Punk Rock and Coffee...

Work Experience - Part II

2012-01-17T22:56:00.002+01:00

Everything had changed by the summer of ´94. The year before we'd spent our six weeks of school holiday pissing about in the woods, playing football, listening to metal and generally living the good life. Now we were all working factory shifts. What the fuck had happened?

Webb's had scarred me somewhat, and the thought of spending one more summer's day locked up inside a factory made me feel nauseous, but it dawned on me during those few days of freedom after leaving the chicken factory that all of my other mates were still working, some place or another. And not only was I actually bored after a few days, I was skint. And being skint meant no money for Channel 2 on Friday night's and worse, no money for records.

The plan was to find an employment agency that dealt with non-food companies. When I thought about it, it made perfect sense. Simple really. What I couldn't figure out was why my mates hadn't thought of it too, why most of them seemed to be at the dreaded Solway Foods factory. The stories I'd heard about Solway put the fucking shits up me and I swore to myself I'd exhaust all other possibilities before I ended up in that hell hole.

I was there within a month...

I managed to get a few days work through another agency called Quest, who promised the highest paid agency work in Corby. I was placed at a company called Corby Corlon, which made cardboard boxes. Most of the people that worked there were older men and I was one of a small handful of agency workers amongst them. The place was dry, and more importantly warm, but in all honesty the work was fucking boring.. It didn't help that I was there on my todd and all the permanent staff treated us agency workers like twats. It beat sifting through chicken wings any day of the fucking week, but I felt pretty lonely standing there folding cardboard boxes on a conveyor belt all day. I was willing to stick it out all the same, but as it happens the work dried up and that was the end of that place.

It was the same story at another couple of places and although I wasn't exactly gutted on those occasions when the people from Quest would call and tell me, “Unfortunately there is no work for you today Mr. Smith”, I still felt the pressure of having no money whilst all my mates were earning. That heavy feeling once again reared it's ugly presence in the pit of my stomach... I knew I'd have to go back to the food factories if I wanted regular money in my pocket.

Webb's was out of the fucking question, and I was determined to steer clear of Solway, so I gave Ashbury's Sweets a go. One positive about Ashbury's was that John, who was my mate Beany's dad, worked there. He was a maintenance engineer and had a firm standing at the place, so I thought my chances of being looked after were good. One negative, of many actually, was the fact that I was working twelve hour night shifts, Sunday to Thursday, six pm to six am. Even with a fifteen minute break every two hours, they were long nights.. John seemed like he had it pretty cushy in there though, I only ever saw him sat in the canteen reading the paper, on call, but seemingly never called upon. He looked more than chuffed with his lot.

I was of course working one of the conveyor lines although I honestly don't remember what it was I was supposed to be doing. All I remember is being stood there staring at foil wrapped assorted chocolates, the kind you get in Quality Street and the like, travelling past on the line for hours on end. They told you that you could eat as many as you liked but nobody seemed to be eating anything. They were long nights... Now and again John would say hello, if he was on his way to the bog, otherwise it was once again, like Corby Corlon, a lonely existence.

Just as Webb's had, Ashbury's too deemed it necessary to place a huge clock on the wall at one end of the factory. What's with that really? It's like they are trying to crush your very existence with this shit. I spent a couple of weeks looking at that clock and the endless stream of sweets, my brain slowly being pulped into submission. It wasn't long before I started to wonder how bad Solway could really be.. At least I had a group of mate's who were working there, surely that would compensate for whatever hell the place had to dish out? I thought about it.. Fuck it, worse case scenario I could always come back to Ashbury's...

Hallmark Employment Agency solely served Solway Foods and it's three factories. Almost the entire Solway workforce was provided by Hallmark with only a handful of supervisors and other management types employed there on a permanent basis. What a great deal they'd struck together. Solway got an endless stream of workers with no rights, whilst Hallmark got a monopoly on one of Corby's largest factories and kept half of the wages paid out. What we got was practically guaranteed work, as much as we wanted of it, for the princely wage of three pound fifty an hour.

I'll never forget that first dark morning, waiting at the top of Studfall Hill outside of the Rockingham Arms at five thirty am. for the Hallmark bus to pick me up. The town was silent and I stood there filled with regret and fear. Five thirty turned into five thirty-five and then five forty and for a second I began to imagine how great it would feel if somehow they'd forgotten about me and I could just go home and crawl back into bed. And then I saw the headlights slowly creeping towards me up the hill.. The mini-bus pulled up beside the curb and waited for me to hop in. I pulled the sliding door open and timidly climbed into the back of the van. The driver looks at me and asks my name, I tell him and he ticks off a box on a form attached to a clip-board. I look around the van which seems to be full. I steal a glance at the fifteen or so seats and the depressed figures occupying them, not a single pair of eyes meet mine. I spot a free seat at the back and awkwardly shift my way to it. What the fuck have I let myself in for? And off we go.

The van pulls up outside of Solway Foods, which is more of a compound than a factory. There are three large buildings, named Factory One through Three respectively. The van has dropped us off outside a small Porta Cabin which is Hallmark's on-site office. We shuffle out of the van and into the cabin where we're told one by one which factory we'll be working in today. It's still dark, although the birds are beginning to sing. I hear their joyful song and it cheers me not one iota, in fact, I envy them with every grain of my being. I wait in line and when it comes to my turn, the guy behind the desk simply asks my name and then says, “Gareth Smith? Factory One. High Risk”, without so much as looking up at me. It actually feels like I've been sent to prison. “Who the fuck are these people?” I wonder to myself as I follow a few others that have been sent to Factory One.

It's the same deal as Webbs. First the changing room, overalls, hairnets, boots and then it's in to the sterile white room that is the factory. Unlike Webbs though, this place is a collection of smaller rooms, with conveyor belts snaking through holes in the walls and onto places unknown. Just like Webbs on the other hand, it's fucking freezing. I stand there taking in the place, wondering where Beany and my other mates are. A supervisor soon approaches me and is straight on my case, “Don't stand there looking lost, there's plenty of work mate.” With that he tells me to follow him, which I do, like a lost puppy. I walk behind him along one of the conveyor lines until he stops beside a large, steel vat which is full to the brim with a substance I assume is mayonnaise. Judging by the smell, it has a vicious dose of vinegar in it. The stink is so strong that my eyes are already watering. He gives me a large spoon and tells me to stir. I'm guessing this is Solway's very own initiation test. He walks off looking chuffed with himself. I begin to stir. Fuck me, if I'm going to survive this place then I'm going to have to hook up with one of my mates somehow, wherever the fuck they are..

I stir for a half hour or so until someone else comes along, takes the vat away to somewhere else and replaces it with another. And I continue to stir. This goes on for a couple of hours and just when I'm beginning to wonder if Jeremy Beadle is hiding somewhere filming me, the supervisor guys comes back, pats me on the back, and tells me he has another job for me. I may be paranoid but it feels like I've just passed some sort of test...

Those first couple of days were pretty shit, but thankfully I never went back to the mayo vat and soon enough Beany and I had found each other and for the most part we managed to stick it out together in there, through thin and thin. I wouldn't have lasted long on my own, that's for fucking sure.

As with all food factories, dispatch, that haven of warmth and cleanliness, was the place to be. I only got to work there once, but it coincided with an occasion when Bean was sent to the hell that is the mayo vat. The dispatch department was one of those places the conveyor lines went through the walls to, and the one and only day I had there was spent with a huge grin spread across my face since I spent it staring through the window in the wall at Beany, who was stirring mayonnaise in the refrigerated high risk room. He looked fucking furious and I made sure that every time he looked in my direction he'd find me grinning at him as I packed cardboard boxes. In Solway you take the small pleasures whenever you get the chance. I knew fine well Beany would have taken the exact same pleasure in my torture had he been given the chance.

Another peach of a job in Factory One was the sandwich line. On more than one occasion Bean and I were put on tomato duty. We stood there, eight hours a day, placing sliced tomatoes onto slices of white bread layered with a sorry slice of cheese, whizzing past on the belt. It was my job to put a tom on the two upper corners of the bread, whilst Bean's responsibility was to make sure the bottom two corners were taken care of. Four tomatoes to each slice of bread. We stood there for hours on end, performing this soul destroying task. It felt like prison labour. Sometimes, just to kill the boredom, I would start dumping handfuls of tomatoes onto the bread and take great amusement in watching Bean scurrying to remove them and leave nothing but the mandatory four pieces as they continued their journey to becoming sandwiches. It wouldn't take long before he'd start getting seriously backed up and there would be tomatoes all over the place.

One day, with the two of us at the point of cracking, one of the supervisors comes up behind us and tells us we're doing the job wrong! He re-briefs us on the exact placement required for the tomatoes, us standing there looking like a right pair of cunts. The supervisor walks off and we silently continue our work with heightened diligence. A few minutes pass before Bean grunts, “This is fucking bullshit”. I look at him, look back at the conveyor belt and the never-ending blur of sliced bread whizzing past, and the two of us break into a frenzied, depraved laughter. We literally stand there pissing ourselves laughing, tears running down our cheeks, the poor sap beside us who is on cucumber duty or something, looking at us confused. That laughter is something I'll never forget and it came to us every day, more as a method of keeping the madness at bay than anything else. Nowhere would we need that laughter more than the time we would later spend in Factory Three...

This place was high-risk and me and my loyal companion Beany spent the best part of two summers there. The chill of Factory One paled in comparison with this place. And it was wet. To add to the torture, the shifts ran on a system all of it's own. It wasn't the simple six am. to two pm here, rather it was six am. until “finish”. And “finish” could be as late as seven pm if necessary. The shift was over when the days orders were taken care of. Of course, the up-side of this is that “finish” could, in theory at least, come before two pm. I think that happened once the whole time we were there, and even then we only finished an hour early.

Our job in this hell hole was cabbages. To be exact, chopping cabbages in half, then cutting away the core in the middle before throwing them into a huge, steel container filled with water, where they would be washed and moved along through a hole in the wall and into Solway's orbit. We'd stand at a large white table in front of this wash basin, the supervisor would come with a large plastic skip filled with water and cabbages and we'd go about our work. We were given a machete to chop with and a steel chain-mail glove for our non-chopping hand, to avoid said hand being chopped.

The water from the cabbage skip was cold and it didn't take long for the freeze in the place to seep into our souls. That steel chain-mail glove was fucking torture once it was wet. Chop, throw. Chop, throw. Hours and hours on end. Misery. To add to the torture, the radio broadcasting through the speaker system in the factory played the same shite playlist of songs, roughly going on about an hour's rotation. I'm sure most of the cunts working in this place thought it was nice to have the radio on, but it drove Beany and I to the brink of insanity. Every single shift, every fucking day, you'd hear, at least eight or nine times, songs such as Ironic by Alanis Morisette, I Am, I Feel by Alicia's Attic (I think), the fucking Friends theme tune by the Rembrandts amongst other shite. Even to this day, when I hear one of those songs somewhere in passing, my mind goes straight back to Solway and that sick feeling in my stomach resurfaces. Another song that was on continuous rotation was the Mike and the Mechanics song, How Long Has This Been Going On?. Without fail, every time that line in the song was sung, I'd turn to Beany and ask, “How long has this been going on Bean?”. He'd look back and reply, “Too long Gaz, too long...” We'd smirk to ourselves every single time..

One song that never, ever raised a smirk though, was the heinous piece of shit by Boo Radley's, Wake Up, with the chorus line, “Wake up it's a beautiful morning..” Seriously, was this poisonous shit supposed to cheer us up? I always remember Beany cracking one day as he was chopping cabbages, taking off his chain mail glove and placing it to the side, before hissing, “I fucking hate the Radleys!!” I looked at him concerned, and tried to talk him down, “Bean, put the glove back on mate. Come on, it's not worth it.” His gaze never leaving the cabbages at task, he replied, “Mate, I wouldn't even fucking notice if I chopped my hand off it's so fucking numb!”. What could I say to that? He was right after all.

There were some permanent staff in this factory, real, salt of the earth people I'll never forget. One of the supervisors, Danny, was a right dreg. He wasn't a bad looking bloke really, although he'd let himself go badly. His shoulder length, blond hair looked like it had been washed in a chip pan, he had a constant pluke on the side of his nose and his teeth were yellow from the endless chain of roll-ups he smoked at break time. He did have the best tattoo I've ever seen though. On his neck, written in biro-thin ink, three names. Karen, with a single line going through it, under that, Tracy, again with a line going through it and below that, Michelle, the name of his current love, who happened to be a supervisor in Factory One. The darling couple of Solway...

Another character was an old Irish boy called Henry. He could have been anything from forty to seventy years old, the ruggedness of his alcohol abused, red face making it hard to decipher. He was a permanent member of staff and worked day in, day out at the cabbage station. If things got blocked, or backed up, Henry was the first to climb up to the wash basin and sort it out, seemingly taking great pride in his work. He was also constantly arguing with the management, much to our amusement. I remember standing there with him one day, me, Beany and another mate, Scrivener. Henry proudly tells us that the day after he's going on holiday for two weeks. Scrivener asks him where he's going, to which he replies, “Every fucking pub in Corby!”. “Resort” chortles Scrivener, giving him the thumbs up. Henry, oblivious to our opinion, looked chuffed. It's been years now but I'm guessing Henry is sadly, no longer of this world..

Getting through the shift was all about staving off the monotony of the work. You had to find ways of making the work interesting, otherwise you'd implode. What got us through most days at the cabbage station was a game we invented, where you'd get a varying amount of points depending on how the cabbages landed in the wash basin. One point for direct hit, two points for bouncing the cabbage off the back wall and into the basin, minus points if the cabbage landed on the floor etc. etc. Of course, we'd end up with a shit load of cabbages either on the floor, which would incur the wrath of Danny, or stuck on the rim of the wash basin, which would mean old Henry climbing up there, calling us cunts whilst he picked them off. That was worth ten points.. The match would last the entire shift and sometimes get quite exciting in a pitiful kind of way...

I like to think that I've always been able to get my head down and just get on with things, no matter how shit the circumstances. I've always had the knack to plough on, telling myself that how ever shit it is, it's not forever. And of course, I knew Solway wouldn't be forever. Bean had a solid point referring Solway, or any other place like it, and that was that instead of schools sending kids out on so called “work experience”, where they go sit in a warm office and stare at a computer all day, fantasising about the women that work there, they should send them to work at one of these places for a week, right before they start studying for their GCSE's. That should be all the fucking inspiration they'd need to get their heads down into the books.

As with most things though, it's not the actual doing that's the problem, although the doing being chopping cabbages all day was pretty fucking shite, no, it's the moments before the doing. The calm before the storm, the waiting for the bus to appear at the bottom of Studfall hill...

Nothing can compare to that feeling of those headlights appearing in the dark distance. Being that there was no other traffic around at that time of morning, there was no mistaking them. And if it was bad enough waiting outside the Rock at five thirty am. for the day shift, it was absolute torture if you were on night shift, watching people go into the pub at nine thirty as you're preparing for a night of tomatoes or cabbages...

We lasted a couple of summers but by the end of the second term our spirit wasn't really in Solway any longer and we had a hard time taking it seriously. One particular Thursday night, Bean and I were stood outside the Rock waiting for the bus to pick us up for our night shift. We stood there watching pissed up punters going in and out of the pub and the thought of going to Solway to chop cabbages for eight hours suddenly seemed quite obscene. As the lights appeared at the bottom of the hill, Beany caved in. “Fuck this!” he says, before walking towards the pub with great determination. “Come on Bean”, I reasoned, “Don't be like that, we need the money..” He ignored me and walked through the door and into the warm atmosphere of the pub. I stood there a few moments, my eyes twitching back and forth between the Rock door and the rapidly approaching headlights of the Hallmark van. Fuck it.

When I walk into the pub, Bean is stood at the bar staring forward, making no comment on my arrival, concentrated solely on the ale in his hand. He's taken the liberty of ordering me a pint which is waiting for me, in all it's glory, by the time I take my place beside him. I smirk, take a hold of the pint and throw about half of it down my neck in one big swig. Lager has never tasted this good. “I knew you'd buckle”, Bean says without breaking his forward gaze.

To make the matter of the Hallmark van even worse, the driver, Steve, was a complete wanker. He seemed to fucking love his job! Arrogance seeped out of his every pore as he drove us to hell each day. He'd obviously never worked a shift in Solway in his life. Never more was my hatred for Steve amplified than on one certain morning when we were working the six to “finish” shift.

Bean had slept at mine and we'd arranged for the van to pick the pair of us up outside the Rock as usual. Of course, we'd sat up the night before until the early hours shooting the breeze, eventually getting our heads down some time around two am. The alarm clock went off at five and obviously we felt like shite. We lay there and discussed the possibilities of just lying in bed and hoping for the best. After a tug-of-war with my conscience we turned the alarm off and went back to an uneasy sleep. At five forty-five the phone downstairs starts to ring. I start awake. Shit... The pair of us slumber downstairs to the dining room where the phone is ringing and stare at it, wondering how to handle this delicate situation. It stops. We stare at each other. Relief. It starts to ring again. That bastard Steve is one determined fucker! Bean and I stand there arguing over who is going to answer the phone, giving each other all sorts of reasons for why the other should take on the duty. Bean finally answers the phone. “Hello... Gareth? Yeah he's here, one second.” Fuck. Didn't see that coming.

I sheepishly take the phone from Bean, who now has a smile the width of the fucking Grand Canyon spread across his face. Steve sounds pissed off. “Where are you guys?” he asks. I've never been that good at talking shite on the spot, “Er, we were there waiting but the bus never came. We were stood around the other side on Clydesdale Road.” Even as I said it I heard how lame it was. “Well I find that hard to believe,” he tells it to me straight. “Get your arses there now and I'll pick you up in ten minutes.” I put the phone back on the hook and Bean and I burst out laughing. It was a laughter tinted by desperation but nonetheless we laughed long and hard, and from that point on Steve became known as Hard To Believe Steve. He also became our mortal enemy. I never could figure out his fucking beef.

The final straw was eventually drawn for me and Bean one day in Factory Three. We were working the dreaded six to finish shift, chopping cabbages in half all fucking day. There were no windows in the Factory, lending the place that purgatorial feel. We'd made the mistake of heading outside on our lunch break. It was a glorious day in late July. As much as the fresh air was welcome it made going back in for the rest of the shift all that more agonising.

We stood there chopping away, listening to the usual cack on the radio, by now I had an almost morbid hatred of Alanis Morisette and that fucking Ironic song, watching the clock slowly tick towards two pm. Urging it all the while to pick up the pace.

When two pm. arrived, we finished up what was hopefully the last skip of cabbages and looked around for signs of the supervisor, praying to fuck that we'd be told the shift was over. No supervisor came, but then, neither did a new skip of cabbages.. Two-ten pm. Still no sign of either supervisor or cabbage skip. Bean decides that's enough for him and heads out to the changing room. I follow him, knowing fine well in my heart of hearts that if the shift was over then the supervisor would have told us so, and also the rest of the workers would be heading out the door with us. It didn't feel right as the two of us strided towards the exit.

We walk outside into the blazing sunshine and sure enough, there is no van waiting to take us home. “It's beautiful out today, let's walk home,” Bean suggests. “I dunno mate, I don't think the shift is over.” “It is, we were stood there waiting for fifteen minutes scratching our arses waiting for cabbages, and it's two pm. They probably just forgot to tell us that's it for the day,” Bean replies, sounding like he has a hard time even convincing himself. “Nah, I'm knackered mate, can't be arsed walking home, let's just sit here in the sun and wait for the van, it'll be here soon,” I say. We argue for about ten minutes before Beany gives in and the two of us sit there on the pavement, backs against the wall, basking in the sunshine.

For a moment it's absolutely wonderful. And then Danny the supervisor bursts through the door with a face like a slapped arse. “What the fuck are you two ladies doing, shift's not over yet!” Bean looks at me like he wants to slowly and methodically tear me limb from limb. My stomach plummets into the depths of regret. We trudge back in for what turns out to be another four hours of chopping cabbages, the whole while Bean refusing to talk to me. “Isn't it ironic, don't you think? It's like ray-ay-ain, on a summer's day...” Fuck you Morisette. Fuck you.

That turned out to be the last day I ever worked in Solway. On many an occasion during our time there, Bean and I fantasised about going back to the place, later on in life, once we'd made successes of ourselves. The plan was, we'd book a shift back in Factory One, walk in, take a piss on the sandwich line and walk out again. That dream, which we'd discuss at length, kept us going through many a shit day.

Needless to say, the dream never materialised. It didn't need to. It was just something to take strength from then, to get us through those long, cold days. Looking back at it now, I understand that the experience I gained has put me in good stead for the rest of my life. As much as I thought it was hell then, I'm glad for the experience now. It's shaped me in a way only real, hard work can. Solway is still going strong today and hundreds of people are still working there, day in, day out. And I have nothing but respect for every single one of them. Except Steve. I still fucking hate Steve.

