20/3/01 – en route to holland

it will only be our long time readers who truly appreciate the orgasmic bliss that we encountered stepping onto a mammoth tour bus today. we are to be transported across the plains of mainland europe in the very lap of luxury. oh yes, our good selves (plus crewman george) are spending the next three weeks lounging about in the salubrious confines of a starline touring coach. we have two lounges, a dvd player, a video, 2 stereos, a mini-kitchen, a toilet, a driver… oh, and one minute silence for company. i think we can safely say that we are happy little bunnies.

our journey from nottingham to holland was characterised by sleep, smiling and excessive booze-ing (from dave of course). can’t tell you much about it except my bunk is comfortable and warm. errrr, and that my friends, is that.

 

21/3/01 – utrecht, holland – tivoli

fear factory / oms / et9

(star damage / withered / prd chaos / tat twam asi / binary 101 / evil crawling i)

awoke at the ludicrously late hour of 2pm just as we pulled into the venue. as i attempted to make a cup of coffee i happened to notice the view through the driver’s window. snow. lots of snow.

errr, my choice of travelling wardrobe no longer seemed so apt. indeed the whole band had failed to pack suitably warm attire. perhaps foolishly we had envisaged a sub tropical paradise as soon as we traversed the channel. anyway, we rationalised, we always had our earthtone9 hoodies to fall back on.

as it turns out it wasn’t that cold. it just looked that way.

we had to park the bus a fair way from the venue but the local crew came and picked us up in a van. after a quick flit through the streets of utrecht we arrived at the first show of this tour. unsurprisingly it was a mammoth auditorium. and totally sold out! nice.

we did the wandering thing and dumped some gear into our dressing room. chuffed to discover that the merch man for this tour was none other than mad scotsman – kenny. (he of soulfly fame). top bloke.

got bored waiting to soundcheck. eventually we got our call and we blasted through a few numbers. we are sharing a soundman/tour manager with o.m.s. – he’s called martin and we already really like him. he achieved an amazing sound within minutes. cool.

next thing we knew, it was show time. the venue had pretty much filled up before we started, so it was a healthy sea of faces we were playing too. our half an hour flew by and everything went well. the response was typically dutch. slightly glassy eyed and lethargic, but basically warm. put it like this – it felt like a success.

after a speedy wash and change i wandered round the front with dave to check out a bit of one minute silence. the sound was incredible. i hope we were as crystal clear as they were. highlight of the set was non-musical (and that’s not to denigrate) - it was seeing glen clamber up the pa stack and then hurl himself (avec bass) into the pit. i believe he may have some mental problems.

didn’t see fear factory because we had to load our gear back into the trailer of the tourbus. i’m sure they rocked though.

got back to the bus and lay prostrate in the downstairs lounge with the rest of the band. the coach is a tad segregated at the moment. one minute silence are big smokers so they live in the upstairs lounge. the clean lung gang stay downstairs. well, it keeps everyone happy.

stayed up until the early hours watching dvd’s (deep blue sea and entrapment in case you’re interested) and drinking the wine we got on our rider. oh i love being on a tour bus. we had the most beautiful night and had no perception of the eleven hour drive to denmark!

 

22/3/01 – copenhagen, denmark – amager bio

fear factory / oms / et9

(star damage / withered / prd chaos / tat twam asi / binary 101 / evil crawling i)

woke at 12.30! bring it on… bring it on… after a speedy coffee we headed into the venue for breakfast (or technically lunch i suppose). now i should make it clear that we were invited by the promoter. he came to the bus and specifically said ‘food is up’. the reason i point this out is because as soon as we had loaded up our plates with goodies, fear factory’s tour manager banished us from the building. as we were exiting he explained that the rule is – support bands eat when fear factory have finished and left the building.

felt like a right bunch of prats. might have been my imagination but the guys from ‘the factory’ seemed a bit pissed at us. what a great first impression we must have made. fuck – we always stick to the rules – we just have to know what they are first!

anyway, we stayed on the bus like chastised children for a few hours, during which time graeme, our old bass player, made an appearance. turns out he was holidaying in copenhagen and spotted one of the posters. small world. we chatted for a while then took a wander to find some postcards.

i bailed out of a longer exploration of central copenhagen because it was too cold, and made my way back to the dressing room. as the rooms in the venue were fairly small we had been allocated a room in a nearby building. plenty of space and a couple of showers. cool.

karl and i decided to do some work on ‘amnesia’ (one of the new songs remember?), so we set up the four track and our mini keyboard and blasted away for an hour or two. mr middleton has some very interesting ideas on the go. i told him that i want to do the song in soundchecks as soon as possible. should be interesting.

next i had a quick interview to do for radio gladsaxy. it was good fun and made all the more amusing when i discovered that the interviewer was the guitarist from old school thrashers artillery.

