, rock city

regular readers will know all about our relationship with nottingham… ie we may live there but home town gigs have a tendency to lean towards embarrassing farce… but would it surprise you if i was to say that this show was a corker!! oh yes, you heard me right… the show was a corker… we had fun…people clapped… oh my…

clearly we started the day happy (a brief visit home does wonders) and the soundcheck/setup procedure went smoothly… where we expected to fall down was the show itself… but unbeknownst to us someone had substituted a passionate and responsive audience for the usual nottingham crowd…

adorned in the camp clothing of the oxford show (plus a pair of aviator shades) karl looked every inch the glamour queen… i retrieved the leather hat (see psi and soulfly euro tour diaries) from friends and wore it for the opening numbers… kerrang nutter morat and metal hammer flasher nigel crane were both taking photos from behind the barrier so embarrassing proof of our escapades is sure to see the light of day soon…

the reaction was warm and appreciative, so all in all we finally hit pay dirt in nottingham… lots of familiar faces in the crowd tonight (for instance dave yaz for the third time on this tour!), which is not surprising as we had over 30 names on our guestlist…

after a quick towel down I came out to watch pitchshifter… despite having seen them numerous times, I have never witnessed a display like this… they were absolutely unstoppable… I was hit by a realisation that psi have more integrity and passion than any vogue band currently doing the rounds… oh, how it pains me to see them struggle to receive their just rewards… if you haven’t bought ‘deviant’, go out and buy it now… no, really, I mean it… now… go…

the rest of the evening was a blur, but I do remember alcohol… lots of alcohol… both morat and nigel crane slept at our house, and I also have vague memories of pornographic portfolios, greek alcohol and late night phonecalls… but that’s another story!

 

11/02/01 – cardiff, university

oh what a mistake… some-one please remind me next time that you only go nuts on the last night of a tour… never, and i repeat never, the penultimate night… especially when you have to drive all the way to bloody wales the next day! sore head…

we had all vaguely recovered by the time we arrived at the uni, but our strength was seriously depleted thus making the load-in   a long, painful process… to add insult to injury the dressing room was situated four floors up…

anyway, tickets sales were so good for this show that the promoters moved it to a bigger venue at the last moment… so there was plenty of space on stage…

due to the previous day’s exertions we did very little in cardiff… bit of light reading, a blitz through the university’s arcade, a quick trip to the local mexican restaurant (for alex and I anyway), and then performance…

it was a great show (despite our low energy reserves) with perhaps the most intense response of the whole tour…

can’t think of anything else to write, so I’ll stop…