These days, when I hear friends in Stockholm complaining about working a stressful forty hour week in an office, it makes me laugh. They wouldn't last ten minutes in Solway. Then again, I don't know if I would any more...

Work Experience - Part I

2011-12-13T13:40:00.002+01:00

I got my first job when I was thirteen years old, delivering papers for the local newsagent. It was my first experience of getting up early for work. I hated it. I'd get up a seven in the morning for my round which would take about half an hour, then I'd go to school. I realised pretty early on that I was a night owl.

My second job was at a social club called the Silver Band Club. I was a glass collector, or as my friend Stuart always calls it, a pot man. I love that expression... Anyway, I was fourteen when I started at the Silver Band Club. Upon turning eighteen I would graduate to the lofty position of bartender, something I would return to later in life.. But it's those days collecting empty glasses that hold a dear memory for me. I worked every Sunday, the same night my dad worked extra on the taxis. We'd finish at the same time and he'd come and pick me up in the cab. We'd get home in time for the start of MTV's Headbanger's Ball. I'd have a cup of tea, my dad would have a beer and there we'd sit and watch what was in those days a great show. My dad would normally head off to bed after a half hour or so whilst I'd sit up and watch the programme in it's entirety. The presenter, Vanessa Warwick, was my first love...

Neither Raj's paper shop or the Silver Band Club felt like real jobs though, which at the time suited me just fine. I earned around eighteen pound a week from the SBC, which was five pounds more than Raj paid me. It was pocket money. That eighteen quid covered a night out at Channel 2, the place where all us “freaks”, “long hairs” or “grungers” as the jocks at school called us, hung out every Friday. Two pound-fifty entrance fee, two pound a pint. Eighteen quid was more than enough to get pissed up on.. Things were good. I felt then that I never wanted anything to change. Life could stay this way forever.

And then come the summer of '94.

That summer was the first time I heard the term “Employment Agency”. I wasn't quite sure what the deal was, but a couple of my mates were suddenly working on these agencies which provided work in a selection of the many factories scattered around the town's many industrial estates. Until this time I'd never ventured into these areas of Corby, they were just a dubious grey shadow on the outskirts of town where all the grown-ups worked. The first of us to go to work was my mate Leon. He told us it was fucking horrible. He'd have to get on this bus with all these scumbags, that would shuttle them to the factory, where he'd work a mind numbing eight hours a day. The thing was, it paid three pound fifty an hour. A week's work would earn you around one hundred and forty pounds a week. That was a hell of an improvement on eighteen fucking quid!

It's just, this was supposed to be the time when we were on our summer holiday. I wasn't prepared for this. Nobody had warned me the previous summer that it would be the last time I'd know freedom. But still, one hundred and forty quid! How bad could it really be? I took myself down to Staff Line's office on George Street.

What got me was how arrogant the people who worked at the Agency were. I had to sit and fill in a questionnaire while this smarmy bastard sat behind his desk with a smirk on his face. There was all the mandatory stuff like name, address, national insurance number and such, but when that was out of the way came the next section, which dealt directly with the type of work you would be involved with. One question was, “Will you work with food?”. For some reason I felt compelled to say no, but Smarmy Cunt made it quite clear that unless you ticked that particular yes box your chances of getting any work were practically nil. With a heavy heart I drew a tick. I had a horrible feeling I new what was coming next.

After completing the form and going through a quick interview, I'm told I'll be called if they can find any work for me. I left the place hoping I'd never hear from them again. Within in a hour Smarmy Cunt is on the phone telling me that I'll be happy to hear that he has found me work at Webster's Chicken Factory, starting at six am the next day. I felt like I'd just been sentenced to life imprisonment. Life as I knew it was officially over.

The first thing that hits you is the smell. That smell could turn your stomach like a kick in the bollocks. And this was before you even stepped out onto the factory floor. This was in the changing room, where you'd adorn a protective white suit with rubber boots and rubber gloves, topped off with a hairnet and white hat. For a couple of seconds I actually forgot about the smell and concerned myself more with the fact that I looked like a right twat. When I actually walked through the heavy steel door into the factory though, that particular worry subsided. That stink of dead chicken. I'll never forget it. That and the look of absolute depression on the faces of the other people working there.

As I enter the factory floor, trying to keep the puke down, I'm greeted by a guy called Mark who tells me he is the supervisor. He seems very proud as he tells me this and I learn quickly enough that he takes his job very fucking seriously. He gives me a quick tour of the factory floor, telling me about the different lines and stations. As I follow him about like a lost puppy trying my best to avoid the eyes of my fellow co-workers for fear of being devoured by the weight of their gaze, my gag reflex slowly adjusts to the smell. It's then that I notice how fucking cold it is in here.

I finally reach the station where Mark tells me I'll be working. The chicken wing line. It's like this:

The line starts with somebody opening a vat of raw chicken wings and shovelling them onto the start of the conveyor belt. A little further down the line somebody is stood spreading the wings out before they enter a machine that covers them in breadcrumbs. Upon leaving the breadcrumb machine, they continue along the belt where someone else, in this case yours truly, gives them a further inspection, separating any that are stuck together, before they continue along into another machine that rapidly freezes them, from where they exit into a funnel system, dropping into plastic container bags that are then sealed by someone else stood at the end of the line and thrown into a cage. Mark tells me it's of the utmost importance that I don't let any wings by that are stuck together. Ok boss. And that's me. I look down the line and notice there is a huge fucking clock on the wall at the end of the factory. Six fifteen am. First break is at eight-thirty. I just have to think about that first break. If I think about two pm I won't make it. If I think about the fact that I'll be here tomorrow, and again the day after, I'll probably break down and cry.

I stand there in silence sifting through cold, soggy, breadcrumb coated chicken wings, making sure they all go into the freezer separately. I look down the line at the two guys bagging the finished product and I'm hit by a wave of jealousy. What I wouldn't give to be on that position. I put my head back down and try not to think about it. Another thirty minutes or so go by before my gaze starts to wonder again. I have a scan of the factory. It's a pretty big place. And it's very white. White walls, white ceiling, white tiled floor. Everything is white, except for the various types of chicken flesh that have dropped to the floor, but they're quickly removed by people who have the job of constantly hosing the floor down with freezing cold water and shovelling up the waste, hence the rubber boots I'm wearing. As I make a one hundred and eighty degree scan around this misery, I do a double take at a face on the other side of the factory smiling back at me. It's my mate Heg. An almost euphoric relief washes over me. A friend. And furthermore, it's Heg, who has the talent of laughing in the face of almost any hardship. We make signals to each other across the factory floor and we arrange to take our breaks together. Maybe this is survivable after all. Just as things are starting to feel better, Mark creeps up behind me and tells me to get on with my work. And alas, misery returns.

At break Heg tells me that he's been here for about a week. He's worked on most of the stations and he tells me the place to be is dispatch, which is by far the best job in this joint. Dispatch is basically the warehouse side of the factory where the products are packed into boxes and then onto pallets, ready for shipping. It's warmer there and you don't have to wear all this protective gear. I need to get myself in there somehow.

The line Heg is working on at the moment though, where he's been for a few days, is unmistakeable at the other end of the Webb's spectrum. He's on the first line, where whole chickens, plucked and minus a head, come in to the factory. Heg's job is to stick these carcasses arse first onto a metal clamp which then moves them along the line to be chopped up and dissected into various pieces. As we sit there over a cup of tea and a sandwich I wonder what they fuck I'm doing here. I just try to convince myself that it will all be worth it at the end of the week when I have a hundred and forty quid a week in my bank account.

The trouble is, it never really turned out that way. The elation at that first wage had all but subsided by the following Monday. The best it got for me on Webb's chicken factory ladder was working on the bags at the end of the wing line. By day three I was fantasising about ways of murdering Mark and getting away with it. Even my parents, doing their best to install some sort of work ethic in me (my dad worked for years at the steel plant for fuck sakes), couldn't hide the pity in their eyes. My dad told me he felt awful picking me up at the end of the day in his Royal Mail van, seeing the despair in my face as I climbed into the passenger seat, my shoulder length hair stinking of chicken guts. It would take about an hour in the shower to even get near feeling clean again.

I only lasted three weeks, although it felt like an eternity. The end came on one dark hungover morning. Me and Heg had been out the night before at Reflections in Kettering, which had an alternative night every Monday. We'd had a few drinks by the time we left there around midnight. It was a great feeling being there with all our mates, dancing to good music, doing our best to impress the girls we knew. For a few hours Webb's was the furthest thing from our minds. As we were sat in our mate Mike's car on the way home though, the doom started to filter back to conscious thought. Heg suddenly turns round, half pissed and tells me he can't go to work tomorrow, or actually today, in six hours time. On certain days you would get picked up by a taxi, paid for by the Agency, today being such an occasion. Heg begged me to tell the cab driver he was sick. I disgruntledly agreed.

The taxi pulls up outside of my parents house around five thirty. It's dark and cold. I hop in the back and tell the driver not to bother going to Heg's place since he's called and said he was sick. I don't know why he gave a piss, but he tells me that he'll just go and double check anyway. “What the fuck is this?” I wonder, although secretly I'm chuffed. He pulls up outside Heg's place, a few streets away, and beeps his horn. Nothing. He beeps again. And again. “Fucking hell, this cunt is evil!” I think to myself, a smile by now spreading across my face. Eventually a light turns on in the house. Within a few minutes Heg appears at the door and I can swear I see his dad's boot kicking him up the arse on the way out. He looks absolutely destroyed as he collapses beside me on the taxi bench seat. We drive to Webb's in silence. By the time we're sat in the canteen at five-fifty, Heg is in tears. It's only then I realise how fucked up this situation is. Today will be my last day in Webb's. I don't give a fuck what my parents say, I'm willing to face the shame of quitting.

When I leave at the end of the day and get in my dad's Royal Mail van I tell him I'm not going back. “Don't fucking blame you boy!” he says. We drive away from the place and I feel like I've just gained my freedom back. I'm almost in tears myself by this point, but they are tears of relief. I only hope Heg's dad is as understanding as mine...

Still, that money in bank is bankrolling what is the beginning of a life-long obsession, namely collecting records. I have to think of another plan. There has to be better alternatives to working than Webb's. I decide that I'll give it another go and hope for something better at another agency. And this time I'll stand my ground and abstain from ticking that fucking yes box...

Bloodshed Fest

2011-10-25T00:35:00.002+02:00

There is some footage bandying around of our show a couple of weeks ago at the wonderful Bloodshed Fest in Eindhoven. Here is a little taster. Thanks again to Luc for a great night!

Eindhoven

2011-10-25T00:22:00.001+02:00

The plane touches down and as soon as it's come under controlled speed and taxiing to the gate I turn on my phone. “Just landed darling. What's the score?”.

Liverpool are at home to Man Utd. today and typically enough we're flying during the fucking game. I'm nervous as I await the plinging sound of a text message coming in. Within a minute Jen has texted me back. Half time, 0-0. I'm hoping Stachel is late so Johan and I can at least catch the end of the game.

Schiphol is an absolutely huge airport but unbelievably enough, there isn't a bar anywhere that is showing the game. There are a couple of places with television's showing tennis, but no football. Only one of the biggest games in club football anywhere in the world... Tennis for fuck sakes?

Resigned to the fact that we're not going to see any of the game, we retire to the toilets. Just as I'm zipping up I get another text through. “Gerrard! 1-0 Liverpool!” I almost catch my knob in my zipper as I'm half pulling up my jeans, half dancing with joy. I shout to Johan who is sat in the adjacent cubicle. “Yes get in!” he says, followed by the sound of turd splashing down in to the water below.

Stachel texts and tells us he's twenty minutes away. By the time he arrives the Scum have equalised and the game ends 1-1. Can't help being a little disappointed, but the main feeling, as is always the case when we play that shower of shite, is relief that we didn't let them beat us.

The drive to Eindhoven is a short one. We're playing a slot on a festival called Bloodshed Fest, which is at the renowned Dynamo Club. It being a predominantly grindcore festival, Jon has obviously played it before. He's psyched about the show, promising us it's going to be good. There are a few other punk bands playing, like Doom and Vogue, the latter of which I'm particularly looking forward to seeing since they are splitting up and this is one of their last shows. We're playing second to last on the smaller stage in the basement which should be a great slot. To top things off, there will be a contingent from the UK in attendance, led by Bloody Kev and Goy. I'm looking forward to hanging out with them tonight. It's far too seldom an occurrence these days..

We arrive at the festival about five hours before our stage time. We meet Luc, the promoter of the show, outside. He tells us that yesterday went really well but today has already done over a hundred more tickets and it's still early. He is of the consensus that our show tonight is going to be wild. It seems that tonight has a lot to live up to. I head inside the venue and find Kev and Goy almost immediately, hanging out in the foyer area of the club where the distros, bar and kitchen are situated. Everything I need. It's great to see the guys. These two were the reason I wanted two lead singers in Raging Speedhorn, their band Hard To Swallow being one of my all time favourite hardcore bands. Funny really that Kev would become one of the Speedhorn singers years later.

They're both looking a bit worse for wear, although Kev is looking particularly pale. Goy tells me the old fucker hasn't slept for three days. Apparently it all started when he hooked up with a feisty Italian girl at the Bird's Nest. He shows me the top of his left arm, which is covered in bruises after a rough night with this girl, who beat the shit out of him in the sack. Kev is like Benjamin fucking Button, he just seems to get younger as the years go by. Whereas I of course seem to be ageing like a dog.

I hang out with the pair of them for a while, the two of them ensuring me that by what they witnessed yesterday in the basement room, our show tonight is going to be mental. This is shaping up to be a good night. Goy tells me that Dennis Doom has been on at him, asking when the Swedes are getting here. He's on the look out for some snus. Dennis lives in Göteborg these days and has become an avid fan apparently.

I see Dennis later on downstairs, he looks the worse for wear. Apparently they'd been at the 1 in 12 Festival at the club in Bradford last night, which was quite a heavy night obviously. The rest of the Doom lads had refused to get on the same plane as Dennis this morning, instead sending him ahead on an earlier flight. Not quite sure that was such a good idea. He's made it here though, barely. He's stood there, hunched over like Ozzy, with a sad look on his face. When he sees Andy, he comes over to our merch table and in his broad northern accent, asks Andy if he has any snus, a hint of desperation in his voice.

We'd set up the merch in the room downstairs, opposite the gig room where we're playing. The gig room is just the right size. Decent enough size stage, low to the ground, the room itself capable of holding around two hundred and fifty people. The room upstairs, where the main stage is, is more akin to a school assembly hall with a capacity of around six hundred. I'm glad we're playing downstairs. We spend the next few hours flitting around between the stages, watching various bands. The Vogue show is great, shame they're splitting up. I watch their set with Kev, who had put them on in London earlier this year. I ask him why they're splitting up to which he replies, “Ahh, they've been together five years!” I laugh at the thought. What an unusually long existence Victims have had it seems. Credit to them.

It hits me as we're watching Vogue that my guitar, which has been in Germany since we played Ieper Fest a couple of months ago, is missing a strap. Or, missing a strap that isn't gaffa taped together in the middle. I'd totally forgot that I snapped the fucking thing in half during our set at Ieper. Kev rescues the day and kindly asks the Vogue bass player after their show if I can borrow his strap, who is only happy to help me out. I'm very grateful and very relieved.

At one point during the evening I happen to go for a piss just as Jon is himself going to the Gents. I need to relieve myself of the two beers I've consumed. Jon is blowing the cold he's had for the last couple of days out of his nose. I'm standing there pissing and just happen to catch Jon out of the corner of my eye. As he blows his nose one of the lenses in his glasses falls out on to the dirty floor below. He bends down with a big sigh and picks up the lens, wiping it with some tissue paper. I laugh and say to him “Time for some new glasses maybe?”, to which he grunts, “Time for some new gaffa tape...” and then goes on to inform me how much glasses cost. In all fairness, the cost of spectacles is indeed a scandal. Jon puts the lens back in place and heads off to our merch table in search of some new gaffa tape to replace the current-past it's-sell-by-date tape that currently holds his glasses together.

The tokens Luc gave us are good for a small glass of a beer. He's kindly given us more than enough to get us through the night. Although it's actually a very good idea drinking small beers as opposed to pints, after four or five I realise that I should get some food in my stomach and then take it easy until after our show.

If there is one thing the Dutch do quite brilliantly, actually there are a few things the Dutch are good at to be fair... but fuck me do they make good peanut sauce! Earlier this summer our friend Jos changed my life by introducing me to chips and peanut sauce. I'm delighted to see one of the options from the vegan kitchen at the festival is Fried Rice Satay. I shovel it down sat by our merchandise table. The snot-thick peanut sauce is absolutely stunning.

From Vogue onwards the line up starts to really get interesting. We're sandwiched between the sets of Doom and Bastard Noise. The system they have here is that the shows on the main and basement stages overlap seamlessly so knowing that we have to get our gear on stage sorted out, I can only stick around for the beginning of the Doom set. They manage a couple of songs before something happens with Bri's guitar. It just cuts out. After a few seconds of silence Stick starts up with some sort of of hip hop beat and lo and fucking behold, Dennis starts rapping over the top of it. This goes on for about two minutes. Dennis is actually banging out verse for a while, the chorus following it consisting of “Fuck da police!”, all in a quite terrible American accent. I stand there with my face cusped in my hands barely able to watch whilst Andy is stood beside me with his phone in the air filming the scene, “This is going straight on Youtube!” After a while Dennis's vocabulary fails him and all that's left is the randomly spaced “Fuck da police!” chant. Thankfully Bri eventually gets his guitar sound back and they break into some good old Doom. The place erupts again and normality is restored. We check out one more song before heading downstairs to start setting up.

The backline gear is all rented and it takes a while for us to locate everything, but there doesn't seem to be any stress with stage times. When everything is set up and we're on stage tuning our guitars, the small basement room starts to fill up. It's already as hot as the devil in here. This is going to be a real test of endurance.

By the time we're ready to go, the place is packed, with members of the crowd already spilling on to the stage. We blast into V5 and the place goes nuts. By the time we get to the end of the second block of songs I'm gasping for water. The energy in the place is amazing though, the crowd going crazy and singing along with the songs. During This Is The End I almost get sucked in to them as if by force of vacuum. I'm up on the monitor singing along with crowd, pumping one fist in the air as I play the chorus with the other hand. It's a great feeling as I see friends like Kev and Goy, Loffe and Luc, dotted around the crowd. In fact Loffe and Kev are down the front going for it, Kev having wisely taken his glasses off. Another couple of friends of ours, Nathalie and her sister Esther, who run the Crowbar in Groningen, are also packed in near the front of the crowd. I think it's Esther I hear shouting between songs, “Why the fuck is this not on the main stage?”. I'm glad it isn't.
During Nowhere In Time Jon gets pulled into the crowd and lofted on to a sea of hands, whilst somehow managing to keep up with the rest of us on stage. This has to be the best show we've played this year, a great way to cap off 2011. By the time we get to the last block of three songs, I feel like I'm about to puke up, such is the heat on stage. I can see we're all struggling. I'm relieved to hear Johan say that we're scratching Broken Bones and going straight to Circles/Scars. Two short, fast songs and then we're done...

I put my guitar down, turn the amp off and slumber behind the drum set and into a tiny squared room behind the stage that is full of equipment. It's offers only a slither of fresh air but I happily take it. I feel sick. The rest of the guys gradually join me in the small room. The crowd is boisterously chanting for more, but we all agree we've had enough.

A couple of minutes later the crowd is still chanting, and just as enthusiastically. Some punk kid appears in the doorway and tells us we have to go back on stage. We collectively shake our heads. Jon says to the kid, “Tell the dj to put the music on.” The kid quick-fires back at him, “You put the music on!”. That seems to win the argument because at that the four of us trudge back on stage. Broken Bones. Fuck am I happy that it's only a minute long! We blast through it, the crowd kicks off for one last time and then that really is us. If they want to hear more they can fucking play the songs themselves!

It takes a while to cool down, but once the sick feeling in my stomach subsides, the buzz of what was a really fun show starts to revive me. After throwing about a litre of water down my gullet, I'm ready for a beer.

We hang out in the side room where we have our merch. The cold beer tasted magic. There is some crust punk guy from Singapore hanging about, wanting a photo with us. I haven't really caught what's going on, I just hear Jon saying to Johan in Swedish, “Shall we get this photo done and get rid of this guy?”. I crack up, typical him. He doesn't really mean anything by it. We take a couple of photos with the guy, who is actually a really nice guy. He talks to us about putting on a South East Asian tour. It's sounds like a dream but until it happens, until I see the flight tickets in my hand, I'll treat it as just that. I know bands that have gone over, like Fy Fan and War All The Time. By all accounts the shows were fucking wild. Who knows? One day maybe...