as time ticked on we began to get a tad nervous about actually getting a soundcheck. we were due onstage at 8.30pm and it was 7.30 by this point! eventually we decided to take a wander over to the venue to see exactly what was happening.

on arrival it was obvious that one minute silence were ready to go (and had been for some time). turned out that the local crew had taken over ¾’s of an hour to mike the drum kit up! talk about slothful attitude. despite everyone’s gentle (and not so gentle) persuasion the offending parties continued on their ludicrously slow path. 8pm came and went and still oms had not checked.

it was then that i made the first awesome discovery of this tour. the posters (which had been splattered all over copenhagen) proudly displayed a door time of 9pm!!! and we were due to play at 8.30. oh, how magical. not that it mattered. the time by this point was 8.10pm and we had still not got within ten feet of the stage.

suddenly fear factory’s guitar tech/stage manager appeared. named larry, this is one lovely bloke. he bulldozed his way through the remedial staff of the amager bio and said some very angry things. we laughed.

five minutes later we were setting our gear up on stage. and larry had moved our start time back by 10 minutes.

obviously we were anticipating a totally empty room for our set, so we were pleasantly surprised when a healthy crowd trundled into the auditorium. it was all over very quickly but the response was better than yesterday’s show and we felt pretty chuffed.

after an outdoor packdown (very cold, i can tell you), we hit the showers and returned to the venue to check out oms and fear factory. sadly one minute were finishing their last number as we arrived. the sound was incredible though. martin is a very talented engineer.

fear factory positively exploded as they hit the stage. it was clear that they have a loyal following here in denmark, and that people were excited to see them. i grinned as the crowd flung themselves all over the shop. again, they had a killer, crystal clear sound.

the rest of the evening was a blur of red wine, quizzing glen (oms) on his opinion of ladyboy’s, watching george totally milk out on strong dutch weed and laughing at a certain individual’s dalliance with a local lady.

 

23/3/01 – aarhus, denmark – the train

fear factory / oms / et9

(star damage / withered / prd chaos / tat twam asi / binary 101 / evil crawling i)

the venue reminded me of the memphis belle in rome (a place we played with misery loves co last year). it has a kind of retro/fifties vibe with a serious side salad of americana. i find that kind of odd for denmark, but hey-ho, that’s just another demonstration of the cultural infiltration of our yank chums for you.

by the time we surfaced a huge breakfast/brunch spread was in effect. we attacked. serious luxury. i was eating brie and grape sandwiches. no complaints.

our dressing room (shared with ‘the silence’) was situated directly beside the stage, up a perilously steep set of stairs. (they were more like a ladder actually). not a huge area, but nicely stocked with drinks and towels!

the others chatted to fear factory while i updated the diary up in the dressing room. apparently ‘the factory’ are nice guys.

we got a much longer soundcheck today (i think fear factory’s crew cracked the whip!), and ended up playing near enough our whole set!!! i think martin was using it as an opportunity to check out our tunes properly. as we were packing up after the final tune (tat twam asi) i actually heard him say ‘i fucking love that song’ in his trademark liverpudlian tones. very kind, sir.

when gig time rolled around we were faced with a scenario all too familiar to us. no audience. it was reminiscent of playing a show in the uk back in the bad old days. maybe one hundred people. obviously the nutters come out a lot later in denmark.

we gave it our all though, and luckily the crowd soon thickened out. a few punters were obviously fans too – as we kept hearing shouts for specific songs. sadly we weren’t playing any of them (off kilter, alpha hi etc) but it was nice to hear anyway.

by the time we ripped through evil crawling i we had a sea of faces before us. and they showed their appreciation in seriously generous applause.

one minute played a total blinder, turning half the venue into a whirling pit within minutes. afterwards i was chatting to karl and he made a valid point about our touring companions. he pointed out that no band maintains such an extreme level of madness throughout a set. and i reckon he’s right. lots of bands talk about going nuts onstage, but most calm down after the first couple of songs, but glen and co are genuinely on fire for the full duration.

and having talked to the lot of them (extensively) over the last few days, i have to say that they are pretty misunderstood. well, misrepresented to be more accurate. they are very warm, friendly, honest people. i like them a lot. they have strong views, and in glen’s case potentially contenscious views – on sexual behaviour anyway. but talk to him, and you’ll see a very fair train of logic that is inarguable and definitely not misogynistic. .

missed fear factory again. this time i was in the shower. arse.