Andy and I check out a little bit of Bastard Noise, but in all honesty I can't really get into it. I've had enough by now and all I want to do is drink a few beers and hang out with friends. Which is exactly what I do. The guys from Reproach are here too. It's always great to see them. We put our drink tokens to use by trading them for shots and beer, although I seem to have an endless amount since the tokens just never run out. I'm feeling that nice warm buzz now. Not too drunk, just good. Happy.

As we're stood at the bar, Dennis Doom slides over to us, looking tired and sad. He says something about snus in between a lot of sighing. Andy asks him how their show was, “It was alright”, he replies in the least enthusiastic manner possible. He rests his head on Andy's arm, saying he's fucked.

We're all back in the merch room as the night draws to an end. Jon is hanging out with the Bastard Noise people, getting his photos taken with them. I guess now he's that guy. He tells me later that when he asked the bass player for a photo together, the response he got was, “Well if you want a picture with someone who sucks, just do it!”. Jon was chuffed.

Kev has now finally fallen asleep, sat upright in the chair beside me, with that silly grin he always has on his face when he passes out drunk. Three days of partying finally catching up with the old boy. Goy, pretty drunk himself, is laughing at him.

There seems to be some confusion as to what is going on with the sleeping arrangements tonight. Stachel had gone and checked out the hostel with Luc but is now back saying that there wasn't enough beds reserved. Actually, there are three bands, Doom included, that are each supposed to have a room. What in fact appears to be the case is there are only three beds reserved. That's one bed per band. Luc seems a bit stressed by the situation. He tells us he's going to look for another hotel and that he'll be back. We tell him it's no stress. It's two am. and I'm hungry. I'm thinking chips and peanut sauce...

After numerous goodbye's and drunken hugs with Kev and Goy, Johan, Stachel and I head off in search of food. The venue is slap bang in the middle of Eindhoven and the streets are now packed with drunk people, with the three of us adding to those numbers. Actually Stachel is sober, which seems to be depressing him a bit..he hasn't really been able to party tonight. I feel bad for him.

We find a large fast-food joint which serves just what I'm looking for. I'm completely chuffed with my chips ad peanut sauce and devour them like a buzzard. My joy turns sour though when I meet Stachel outside on the busy street and he has what seems like a portion twice the size of the one I just ate. I go back and forth, drunkenly debating with myself whether I have time to run back in a buy more chips. It turns out that the time I spend farting about on the street looking at the long cue inside the shop would have been more than sufficient to get another hit. Alas, I go back to the venue with Stachel and Johan, convincing myself I'm still hungry...disappointed with myself.

We're stood out on the street by the van, waiting for Luc to return with news of where we're sleeping. It's three-thirty am now. The booze is ever so slightly starting to wear off and hanging about doesn't seem as fun any more. Eventually Luc returns though, and with a reservation for an expensive hotel. He feels bad about everything, which in turn makes me feel bad for him. He's put on an amazing festival and the fuck up with the hostel was in no part his fault. He needn't feel bad, he's done a great job.

We get an address for the hotel and drive off in search of it. It takes a little while. When we locate the hotel and we're driving into the car park, the Doom guys pass us in their van, heading in the opposite direction, giving us a thumbs up as they do so. It doesn't really register, we just return the thumbs and keep driving, looking for a space in the car park. It's really cold now. Or, it's a bit nippy and I'm tired and drunk and have a shiver convulsing through my torso. The hotel looks very dark and there seems to be nobody at the reception desk. We knock.

And we knock...

I start losing my rag. Johan, keeps his cool as always though, telling me that if I do go through with my shallow threat of putting my foot through the door then we won't have anywhere but the van to sleep tonight. I just grumble like a kid that's been put in his place, feeling like a tit. After about ten minutes of aimlessly knocking fists on cold glass, it dawns on us to check out where the Doom guys were heading to. We find them in another reception on the other side of the building, Dennis spread out on his back across the floor. They've been waiting for us since Luc gave Johan the booking details.

The Doom guys still seem in the mood to party, and for a split second I think Andy and Jon are going to take them up on it, but it's four thirty in the morning and we're getting up at nine thirty.

Johan, Stachel and I share a room. I decide to shower before I go to sleep so I can have a longer lie- in in the morning. All cleaned up, I curl up into what is an astoundingly comfortable bed. What a fucker that I'm only going to be in it for about four and half hours.

The alarm goes off at nine-thirty. My head is thumping a familiar beat...

Learning to Drive

2011-10-18T11:01:00.000+02:00

Our US tour ended six weeks ago. Since I came home from my three day vacation with Jen in New York, directly after the tour ended, my time, or at least my thoughts, have been dominated by one thing. My driving test. With that, work and school starting up for the autumn, I've hardly felt inspired to write anything, never mind had the time. Until now, where I find myself back in the company of my fellow Victims, on board a KLM Boeing 737-800 series bound for Amsterdam.

We're playing the Bloodshed Fest at the Dynamo Club in Eindhoven tonight...

But back to the driving test.

It's completely ridiculous, but this process began in Corby over ten years ago with a nice old guy called Jim Scales. He was my first driving instructor. I was nineteen years old, quite late to be starting my driving lessons compared with the average age of learner drivers in Corby. The driving licence is essential to anybody living in small town England who wants to get out and explore further afield. Most of my friends by that time had had their licence a couple of years, but nonetheless, I was finally taking a grip on the issue.

After six months of weekly driving lessons, it was time for the theory test. My younger sister, who was also driving with Jim, took the test the same day. My dad gave the pair of us a lift in his post van to the test centre in Kettering. I remember we were both pretty nervous. The theory test had recently been made a lot harder. In the past the test had consisted of nothing more than a few verbal questions from the test instructor, sat in the car at the end of the actual driving test. Now it was our turn, they had transformed the fucking thing into a sixty five question multiple choice nightmare, which you would undergo sat in front of a computer in a, soulless, sterile room somewhere.

As it happened, for the first time in my life I had actually taken the time to study for a test and both my sister and I passed without any major issues. We were both chuffed as we waited outside for my dad to come along and pick us up again in his post van to take us back home. My dad has always taken full advantage of the post vans and trucks he's had at his disposal during his years of service to Her Majesty's Royal Mail...

So that was that. Now it was just the actual driving test to conquer.

Thanks to Raging Speedhorn, I never even attempted it. I had my driving test booked and was raring to go. My sister too. I couldn't wait to get my own car and break free from the shackles of Corby. When I had my car I'd be able to drive anywhere to see bands play. That was my overriding inspiration. As it happened though, we'd formed Speedhorn somewhere during the period of my driving lessons and of course, just as I was gearing up to take my driving test, the band was busy booking it's first real tour. A two week shunt around the UK with Ninth Circle from Scotland. The date for my driving fell right in the middle of it. As much as I was desperate to get my licence, I didn't even hesitate to cancel the date for my test, in order to go on tour. I didn't care if we were playing toilet venues in front of fifteen people a night, we were doing our first ever tour. Shows every night, beer would be flowing freely (or so I naively assumed), sleeping on people's floors, the adventure of it all consumed me. The driving test could wait.

If I knew then that it would wait another twelve years I may have felt differently...it's probably my only major regret in life. I don't regret the tour of course, even if the beer didn't flow freely and the shows were indeed attended by an average of about fifteen people a night, that tour set me on my path in life. My regret is that I never got off my arse and picked up the momentum again. Instead of booking a new test, I just waited. Even the driving lessons stopped. The thing is, we got home from the Ninth Circle tour and within a week or two we were back out again, this time with Breakneck from Kent. And then shortly after that we landed our first “big” tour, opening up for Earthtone 9 on a four week tour that took in the entire UK. Shortly after that we landed some support dates with Will Haven. Before I knew it a few months had passed and my cancelled driving test was nothing but a distant memory. - I'll sort it out at some point, I told myself.

Like said, it took over ten years to happen. I didn't even get around to booking a driving test at the first time of trying here in Sweden. Although, for different reasons entirely. Ten years on, and in another country, learning to drivng had become a whole other science. Not to mention insanely expensive!

Jim Scales' lessons, back in 1997, set me back fifteen quid for an hour's lesson. Now I know you have to take in to account the small matter of inflation, but an hour and twenty minutes of driving lesson in Sweden costs you the arse raping sum of ninety fucking quid! Even if the pound, low as it is now, would veer a little back towards it's usual rate, it would still work out at around seventy five quid per lesson. It just doesn't make sense to me.

All the same, I'd decided to finally get off my arse and sort my driving licence out, once a for all, aged thirty two years old. Those costs though, are simply not economically viable. I bought a couple of “ four lesson packages” for around four hundred and fifty quid, but when the robbing bastard sat beside me in the car told me I'd need at least another twenty lessons, I told him no fucking thanks. Time for plan B.

Plan B came in the form of my good friend Olle, who plays bass in our band Battle of Santiago. For the nominal sum of about one hundred quid per person, you can go on a course where you sit in a room for four hours whilst a speaker tells you the dos and donts of being a passenger driving instructor, a “handledare” as it's called in Swedish. This worked out great for a while. I drove with Olle on a weekly basis and just as once again, I felt progress was being made, things went off track. Olle and his brother opened their own restaurant, the wonderful Parkliv, right in our neighbourhood. That was great but the driving lessons with Olle dried up as he was forced into working two hundred hours a month to make his restaurant float.

I decided to take up with another driving school, a few months later, once it became apparent that driving with Olle wasn't happening. Olle felt that I was as good as ready anyway, but I felt that it would be a good idea to book a few more professional lessons just to touch up on things before I booked a test. The first lesson I took with this new driving school, although a little nervous whilst driving around with the teacher watching me, went well. Or so I thought. At the end of the lesson the driving instructor, a middle aged man called Amir, told me that I would need at least twenty lessons, at ninety quid a pop. He may as well have asked me to bend over and drop my fucking kecks!

After another couple of “package lessons”, the mandatory courses of “halkbanan” (where you drive around on an ice track and try to steer the car without crashing it, actually really good fun) and “riskettan” (another afternoon spent in a classroom, this time the speaker informing you that drinking alcohol and taking drugs are not activities one should mix with driving a car...I kid you not) all for another couple of hundred quid, and it was time for Plan C. The final push.

Jen had by this time been driving for five years and with that, was now eligible to be my “handledare”.

Since we have a car I could now drive constantly, practically every time we went out in the car together. Within a couple of weeks Jen thought I should apply for my test. Time for the fucking albatross to be removed from around my neck. I thought to myself that ready or not, always prone to self doubt, I had to at least experience what a driving test is all about. It had now been over ten years since my sister passed her test at the second attempt. How the fuck did I let it go this long?

It was only a couple of weeks before Victims were going to the States for a three week tour, so the theory and practical tests would have to wait until I got back. What the fuck, I'd waited this long, what's another few weeks? The usual inner rationalising rearing it's ugly head. The truth is, just thinking about the test made me nervous. They say it's the most nerve-racking experience one can go through...just the fact that “they” say that had my arse twitching.

By the time I got back from tour I had four weeks until D-Day. Driving Test Day... Doomsday, both fit perfectly well. The weird thing is, I was really nervous before my theory test. The fucking theory test is what pained me the most. I'd already done this once, and now I have to do it all over again, in a second language. Talk about doing things the hard way. The trouble is, studying driving theory was as boring as shit back then and it was just as fucking boring now. I've never been the most disciplined when it comes to studying, and this was no exception. With everything else happening, such as work and school (I'm studying Maths for some reason...), I found it hard to get inspired to open that damned theory book. It took until the week before the actual test to really start cracking on with things, reading the book and trying out old theory tests on the internet.

I packed it in that last week and by the time the test came around I felt confident. I still couldn't shake the nerves though. I felt that it would be far more humiliating to fail the theory test, as opposed to the driving part. After all, nobody can really expect to pass their driving test first time around, we all know it's a fucking scam and chances are you've failed it before you set foot in the car.

Case in point. My mum failed her test first time around because apparently she looked in her mirrors too much! Not that she didn't have her eyes on the road, just that the inspector was grasping at straws for something to fail her on. She drove just fine, but it's a fact that they can't pass everybody, they have statistics to adhere to and my mum just happened to be on the wrong end of them that day. Her driving teacher was so furious that he wanted to lodge an official complaint...

Anyway, the theory test came and went. I passed it. I felt that I could breathe out, even if only a shallow, trepidatious breath. Your theory test certificate is only valid for two months. If you haven't passed your driving test by that time, you have to re-take it. Of course, it can take up to six weeks to get a time for a new driving test so really the whole thing is a piss take, just another way of fleecing money from you. It's not like once you have your licence you have to take a theory test every year. You never have to take the fucking thing again so where do they get this two month bullshit from?

The weird thing is, with the theory test passed, almost all of the nerves I'd been feeling had disappeared. One week to go.

The weekend before the theory test we'd taken the car, with me at the wheel, over to Jakobsberg, where I'd be taking the driving test. Outside of the driving test centre, at the very first junction, is a heavily trafficked roundabout. What I hadn't noticed whilst driving around the fucking thing was the fact that it had pedestrian crossings at each exit. I drove right through a red light. Jenny had called it but I panicked and drove right through. Fuck, I had been a bit of a wreck after that. I could only reason with myself that it was better to make such a colossal fuck up then than on the day of my test.

The weekend before D-Day, we spent the Saturday driving around Jakobsberg. I must have drove around that roundabout twenty times. I wasn't falling into it's trap again. That day in Jakobsberg went well and I felt, for the first time, that I might just have a chance of passing my driving test.

Two days to go and I still felt no nerves. I had drilled it into my head that it wasn't the end of the world. The percentage of first time passers wasn't very high. It would be no great shame if I fucked it. Everybody gets nervous whilst taking their driving test. It's OK Gareth.. I spoke to my parents a couple of days before who were full of encouragement for me. My mum, for not the first time in my life, knocked me sideways with a couple of pearlers.

I asked her again about her driving test episode. She told me about the first time and how she was robbed. The thing is, she'd felt no nerves whatsoever then and was shocked when she failed it. The second time around she was a nervous wreck. So nervous in fact, that she took a shot of vodka before leaving the house! I almost spat my tea out as she revealed this to me. My mum is this little woman who would have you believe that butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, but every now and again she'll tell you something that stuns you. Who the hell would drink a shot of vodka before a driving test? My mum, that's who. Obviously she failed the second time around, and in spectacular fashion. She was still so nervous, despite the vodka, that she couldn't stop her leg from shaking. Whilst performing a manoeuvre, the engine stalled. It put her in pieces. She couldn't keep the engine ticking over and eventually started balling, telling the inspector that he would have to drive the car back. “Get a hold of yourself Mrs. Smith!” boomed the inspector, but it gave no effect. He had to drive the car back and my mum failed the test again.

She passed at the third time of asking, this time with the help of a valium pill. She was totally chilled for that one apparently. Again, tea shooting out of my mouth, I insinuated that she must surely be joking. “Ah, it was only half a pill”, she reasoned. Somebody down the Rock had given it to her... It didn't really make much difference by that point anyway since she'd discarded the Learner Plates from her car long before that third and final test, at my dad's insistence. My dad, a law unto himself apparently, had thought the whole thing a complete rip-off, and with only my dad's approval of her driving ability, my mum did indeed take herself to work every day in her little red Mini.

The day for my driving test finally arrived. Still no nerves. I almost started wondering if something was up with that. Jen had decided to work at home for the day and she came with me to the test centre. I drove over there as one last practice. It was only when I stepped out of the car and started the walk towards the doors of that very nondescript building that the faint pang in my stomach started to appear. By the time I was sat in the waiting room, along with six others, although not paralysing, the nerves were well and truly in the fucking building!

I'd arrived far too early. There was a big clock on the wall. My test was in twenty minutes. Tick. Tock.

Eventually a gang of inspectors walked out of a side door into the waiting room, all of them holding clip-boards. I quickly scanned their faces. A couple of middle aged guys who looked normal enough. An older lady, stern look, not the kind you'd want to fuck with. Surely not her! They started to call the names of the other testees in the room. My name was called last, by a young man, well, my age at least, appearing through the crowd with a friendly smile spread across his face. Thank you Jesus! I felt my chances had just greatly improved.

We sit in the car, I await to hear which safety check I will be asked to perform. These checks have been whizzing around my head for the last few days. There is an outer check, and inner check and a pre-drive check. Each check has about eight or nine points that needs to be attended to. Or so I thought. In actual fact the only thing this friendly inspector, who's name is Magnus, asks of me, is to check the hand-brake is functioning properly. No problem. That cleared, it's time to drive. My thoughts go straight to that fucking roundabout. If he asks me to go left, I'm praying there is no traffic and the light is green.

He asks me to go right. Shit, haven't been this way before... He calmly asks me to drive towards Jakobsberg. OK, there's the sign, straight on. I move into lane and ease my foot on to the gas. Magnus politely tells me that Jakobsberg was actually the first right. Right? What fucking right? I weakly mumble a “Sorry”. Don't really know why I said sorry, I feel like a right tit already. “It's OK, just head towards Viksjö instead”, he calmly says. I don't know if he's patronising me now or just being nice. Shite, I'm guessing I've already fucked it. Within sixty seconds. What a fucking waste of eleven hundred kronors! I've heard people say it before, but it's true, because from the moment I'm sure I've fucked this test, before I've even really got started, I completely relax and just start driving. It crosses my mind that now and again those people have gone on to pass their test, since they were so sure they'd fucked it that they just relaxed and ended up driving well. I'm sure that that only happens to others though. One thought is rapidly crushing the other.

This car feels weird. It's a six geared Volvo, quite a big car. I'm having trouble getting a feel for second and third gear since there doesn't seem to be much pull in them. I drive relatively well for the next fifteen minutes and when it comes for the time to pull into a car park and perform a manoeuvre, in this case reverse parking, it goes flawlessly. I'm pleased with that but can't help feeling that it's a waste since I've already failed this test.

It's what happens next that assures me I'm not going to make it this time. Magnus asks me to take the next exit, which is heading towards the motorway. I'm on the acceleration lane heading towards the E18 and I'm flouncing around somewhere between second and fourth gear. I can't seem to get any speed and by the time I arrive in the three-laned 110 clicks and hour zone I'm chugging along like a dehydrated slug at around sixty-five. Embarrassing. I know exactly what Magnus is jotting down on his clipboard. We're soon off of the motorway and we've pulled over again. As if to confirm my fears, Magnus gives me a time-out pep-talk.

“Stop driving like you think I want you to drive, and just drive how you would normally in your own car, how you feel for it. And for fuck sakes, when you hit the motorway, keep it in a low gear and get your speed up.” He says it in a friendly, encouraging tone, but I'm guessing that he's just kindly handing out words of advice that I can take with me into attempt two.

I start the engine again, and resigned to failure, just kick back and drive the car back to the test centre via the same strip of motorway. I pass that fucking roundabout on the way back in. See you next time, I think to myself.

Even as I pull into the car park, I miss the parking space and have to readjust a couple of times. Fuck this, get me out of this monstrosity of a car! Magnus, with a voice now a prophecy of doom, says, “Well then, that was that.” I just let out a big, frustrated sigh. “Yeah...” I'm already thinking about when I can book another test, sure that I'll pass second time around now that I know what to expect. I only hope I can squeeze it in before I have to take another fucking theory test.

“I have to say, it wasn't the most eco-friendly driving experience I've had, and it's a close call, but you've passed.”

For a moment I can't quite gather what he's just said. I start to laugh, as much in shock as anything else. I look at him to check if he's taking the piss out of me. He has a wide smile across his face, as if he's genuinely happy for me. I almost hug him. I can't fucking believe it! Even as he's filling out the certificate, I have to double check that he's ticked the green “Approved” box. Fuck me. He has.

We talk for a while longer but none of it registers. All I can think about is how kind this Magnus is, how lucky I am that I didn't have that old boot inspecting me. I almost ask him if he's on Facebook, maybe we could go for a drink sometime. I can't think straight. And then that feeling of jubilation turns to panic. I want to get away from the test centre as soon as possible just in case they realise they've made a mistake.

I thank Magnus one last time, wish him a good day and hop off out of there. When I get to the next street I realise what a glorious autumn day it is we're having. The sun is shining high in a clear blue sky and the air is as crisp as a packet of Walker's. A feeling of relief washes over me. I've never, ever experienced such a weight being lifted from my shoulders.

I call Jenny, who I know is nervously waiting for the phone to ring. I consider for a second about pulling off the classic Smith parp and pretending to sound all depressed when she picks up. Jen answers and hesitantly asks how it went. “I got my driving licence!” I scream down the phone, tears of joy welling in my eyes. I haven't felt this good since Liverpool won the European Cup in 2005.

So that's that. I finally did it. And as the messages of congratulations began to flood in via my phone and online through the various social medias I have an account with, a recurring theme kept coming to the fore. “Congrats on your test, just think, now you can drive the van on tour!”

Shit.

Syracuse

2011-09-05T18:51:00.001+02:00

We've made the decision, now we have to stick with it. We're driving up to Syracuse to play the show tonight and then we're going to wait for the storm to pass and hopefully, all being well, we'll travel down to New York City on Monday.

It's been a weird couple of days. It seems all we've done is sit glued to the news channels, hoping to hear something positive. Johan and Andy have a flight to catch from JFK on Monday and as it is right now, the airline company is telling them their flight is still on schedule and that they have to be at the airport to catch it otherwise they'll have to pay for new tickets for another flight. With the looming menace of Hurricane Irene causing the city of New York to effectively close down, the chances of us being able to even get them to the airport on Monday night are rapidly diminishing. If we have to pay for new flights then financially, we're fucked on this tour. The problem is, the news on the hurricane is constantly changing and we just don't know what's going to happen. On top of all this is the very worrying thought that my wife is holed up in a hotel in Chinatown, just waiting it out. With the news coming through today that New York is closing all of it's bridges and tunnels, our choices are made slightly simpler. We either wait it out in Pittsburgh, long clear of the storm, or we drive to Syracuse and play the show we're booked to play. We know by travelling to up-state New York we're risking putting ourselves into the path of the storm, but it feels like it's worth it. If New York gets hit bad then Johan and Andy's flights are going to be cancelled anyway, and the show tonight in Syracuse is of great personal importance to us since it's our close friends, Another Breath's farewell show, in their home town. It really would have been gut wrenching to miss it.

We leave Ben and Aubrey's place around eleven am. and treat ourselves to a hearty breakfast before we leave Pittsburgh and drive the five hours to Syracuse in up-state New York. It's an early show tonight so we need to be there for six pm. We get some breakfast at this great vegetarian diner in the Bloomfield area of Pittsburgh which sets us up for the day. I attempt a country breakfast burrito but it's so huge that I only manage two thirds of it. Matt is shocked. He's always on my case about how much I eat, he's even changed my nickname for this tour from Tea Bag to Snacks. Snack is no match for this burrito though. When we get into the van and I'm so full I feel fucking weird.

We haven't even travelled five miles out of Pittsburgh before we hit a huge traffic jam. Totally backed up. We move three miles in just over two and a half hours. All of a sudden we're going to be very late for the show tonight. What amazes me is that when we actually creep up level with the cause of the traffic jam it turns out to be no more than a few workers re-painting lines on the side of the motorway. Matt loses his rag, “Fucking line painting?! Are you fucking kidding me? You choose the busiest travel day of the week to paint fucking lines on the road?” This brings a smile to my face for the first time today.

To add to the stress caused by the uncontrollable circumstances in New York, we're now going to have to load in and play as soon as we get to the venue tonight. Great. The next five hours roll on in near silence, disturbed only slightly by a chuffed snigger when I place Johan in check mate for the third time in as many days.

We pull into the car park at the venue in Syracuse just as the band before us on the bill starts their set. It's a dark and chilly night in the north east. We'd phoned Scotty earlier in the day, to let him know about our traffic situation and he seemed a bit pissed off, but when I talk to him on arrival I quickly understand that he's just in a delicate emotional place with this being the final ever Another Breath show. I know how he feels, I went through it all with Speedhorn. I remember High Whore, the last song in the last ever set list, me and Gordon crying our eyes out as we played it. We jump out of the van, relieved to finally be here, and we're greeted by hugs from all the AB guys. I feel guilty for even pondering the idea of blowing this show off.

It's been a while since I played a show right after hopping out of the van. There is a certain feeling you can take into such a show. For some, the stress of it all hinders them from being able to enjoy playing, but for me, and it happened a few times with Speedhorn, I'm just relieved to have made it and through that relief I get an extra energy once hitting the stage, even if setting up the gear and line checking is rushed.

Within thirty minutes of jumping out of the van, we're blasting into V5. It's a huge stage in a large nightclub, there are about four hundred kids filling the place out, the AB guys are all stood side stage with huge grins spread across their faces and the monitor sound is great. For the next thirty minutes all thoughts of Hurricane Fucking Irene are pushed to the back of my mind.

The show turns out to be one of the best of this tour. The crowd here tonight are in celebratory mood, the atmosphere is intense, very emotional. The crowd go for it from the start. It's as hot as the fucking Devil on stage but the energy from the crowd keeps me from waning. Jon is in great form between songs tonight. He cracks jokes about being Ted, the Another Breath singer's father, about how he fucked his mum and had to put a pillow over her head since she was so ugly. I don't really know where that comes from but it has the crowd and Ted side stage, cracking up. He gives a mention to to the fact that this will be our last show of the tour since the gig in New York tomorrow has been cancelled due to the storm. Somebody shouts in response, “Play here tomorrow!”, to which Jon just chuckles, responding, “Oh no, tomorrow I'm going bowling”. I love it when Jon is on this form.

The highlight of the set is undoubtedly when Steve and John from Another Breath join us on stage and take over the vocals on We're Fucked. They do a brilliant job and the crowd goes berserk, Ted and Scotty side stage screaming along, Mayo, their bass player down front in the middle of the mosh pit. It's a great moment.

The Another Breath set is one of the most brutal, emotionally charged shows I've ever had the pleasure of witnessing. The crowd go fucking insane from the first note and halfway through the first song Ted somersaults into the sea of outstretched hands in front of him. For forty minutes, it's just pure madness. The crowd sing along to almost every line, and the wave of stage divers simply never ceases. I stand behind John's amp, beer in hand, singing along. Ted, one of the most gifted public speakers in the world of hardcore, is on absolutely fine form and at one point in the set gives a long speech explaining what the friendship with Victims means to Another Breath. Call me emotional if you will but it's a beautiful moment. All the Victims guys are stood side stage, Jon half pissed and close to tears, waving our beer in the air and screaming along to our friend's songs. The guys couldn't have asked for a better way to go out, and as I'm stood there side stage looking on, I realise how glad I am that we've been a part of it. It would have been sit for us to bale out because of that fucking storm. Another Breath close their set and indeed, their era as a band with their song, God Complex. As soon as John plays the opening riff, a shit load of people jump up on stage and pile on top of Ted, who does his best to sing the words to the song, but before long his voice is lost to the herd of people on top of him who take over the mic. As the song comes to a close the stage is completely taken over by members of the crowd. I happen to catch a glimpse of Scotty who looks close to tears. I know exactly how he feels. I can't help thinking back to that last Speedhorn show in Yamaguchi, playing High Whore, both Gordon and I crying as we played out the long outro..

I speak to Jen after the show and she tells me that the storm hasn't quite arrived in New York yet and that when it does it's expected to hit as a tropical storm. It appears to be weakening all the time. For the first time in days I feel that everything is going to be ok. When I hang up the phone, Matt is stood out in the parking lot looking stressed. His house in Richmond got some damage from the storm and they've lost power there, leaving Sarah in sweltering heat and very stressed. It seems Virginia took a bit of a blow, as did New Jersey. I feel for Matt. It must be terrible being out here, knowing your wife is at home dealing with that shit.

I head back inside the club and make my way to the merch table where Johan is waiting with a round of shots.

By the time we pack down, get photos taken with the AB guys, load the van, hang out some more, drink some more shots and a couple of fine porter beers from the bar, we're all drunk and giggling like school girls. Steve AB tells us that we're staying at his parents house tonight since they have a big house and they're away for the weekend. Sounds great. Steve has to pack up his drums and take them back to the rehearsal space first though, so we decide we'll head to Denny's and grab some food whilst we wait.

When we pull up to Denny's it soon becomes apparent that Johan is pretty fucking drunk. He's up front, laughing at almost everything. It's great to see him like that. He's such a controlling element in the band, the pappa of the band if you will. The fact is, that every band needs one. I was that person in Speedhorn and after ten years, I was more than happy to let go of that responsibility. As was the case with me, when Johan lets go, he really lets go. Only natural that tonight, being the last night of the tour, no more to than to get back to the airport and fly home, is when Johan is more drunk than anyone else. Although, in truth, nobody, except Matt, is far behind him.

We take a large table for the five of us, and we're all giggling like idiots as we sit down and try to order. There are two waitresses attending us, one of them being a trainee, learning the ropes from the other girl. I've decided on fish and chips and a coffee, but Johan is having a hard time understanding the fact that there is no alcohol on the menu. “Do you have any beer we can order?” he enquires. The girl, to her credit, just laughs politely and shakes her head. “I want five shots!” Johan blurts out immediately, holding up the five digits off his right hand as if to clarify the matter. We all piss ourselves laughing, the two waitress girls included. They seem like nice people and for some reason, probably our weird accents, they seem to like us too. Johan eventually orders five shots of milk, but they never arrive.

The rest of us eventually get a chance at ordering some food once Johan is done. We're all laughing constantly though. Fucking after party at Denny's, who would have known that could be such a blast! As Matt is ordering his meal, Johan points his finger at an old couple, sat at the table behind us. The old lady has short, bright red hair... Johan says quite loudly, “She has a wig!”. Matt starts cracking up, “What's that buddy?”.

“I think they're going to make it...” is Johan's cryptic reply, nodding his head looking content. By now we're all holding our stomach's laughing.

We do manage to get through the meals, and by the time we're done, Matt is desperate to get back to Steve's, park the van for the night, and crack open a beer. He certainly deserves it. And for the record, the fish and chips were superb.

We get back to Steve's parent's place which is in a suburb just outside of downtown Syracuse. The house is huge. I walk directly in to a living room area to the left of the hallway, only to be told by Steve that that room is never really used by anyone, it's the other living room to the right of the hallway where we'll hang out. As I said, huge..

As per usual, Johan and I head for the nearest available of the four bedrooms and bagsie the bed. We hang out in the kitchen for a while, drink a couple of beers with some other friends that have come back to the house, people like Colin and Heike, as well as some others. After a couple of cans I'm ready to call it a night though and I head upstairs, wondering how it's going for Jenny.

I awake around ten am. It's absolutely pissing down outside and the wind is gathering pace too. It seems the outer bands of the storm have reached us. I check my phone and see that Jen has messaged me. She tells me that she's slept all night and that the storm seems to have passed without major incident. I can't describe how happy I am to wake up to this news. I check CNN's weather report and it seems that the storm has weakened considerably now, although it has wreaked some havoc on New Jersey where there has been a lot of flooding. The storm has indeed reached us here in Syracuse, but it will only be the outer rim of the storm that touches us.

Matt comes into the room after a while and confirms the weather report I've just read. I'm hoping that he'll tell me we can make the journey into New York City today, but it's not to be. We'll leave tomorrow. I can't blame him for not wanting to chance driving through the storm, even if it has passed New York, we'd still have to drive through a large part of it to get there..

Steve tells us that we're more than welcome to stay another night, in fact, he's happy about it. The guys in AB are playing with their various side projects at a DIY space in town, so we'll head down to that in the afternoon. It's an early show, which suits me just fine.

When all is decided and the mood is markedly happier than it was a couple of days ago, a smile spreads across Matt's face as he remembers what he'd laid his eyes on as he passed through the living room on his way up to us. We go down to check Jon out.

There is a girl, a friend of Steve's I think, sat on the one chair, watching the news. There are a couple of guys who are also friends of AB's, sitting around playing with their phones whilst Andy is sat on a armchair on the other side of the room, shaking his head. Jon is curled up on the sofa, fast asleep. He has no t-shirt, or indeed, leather vest on, his sweatpants (the give up on life pants as our friend Scuba calls them) are down around his ankles, his sleeping bag is on the floor and his hand is inside his boxing shorts, with a firm grasp on his balls. To add to this, he's farting like a fucking trooper! The lot of us line up to take photos.

As much as I'd rather be in New York with Jen, it turns out to be a really good day with our friends in Syracuse. We go to the gig in the afternoon, which is a lot of fun. It's a tiny place and it's packed out, the crowd go absolutely wild. The bands are great too, all of them, although I'm completely blown away by John's acoustic project, Whiskey. Kind of reminds me of William Elliot Whitmore, but better. John sings quite brilliantly. He's one of those talented fuckers that really makes you sick.

Steve arranges a chilled out party for us back at his parents for the evening time. None of us are in the mood for a piss up but it turns out that it isn't like that. Steve buys in a load of food for the grill and some beers, and we all sit around in the living room, chatting and recounting stories. Ted is there, as well as a few others. It's a bit sad at the end of the night when Ted leaves, it feels like we'll never see these guys again. I hope that isn't the case. We end the night early, since we're leaving at six in the morning.

I head up to bed and try to get a few hours sleep, although funnily enough, sleep doesn't come easy. The tour is over and tomorrow we're going to New York. Johan and Andy are flying home, Jon is heading back to Philly to hang out with the Greghans for a week and I'm meeting Jen for a short holiday in New York. Matt will be trying his best to make it back to Richmond and take care of his home and family.

As is always the case, time seems to have it's own schedule on tour. What was the first show two and half weeks ago seems like yesterday but at the same time years ago. All in all, it was a good tour. We didn't make as much money as we'd hoped and if it wasn't for the European dates we played during the summer we wouldn't have covered our flight costs. But that's how it is over here, when you play this kind of music. Even though most of the shows were well attended, shows that in Europe would easily make you five hundred euros, here you're lucky to get two hundred dollars. At the same time, I'm grateful that we do well enough in Europe to cover a tour like this. I know many bands that would do envy us for that.

So that's almost that for this year. We have one show left, which is at the Bloodshed Fest in Holland in April. Otherwise we won't be out playing show until next year due to work commitments and other stuff. We're not twenty years old living with our parents any more, we have bills to pay and jobs to hold on to. And besides, I'm totally fucked from these three weeks, I'm only too happy for the break.

I'm sure that feeling will subside after a few weeks back at work though...

Pittsburgh

2011-08-28T10:32:00.001+02:00

I wake up on the sofa in the living room, drenched in sweat. It must be around ten, ten thirty. Johan is on the other side of the sofa, Andy and Jon are on the floor, they're all fast asleep. The room fucking stinks, someone's feet are humming. I can almost hear it. Just as I'm stirring myself from slumber, a girl in pyjamas walks into the room, apologising for disturbing us. It's the girl from the toilet last night. I just sort of mumble incoherently, something, nothing really.

As soon as my head clears, my thoughts return to Jenny. She's due to land at one pm. We have some big decisions to make today.

We all eventually stir and take turns in the shower and then hang out for a while on the side porch of the house with a couple of the guys from the house and the girl, Sarah, who lives here too. They're all really friendly people. They have a couple of absolutely beautiful pitbulls too and we spend a while playing with them. The people at the Masakari house are all huge dog lovers, and the dogs they have all come from rescue centres. The youngest one, who is still a puppy and a little wild in her playfulness, was due to be put down the day after the guys had found her. Looking into her eyes makes me wonder how anybody could even consider closing them forever. As usual when I'm around dogs, it makes me think of Bonzo and of home and I start to long to be back there.

We have a short drive today, only two hours. We leave the house around midday and search for a Panera Bread, something we have had no luck in finding so far on this tour, which sucks, since everyone in the band loves the place. We have no luck today either and instead end up at a roadside diner, which is actually pretty good. As we're sat around drinking coffee, as is always the case, the phones come out and everyone goes silent. On this occasion though, everybody is checking the same thing...

We have to start making a serious plan. We start off by calling the airline to find out what's going on with Johan and Andy's flights. There is a long wait on the phones but we're eventually told that as of now, the flight is still on time and that they'll have to be at the airport to make sure they get their flight! Fucking unbelievable. We have three options:

One: Play Pittsburgh tonight and then head straight to New York City and try and get there before the city closes.

Two: Play both tonight and the show in Syracuse tomorrow and wait it out there, and then try and make it into New York somehow, sometime during Sunday or Monday.

Three: Call and end to the tour now and make our way to New York.

Cancelling shows is the last thing we ever want to do, but as it turns out, the decision is made for us shortly after we get back in the van. First off we get a call from our friend Bill, who owns the club in New York, confirming the show there on Sunday is cancelled. And then we get some news through telling us that even as of now, it's almost impossible to get into the city. So that's that. We'll play these next two shows and wait things out in Syracuse. Now my next mission is to get Jenny on a train from New York to Syracuse.

We're just pulling into the outer limits of Pittsburgh when Jen texts me saying she's landed at JFK. The news concerning Hurricane Irene just seems to be getting worse, I have to get in touch with her and tell her to get out of there is she can. One agonising hour goes by before I get to speak to her. I'm surprised to hear she's in calm and positive mood. She's got to the hotel and she's going out for a couple of hours to do some shopping! That's my girl..

After a bit of a strained conversation, where I'll be honest, I got pretty stressed out, we decide to try and get a train booked. Of course, when Jen had checked into the hotel, the people working there in reception were very calm about everything and she obviously hadn't had a chance to see the news yet, so it's not surprising that she was calm. Of course, I'd rather that than have her really scared on the other end of the phone. She tells me she's going to go out for a while and get some food and then she's going to book the train for Syracuse that leaves at 1pm. tomorrow. I feel a little relived but won't feel completely happy until she has that ticket confirmed.

We arrive at our friend's, Ben and Aubrey’s house up in the Polish Hills in Pittsburgh. I've never been to this city before and therefore had no idea that the city was situated in a huge valley. It kind of reminds me of Stuttgart, and indeed there are a lot of German settlers here and that has greatly influenced the architecture. It's a very characteristic and to my eye, beautiful place.

We hang out with Ben and Aubrey for a while. It's there wedding anniversary today so I feel a little bad about crashing here tonight, but they're only too happy to have us. We meet so many kind, accommodating people on our travels that it genuinely humbles you. We're staying here tonight, but with tonight being a late show, we're going to a barbecue with a gang of their friends, before heading to the venue. Jimmy Annihilation Time, whose girlfriend Christina is putting on the show tonight, is meeting up with us there too.

Ben and Aubrey’s kid, Axel. is four years old and quite mental. He's also extremely cute. The whole time we're there, he doesn't stop talking. Showing us demonstrations with his shoes, his sleeping bag (he's staying at a friends tonight on a sleepover), his magic penny that turns green in vinegar, explaining for us every step of what he's doing. We end up hanging on the street for a few minutes, whilst Ben and Aubrey get ready to follow us. Axel continues his running shoes demonstration by running back and forth and showing us how suddenly he can stop in his super sneekers. He also seems to be very fond of the word “penis”, and keeps saying it over and over in his cute little accent. Great kid.

We drive over to the house where the barbecue is at and hang out there for an hour, sitting around in the back yard with some of the Pittsburgh punk scenes finest. Ben has made some superb vegan bean burgers, and the beer is readily available. The back yard we're in is full of characters, including the likes of Jimmy and his friend, Sam Wicks, who is a character completely in his own right. He turns up in a suit, since he's been at a seminar about, from what I can gather, sliding screen doors? When he turns up in his attire, the other punks all piss themselves laughing. He takes it all in his stride though. Really mellow guy, he would fit right into a Kevin Smith movie. He seems to love Swedish punk rock too and latches on to Jon, firing a barrage of questions at him. The camaraderie between these people is a great thing to witness and I sit there, with a can of beer, slowly warming in my hand, wishing I could enjoy the experience. But I still haven't heard back from my wife yet.

We drive over to the venue around seven pm. and hang outside the venue, chilling out before we have to load in. Tonight is going to be another wild show by all accounts. There is this old guy hanging out on the steps outside the venue, which is a function room above a pub called Kopec's, who is absolutely off his fucking tits! He comes over and looks into the van and starts mumbling something, but only Matt can understand enough of what he's saying to be able to form any sort of reply. He's apparently telling us that we can load in whenever we want, and where to do it. Matt tells him the score, that we're in no rush and we're waiting for Jimmy to turn up, but the guys continues to babble on. I have to admit, I like the guy.

As he stoats off, Matt tells us that he is what they call a Yinzer. They're local to the city of Pittsburgh apparently. No sooner has the old boy stumbled off than is back at the van again, and the nonsense continues. And it continues, for the next thirty minutes, until we give up and decide to load in.

The load in is a bit of a bastard, since it's up a narrow flight of carpeted stairs. And it's already hot inside the room we're playing. The room itself looks great though. There is a small wooden dance floor in the middle of the room, which is no larger than sixty square meters. The rest of the room is carpeted floors, and there's no stage. Everything is set up in front of the wooden area of the floor. There is a small bar at the back of the room and beside that, a door leading out to a small balcony area, where we'll spend most of the night until it's our turn to go on. There are seven bands total tonight, so we're playing late.