 

24/3/01 – day off in copenhagen

not as exciting as it sounds. we were parked up five or six miles from the centre and the weather was sub arctic. (the wind chill was so extreme i feared pissing in the open air incase the stream froze solid and i was left carrying a lightsaber-esque attachment from the end of my knob).

we did brave the ludicrous conditions for a brief stroll, but only to find a supermarket and stock up on supplies. that done, we ‘rested’ on the bus. ‘one minute’ woke in the late afternoon (normal for them), brushed their teeth and jumped in a taxi headed for christiania!

christiania (for those who don’t know) is the law-less, self contained state situated within copenhagen which is populated by hippies, drug dealers and very large dogs. we actually played there on the pitchshifter tour last year. very cool, but slightly scary. the tour bus drivers always tell us that parking there is tantamount to removing the contents of the bus yourself.

anyway, we waved au revoir to oms and settled down to watch some videos. managed to get some alan partridge and simpsons in before they returned and turned the upstairs lounge into a smokestack.

dave and i polished off the free day with a bottle of red and numerous games of fifa 2000.

 

25/3/01 – malmoe, sweden – kb

fear factory / oms / et9

(star damage / withered / prd chaos / tat twam asi / binary 101 / evil crawling i)

had a lazy morning sat in the venue. early signs of tour fatigue are manifesting themselves. principally as an overpowering desire to do fuck all.

during the afternoon karl continued working on ‘amnesia’ in the dressing room and we set our gear up onstage. hardly a full day’s work, but then again we hardly get a full days wage!

by the time our intro tape began running the audience appeared to have reached double figures. but when we stepped out onto the stage about three hundred bodies appeared as if from nowhere and squeezed onto the dancefloor. very weird.

the swedish crowd didn’t exactly go nuts but they seemed to enjoy what we were doing. it was only afterwards that a journo we were chatting to pointed out that audiences in malmoe never venture out onto the floor for the opening act. we felt honoured.

perhaps their reaction could also be put down to the ladies blouse i was wearing onstage. oh yes – i found a very fetching tiny red number hanging up in our room and i pilfered it! i intend wearing it ever night now!

i did a couple of interviews after we finished (in the dressing room with the rest of the band running round naked!) and had a beer with martin carlson (the super friendly swedish writer who force fed us vodka and took us clubbing last time we played sweden). he even managed to call up patrick (ex-misery loves co) on his mobile so that we could berate him for failing to come and see us at the show.

watched fear factory from the side of the stage. they are very, very intense. i cannot believe that dino gets his guitar sound from a rack mounted pod emulator! pretty impressive if you ask me. i used a pod pedal thing on the standing dead centre demo’s i did a few months back and they do sound great, but dino’s sound is unbelievable. i snuck a look at this equipment (if you’ll pardon the expression) and tried to figure out how it does it. no joy i’m afraid – too complicated for me.

after the show i was amused to see one of fear factory’s crew grabbing attractive women from the audience to take backstage. very motley crue.

the drive to stockholm was achieved with the aid of red wine, the movie human traffic (very funny) and the documentary’s on the dvd version of deep blue sea.

 

26/3/01 – stockholm, sweden – klubben

fear factory / oms / et9

(star damage / withered / prd chaos / tat twam asi / binary 101 / evil crawling i)

had breakfast (or lunch really) in the exceedingly cosmopolitan restaurant of the klubben complex. greek salad with feta cheese is a nice way to start the day i can tell you.

ended up having a chat with burton and john (keyboards) from fear factory and barry (oms). i gave burton a scare by reminding him of the time he spent four hours chatting up my girlfriend at an mtv event a few years back. he looked mortified until i explained that his advances failed! he really is a very nice bloke. totally unaffected and very genuine.

the rest of the day was a bit of a slow crawl. did a bit of exercising. worked on new tunes for a while. read. usual stuff.

sadly we had a mini disaster at the soundcheck. actually that should read – a disaster instead of a soundcheck. for some reason the swedish crew seemed to be a couple of leads short of a full rig. this meant that by the time doors opened we still hadn’t got any monitors. it was kind of funny really. we were just stood there, ready to go, but without the equipment necessary to do a show!

it still wasn’t sorted by the time our stage time rolled around. we discussed pulling the show, but in the nick of time some dusty old cables were discovered under the stage. with seconds to spare we soundchecked.

despite all the problems (and a ridiculously varied set of monitor levels) we played a decent show. i couldn’t stop grinning for most of it because i spotted our good friends from misery loves co (r.i.p) in the audience. it is always cool to see them.

once we finished we headed backstage and started drinking in earnest with michael (guitars), patrick (bass), olle (drums), martin (the journo i mentioned yesterday) and assorted girlfriends. it was lovely to catch up. the evening past in a blur and martin’s moonshine vodka did some serious damage to my insides. (and it must have affected dave too, because he was seen breakdancing at the end of the night!).

oms looked really cheerful too. they were hanging out with clawfinger (the band they did their first major tour with), so everyone was happy.

cool night.