After load in is done, I finally hear back from Jen. She hasn't been able to book a train ticket since all the trains are full. My heart almost stops for a second. I call her and do the only thing I can, which is to try and comfort her. She's in good spirits though, she's mainly upset about the fact that as it stands, we don't know when we're going to able to see each other again. My wife is an incredibly strong person, she amazes me really. I feel like a weak, panic stricken child compared to her.

It seems like the only to do now, is for Jen to get supplies and stay in her hotel room when the storm hits. I would do anything to be there with her now, or even swap our positions. I'll be making my way there as soon as the access into the city has opened again, whether we travel in the van or I take a train. We talk for a long while on the phone and there are times where I feel myself close to tears. The positive thing is that the storm does seem to be weakening a little, it's went from a category three to a two, and the signs are that it will continue to weaken. I just hope it weakens enough.

When we get to the end of the call, Jen tells me that she wishes I was there with her, but that I should have a good night and enjoy the show. I hope she knows how much I love her. We tell each other we'll stay in touch as much as possible and I'll call in the morning. The storm is due to hit New York City tomorrow night. They've told her that it is highly unlikely they'll evacuate the area the hotel is in, but they'll keep them up to date with everything. I know she'll be safe, I just hope the damage to the city isn't so bad that it hinders me getting to her at some point on Monday. Despite the shite situation we're in, I feel better having spoken to her. I always do.

The seven band event seems to go on for an eternity. There are a lot of punk kids turning up though, and it should be a good show for us. I spend most of the time hanging out on the balcony drinking beer, or in the van sharing sips of Johan's whisky. Pentagram are playing in the city tonight and Jimmy has been at the show to check them out. He gets back to the venue as we're sat outside in the van and he tells us that all the punks who were at the show know we're playing at midnight and they're coming down. We hang out in the street with Jimmy for a while. Jon's girlfriend, Ana, has been on tour with Annihilation Time in the past and Jon and Jimmy know each other through that. They're quite a pair, they really get on with each other. Jon ended up going on that tour with them for five days and claims that he shaved off five years of his life in that time. I guess there was a lot of drinking involved...

The show tonight is basically two tours combined, since there are four grind core bands who are out travelling together. The funny thing is they're all in the same van since three of the four bands are two-pieces, the other has three members. So there's those bands and then a couple of locals, one of which, Killer of Sheep, are awesome. They played rough, old New York hardcore style, punk rock, with the guitarist pulling out the odd Greg Ginn style guitar hooks. It was fun watching them. The crowd was getting pretty wild and to adding a little surrealism to things, there were even a couple of drunk crack-head ladies in the middle of it all. They were brilliant, just stood there going crazy shaking their tits to the music in their mini skirts and tight, leopard print tops. They turn up to a lot of the shows, according to Jimmy. Apparently when they really get into it, one of them in particular is known to latch on to the singer and start dry humping their leg. I'm not going anywhere near a fucking microphone tonight.

As is par for the course, there is no door on the cubicle of the shitter. I'd spotted it earlier and had been relieved that I hadn't needed a shit. I cracked up therefore on one occasion when I walk into the bog for a piss and find Johan sitting there doing a shit and Matt stood beside him taking a leak in the urinal. What the fuck can you do really? The attitude towards shitting in this country seems to be far more liberal than back home...

We end up playing a little before midnight. The place is pretty packed, and it kicks off the second we blast into V5. I notice that Matt is crouched down over by Jon, waiting to pounce if the crowd starts piling into the space in which we're playing. As I'm tuning up after the first block, I hear Matt on the mic, telling the crowd that if they keep smashing the mic into Johan's face, he's not going to be able to sing. They heed Matt's warning and manage to withhold themselves from doing Johan any damage, but sure enough, at one point during the show Matt receives a flailing boot in the jaw, sending his spinning. I honestly don't know any other driver who would put themselves in that position for the band hiring his van. He really is a legend, and luckily for us, he loves driving Victims on tour.

Tonight was probably the best show of the tour, as far as how fun and how crazy it was, and as I sit on the floor in front of my amp, gasping for breath, reflecting over everything, Jimmy comes up to me and plants a big, sloppy kiss on my forehead. Everyone is happy tonight. I just wish Jen was here with me.

After we've cooled off, we pack out, back down the narrow stairs and head back to Ben and Aubrey’s house, the two of them having long since disappeared into the night. We drop off our bags and head out to a local bar, where all the guys from the show are hanging out. It's a great little place, and we catch up with everyone over a couple of beers. Jimmy, Corey from Aus Rotten, Sam Wicks and all the others are there. It's a very relaxed end to the night.

We head back to Ben and Aubrey’s around two am. to get some sleep. When we get there, Ben greets us at the door in nothing but his kecks, looking pretty fucked. We go down to the basement where there is a bed and floor space for us. I have one last check on Hurricane Irene before I call it a night. She's now down to a category one. It's still weakening. All I can do is hope everything is going to be ok.

Cleveland

2011-08-28T10:27:00.001+02:00

In the van, driving towards Cleveland now. We have about an hour to go. The load in tonight is late, around eight thirty, so we've got plenty of time to kill. Surprsingly enough, the guys want to go shopping.

Woke up this morning and lay in bed watching the news for an hour or so. Hurricane Irene is looking like she's going to be a big fucking storm. I'm really starting to worry about Jen. She's flying in on Friday night. For a start I'm worried about her flight being cancelled and then if she does get in, she's going to be on her own at the hotel in Manhattan when the storm hits on Saturday night. I'm sure she'll be ok but the thought of her being there on her own if it gets bad scares the shit out of me.

Matt's been taking calls this afternoon from different people involved with the show on Sunday. As it looks right now, the show is very much in danger of being cancelled. There's not much you can do about a fucking hurricane! If it doesn't get cancelled then I guess we're going to be driving into the city on Sunday afternoon in some pretty interesting weather...There really doesn't seem to be a good way around this right now. All we can do is stay in touch with the people in New York and keep our eyes on the news.

We just pulled out of a service station, have about an hour to Cleveland. Jon is chuffed, he just saw a poster advertising some sort of burger that had the slogan, “Nobody high fives after eating tofu!” Jon thinks it's the best thing he's seen all tour.

Later:

Sitting by the merch table, second band of the night are about to go on. The mood is somewhat sombre as we try to figure out exactly what we're going to do this weekend, everyone just constantly keeping checks on the news about Hurricane Irene. As of now, Jen's flight is still secheduled with her landing in New York tomorrow at two pm. All I know is that however things work out, whether we travel straight to New York before they close the city down, or whether we travel up to Syracuse, I want to be with my wife. It all depends on what happens tomorrow when the storm hits the east coast, and what's going to happen with Johan and Andy's flights on Monday. If they have to be at the airport to await a new flight then we don't have much choice but to travel to New York after the Pittsburgh show tomorrow. Hell of a way for this tour to end.

There are a lot of people at the venue tonight anyway, and Masakari are playing next. Going to get myself a beer and try and enjoy tonight at least. Decision time for us us tomorrow, not a lot we can do about it right now.

Later still:

Strange night. The show itself was really good, but throughout the entire set I found myself thinking about this weekend, about Jenny coming in on her flight, about how we're going to sort out this mess once she gets here. It's looking like a real shitstorm is about to unleash on New York City.

The toilet situation at this venue was not ideal either. First off, the men's toilet had no door on the cubicle (what the fuck is that about really?), and then the toilet was broken anyway. I really needed to shit and decided to chance the women's. I walk in and I'm faced with two cubicles, both with doors, but neither of them has a lock or indeed a door handle. I choose the cubicle furthest in and sit down. The fucking door swings open so I have to go about my business using one hand to hold on to the door, which for good measure is only about three foot high. Just as I drop my load, someone else comes into the room and sits down in the cubicle beside me. Fuck. My shit stinks too. This is akward. I wait it out for a while but the girl in the cubicle beside me seems to be going nowhere. I have to get out of here. I pull up my kecks, whilst trying to keep the door from swinging open, and then go to leave. As I do the girl in the cubicle beside me is doing the exact same thing. Fucking embarrasing! The girl kind startles and I go, “Whoa, sorry!” like a complete fucking geek. I rush to leave but then decide to wait around and apologise for scaring her. She's actually really cool about it. I just sort of shoot off and hide somewhere after that. Is the concept of a funcitoning toilet door completely beyond comprehension in this fucking country?

I've heard a lot about how the Cleveland punk and hardcore scene is special. Jon told me about the time they played here on a previous tour with 9 Shocks Terror, about the crowd being brutal. When we loaded in earlier the girl working the sound asked us if we wanted to set up on the floor. The room itself was pretty cool, with a high stage at the one end and a big skateboard ramp at the other. Matt had warned us to take the stage, so we did, although I was thinking that it could have been fun to brave the floor.

After watching Masakari though, I understood why Matt told us to play on the stage. Three songs in, and the place just erupts. I'm stood by the side wall on a long bench, watching the show and a surge of about twenty people hurtle towards me and then hit the ground hard. They get picked up, but from there it just escalates. The singer from Masakari, Tony, is right in the middle of it all. Next thing I see, there is a large, plastic rubbish bin being thrown around aimlessly. Just I'm starting to think that somebody could really get hurt, Tony puts the bin over his head and shoulders and charges at the crowd, getting the shit beat out of him as he does so. The rest of their show carries on in the same fashion and how the band escape without any injury is totally beyond me.

Our show must have seemed pretty tame in comparison, although it was a lot of fun all the same. The lights up on the stage were shining brightly into my eyes, so I couldn't really see much of what the crowd was doing, but I could sense it. There were a load of people hanging off the front of the stage, at times they were up on stage with us. Within the first couple of blocks the stage had been drenched in beer, making it almost impossible to keep a footing. I found myself with my feet rigidly keeping a grip on the floor, whilst still trying to play as I normally would . It wasn't easy. Between each block of songs there was a lot noise, people shouting for old songs, people shouting at us that they'd been waiting a long time to see us.

In different circumstances I would have been really buzzing with this show...

After we played and packed down, we hung out with a lot of people at the merch table. The Masakari guys offered us their place to stay, which we were happy to take, but with Paul, the owner of the bar handing out the extra drink tickets, we hung out for a couple of hours, drinking pints of Cleveland's finest ale. I felt like I really needed it.

We got back to the Masakari house around two am. and sat on the front porch with Joe, their guitarist, for another couple of hours, drinking beer and shooting the breeze. At one point I get up to go to the toilet and find Jon in there, looking lost. I ask him what's up and he tells me he's having trouble with flushing the toilet. I tell him to move out of the way and let me fix it. For a long time at work we had problems with the toilet in the bar and after months of dealing with it, I now consider myself quite the expert with a plunger. I lift the toilet seat and reel back in horror at the sight of a bowl of brown, sludgy shit that is on the verge of overflowing. Jon stands there with a guilty little smirk on his face. The two of us go about ridding the house of this filfth for the next five minutes or so.

Quite literally a shitty way to end a strange day.

Chicago

2011-08-25T23:14:00.000+02:00

Today we had the longest drive of the tour. We left the motel just outside of Nashville, via a quick stop at Waffle House just after nine thirty am. and arrived outside the venue in Chicago just before six thirty pm. We've done far worse in the past but nine hours in the van is a long stretch whichever way you look at it.

It was good then that we started the day off with a solid breakfast at Waffle House. You can't argue with three eggs, hash browns and coffee for six dollars. One thing I really love about the south is how friendly the people who work in the service industry are. I know they're working for tips but still, the friendly middle aged waitress calling you “baby”, or “honey” every time you speak to them really makes you feel warm inside. Maybe I'm missing my wife, I don't know but I'm a sensitive guy and need some love every now and again.

So this is what a nine hour drive in a van, cutting north through four states on a barren highway looks like this:

Matt at the wheel, full on driving machine mode, earphones in, listening to either Iron Maiden, early Metallica or some hair metal band, focused on the road. “Sometimes listening to crappy heavy metal is very fulfilling” according to the man himself.

Andy sat behind me on the back seat, inflatable neck cushion supporting his head as it yo-yo's up and down, earphones in, some form of punk or hardcore playing to oblivious ears, the rest of us taking the odd photo of him now and again, purely for our own entertainment.

Jon sat behind the driver's seat, either reading a book about Russian prisons or something about the secret destiny of America or sleeping with his swollen, bare foot resting on the cooler box between the driver seat at the passenger seat. Jon actually sleeps more than any other person I know, in transit at least. He must have slept for at least seven of the nine hours we were in the van today.

Johan in the passenger seat, either the Jamie Carragher autobiography (a great book I might add) or playing Angry Birds on his Iphone.

And then there's me, sat behind Johan, either writing my diary, reading my Hank Williams book or looking over Johan's shoulder, hoping for a shot on his Angry Birds game. Today we actually passed an hour or so, playing a game of chess on Johan's Iphone. I won, I might add...

All things taken into account, the journey did not seem so bad today, we somehow even managed to avoid city traffic as drove over the Chicago Skyway and down into the city streets. We'd all been bitterly disappointed with yesterday's frankly awful Chinese buffet dinner and today we had our hearts set on some quality Mexican food, that is usually always really good in Chicago. So we were delighted when we pulled up to the venue and saw that the show was actually taking place at a Mexican restaurant. Or so we thought. It was actually a Cuban restaurant, but there was a Mexican restaurant on the next block, so we loaded in and went straight there. And it was good. Very good. The outlook for today was already positive.

The promoter for the show tonight was a young, friendly faced guy called Vito. The venue was actually a rectangle room connected via a hallway to the Cuban restaurant beside, with a long bar down the left wall and a low stage against the back wall. The place looked it had potential.

After we ate, we just kind of hung around outside the venue for a while, with not a whole lot to do. As is usually the case, it would have been fun to take a trip into the city and check it out for a while, but there just wasn't time. I've been to Chicago four or five times now, and have been lucky enough on one of those occasions to have a close to a whole day in the city, the other times have all been like today. It's definitely a place I would like to come back to on holiday sometime though. Anyway, being so full of Mexican food I thought I might puke, I decided to tag along with Andy and go for a walk. Johan stayed behind to set the merch table up, Jon still can't really walk far on that foot of his and Matt followed us as far as on block until he found a liquor store and decided to stock up the cooler in the van. Andy and I didn't get all that farther. We walked a couple of blocks, found a record and book store, checked that out, walked another couple of blocks and decided the area we were in was getting decidedly shady and turned back towards the venue. Still, killed a half hour or so.

When we got back to the venue an old friend of Johan and Andy's, from their home town of Nyköping, has turned up. Jonas is married with kids here in the States and has been living in Chicago for ten years. It's been close to fourteen years since the guys saw each other. It was really nice to meet him. We stood outside the venue, chatting away for a good while, before the three of them went off to the bar beside the venue. I headed into the venue and sat by the merch stall, watching the other bands and drank a couple of beers wit Jon.

The venue filled up steadily throughout the night. It was an early show tonight, we were playing at ten fifteen. By the time the third band went on the place was pretty full. It's good to be back in Chicago. I had a good time sitting by the merch table. We were selling pretty well and I got to meet a bunch of good people. At one point this girl came up to me and was telling me how much she loved the band. We got talking for a while and then she wanted to buy a shirt. I bent down under the table to pick out a shirt from the box underneath and knocked my can of beer all over the floor. Felt like a right tit. The girl insisted on buying me a new beer, which was very kind of her. And then she bought a t-shirt and refused to take any change from me. Another guy did exactly the same thing. Friendly town.

The old guy who owned the bar, Pancho, was another real character, in much the same way as Brad from Nashville was a character. Pancho was working the bar, and by working it, I really mean working it. He had an entertainment show all of his own going on. Very happy. Very vocal. A constant big cheese spread across his face, he stood and joked with the patrons of his bar the entire night. When the third and final support band were on stage, he pulled up a large percussion jug and a drumstick and starting jamming along with them. And then it was maracas. And the next thing you know, he's got a saxophone in his hands and he's jamming along with the band from behind the bar. He's fucking ace too! He can really play that thing. Before the show is over he's made his way on stage with the sax, cheesy grin spread wide across his face between blows, and he's jamming along with the noise core band, loving it. I stood there pissing myself. Great old guy.

By the time we go on stage, the place is filled out all the way to the back of the room and the it's buzzing. It's a great show, although I personally don't play that well. Just before we went on stage, the PA blew up, leaving only enough capacity for vocals to go through it. This being the case we have the amps cranked full and the feedback is pretty hard to control. There is a lot of energy on stage, and the room full of punks are giving a lot back, but I hear myself numerous times missing notes. It's probably only myself that notices it, but it still bugs me a lot. By the time we get to Nowhere in Time, about half way through the set, I've sorted it out. I feel a little disappointed in so much as what is turning out to be a great gig otherwise is being a little tainted personally by my sloppy playing. We're forced into an encore by the chanting crowd anyway, and we blast out the Avail cover again, which is quickly becoming a fixture in the set.

Afterwards, we hang out for a while at the bar, having packed down immediately after the show. I get talking to this friendly guy called Lee, who has just moved here from Philly. The girl from earlier, who's name is Britney, also comes over to chat. The three of us enjoy conversation until old Pancho starts closing down the bar, telling us that if we load out within the next ten minutes he'll shout us all a shot. We're done in around seven..

Unbelievably, the van has been given two fucking parking tickets, despite the fact we're parked in the loading area that the club itself pays for. Apparently Matt and the lady from the restaurant had gotten into an argument with the traffic police as it was happening, but the cop didn't want to know and stuck the ticket on the window anyway. The cunt comes back fifteen minutes later and bangs another one on, just for good measure. Matt couldn't really give much of a fuck to be honest, he doesn't have any intention of paying it. As it is, Pancho is annoyed by the incident and tells us he'll sort it out. He then ushers us back into the bar and dishes out the shots of Patron, which is beautiful and in all honesty, knocking it back in one is a waste of good tequila. But out of courtesy, I knock it back all the same. We sit there, chatting for a while, although Pancho is a little hard to understand, he seems like a really good guy though. Jonas is still hanging out as well. He was really impressed with the show, and we have a laugh talking about old times and old bands. Jonas played bass in a few of bands back in the day with such brilliant names as Metal Suicide, Concrete Heads and the curiously christened Mr. Hang Pike and Adam's Leave. Apparently Andy's first band shared a rehearsal space with Metal Suicide. Apparently Jonas was a really tight bass player, but the bands weren't so hot.

We say goodbye to Jonas, Vito and Pancho and then it's time to leave. After that shot I could easily be persuaded to go to a bar somewhere for a few drinks, take in Chicago for a while, but it's not to be. We don't really have anywhere to stay tonight, so we have no choice but to take in a roadside motel again. Which means that Matt has to drive again unfortunately and understandably wants to get it over with, after so many hours already clocked up on the road today. We're expecting a good party tomorrow in Cleveland anyway, since we're staying around and the drive to Pittsburgh the day after is only two hours. Chicago is definitely on the list of places to visit without the band in tow though, although it's been on that list for years now..

As we drive out of the city Matt spots a large casino off in the distance to the left. We discuss the idea of staying there tonight, since the rooms are always really cheap at casino's, being that they want you to spend all your money on gambling instead. We decide to go for it. Maybe tonight we will have a party tonight anyway.

As we approach the casino, we're all in the back of the van, gearing ourselves up for a night of booze and gambling, Matt threatening to take all of our money from us. He's quite the poker player. Of course, we pull up to the parking house, looking in vain for a place to park the van, there seems to be height restrictions on all the parking lots, and the guy tells us there is no hotel at the casino. Fuck. That's that idea fucked then. We head back out to the highway, stopping at a run down petrol station to buy crisps and other shite and then go back to looking for a Red Roof Inn.

Losing a hour through the time zone, we find one just before four am. Matt does the usual and sorts one room out for the four of us, meaning we have to sneak in through the side door. Matt even charms the lady behind the desk into giving us an extra hour in the morning to check out since we arrived so late.

I've been sitting in my sodden wet t-shirt since we came off stage. I desperately need to shower.

Nashville

2011-08-25T17:34:00.000+02:00

On the road again. Today we're crossing into the central time zone, making our way to Nashville. The scenery is beautiful, crossing the Blue Ridge Mountains.

We met up with Jason for breakfast in the city today before we left. He took us to this great vegetarian café. Really cool place. The food was superb although the coffee was shite, but we drink so much coffee on tour that one bad mug here and there has to be expected. After we ate and said goodbye to Jason, we took a quick trip to the local record store, Static Age, which is a great little shop. I picked up a few lp's and we sold a few Victims records in return. Nice, relaxing start to the day, despite the nagging ache in my head from last nights ale...

Matt just told us that there is a hurricane heading towards the east coast this weekend. We're playing New York on Sunday, which is when it's supposed to hit. Thankfully Jen is flying in on the Friday, so her flight should be fine. It's going to be a right kick in the balls if our few days together in New York at the end of this tour are fucked by a hurricane, but as long as she gets here I don't care.

Only a few minutes after we got the call about the hurricane Matt's phone rings again. Johan turns the music on the stereo off when we hear the tone in Matt's voice, “What?!”. When he hangs up he tells us there has been a pretty big earthquake in Richmond. It takes him a while to get through to anyone, and Sarah's phone doesn't seem to be working. Eventually he gets through to Mike, one of the guys from Direct Control who lives at his house, and then Chris, who works with Sarah and it seems everybody is ok. Apparently it was pretty fucking hairy though. Mike had been sitting by his drum kit in the basement when all of a sudden the whole house started shaking. We heard later that there have been quakes in New York and Colorado to. Weird. Matt says it first, although Jon is right behind him in his thoughts, 2012 is fucking coming. Matt says he's ready for it. Jon agrees. Jon just bought a knife at a gas station this morning, maybe he feels more comfortable now that he's got something to put in his concealed weapons pockets in that leather vest of his...

We're only an hour away from Nashville now. Making good time.

Later:

Today has been the epitome of life on the road. It's a late show in Nashville tonight and even though we got here for load in time around six pm, the club closed again until eight thirty. All we've done is wait around. Before we started out on tour I was really looking forward to coming to Nashville. For a start, my friend Mary, who I tour managed for a few shows a while back, lives here. I was hoping to meet up with her and get some coffee, hang out, see the Grand Ole Opry amongst other things. In actual fact all we've seen is a plate of shite Chinese food at a strip mall somewhere and the inside of a bar across the road. All these cities you travel to and you get to see fuck all. At one point we retreated back to the van and waited for the club to re-open. We just sat there in silence with that air conditioning on. I get how it must look to people back home when they see the places you're travelling to, but if they understood what it was really like they might not be so jealous. Not that I'm complaining, I'm just saying that it's not exactly like going on holiday. At least I've got a decent book to read in the new Hank Williams biography.

We did have the pleasure of meeting the in-house sound engineer when we arrived here earlier. I thought he said his name was Rat at first, but it turns out it was Brad. Brad is a big old boy and quite a character. The whole time we loaded in, he sat in his sound booth cracking bad jokes, such as when Andy carried in the fan he has behind him on stage in an attempt to keep him from passing out, “What's this? You brought your biggest fan with you?”. I like him a lot.

Now I'm sat in a room at the side of the stage, charging my computer and checking up the latest on the hurricane hitting this weekend. If the reports are correct then it will hit New York City around eight pm. on Sunday night, right about the time the final show of this tour should be starting. At least Jen's flight shouldn't be affected. It's still over thirty degrees outside, and inside this club it must be even hotter. Tonight's show should be good by all accounts anyway, although a little late, which kind of sucks since we have an eight hour drive to Chicago tomorrow. I think we're taking a roadside motel tonight. This dressing absolutely stinks of body odour, I have to get out of here.

The first band just finished. They only played for around fifteen minutes. Brad, shocked by the length of their set just shouted down the monitor mic, “Is that it?!” to which one of the guys in the band replied, “Yeah that's it, what more do you need?”. “Fuck!” was all Brad had to say in reply to that.

Later still:

At the motel now. Luckily for us Matt gets a good discount on roadside motels through his van insurance. The Road Warrior always comes up trumps! Even though it's boring for us sitting in a van all day, at least we have Matt driving. He's like a machine. Hopefully when we tour the west coast next year, he'll fly out and do the tour with us.

Nice to lie in a bed as always, even if it's a bed I have to share with Johan. The kids at the show tonight were hounding Matt about us staying in town to party at someone's house, they were actually on his case about it. It might have been fun but with an eight hour drive to Chicago tomorrow nobody was really in the mood. We must be getting old.

The show tonight was fun, although there was only about fifty people there, including other bands, and we didn't really get paid all that much. It really is hard for us to make good money out here, but then I guess it's the same for American bands touring Europe. All the same, I enjoyed the show. The venue was a really good spot with a decent stage and the people that were there were really into the show. A lot of them hung out afterwards to chat and buy merch.

The second band of the night tonight were really great. A young band called Dawn who played a discordant, noise mixed now again with some d-beat stuff. We got a couple of their vinyl after the show that I'll gladly take home with me. I think I'm up to around forty records on this tour now, with over a week to go that number will most likely increase. I'll have to book another item of luggage on the flight back to bring them all home.

It's two thirty am. Some funny Will Ferrel movie is on the tv, Matt has gone to sleep in his van outside. Nashville wasn't all I hoped it would be, but tomorrow is another day. I'm looking forward to Chicago tomorrow.

Asheville

2011-08-24T04:47:00.000+02:00

After a nine hour sleep at Matt's place I felt as good as new. I felt almost sad saying goodbye to Matt's house and his family. Hanging out with his two dogs made me feel a little homesick. It kind of fucks you up a little when you're in the middle of a tour and you camp at a base for a few days. You get used to a certain kind of home life again. Matt was saying that three nights in his own bed has sent him completely off kilter, since he's so used to sleeping in his van with the edge of the bench seat in his back.

The six hour drive in the van didn't feel too bad to be honest. We have longer drives ahead over the next few days, so we may as well get used to it anyhow. Asheville is set pretty high in the Blue Ridge Mountains and the climb up to the city along the highway offered some beautiful scenery. We arrived at Jason, the promoter's house around six thirty pm. We hung out there for a while on his front porch, drinking PBR and watching the sun go down. Jason, a really good guy that the rest of the band have met on previous tours, made us all an incredible pot of vegan curry. As usual, the hospitality of friends on the road blew me away. There were another couple of guys there, friends of Jason's, who were practising downstairs in the basement. Seems like most people we meet out here have bands practising in their basements. At Matt's place, as well as his band Parasytic rehearsing there, both Vulture and Direct Control used the space too. That simply would not be able to happen in Stockholm..

We drove down to the venue around nine, Asheville being a late town apparently. When we arrived the first thing we saw was a marquee with Victims Tonight on it. It's not every day on tour you see that. We stood in front whilst Matt took band photos, of course. When we'd jumped out of the van in front of the club, we got to small talking with a lady who was stood there with her young infant daughter for a couple of minutes. Before they left the cute little girl gave Jon a hug around the waist. It really touched Jon. He had tears welling up in his eyes for a moment there.

The venue itself was a great little bar with a floor space and a low stage off to the corner. There was a small beer garden out back, where Jon and I retreated to with a pint. I had a good feeling about the night ahead as we sat there in the warm night air, watching a steady stream of people paying in to the club.

We'd been sitting there a while when a scruffy looking guy in a top hot approaches the guy working the door, who is sat at a small table with an old lamp on it in front of the entrance. I hear Top Hat asking something about getting hooked up with some power for a couple of spot lamps, whilst also mentioning something about a side show... As I'm wondering who the fuck this guy is, Jon spots an old school bus parked over in the lot. Jon wants to go check it, so I follow with him.

Top Hat is there along with another guy, who is your more typical crust punker. We ask if we can have a look around there bus, which they're more than happy to oblige. Top Hat introduces himself to us as Mux, his friend as Chris. They tell us they're a travelling side show, that live in this bus of theirs that they bought for three hundred bucks. They've been out on the road, living in this thing for over three months now. Apparently they've arranged to perform out in the beer garden between each of the bands tonight, doing all sorts of nonsense like hammering nails into their nostrils, all for nothing but tips. The night just took an interesting and unexpected turn, I thought to myself. Mux and Chris turned out to be really nice guys and it was really cool of them to let us see their travelling home.

The guys were really interested in Victims and were asking us a lot of questions about what it's like touring overseas. They told us that they'd never even been out to the west coast of the States, nevermind abroad. It makes you realised how privileged we are to be doing what we're doing, even when the going is tough at times, we're still out here at the end of the day, thousands of miles from home, playing our music to punk kids. I know people who would give anything to do what we do. I'm grateful to be here.

Jason's band, Otark, were first up tonight and by the time they went on there was a good crowd in the place. They've only been playing for five months and haven’t' recorded yet, but they sounded great. They played a real epic, dark style of hardcore, kind of mixing up the sounds of bands like Fall of Efrafa and Tragedy. I stood down front with Matt and enjoyed every minute of it. Great to have such a good crowd in on a Monday night too. Matt had insured us that Jason always put on great shows and it seemed like tonight would be no exception.

Right on cue, Mux starts his side show out in the garden. I had to check it out. Sure enough, he's there hammering a nail into his nostril with a bean can. There has to be easier fucking ways of making a living! There were a good load of people gathered round, watching him as he entertained the punks with this madness. Earlier on, Mux had mentioned something about having a pig's head in a jar for his final act of the night. That was something I could happily skip looking at, thanks all the same Mux.

The second band of the night were called Just Die. Really nice guys it seemed. At one point during their set they mentioned that they had a record for sale at their merch table, but then urged the crowd to buy our merch ahead of anyone else's. “If you're going to buy anything tonight, buy Victims merch. Do you know where those guys come from? Sweden! Can you drive here from there? No you fucking can't!”. I thought this was a superb gesture. It is a lot harder for us to make money from shows here in the States, compared to how it is in Europe, we come to the States mainly because it's fun and it's a privilege that we're lucky enough to have. It's amazing to get that sort of support from local bands here, just as the other night with the Furnace guys. In Europe, you make good money from shows, but the downside there is that the local bands are notorious for playing way over their allotted stage time, often playing encore after encore. Local heroes I call them. To be honest, it's not so common in the hardcore scene, but I've witnessed some bullshit whilst out on tour with other bands.

There was another local band, called Megahurz, who shared a guitarist with Just Die, that were going to play after us tonight. It made sense for us, since they're a renowned local party metal band and a lot of people where in all probability in attendance to see them as well as us. So we went on ahead of them to a packed room. It turned out that we had a big support from the crowd anyway, the show was an absolute blast!

We belted through the set and the crowd kicked off from the get go. Even old Mux was down front, seemingly having a great time! I belted a guy in the elbow with the head of my guitar, but thankfully both guitar and elbow were fine. The crowd constantly surged back and forth, now and again spilling onto the stage, so it was hard to avoid keeping people out of the firing line. At one point near the middle of the set, the girl working behind the bar appeared on stage with shots of whiskey for us. It was a real party atmosphere. The barmaid and another friend then stood side stage, over on Jon's side, chanting something about Sweden. Before the set was over, she came once again with another round, as well as another at the end of the set, although by then she was just filling the whole glass straight from the bottle. In that heat it actually tasted pretty foul and I had to put it aside, I was gasping for water not bourbon. Appreciated it all the same though. We played the Avail cover again, since it had been requested (news travels fast on the net it seems) and when we were done there were long shouts for more. The barmaid and her friend, both of who were by then pretty boats, were chanting “Take us with you to Sweden!”. At one point during the set, such was the party atmosphere, Jon asked the crowd if this was really Monday night. Needless to say, we were all buzzing from the show as we cooled off in the car park outside before loading the van.

Megahurz were indeed a party!. And something I totally had not got, until they went on stage, was that the pissed up barmaid was actually their bass player. They brought a real fun end to a great show. Afterwards we hung out by the merch, refilling pitcher after pitcher of complimentary beer from the bar. It was really good ale too. What more could you ask for? At one point I spilled Andy's whiskey all over the merch table since he was a fool enough to leave it there. Only minutes after clearing it up pissed barmaid girl comes over with another pitcher. She's pretty grabby by now and looking for hugs. She plonks the pitcher on our merch table, goes to hug Johan and in doing so knocks the pitcher over our merch table again, this time Johan's trucker cap taking most of the hit. Johan looked pretty gutted but I thought it was hilarious! I guess I was feeling pretty tipsy myself by that point...

Before we left Matt proved to us that he actually does like pickled eggs. I don't know how we got to talking about them the other day but it turns out Matt is the only person I know who likes them. And of course, they had them in a glass jar behind the bar. We all stood around and watched him eat one, as if he himself was performing in a touring side show. If only Mux knew it was this easy! Jon was the only one of us who dared try one of the disgusting little bastards, but after one solitary chew, he walked calmly to the toilet, albeit with a look of horror on his face, and spat the thing out. Credit to him for trying it, all for the cause of our amusement.

We ended up getting back to Jason's place around two am. There was more beer on offer on the porch and we had some Sam Adams in the cooler in the van, but I could barely manage one before I had to go to bed. One of the last things I remember before hitting the hay was Jon coming out of the shower and the rest of us looking at each other in amazement. It's not something he does that often on tour...

Jason had a few dogs around the house, all of which were really cute, and I remember trying to get one to lie on the mattress with me where Johan was going to sleep later, but the little pooch was having none of it. He lay there for a while but when Johan came stumbling towards the back bedroom where I'd crashed a little while before, he hopped up and left. So as usual, it was Johan and I sharing a bed. Seems to be a common occurrence on this trip.

Richmond

2011-08-23T00:55:00.000+02:00

We just left Richmond. We've been staying there for the last couple of days. I was a little sad to leave the place. We have a lot of friends there and it's almost felt like home this weekend. We had breakfast with Dave Witte and China this morning before leaving, which was a nice way to end our short hiatus in Richmond. We're now on the road to Asheville in North Carolina, which is about a six hour drive. The last couple of days have been a lot of fun...

We had the day off on Saturday. We woke up at Matt's place, where there are a bunch of other friends staying, people like Mark and Christina who made the trip down from Boston, amongst others. Matt's wife, Sarah, made us all breakfast in the morning and we sat on the sofa in front of the tv, eating scrambled eggs, drinking coffee and watching Liverpool beat Arsenal. Superb start to the day.

We headed over to the Best Friends Day Fest in the van around two pm. What can I say about this event? Simply put, it's absolutely insane! The festival is staged over four days at different venues around the city of Richmond. On Saturday, the event was held at a water park, a very basic water park I must add, with a stage set up next to the pool. We arrived at around two-thirty pm, by which time most people there were steamboats. It's basically like spring break for punks. The pool was were most of the action was at. Hundreds of pissed punk guys and girls, half naked, some completely naked, diving off boards, jumping off rope swings, drinking all sorts of booze. It was pretty chaotic and probably slightly dangerous. They'd actually dyed the colour of the water in the pool a deep blue, the rumours being the reason for that was to hide all the hard-ons, but in reality the more likely reason being an overdose of chlorine. I can only imagine how much drunken piss was in that pool. When the bands were playing there were girls stage diving wearing nothing but bikinis, some wearing less than that. It was quite a sight. And it was hot. Very fucking hot.

It must have been around thirty five degrees Celsius. At times it was unbearable, standing around in the heat. I drank a couple of beers when we arrived, but it just made me feel weird so I switched to water. Jon, being Jon, spent the entire day wearing his leather waistcoat vest over a hooded top, bandanna and sunglasses, hood pulled up over his head. How the fuck he could stand it I'll never know!

It was great seeing everyone. There are so many people who we know here. It reminds me of Stockholm in the sense that it's a small musical community where everyone plays in bands. We hung out with Witte and the Municipal guys, Tony Waste being one of the main guys behind the festival, the Baroness people as well as our old friend Erik Larson and his wife Chris. Best Friends Day really is the perfect name for this festival since that's exactly what it is.

There were some great shows during the day, 7 Seconds were great as well as Against Me, although Baroness completely stole the show. What an amazing group of musicians they are. I spotted Jon from the side of the stage, stood in the crowd in the blazing hot sunshine, hood still pulled up over his head, leather vest still on, fist passionately clenched, punching the air. He'd been looking forward to this show for ages. He told me later that he “only” cried three times during their set...

When we'd arrived in the van, we'd been forced into leaving our cooler box with the security people, since there was no glass allowed into the water park. We had a lengthy discussion about it, but the security people weren't budging. Fair enough, rules are rules, but we were pretty pissed off when we collected our cooler box at the end of the day, only to find that the cunts had drunk a load of our beer.

Another weird thing I saw when we arrived was a group of hobo punks, hanging around outside the festival entrance. I don't get these fucking guys. We're waiting to drive into the festival whilst discussing the cooler box problem with the security, when one of these dirty punk guys walks up to Matt's open window and says, “Give me some money”. Matt curtly informs him that he's not giving him shit. The cunt just stands there staring at him like he's been wronged in some way. Matt politely tells him to fuck off. These guys apparently are quite a common sight in the US. And they're always trouble, starting fights and robbing people and the like. Matt tells us you just have to be firm with them and they'll piss off. Only a few minutes later, whilst we're still trying to resolve the cooler issue, one comes around to my side where the door is open and starts demanding something from us. He asks me what band we're in, to which I tell him we're in no band. He stands there calling us liars for a few seconds before mooching off to where he came from. Seriously, what the fuck is the deal with these people?

The day was over by about eight pm, right after the Against Me show was finished. We were about to leave in the van when a big scuffle kicked off on the road right outside the main gate. Within seconds there were a load or police cars and ambulances and everything was dispersed. Apparently what had happened was that an old guy had come driving along the road in his jeep and had been confronted by a herd of punk kids, refusing to get out of his way. Eventually the old boy just puts his foot on the gas and runs over some girls foot. I don't think the old boy really meant to hurt anyone, I think he was most likely just scared. Anyway, as soon as this happens everyone goes crazy and starts attacking the poor old guy in his car. Real angry mob stuff. The police soon broke it all up, but the old guy was really shaken. I felt bad for him. The police then had to divert us and everybody else towards the other exit. Weird end to the day. Tony told me the day after that they'd actually found a body in the river, right next to the festival site, although the police thought it had nothing to do with the festival. As nice a place as Richmond is, it is still America at the end of the day, and in that, such a very different place to where we come from.

I know horrible stuff happens back home now and again, but here a body in the river is just an everyday occurrence. For instance, when we drive back to Matt's place, we stop at at a garage to pick up some beer and snacks. There is an armed sheriff guy guarding the place. Matt tells us that only a few weeks ago, he'd came in here in the middle of the day and walked right into an ongoing armed robbery. They put a gun to his head, robbed him of the seventeen dollars he had in his wallet, and told him to leave. Since then they've had the sheriff guarding the place. If that happened to me I'd most likely be scarred for fucking life, to Matt, it's just life. I don't get it. I don't really want to get it.

Anyway, we ended the night sat on Matt's porch drinking beer. A fine way to end the night. John and the Baroness guys as well as the No Tomorrow people were hanging out too. Jon had John showing him Baroness guitar riffs at one point. I've never seen Jon so happy. Apparently he also got to hear a couple of demos from the new Baroness record, which John played for him upstairs in secret. They had played a couple of new songs during their set and they sounded great. Really looking forward to hearing the new album.

One by one, everybody flaked off, leaving Johan, Andy, Matt and myself left on the porch. It was one of those nights where every beer we opened was the “last beer”. I love the whole porch thing. I wish we had that back home. By the time it really was the “last beer” we were all pretty drunk. Andy was at the point where he was slurring his words, his English getting less and less decipherable and he kept stumbling down the steps to the yard. We've all been taking it relatively easy on this tour though, except Jon, so we were due a late night and a few drinks.

The next day, yesterday, it was our turn to play.

If Saturday was the party day, then Sunday was definitely the hangover day. That was the overall feeling submerging the entire day. I didn't feel to sharp myself, although one look at Andy in the morning made me feel a lot better.

The venue for our show was at a biker's lot, or in English, a row of garages in an industrial estate on the south side of Richmond. All of our friends were there again, the likes of Witte and Erik, as well as the Waste guys. Tony had a bit of a go at us when we arrived since we were a bit late. We had to load in through the already building crowd at the front gates. It's not so usual to see Tony stressed out. The same security guards, the fuckers who drunk our beer, were there again. Matt had a go at them later on in the day, they didn't deny an charges thrown at them either.

We set up our merch alongside the Jesuit and COC guys, underneath a small tent near the entrance. It was nice to good Nate again, he's such a chilled out, humble guy and always fun to be around. It was the last ever Jesuit show yesterday, so it was fun to be a part of that. They, by all accounts, didn't enjoy the best of shows though. The sound out front was pretty bad, as it was for every band. It's hard to get a decent sound from an outdoor stage though, you just have to make the most of it.

We hung out for the afternoon with the Jesuit guys, sharing beers and having a laugh. Their bass player is a real character. He's a big, strong looking fucker who constantly takes the piss out of everybody around him. I didn't know what the fuck to make of him at first but within a short while realised that I really liked the guy.

I thought Saturday was hot, but yesterday was something else. It was all you could do to find a slither of shade somewhere in that parking lot. At one point during the afternoon, Woody from COC was standing next to our merch and we were indulging in a bit of small talk, when this geeky looking metaller walks up to Woody with a notepad and pen and asks him he minds answering a few questions. Sure enough, he starts firing all these real train spotter type questions at him, going into minute detail about certain solos from COC records and so on. I've truly never heard anything like it. The guy goes on for a good fifteen minutes, the whole time, Woody, in an admirable show of patience and understanding, doing his best to answer the guy. Respect to you for that Woody.