 

27/3/01 – oslo, norway – rockefeller

fear factory / oms / et9

(prd chaos / withered / yellow fever / tat twam asi / binary 101 / evil crawling i)

longtime readers of these diaries will be aware that we have a bit of a problem with norway. ie they won’t let us in. twice we have attempted to gain entry to the coastal crown of scandinavia, and twice we have been denied access. maybe we smell or something.

anyway, we were determined to make it in this time and everything looked hunky dory. cardnet (truckers documentation) was in order and all illicit substances had been consumed/discarded.

so i was not at all worried (and certainly not surprised) when i was woken by a norwegian customs official at the ungodly hour of 8am and told to get out of my bunk. evidently they had stopped us just inside the border and decided to give us ‘the works’.

the chap who turfed me from my pit reached in behind me as i stood up and grabbed my earplug case from down the side of my mattress. in an unnecessarily flamboyant gesture he pulled the lid from it and looked suspiciously at the contents. sadly he only bore witness to my waxy ear defenders instead of a huge stash of crack cocaine. he sent me downstairs.

one by one the passengers of our tourbus traipsed into the lower lounge. for the best part of an hour the customs officials picked through our belongings. then they brought the sniffer dogs on. then they searched our stuff again. dull, dull, fucking dull.

the only pleasure we could find was watching the discomfort of one of our number who had been hiding some speed in his bunk. faced with the prospect of a stripsearch by norway’s finest he decided to eat the offending powder. he seemed a little fidgety after that!

after what seemed like an eternity we were set free… but not before our tour manager was fingered with a joints worth of weed in his jeans pocket. despite all his reminders to the bus entourage over the previous days, he had somehow forgotten that he had a small amount actually on him.

although it was a laughable quantity, our norwegian chums were displaying no signs of mirth. infact they were merely winding up to arresting him, banning him from norway for two years and fining him a hideous sum of money. bastards.

in order for us to get to the show we had to leave martin (for that is his name) in the custody of the local rozzers and hope that he would make it to the next gig in berlin.

i understand the need for border controls between countries. i might even sympathise with the need to regulate the flow of drugs across the globe. but busting an honest, hard working individual for the consumption (and private consumption remember) of a plant that grows naturally on the earth is a fucking disgrace. i don’t advocate drug use. i don’t even partake myself (although i happily admit that i have in the past), but i find it absurd that we legislate against a substance that grows more naturally than almost any product you’d buy in a supermarket.

the legality of marijuana is a bigger issue than this diary has room to debate, so let’s dispense with the illusion of discussion and cut to the chase. pot is not a bad thing. it is a relatively harmless recreational drug and the only things i have witnessed it inhibit are aggression and sensible conversation. as bill hick’s said ‘pot is a better drug than alcohol. end of fucking story’. i’m sure i’m preaching to the converted (do you know anyone who has not taken pot???) but it still annoys me.

i can also unequivocally say that this event has done nothing to brighten my impression of norway. at this point a two year ban is looking like a highly fucking desirable prize.

anyway, we finally made it to the venue and started the process of setting everything up. nothing particularly interesting happened (apart from me mistaking an aerosol can of oil for cream and coating my waffle with a thick layer of grease).

obviously with martin gone we had to organise a sound engineer. luckily the venue had a really good in-house guy who volunteered his services. oms opted for a quick line check prior to playing, so we got a proper soundcheck. all looked promising.

sadly we were struck down by technical gremlins during the performance. first we lost si’s kickdrum beater in withered. the result was every band’s worst nightmare – having to stop a song in midflow! the audience were cool about it, cheering and laughing (hopefully with us!). but it was a hard event to recover from.

also we had decided to try a slightly different set (replacing star damage with yellow fever) and it didn’t flow as smoothly as it could have done. and to add insult to injury joe broke a string in binary and i ignored karl when he tried to stop the set before evil crawling because his voice was going.

for all that the crowd were great and we went down well.

oms had a few nightmares too. principally when the huge side fill monitor on massy’s side decided to topple from it’s perch. luckily for massy, it missed him. but his peddleboard took the full force of the impact and basically bent in two. again, the audience loved it. oh, the universal appeal of the theatre of human tragedy.

after the show dave and i bumped into a couple of guys who we had met outside the disturbed show in london. had a cool chat before we were collared by george and informed of our imminent departure.

the day was rounded off by collecting a tired and emotional martin from the norwegian border. turned out that the local bobbies had allowed him to roam the streets for most of the afternoon (while they sorted his paperwork) and he had amused himself by playing darts in a café. once ‘processed’ he was given a lift to the customs checkpoint, where we eventually rescued him.

another day, (not) another dollar.

 

28/3/01 – day off in the arse end of nowhere, denmark

in order to break-up the mammoth drive to germany we stopped for eight hours in a service station situated on a frozen tundra beside a beautiful lake.

drank coffee. and that’s it.

 

29/3/01 – berlin, germany – columbia fritz

fear factory / oms / et9

(prd chaos / withered / tat twam asi / yellow fever / binary 101- full version)

this venue is opposite the columbia halle, the place we played with soulfly last year. although typically german in vibe (ie grey and industrial) it is still a pretty impressive setup. sadly the backstage area was not expansive enough to allow a full catering rig. what this meant in real terms was fear factory getting a nice spread in the ‘food hall’ and us and oms getting a solitary plate of soggy sandwiches in our dressing room.

when you’re on tour you tend to have one of two mindsets – ‘in the game’ or ‘out the game’. and today i was very definitely out of the game. by 8pm (door time) we had still not soundchecked. i had not eaten anything and the staff of the venue had begun to let punters in. it just felt all wrong. kind of like we were just playing at being in a band. i just couldn’t be bothered to make the effort. with so many things going against us it just felt insurmountable.

perhaps ironically then, we actually played with a bit more fire than usual. dave imparticular was like a man possessed. the berliners took it in their stride, refusing to capitulate and enjoy themselves, but fuck it – against the odds we had fun.

after a speedy packdown we headed backstage and hung out with some old friends – reiner and missus (agent’s rep for the german chunk of the soulfly tour) and gero (our promotions guy in deutschland). it was cool to be amongst friendly faces.

our evening meal finally arrived (10.30pm!!!) and we refuelled our failing bodies in the beauteous surroundings of the catering area. as fear factory finished though we made a b-line for the exit, so as to avoid any nasty ‘what are you doing in here’ moments.

but it turned out to be an unnecessary manoeuvre. dougie (band assistant to fear factory) appeared in our dressing room and invited us ‘come share the ladies’! seems that a number of nubile females had made the journey backstage to ‘party’ and we were all invited to join the action.

desperate to see a display of the famed oms birding manoeuvre we traipsed down the corridor and entered the foodhall. a gaggle of ladies (is that the collective noun?) were present and the two other bands spread themselves between them, instigating humorously vacuous conversations. it was great to watch.

karl decided to up-the-anti and proceeded to bend at the knees and fart loudly. if anyone can think of a more incongruous action please drop me a line and let me know. despite the inappropriateness (or perhaps because of it) we all fell about laughing. the ladies, however, seemed less than impressed.

nonplussed at the distinct lack of sexual activity i retired to the bus and hit the sack.

 

30/3/01 – hamburg, germany – markthalle

fear factory / oms / et9

(prd chaos / withered / tat twam asi / yellow fever / binary 101- full version)

big gig today. didn’t do much before showtime, except laugh at the cakes on our rider called ‘super dickmann’! don’t they have bi-lingual marketing people in germany???

perhaps it was the big stage, or maybe the litres of red bull we mainlined – but the show was rocking. we were really firing on all cylinders.

after we had showered and powdered we headed back to the bus. sadly it had been moved from the original parking space outside the venue and shunted a few kilometres away. that said, it’s new (temporary) home was on the reeperbahn (red light district to you and me). karl, dave, george and i braved the walk.

half an hour later and we were sat on the bus enjoying a cold beer. after a few minutes someone made the comment that we weren’t due to leave for a couple of hours and it would really be a shame not to see the cultural highlight of hamburg – the aforementioned reeperbahn. we vacated the bus and hit the streets.

dave and karl took the plunge first (so to speak) and frequented a peep show! i should point out that this was at dave’s request. he wanted to experience it and karl was the only other man with a 5dm coin to hand.

the show itself was presented inside a weird circular room whose diameter was dotted with coin operated doors. the guys no doubt expected to part with their cash, open their individual door and step into a private booth. obviously the attraction of a cloistered environment while observing a nubile, naked young lady gyrating is clear. however when they stepped through their own door’s they found themselves in an open plan room, separated only by a waist high plank of wood. oh, the mind boggles.

after a couple of seconds of embarrassed silence, a bell sounded and a distinctly bored looking woman appeared and began to dance. despite her attractive visage i am reliably informed that she was so visibly disinterested in the events transpiring that the guys suffered no sexual reaction.

next stop was some food, followed by a quick visit to a sex store for a spot of shopping. i’m afraid to say that a number of videos were purchased. amongst these were a ladyboy extravaganza, a well-endowed man/dwarf interface and a black street hookers special.

after we returned to the bus karl unveiled a magazine that he had bought for a measly £3! the touring party was so impressed that a kitty was made from our remaining food money and dave and si were sent to buy loads more mags. i think you’ll agree that we’ve been on tour for too long.

 

31/3/01 – cologne, germany – the works

fear factory / oms / et9

(prd chaos / withered / tat twam asi / yellow fever / binary 101- full version)

another gig. same old shit, different day. only variation i can think of is that we trashed si’s kit (and si) at the end of the jam! might not be particularly original but it still made me laugh.

and to keep us smiling we had a visit from young karla sopp (web mistress you dunces!). not only did she bring an impressive home-made flag, she managed a quality bottle of red wine. how happy does she want to make me?

aside from that it just slots into the compartment called ‘groundhog day’. for fucks sake – it only happened to me yesterday and i can’t remember a bloody thing about it.