One of the highlights of the day was undoubtedly the second band of the day, Little Ozzy. Yes, they were exactly what it sounds like. A band of rocker guys with a dwarf/midget/little person (I'm not sure what the term is), dressed as Ozzy singing Ozzy songs. Fucking brilliant! Matt thought it was the best thing he'd ever seen. He loved every second of it. I had to go down the front to check it out, it's not every day you see something like that. I passed Jon who was stood near the back of the lot, with his jaw hanging in amazement. I asked him if he was coming down the front to check it out properly, to which he replied, “I'm not taking one fucking step closer!”. I forgot he's scared of dwarves/midgets/little people...

As Jesuit took to the stage the sky was turning a menacing shade of black. Tony was starting to worry since there wasn't even a marquee covering the stage. There was rumour that if it started pissing down they'd have to move the show to a club in town but in actual fact there was no such Plan B, such is the relaxed atmosphere of this event. Indeed, as Jesuit finished their set and Iron Lung were setting up to go on, the heavens opened up and it started to piss down! Jon and I were at the merch stand, the tent covering it not being rain proof in the slightest, packing up the gear as quickly as possible and hiding it under the table. Johan and Matt were on stage with a few others, doing their best to cover the stage with a tarpaulin, Andy covering up our gear that was out in the open backstage. A thunder and lighting storm broke out right above us and everyone at the show ran for the cover of their cars, the place emptying out in minutes. Jon and I stood at the merch stand, soaked to the fucking bone. Jon was panicking about his leather vest being damaged due to it being wet.

Luckily the storm soon passed, although not before a couple of huge thunder claps. I got quite nervous when the Jesuit guitarist noted that we were in fact stood under what was principally a lightning rod. If anyone was really in danger though, it was Matt, who was stood on the middle of the stage, holding a metal bar which the tarpaulin was hanging from, doing his best to save the stage and it's gear. He laughed about it later, wondering what the fuck he was doing. Surely, your dedication to the cause has to have some sort of limit.

When the rain stopped, the place was bone dry again within fifteen minutes such was the heat. Iron Lung got up and played and they were fucking great! For a two piece, they are a hell of a grind band. The singer has a bit of Paul Bearer about him, taking the piss out of certain members of the crowd. It was great fun watching them.

And then it was our turn. I could sense the guys were a little nervous. We'd been planning to play an Avail cover in Erik Larson's honour. Of course, Avail were a classic Richmond band and it was a little nerve racking playing one of their songs on their home turf. There had been rumours that Avail would perform a special one off reunion for this show, but it wasn't to be, so instead we'd represent on their behalf.

The sound on stage was surprisingly good, but I knew fine well the sound out front, at least anything past the first ten meters, would be dogshit. Something Matt was sad to confirm after the show. I think we played really well though. I really enjoyed the set and the crowd were very receptive. The only thing that pissed me off was this one big, stupid twat who was throwing beer cans at the stage for the entirety of the set. I'd noticed him earlier in the day, hard not to really since he'd been loudly making his presence known to everyone around him, just shouting his mouth off all the time. A boring twat basically.

Apart from him, the show went down a storm though. We had some friends side stage who seemed to be really enjoying the show, which as always, makes me play all the harder. It was a fun time up there. And the Avail song went better than we could have hoped for. Jon gave a really nice speech beforehand, explaining what an influence Avail had been on Victims, and dedicated the song to Erik. It was a hell of a buzz playing that song as the crowd went nuts. I caught a glimpse of Erik who looked quite moved, according to Jon,his wife Chris was down the front taking photos with a tear in her eye. I'm glad it came off so well.

After we played we had to wait around until COC were finished up with their set before we could load out. I felt bad in a sense because Jen is a huge COC fan and she was really disappointed that she couldn't make it out here for these shows. I felt obliged to watch them in her honour. I'd heard the rumours that they weren't that great live any more and I'm afraid those rumours proved to be true. Not even when they played Kiss of Death did it arise much of a stir within me. It was cool to see that classic, original line-up playing together again, and it was nice to see how happy Reed Mullin looked when I told him Blind is one of my wife's favourite records, but the live show just seemed to drag on and on. It was like the party was over but they were refusing to accept it. By the time they were done I was dying to get out of there. I have a huge amount of respect for COC and their records, but if they'd played a half hour instead of their marathon set I probably would have enjoyed it a little more. Quite sad really. They really were a good bunch of guys too.

We loaded out in super quick time and made our way into the city, to stop by one of the clubs still with shows going on, the last bastion of Best Friends Day weekend. Matt had friends he wanted to say hello to so we made a quick stop and had a pint, the first real beer of the day, a great pint of a local IPA. We bumped into Witte again. It's always great to hang out with him, one of the nicest guys you could meet. He was hoping to make it up to New York next week for our final show of the tour but he now has some other music commitments. Not surprising really, the guy is constantly doing something with his drums. It was good to see him this morning for breakfast anyhow. I think I'll come over here for a holiday with Jen sometime in the future and spend some real time with our friends here. On tour, time is always fleeting.

On the way back to Matt's we'd got the news that a Swedish hard line right wing organisation has used the Victims skull logo on their website. This is fucked up! I don't know what the fuck they think they're doing, they've just taken our logo direct from our website for their own use. WE had a look at their web page and sure enough, there was the logo, slap bang in the middle. Sickening. Andy mailed them immediately, letting them know that we wished the logo to be removed immediately and that we don't wish to be associated with their organisation. In fairness, they mailed back this morning and apologised, telling us that they would remove the logo and didn't realise that it belonged to us. Weird.

Baltimore

2011-08-21T08:19:00.001+02:00

Been on the road for a little while now. Been listening to the last Roky Erickson and Coliseums records. We're in no rush today. Not really much to do in Baltimore before we load in. Not sure how tonight's show is going to be. We're back in a major city but Best Friend's Day starts tonight, just down the road in Richmond. We knew it could be tricky planning shows around and so close to a big festival. We'll see. I know one thing, and that's that I wish Pg. 99 were playing their reunion show tomorrow when we're there on our day off, and not tonight.

We had a really good breakfast with Meghan this morning at this cool corner café we'd been to the last time we were over. They do all ecological bagels and baguettes and a great mug of coffee. We hung out there for a while, enjoying a perfectly relaxed start to the day. As we were planning the day ahead with Matt, Meghan mentioned there was a pretty cool used record store a few blocks away...

I bought seven lp's for fifty five dollars, including a vinyl copy of a Jesus Lizard album I've been looking for for a while. I also picked up Crucial Section and Direct Control albums amongst others. Very productive start to the day.

We're now about a half hour from Baltimore. We're going to pull of the highway and take a visit to Guitar Centre. We don't have to be at the venue for another few hours. Jon's foot is still pretty swollen. I think Matt is going to take him to the hospital tomorrow since we have the day free. Liverpool – Arsenal tomorrow. We're heading back to Matt's tonight and we're taping the game and watching it when we get up in the morning. Looking forward to our day off tomorrow.

Later:

Sitting outside the venue in the van. The place is an oblong room with a stage at the back wall. And that's about it. Fifty kids here will be enough to make it a good night. We got here a few hours ago and have been killing time doing pretty much nothing. Johan, Andy and I took a walk a few blocks and got some coffee at a Barned & Noble book store, took care of about an hour. I took advantage of the pristine toilets they had there since Jon had blocked the bog at the venue earlier. He actually had to go and ask the promoter kid help him flush his turd away!

Earlier when we arrived I witnessed Matt reverse park the van into the tightest space I've ever seen. We're talking millimetres here, although there was the odd little nudge here and there. “That's why they call it a bumper!”, Matt says, looking pretty chuffed with himself.

I'm now in the van with Jon and Matt, Jon is resting up his foot which is still pretty swollen, sipping a bottle of whiskey from a brown paper bag. I had a couple of sips, although purely for medicinal purposes of course. We just watched a “The Wire” style drug deal go down, just a few yards ahead of us. I can't honestly say I saw that much, but Jon is completely convinced. Baltimore really is a rough city though. Matt told us earlier to keep ourselves within a three block radius of the venue since it gets pretty bad around here. The third band of five are about to go on. The band Full of Hell are on right before us. I seen those guys in Stockholm a while ago at Kafe 44. Nice guys and a good band.

Later still:

Sitting in the dark in the back of the van, listening to Baroness' The Red Album, getting geared up for our day off tomorrow. I've never seen Baroness play live before. Looking forward to that. It's been a pretty hectic week that started in Belgium seven days ago.

The show tonight felt like hard work. There weren't that many kids in, maybe around twenty at most, with members of the other four bands making up the numbers. It looked ok in the room but for the bright lights been on throughout the show. There was a good response to the set though. It was the playing itself that was hard going. Theft almost fell apart at one point when Andy dropped a stick and pulled up a wrapped pair together instead of a stand alone stick. He almost came to a stand still as he stood there looking at his double stick all confused.

It didn't make things easier for us either that Jon's foot is now the size of a balloon and I had a face full of snot again. It was hard to breathe at some points, especially with the place being as hot as a boiler room, the industrial size fan at the back of the stage blowing nothing but a warm fart around the stage. By the time we reached the end of the set, finishing with Broken Bones and skipping Scars, I was more than done.

We packed up super quick after the show and got on the road to Richmond, back to Matt's house. Jon's foot looks pretty bad and he's saying he wants to be dropped off at the emergency room when we get to Richmond but it's hard to know how much of what he's saying is coming from him and how much is coming from the bottle of bourbon he's been supping on all night. We'll have to see how it looks in the morning.

Even later:

We just got back to Matt's new house. The place is amazing! It's one of those classic southern houses that is over one hundred years old, with the wrap around porch and the big yard out back. I slept most of the way between Baltimore and Richmond but got a second wind from somewhere when we got here, but after one beer I'm done and now going to bed in one of the many rooms in this huge house.

Brick

2011-08-20T17:55:00.001+02:00

We've had a pretty easy today. The drive was only a couple of hours. Felt good sleeping in a real bed last night, even if me and Johan were pretty much ass to ass.

The weather is starting to resemble the summer as you'd expect it. Blue skies, hot in the shade. We picked up some breakfast from a local diner in Milford this morning. Two eggs, sunny side up please. The lady who served us was a pretty sweet woman. It's always embarrassing going through the motions when they clock you're a band, not that hard I guess, and then they start asking you what kind of music you play and what the name is and all that crap. It's the same expression on the face every time when you tell them...vacant.

We've been listening to some good stuff in the van these last few days. Tom Petty, Maiden, Roky Erickson, The Police...who the fuck needs to listen to hardcore in the van all day when it's all you here all night? Not me. Funny though, for the most part Andy sits in the back with his headphones on.

We've only got a couple of hours drive today, so of course, we're going to an outlet centre. Johan and Andy really like to shop! After that we'll head on over to the venue for around six pm. We're right on the coast tonight and there is talk of crashing at one of Matt's friends places near here tonight and then spending a few hours at the beach of the Jersey Shore tomorrow. I'm hoping this is going to happen.

Matt has just let it slip that he has to take his shirt off when he takes a shit, no matter where he is. I almost just coughed up a lung when he let that one go! Upon obvious further enquiries he told us that the reason for this strange behaviour is that when he was a kid growing up with his sisters, he used to wear their long night-shirts around the house a lot since he didn't have much of his own stuff. Once when he went to do a shit the night-shirt he was wearing dropped down into the toilet and he shat all over it, although he didn't realise this until he'd walked out of the bog. Since then he's had a mental barrier when it comes to dropping his guts that means he has to take his shirt off. Superb.

Later:

We went to the outlet store. We were there for a few hours shopping. No, let me correct that. Johan and Andy were. I picked up a pair of Vans within ten minutes, looked at a pair of jeans, decided I would save my money on tour for records and leave the shopping until Jenny comes over at the end of this tour when we have a few days in New York, got some fish and chips from a cheesy food court, took a couple of turns on a rather brutal massage chair, and then headed back to the van with Matt, Jon and Meghan forty minutes later. We sat around on the tarmac by the van in the half empty parking lot for an hour or so. It was actually really relaxing. I restrung my guitar and then we lay around, using bags as pillows, chatting away about everything and nothing.

We've just turned up at the venue. Strange place. The sign at the side of the country highway the venue is just off of says The Loyal Order of the Moose. It is decorated with numerous American flags and there are two old bearded guys loitering around on the porch, looking over at the van. Fuck knows what this gig is going to be like.. Never played a veterans lodge before. It's not that uncommon though, according to Matt. Matt knows the promoter tonight and tells us he always puts on good shows. That is definitely reassuring! If we didn't know anything about the promoter tonight I'd be worried.

Since we're a bit early, Johan has suggested we go do some shopping at the Target that we passed just down the road. There actually is fuck all to do so we may as well. I think I saw a liquor store somewhere too...

Later:

This show was how last night's show could have been, should have been maybe. The promoter, Mark was a really funny guy, looked like he could have been in Annihilation Time. He must be one of the few people on this planet that has a moustache that Matt actually trusts. There were a few other people involved in the setting up the show who were all really enthusiastic, doing their best to give the kids here some shows to go to. It's so good to see young people involved in keeping the scene going in these remote parts of the world.

The show was set up in the back room of the bar in the lodge, just a square room with bare walls, kinda looked like an empty classroom. There was probably around forty to fifty kids at the show, which was more than enough to make fill the room out nicely. Not bad for Brick, New Jersey. Anyone here tonight would have had to have got here by car since it's in the middle of nowhere.

Out the back of the venue was a parking lot and some beer garden type area. We spent most of the night either hanging out by the van, drinking a some pre-show beer or in the bar playing what I can only describe as table-top curling. Above it was a huge mounted moose head which was a bit strange. The game was good fun, although the bar was a bit shady. The bartender was a large, jock looking guy who barely registered my presence when I ordered a couple of Yeungling's for me and Johan. Ignorant cunt. Do you still really have to tip for that in this country? Even when the service is that piss poor? I left him a couple of dollars tip and immediately hated myself for doing so when he just snatched them up from the bar and threw them in his jar, not a thank you in sight. This guy either hates us punk kids or maybe he doesn't like foreigners. Mark the promoter told me that the people at the lodge are always really cool with them putting shows on here but this bartender guy isn't convincing me.

There was another weird jock guy who was stoating about the room all night bothering people. He was either pissed drunk or a couple of sarnies short of a lunch box but either way he was getting on my tits. He obviously wasn't here for the show, I think he belonged to the lodge... He'd helped put up a tarpaulin over the veranda out back since the constant lightning flashing in the sky out over the ocean was threatening to bring a shit load of rain our way. Apparently whilst he was doing this he'd split his shorts right up the crack. He spent the entire night explaining this to anyone who would listen, and then when he was done he would ask for a safety pin. He was shocked that not one person there had a safety pin to loan him, since we were all punks and all. He must have asked me for a safety pin on at least six different occasions during the evening...

I only really saw the first band tonight, who were called Teen Wolves. They were pretty cool too. They had this girl screaming down the mic over some really fast, japcore/scando style punk rock. Good times. The other bands I heard from the parking lot out back. The third band did a lot of covers, one of which being a pretty good version of Police Story. Jon started giving me his usual bullshit about having no respect for Black Flag. Of course I bit. Of course he continued to bait until it got as far as him saying he actually hates Black Flag. He is so full of shit sometimes you just have to laugh at him.

Our show was a lot of fun. I love floor shows. We had all the kids crowded close in around us in a semi-circle and we blasted through the set. Before we started the set though, we had to wait for Jon who was posing for a picture Meghan was taking of him, licking his pick and doing his best metal pose. I look over at Andy who is just sat there shaking his head, “Fucking circus...” he grumbles. It was pretty fucking hot in there and my cold is still holding firm, meaning I had a steady mix of sweat and snot streaming from me the entire set. Didn't really bother me that much at the time though.

At one point during the set, I almost hit some young kid in the face with my guitar by accident. I just caught him out of the corner of my eye backing off mouthing, “Whoooaa!” I felt bad and whilst playing grabbed his hand to let him know it was an accident and I was sorry. He just held onto my hand, pulled his camera out with other and took a photo of us, both rocking out. It was a nice moment.

A couple of times during the show I noticed Andy kind of pointing one of his drum sticks in the air mid beat, almost like he was dancing whilst playing. Fucking hell, I thought to myself, he's having a good time! It was only when I belted the headstock of my guitar on the low ceiling of the room that I understood he was actually trying to warn me. My stomach balls jumped into my throat for a split second, but luckily the guitar was unscathed. That would have been a shitter!

After the show we chilled out for a while on the back porch/veranda area. It had just started to rain as we were thinking about loading the van. Big fucking balls of rain too. We decided to wait a while and instead hung out with Mark and some of the other kids at the show. I got chatting to a guy called Wes for a while who was really friendly. We hung out for a good twenty minutes talking about music and the scene. He was really interested in Europe, which I tend to find a lot of the people I meet on these tours are.

When the rain shower had subsided we decided to pack the and head back to Meghan's place in Philly. She needs to get home anyway and Philly is pretty much exactly half way to tomorrow's show in Baltimore, so it makes sense. We had toyed with the idea of staying around here and going to the beach tomorrow, which would have been nice but we'll have a day of in Richmond on Saturday and there will be plenty of opportunity to go swimming then since we'll be hanging out at the Best Friends Day Fest which on Saturday is at the lake.

As we were packing the van, the young kid who'd I'd almost hit with my guitar came up and asked for another photo. He introduced himself to me as Nishad. He told me he thought I was a really good guitar player, to which Matt and I laughed out loud. We got some more photos and stood around chatting for a while. Nishad was a funny kid, he just stood there firing questions at us as we packed the van. At one point Jon comes over, dressed in his new leather vest complete with side-laces that he purchased a couple of days ago, and Nishad just breaks off from whatever he was asking me at the time and tells Jon, “You look just like my dad, but skinnier and with better hair!” Matt and I almost fall over laughing.

As if just to piss on our onions, the miserable bartender comes over to us wearing a face like a smacked arse and moans at us, “Seriously guys, are you just leaving your garbage behind you?” referring to the two empty merch boxes still in the room. Matt curtly informs him that we're not done packing yet and that he should chill out. He just walks off, just as miserable as when he came. Andy walks into the venue, picks up the two empty merch boxes that are on the floor about one foot away from the rubbish bin and places them in said bin. As if that miserable bartender cunt couldn't have just done that himself! He'd rather take an extra two minutes out of his night just to come and complain. Some people have miserable lives.

Later still:

We just got back to Philly. Greg had been playing records at a bar tonight and we picked him up on the way home. If it had been earlier I would have been up for going in for a drink, but as it was I'd been sleeping on the back seat of the van and felt pretty groggy when we'd arrived. Nice to be in a bed again tonight. We got back to the house and a friend of the Greghans, a big guy called Chubbs, had turned up. Quite a fellow. Pretty fucking steamboats! Nice guy but my tired, groggy head couldn't handle it. I sipped on a glass of red wine that I really didn't need before sneaking off to bed. The air conditioning is in full effect tonight and it's wonderfully cold in this room. Three thirty am. Alarm set for ten. Looking forward to a good nights sleep.

Wallingford

2011-08-19T17:08:00.001+02:00

In the van driving towards Wallingford via New Haven to pick up our friend Meghan, who is going to hang out for another couple of days. Jon is currently proclaiming that he's never heard Ride The Lightning that is blasting out of the stereo. He's full of shit!

I woke up this morning with my head adjacent to Johan's and Andy's feet in my face and the sun shining through the window. It was only seven thirty am. Four hours sleep. That sofa was so comfortable though that I didn't even mind. I just lay there for the next hour and a half needing a piss but not having the want or will to get up to relieve myself. Funny how sleep is way less significant in the scheme of what my body needs when it's on tour. A mere four hours of sleep at home would leave me fucked but today I feel fine. Feel bad for Matt sleeping out in his van, when I finally do give in and get up for a piss I happen to notice the van out in the driveway, the sun blasting in on Matt's face. Looks hot in there. He's been sleeping in that van of his for so many years now though that it's second nature to him.

We all slowly grumbled into life and sat around watching classic American tv comedy shows like Cheers and Frasier. Andy and Johan were in that mood this morning where they thought it was really fun to annoy me. Poking and prodding me just to get a reaction. And I react every time as well they know it. Twats! I was therefore totally chuffed that I was the only one out of the lot of us this morning to figure out how to get hot water from the shower. Andy had taken an ice cold shower before me, Johan had washed himself down by the sink, again with cold water and I spent a relaxing fifteen minutes enjoying my steaming hot shower. As I said, chuffed!