 

1/4/01 – bochum, germany – zeche

fear factory / oms / et9

(prd chaos / withered / tat twam asi / approx. purified / binary 101- full version)

last time we were here we were supporting soulfly on the first date of their european tour… you know it feels weird to talk in that kind of context. supporting soulfly… supporting fear factory… pitchshifter.. disturbed… blah, blah… it was only a year ago we were playing to half empty pubs in the backwaters of the uk. when did this ‘real band’ shit happen?

for all the negative things i highlight in these diaries you have to realise that we do appreciate our situation. we know we’re lucky. we know we are living the dream. it’s just that the dream is a lot more complicated when you see it up close.

i relish the ability to express myself outside of the confines of real life. i have no job to drain the marrow from my soul. i don’t have to answer to anyone and the only responsibility i have is to perpetuate this band. but what we do is no more morally satisfying than the next vacuous occupation.

i find it hard to take this experience too seriously. we’re not saving lives. we’re not progressing mankind. we’re not even spreading happiness to the needy. we’re just making heavy metal! so i try not to let the progressions we make effect me too much. it’s not hard when you see how even the biggest bands struggle to survive.

anyway, back to the adrian mole stuff…

my body-clock is now officially dead. i woke at 3pm and ate breakfast a mere hour later. once our performance was over it was only 8pm! the only way to combat the insanity of this situation was to watch a video featuring a dwarf having sex with a man better endowed than black beauty. obviously.

after fear factory finished our bus filled to the rafters with hangers-on, friends, hormone crazed women and a few genuine industry types. i escaped the hilarity and endless false well wishing by sitting in the carpark with a book and a bag of popcorn. just call me keith moon.

 

2/4/01 – day off in frankfurt, germany

with bochum and frankfurt being a measly 300km apart we ended up with a full day of freedom in the city that spawned hotdogs. luckily for us the sun decided to stretch it’s muscles and blast us all with cancer inducing rays for the duration, so we had a glorious time.

our only required port of call for the day was a drum shop in order to replenish si’s depleted stock of drum sticks, condoms and books on renaissance art (spot the lie). while browsing the aisles of musical goodies i came across a walkman size effects unit for the guitar. couldn’t resist. bought it for ‘on the road writing’.

as we exited the shop it became quite apparent that we were in the red light district. my mammoth intellect was able to deduce this from the endless array of sex shops and prostitutes on display. just call me sherlock holmes. unlike the more sanitised organisation in hamburg or amsterdam this had all the feel of a pus-ridden, backstreet carnival. it was horrible. i had to avert my gaze as we passed the scrawny, vacant eyed ladies offering up their bodies. what has this got to do with eroticism? it’s just the weak being preyed on.

of course as soon as we had walked round the corner we totally forgot the plight of these poor women. such is the marvellous ability of the human brain. out of sight out of mind and all that.

the rest of the afternoon was spent exploring the city of frankfurt. and in time honoured tradition we soon discovered that it was exactly the same as every other major city on earth. marvel at the culturally significant mcdonalds. gasp at the awe-inspiring hmv superstore. enjoy the quintessentially german sight of a gap nestling up to a newyorker. tens of thousands of years of rich and varied germanic culture and we get to see a burgerking housed in a plastic-looking castle. how enlightening.

in disgust i retired to the bus and wrote postcards detailing the ‘fantastic time we were having seeing the sights of the world’. i am so duplicitous. so sue me.

it was during this writing session that a message popped up on my mobile. it said simply – ‘…you may have the sepultura tour…’. after a few hurried phone calls it became apparent that we were seriously in the running for the month long euro trek the brazilian metallers had planned for may.

if we got it, it would mean finishing the one minute silence tour in liverpool on may 31, leaving the venue, swapping tourbuses and driving straight to berlin for the following day. somewhat surprisingly half the band reacted with uncharacteristic negativity (cough).

‘this will mean we have no time off until june.’

‘i’ll have no chance to earn money.’

‘when am i going to see my missus?’

‘i’m knackered already’. etc etc

this instigated our first full blown band argument/discussion since starting this tour. joe had already gone to bed at this point, so he failed to take part, but the rest of us locked horns.

it was really an exercise in giving each other a reality check. here we were discussing the possibility of touring with sepultura straight off the back of fear factory and soulfly and we were moaning. despite the wish (or need even) to maintain a sense of proportion with the other elements of our lives, we were finally being immersed in the reality we had all spent so long praying for.

for a couple of hours we reminisced about the nightmares we had endured in the band’s early years. we discussed the shit jobs we’d had, the hardships of getting even the smallest gigs, the nightmare of being ignored by all and sundry. it soon turned into a bigger debate about why we were in the band at all. what were we hoping to achieve? what was the ultimate goal? what were everyone’s expectations?

we bitched and moaned for a while and tore strips off each other about dedication and a passion for making music until we became too drunk to argue. after that we returned to reminiscing in the way that only pissed people do.

wonder if we will get the sepultura tour?

 

3/4/01 – frankfurt, germany – batschknapp

fear factory / oms / et9

(prd chaos / withered / tat twam asi / approx. purified / binary 101- full version)

woke up feeling shit. alcohol has a lot to answer for. happily fear factory were still not at the venue, so the showers were free and available. after a long soak i felt vaguely human.

achieved nothing all day except breathing and basic movement. oh, actually i did discover that my spare guitar had somehow developed a serious fault. the input barrel had lost its tension, resulting in a total lack of noise emanating from the beast. good job i had had no call to use the thing! luckily, julian (oms guitar man) offered to bail me out. ‘bring it to me tomorrow’, he said, ‘i’ll nurse it back to life.’

the show was very typical of the tour as a whole. a microcosm if you will. due to factors too various to list we ended up soundchecking as the doors opened. i had no time to organise a monitor mix, as the three minutes made available us had to be utilised by our singers (their need is greater than mine!!!). and we faced the embarrassment of traipsing off the stage (in full view of the crowd) only to return seconds later to start the set.

of course, the good stuff was the same as always too. a warm response. a really enjoyable gig and the internal glow only achievable via triumph over adversity. oh, and burton and dino watched us from the wings. that has become a regular feature of the evening and is a serious compliment. cool.

 

4/4/01 – munich, germany – elserhalle

fear factory / oms / et9

(prd chaos / withered / tat twam asi / approx. purified / binary 101- full version)

ah, sunshine. today i woke at the unnatural hour of 11am and sunshine was the culprit. our bunks might by comfy and private, but they absorb heat like microwave popcorn. i slid from my bed drenched in sweat and headed into the venue.

the elserhalle, is quite big. and by quite big i mean – fucking massive. i had to collect an orienteering kit just to cross from the entrance to the dressing rooms. very happy when i got there though – we had a huge rider, including two bottles of vodka!

i celebrated our good fortune by sitting in the sun all afternoon with a book and a bottle of water. just call me oliver reed.

as per expectation we soundchecked as the doors opened. dear reader, this is more absurd than it actually sounds. we arrive at these venues first thing in the morning. so do fear factory. in fact we sometimes park up the night before the show. that means the touring entourage has approximately seven or eight hours to rig up and soundcheck (assuming that venues are ready to rock at 11am). we are the only support band to check. and we check as doors open. does that sound like efficient use of time to you? me neither…

anyway, we soundchecked as doors opened. luckily for us nobody had bothered to attend early enough to see our tinpot band. i must admit it was a slightly depressing sight – the gargantuan expanse of the elserhalle spread before us almost completely devoid of customers.

we were happy enough though because we had set up onstage in the most ludicrous manner possible. faced with the challenge of spreading our gear across the fifty-foot wide stage we had decided that insanity was the only answer. si had his kit positioned right on the lip of the stage, with his back to the audience. joe and i were faced inwards at odd angles. and dave and karl filled in the gaps. well it made us laugh. (…and fear factory, one minute silence and the local crew).

by the time we had finished the opening blast of p.r.d chaos the auditorium had filled up significantly. i reckon these foreigners have a strange habit of trying to scare bands by hiding in the toilets until they actually start playing. ha ha fucking ha.

ironically it turned out to be an extremely satisfying gig. well i never. after a speedy pack-down we headed to the neighbouring restaurant that was kindly providing us with a complimentary meal. i was looking forward to a heady mix of gentle conversation and intense mastication.

i was to be disappointed. turned out that due to commitments in his private life joe could not do the sepultura tour and this obviously raised a few points round the dinner table. it all got a little heated and we bashed heads again. it is very, very hard to balance real life with band responsibilities and we all try to do the best we can. but we rely on each other one hundred percent of the time. i guess we just don’t want to miss a single opportunity.

well, nothing got resolved. but we did drink a bottle of vodka. that’s karmic balance for you.

 

5/4/01 – day off in milan, italy

i know what you’re thinking. day off in the beautiful city of milan. scorching heat. beautiful women (or men). easy life. blah blah. let me make it worse for you. we were informed en route that the destination had changed. no longer were we to ply our wares at the scheduled venue – the rolling stone. oh no – we were going to do a show at milan’s water park! and our day off was to be spend joyfully bounding between huge slides and gloriously warm swimming pools.

now let me make it better for you.

the waterpark was shut. we parked in the building site area of the camp (a five minute walk from the toilets). everything smelt of shit (really), and it was bloody windy. arse.

 

6/4/01 – milan, italy – aquatica

fear factory / oms / et9

(prd chaos / withered / tat twam asi / approx. purified / binary 101- full version)

the sun came to visit today. and he told his buddy ‘the wind’ to stay away. this made us happy.

karl and i were due to do a number of interviews so we got up early (12pm) and met monica, our media representative for italy. she bundled us into a taxi and took us to rockfm 98.7 – the biggest metal radio station in italy – where we talked crap for a while. the most amusing element of the entire experience was waiting while the dj translated our answers! he could have been saying anything for all we knew.

next stop was the offices of rocksound. it was a short walk away and the combination of glorious weather, awe-inspiring architecture and the always ubiquitous beautiful women of milan made for a pleasant jaunt.

an hour later we vacated the building with burning tongues and a bagful of complimentary magazines. the rest of the day’s schedule was to be undertaken at the venue so it was back to the local taxi rank.

our arrival back at aquatica was sweetened by seeing the smiling faces of natalie and sabrina (our very special french friends – see earlier tour diaries for more info!).it was awesome to hang out with them again (especially as we missed sabrina on the soulfly tour), and made all the more incredible because they had travelled all the way from lyon!

the remainder of the day was very holiday like. we sat in the sun, talked with friends, drank cold beers and gloried at the privileges of being in a band. a special day i’m sure you’ll agree.

gig time rolled around all too quickly and although we were initially faced with a frighteningly empty venue we went out all guns blazing. after all, we reasoned, we were in italy, our favourite place to play!

karl warmed the punters with the opening gambit - ‘we’re earthtone9… welcome to my tent’, referring to the ludicrous marquee structure that constituted the venue! stupid as that sounds it seemed to do the trick, as hundreds of smiling italians flooded in to watch us.

their passionate response was enough to push us into fifth gear and we really put our heart and soul into the show. tonight was a definite highlight of the tour.

afterwards we said our goodbyes to the lovely natalie and sabrina, and headed off to spain!

 

7/4/01 – en route to pamplona, spain

how interesting do you think a twenty four hour drive can be? the answer is not fucking very. aside from watching the green mile on dvd and throwing nuts at each other, nothing happened.

oh – actually i lie. one of the wheels on our trailer decided to fall off just as we pulled into a service station. now obviously this was a serious problem, but for once it had nothing to do with us. and after all the shit we suffered last year i am ashamed to say i simply buried my head in the sand and ignored the entire scenario.

somehow it got sorted. how i love having no responsibility.

 

8/4/01 – pamplona, spain – anaitasuna

fear factory / oms / et9

(approx. purified / prd chaos / tat twam asi / withered / binary 101- full version)

... to be updated very soon!

 

9/4/01 – madrid, spain – la riviera

fear factory / oms / et9

(approx. purified / prd chaos / tat twam asi / withered / binary 101- full version)

hot… damn hot. this is what we wanted. sunshine so glorious it fried the skin cancer before it had a chance to get started. nobody wanted to do anything except revel in the heat. and so nobody did!

the show was a total killer, with a crazed response and the genuine feeling that people knew all about us in madrid. we even had audience member’s screaming out song requests.

had real problems getting back to the bus, people were so eager to chat.

i’m really starting to like spain.

 

10/4/01 – barcelona, spain – razamataz

fear factory / oms / et9

(star damage / withered / tat twam asi / prd chaos / binary 101- full version)

another hot day. the bus was parked a way from the venue, so karl and i bagged up all our stage gear and wandered the short distance across town. after a refreshing breakfast the others headed off for a spot of sightseeing and i took my book out into the sun.

two hundred pages later it was soundcheck time. we had more time than usual and this proved to be useful as fear factory’s very own burton c. bell had volunteered for a little guest spot. the tune in question was p.r.d chaos and we were, of course, very chuffed.

as always it was only a short wait before showtime, but today the crowd arrived early and we faced a damn near full venue when we kicked off. and i tell you what, i don’t know what they put in spanish water, but i want some. they were screaming and cheering before we played a single note. talk about ego massage. felt like the real deal.

obviously the highlight of the night was burton wandering out to play prd with us. i honestly felt very honoured. i remember the first time i heard demanufacture. the explosive excitement and the subsequent obsessive repeated listenings. if i could have popped back in time and informed myself that in a few short years burton would be singing onstage with my own band i would have freaked.

well it was a blast to do and we grinned all the way through it… and all the way through the ten-minute binary 101 set closer!

aside from ice cold beers, luke warm showers and the occasional abuse of daniella westbrook style nasal decongestant (anyone guess which members of the touring party???) that was barcelona over and done with!

 

11 /4/01 – en route to antwerp, belgium

drive. Eat. Sleep. Read. Drive.

 

12/4/01 – antwerp, belgium – xxxxxxx

fear factory / oms / et9

(star damage / withered / tat twam asi / prd chaos / binary 101- full version)

... to be updated very soon!

 

13/4/01 – enroute to nottingham, uk

... to be updated very soon!

 

14/4/01 – london, uk – astoria

fear factory / et9 / apartment26

(star damage / withered / prd chaos / yellow fever / tat twam asi / binary 101- full version)

... to be updated very soon!