We sat around in the kitchen for a while drinking coffee with Christina before getting in the Mattmobile for another day of touring the US of A. The sun is shining brightly in a bright blue sky. My throat is still sore but I'll try and get some pills for that today.

Matt is currently on a cheeky mission, taking calls from Erik Larsson on how to continue to annoy Milosz over his haircut... It really is like listening to two mischievous kids in the school yard. I love it.

Later:

At the club now. Last time we were here we played with Kylesa. It was a good show although there weren't that many people. Always fun watching Kylesa though. The venue is an old train station that is now a punk venue. It's pretty small and it's carpeted throughout making the place incredibly hot. Andy is also starting to feel pretty bad with the cold now, so that's two of us and counting. I'm sure it's coming to us all. Tried to beat if off with both hot Mexican food and a couple of games of bowling but it hasn't really worked...Jon was happy with his new ball though. He was pretty happy with his blur margarita too! I am absolutely terrible at bowling! Pool was always my thing when I was a kid. Jon looks like he should terrible, he has a fascinating style of throwing that fucking ball of his, he's actually pretty good though. Andy is a fascinating one though, he claims he doesn't like sport yet he's really fucking good at it! Annoys me.

Earlier on we took a trip to New Haven to pick up Meghan from the train station. We were there a little early so we took a look at Yale University and went to a record shop, as well as all the old haunts that Matt and his friends used to go to punk shows when they were kids growing up here. It's a very picturesque place, although there is a definite whiff of snobbery in the air. Not so strange I suppose since the city is based around a university that costs two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year to attend!

I felt like a right are earlier. We were walking around the record shop and I found a copy of the Steve Miller and lo I've been looking for. Upon reaching the counter where the old lady who ran the store was stood it occurred to me that I was wearing the Furnace t-shirt I acquired yesterday. It's a quite a snazzy blue t-shirt, just my colour, but it has a line drawing of a dude with his cock out, taking a piss, the piss spelling Furnace. I became very conscious of this in front of this old woman, mainly since she was looking at me like a was a piece of filth, and not too subtly folded my arms across my chest, trying to cover up what I could of the image.

This show tonight is going to be a tough one. Do not feel good at all. Even load in, which isn't very much, was a struggle. The first band has a synth guitar keyboard thing that is pretty wacky. Should be interesting...

Interesting fact: Wallingford is the official home of the Ku Klux Klan in the state of Connecticut.

Later still:

What a difference twenty four hours makes. Last night we played to around one hundred and fifty people, tonight we had twenty paying customers and some members of the other bands that played before us. It was always one of the more doubtful dates on this tour though, even when we played here supporting Kylesa there were only around forty through the door. Most of the people here tonight were actually friends, Meghan, the guys from Oil Tanker, Jim who runs Vex Records with Matt and our old friend Grizzly. The room was small enough though, and it was a fun show all the same.

Grizzly turned up just as we were about to play, which brought a big smile to my face. We met the last time we were here. Grizzly used to live next door to Matt in Waterbury, and at the start of the last tour we stayed there for a few days. After the Kylesa show, we had a Victims/Kylesa party at Matt's place and me and Grizzly had “the night”. You know, the one where if you're a guy and a girl you stay up talking all night and fall in love. Well, my wife was sleeping in the spare room, and me and the Griz didn't get it on, but we sat up until six am, long after everyone else had gone to bed, drinking whisky and talking about life, love and loss, putting the world to rights. We've stayed in touch ever since. I gave him a big wet kiss on the forehead and then we blasted into the start of the set.

We played pretty well, and despite the germs dripping out of every orifice, I managed to gain some energy from somewhere. It wasn't the tightest show we've ever played but it was ok. I broke a string right at the end, just as we were playing the encore of Scars that we would not have bothered with in all honesty, had it not been for Grizzly shouting about the fact that he'd rushed here from work thirty minutes in his car to see us. It would have been preposterous to stand there changing a string for a minute though, so I just ploughed through without. It sounded shite to be fair, but neither Grizzly or any of the other twenty audience members seemed to care as they were bashing into one another.

We sat around after the show, drinking a couple of good beers and chilling out, the sweat and grime pissing out of me for a while. Jon's foot seems to be in a bad way, it's swollen up like a fucking tennis ball. Bowling ball maybe? He said it's not causing him pain which is weird. It doesn't look good. The only possible explanation for it can be the fall that he and China took the other night in Philly during the From Ashes show. Still crack up thinking about that! Well have to get Jon some medicine for that tomorrow though.

The band that played right before us tonight, Northless from Wisconsin, were really great. Really heavy, slow discordant stuff. I stood there watching them without about fifteen other people and they fucking tore the place up. I love seeing bands play that well to small crowds. I love being part of that crowd too. They were a terrific bunch of lads too, I hope the rest of their tour goes well for them.

When we turned up tonight, a young kid in the first band came up to us as we were loading in and told us he was really “pumped” to be playing with us tonight. Poor bastard was my first thought. He was a really friendly looking young kid. I just wanted to give him a hug. We must have looked like a right bunch of rock star cunts to them, because when they played their show at seven thirty, the first of five bands, most of us where sat out in the beer garden drinking cold, draught Anchor Steam, (amazing how just one beer can take the fight to the cold bug raging through the system), and didn't even they were playing their set. Andy told me later than when they started playing their set, Johan was spread out with his feet up on the sofa at the back of the small room where our merch was, and that Andy himself was the only person watching their set. The problem is Andy thought they were just sound checking and walked out after a couple of songs, leaving the room empty. Sorry guys.

We were actually sat around in the beer garden making our own entertainment at the time. As we were sat at one of the wooden tables out in the yard, Matt noticed some weird stick insect thing, creeping across the table. I asked Matt what it was. He thought it was a cricket but decided to take a closer inspection. He's bent over the table looking at this fucking thing and it starts creeping across the table towards him. Literally a split second after Matt says, “Whatever it is, it likes me”, the insect jumps into flight and straight into the hole in the crotch of his tight jeans, right in Biffins Bridge! He jumps up, shitting himself as we all piss ourselves laughing. I almost spit my beer out as Matt struggles to get this thing out of his kecks, “Whoa, there's my balls...”

Even though there were only twenty paying through the door tonight, we still sold an ok amount of merchandise. Johan had been concerned before the show that we were going to beat our friends Nine's record. Apparently they'd played a show once with Disfear and Entombed, somewhere in northern Spain, where they lugged all of their merchandise into the venue, only to sell a solitary pin badge the entire night and lug it all back out again. In Johan's words, “Fucking humiliating! I'd rather sell nothing at all than just one single pin!”

We decided to check ourselves into a roadside motel tonight. We had offers from our friends in Oil Tanker and also Big Jim, but with most of starting to come down with the cold, we decided we could afford it and the rest would be worth it. Matt of course, slept in his van, but not before he'd snuck the six of us into the one twin room. We took it in turns to head up to the room with our bags, all very hush hush in the middle of the night. Thanks Road Warrior!

Now in bed with Johan's snoring ass beside me. Heaven...

Boston

2011-08-18T01:10:00.002+02:00

Sat in the van driving towards Boston, listening to Somewhere In Time. Everyone is in good spirits. It has stopped raining although there are clouds looming in the sky. It's still hot though. We should make the most of it really, by the time we get down to Richmond this weekend it's going to be in the thirties.

Jon is like a kid on Christmas Day today. He's been carrying his new balling ball around with him on this tour, the hole-less one he bought online. Today we went to something the bowling geeks I believe call a Pro-Shop to get his ball costumed drilled to fit his fingers. The old guy who ran this specialist store, in a town just outside of Albany called Latham, was a Hall of Famer, and quite a character as well. He was seventy seven years old and in fine form, despite having had a stroke a few years back. Jon had been looking forward to this since he'd looked him up last night on-line. As we were getting ready to go this morning when Matt, who always sleeps in his van, had come into the house to move us along, Jon had been fretting over what shirt to wear. He wanted to be at his smartest for this old bowling pro. He was asking Matt for advice on what shirt to wear, which Matt thought was great. Matt really loves Jon.

Anyway, we walked into this store with Jon to see what it was all about. The old guy, Bob, was an absolute classic. Watching him and Jon interact was like watching two old men converse. Old Bob was quite the master with the drill, he really knew his shit. Apparently he's had articles published nationally on this stuff. Jon was in absolute heaven. At one point, Matt and I were stood hovering nearby as Bob went about his job, Jon bouncing all over the shop like an overexcited kid. Bob looks up at me and Matt whilst talking to Jon, confused to find that Jon is longer standing where he had been just seconds before and barks at me and Matt, “Where did he go?! I want to talk to him”. Jon was behind him, carrying on talking to Bob obliviously. Bob refuses to turn around though and jut continues to bark at Matt and me, “I want to talk to him but I can't see him!” If you've ever seen Twin Peaks and you know the character that David Lynch plays, the deaf cop, then you'd know what I mean when I say Bob spoke just like that character, accent and all. Anyway, me and Matt apologisingly beg his pardon, before walking away to another part of the shop in order to conceal the fact the fact we're wheezing with laughter. Great old guy.

The whole process took a little over an hour, Jon quickly becoming best friends with old Bob as the rest of us went and picked up some Starbucks coffee/tea. Before we left we took some pictures with Jon and a now broadly smiling Bob. Jon looked close to tears. As we got back in the van Jon was so grateful for us taking the time to do this. The smile on his face was more than worth the time out of our day.

I slept really soundly last night, a real proper nights sleep. Jay had provided us with the materials to make ourselves a breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast and his room mate, another really sweet guy, made us all coffee. Johan told me that he got up during the night for a piss and found Jon sleeping on the bog. When Johan woke him up, Jon just stares up and proclaims he's taking a piss. Haha brilliant! This morning Jon claims that he must have been sleep walking...Andy tells me later that when he'd been up himself in the middle of the night to relive himself, he found Jon sat upright, asleep on the couch, a Corrosion of Conformity video blasting out of the tv...

Today we're dropping in to the Deathwish offices to say hello to Jake and the guys and pick up some records and other Victims stuff. After that we're going by Armageddon, the record shop that Ben Drop Dead owns. My mission this tour is that fucking Heresy/Concrete Sox split! Still can't believe I passed that up at Ieper Fest...

The show tonight should be a lot of fun. We played here on the Trap Them/Black Breath tour a couple of years back and it was great. Our good friends Another Breath played the show that night too and they were awesome. We're going to be playing with them on this tour in their home town of Syracuse for what will be their final show ever. It will be an honour to play with them on that night. Tonight Morne are playing with us. I'm looking forward to seeing them. Their main man, Miloz, one of Matt's old friends, is one of the most comically grumpy men you could ever meet. Should be a fun night.

Later:

The show tonight was an absolute blast! The venue is a pretty big bar venue with a long wing heading down to where the stage is located, at the back wall by the bogs. It's a decent sized stage with a good PA. The place was pretty filled out when we played, despite it being eleven thirty on a Tuesday night. I've had a cold coming on all day so I didn't have quite the same energy as last night. My throat has been hurting pretty bad all day and my ribs are aching a little for some reason. Must be getting old... I think we pulled off a good show though and we played tight. It was a receptive crowd too that made us feel very welcome, in this one of the hardcore capitals of the world. I really like Boston.

We had some good bands playing with us tonight. I thought the second band, Furnace, were especially good. They played a discordant style screamo/blast/d-beat style of music, really interesting mix. Two big bearded guys singing and playing bass and guitar respectively. They were unbelievably humble in their ethics too, maybe even over the top. They didn't sell any merch in the venue, they just promoted us and our merch, telling the crowd that we were on tour and that people should buy our merch to help us out. I hung out with the guys after the show and they were very genuine people. I told them that they didn't have to say what they'd said and that I actually wanted some of their merch, that I hadn't been able to find it earlier on in the night, Will, their bass player was just like, “Argh we have some stuff in the van, I can get some stuff for you.” At that, their guitar player went to the van and got me a t-shirt and a split 7” and refused to take any of my money, that I should save my money for food. Amazing people.

It was funny as hell when we turned up to the venue today. We'd been and loaded in and then went to a local bar for some dinner, by the way, I tried one of the Anchor brewery's other beers at this place called Anchor Humming Ale, which was beautiful, anyway, when we got back Milosz and the Morne guys were outside the venue. Matt, who hasn't seen him in a while, goes up to say hello when Miloz takes the trucker cap he's wearing off to unveil a newly clipped hairstyle. Milosz has had really long dreadlocks for as long as anyone has know him and now he's all smart and shit. I thought he looked good, Matt looked horrified! He just stood there staring at him is shock. Great sight to behold.

I didn't really get to hear much of Morne since our merch board was by the entrance and back there the sound didn't carry to well so I couldn't really hear much and it was my turn on the merch. Apparently right before they were about to start, Matt had gone up to Milosz and heckled him about his hair, Milosz just grunted, “Fuck you Matt! Fuck you!” and grumpily got on with the set. From what I could hear, they sounded good. Milosz is definitely a presence on stage.

Milosz was so pissed off with Matt that at the end of the night, when outside saying goodbye to Mark, Matt's old room mate and long time friend, whilst giving Mark a hug and bidding him a friendly farewell, just turns to Matt and says, “Matt, I'm leaving.” in his broad Polish accent and at that just turns away and leaves. You have to love those two, they get pissed at each other the way only two close friends can.

Earlier in the day we'd been made the trip over to the Deathwish offices, about a half hour past Boston from where we'd come. They were all really nice people, and we stuck around for a good while talking with Jake and Trey and the guys. Trey had a really beautiful looking pit-bull called Alabama, who I spent most of my time with whilst I was there, she was so friendly and docile. Made me homesick for Bonzo. We picked up a some Victims merch as well as some other records, nothing like wandering around shelves full of vinyl.

Jake and a couple of the other guys came down to the show tonight too. Always appreciate that kind of support from the people putting your records out. It was funny but directly after the show, Jake came up on stage and gave me a hug and said that he thought we were great and just to say goodbye really, that if there was anything we needed for the rest of the tour just to call him. What was funny was that the young sound engineer who had did our sound for the show was stood picking up leads with his jaw hanging. After Jake had left the kid comes up to me and asks if I was aware of who that was and what an amazing compliment he'd just given us. I guess Jake really is an icon of the scene and rightly so, he's also a genuinely nice guy.

We're now back at Mark's place. It took about a forty minute drive to get here, just about the length of Badmotorfinger. I was the only one who stayed awake for the short trip. I sat in the back, in my usual position in the seat behind the passenger seat where Johan sits, playing air drums to the record watching Johan's head bobbing up, down and all around as he slept. Mark lives in a huge house out in a town called Dracut which is absolutely stunning, that he shares with a few other people, one of them being Christina who sang in Matt and Mark's old band Man The Conveyors. Great people. I'm pretty fucking tired though so I'm getting my head down. They have a huge L-shaped sofa in the living room which is big enough to accommodate myself, Johan and Andy. Jon is taking the floor when he's done drinking beer with Matt and Christina in the kitchen.

Albany

2011-08-17T02:59:00.002+02:00

It's absolutely pissing down. Torrential stuff. We can barely see more than ten meters ahead on the road. I've barely ever seen rain like this! And I'm a fucking Englishman! We're literally just passing New York City on the way to Albany. Lightning flashing and thunder overhead, Ghost on the stereo. It's quite cosy really. We just passed the Manhattan skyline to our right a while ago. Looked pretty cool against the gloomy, dark grey sky. Johan is taking photos with his Iphone, trying to capture a picture for our next album cover.

We're still a couple of hours normal driving away from Albany, but it's going to take a lot longer than that in this downpour. It's a later show in a bar tonight though so I don't think there is any real stress. This will be the first show of the tour that is our own. I've never been to Albany before. I have no idea what to expect, although Matt is in optimistic mood. Despite the rain...

We've been listening to Johan's new band that he has together with Uffe and Marcus from Disfear, called Svält. They've recorded four songs at Stefan Henry Fiat's studio in Stockholm. I'd previously only heard them without vocals a while back when we were at Stachel's place. It's now mixed and mastered and the vocals are all done. It sounds stunning. Heavy as fuck. Looking forward to getting the vinyl of that when it comes out.

A while back we passed a flash warning sign on the motorway. It read SILVER WARNING and then on the line below had the model of a car and a registration number. Matt told us that this is a warning to other motorists to look out for the car on the road and call it into the police if sighted. A silver warning is apparently code for a kidnapping, meaning that car has a kidnapped child on board. What does that say when something that horrible happens so often that they have a specific warning code on motorways for it? It's a weird country that's for sure.

Fuck this rain really is something else. Looking forward to getting to Albany.

Later:

We're going to get to this show pretty late tonight. We're hitting storm after storm. We turned west off the New Jersey Turnpike and away from the storm we were in there, only to drive head on into another. Matt just said that he drove with a band through a tropical storm in Louisiana last year and this rain right now is worse than then...I'm guessing that's not good.

We called ahead to the club and they didn't seem too stressed. They told us they'll have food waiting for us when we get there, and weed if we want it, which we don't. I appreciate their relaxed attitude all the same though.

Later still:

We got to the show just around eight pm. The bar, Valentines, was a little drinking hole with an area at the back end with a small stage. There were a few people hanging around outside when we pulled up. The rain had finally stopped, although it was evident that Albany had seen it's fair share today. We loaded in through the front door, set up merchandise and tucked into the vegan stew the promoter had made for us. The promoter, Jay, a really big, tough looking guy, although really friendly in nature, seemed to be hoping we'd smoke weed with him. No thanks man. They did have some really nice beers on tap though and the barmaid was super friendly. I bought myself and Johan a pint of the local IPA. What else?

As we had been driving around the venue looking for a place to park, Matt told us a pretty funny story about Andy from Sista Sekunden, who he'd driven on tour over here a while ago. Apparently they were pulling out of Chicago one early morning, the guys all in the back sitting quietly, Andy up front with Matt. The silence in the van was eventually broken when Andy raised the question, “Hey Map,” as Andy always called Matt, “What do you think the people will be doing today?”. As Matt looked at Andy in total confusion, pondering how to tackle this question, Andy then turns his attention back to the side of the road and then exclaims, “Ahh! I see two ducks!”. With this Andy just goes back to silently staring out of the window. The guys in the back all pissed themselves laughing whilst Matt, who is a pretty straight up guy, looked on bemused. Fuck knows what Andy was on that day? As far as I know he's straight...

The turnout for the show tonight wasn't huge, but it was ok for a wet Monday night in Albany. I've heard that Albany has a small but tight-knit scene. We had about fifty kids here tonight. There were four bands on the bill, the first being Jay's own band, the second were a female fronted band who were pretty full on, she had a piercing shrill voice. I thought they were pretty cool. The third band on the bill were guys we'd played with before, albeit in their old band Iron Hand. This band is called Oil Tanker and they play crusty d-beat, very full on. Their guitarist, Upton, is this black kid with dreadlocks who destroys on the guitar. Awesome. They're all old friends of Matt's from Connecticut. I stood in the crowd with Matt and really enjoyed the show. They even threw in a cover of a song by one of Matt's old band, The Total End. Matt looked pretty stoked.

And then it was our turn. As Oil Tanker did, we also set up on the floor in front of the low stage. It was around eleven by the time we started. The fifty or so people who were there were gathered around us in semi circle, but keeping their distance. The thing with me is that the more room you give me, the more I'm going to throw my guitar around like a tit. I went fucking crazy during this show and somehow kept it up during the entire set. There is a certain atmosphere from shows like this that bring out these performances in me. It's almost like, the less the crowd moves, the more I do. At one point I clipped Johan headstock with the headstock on my new Gibson SG and I think I put it into the PA speaker grill a short while later. As soon as I did that I thought to myself that I should calm the fuck down. Acting like this probably isn't the best idea since the crowd just moved further and further back, although at points they did start moving and then I left the space to them. I don't mean to act this way, it's just a reaction. Anyway, all in all, the show was good fun. It was pretty stuffy in there, and I was dripping with sweat by the time we were done.

After the show was over, I went and sat behind the stage by the entrance to the toilets. A guy, who introduced himself to me as John, told me that I hit him in the balls with my guitar. I told him that I was very sorry about that but he told me it was no problem at all. We then sat there for a while talking afterwards. Really nice guy.

After the show I hung out with Paul, the Oil Tanker bass player, drinking a beer by the merch stall. Pretty slow night for merch tonight and the pay wasn't huge from the door, but that's the way it is over here sometimes. Matt said the other day it's getting harder and harder. Anyway, Paul is a really good guy and it was fun hanging out for a while. He gesticulates a lot when he talks and at one point he knocked his beer over, spilling onto our records, although there was no really damage. He felt bad but it wasn't a problem.

You could tell it was Monday night since as soon as we were done the place just emptied. After we loaded out we sat around and drank a beer with the staff at the bar who were all really friendly. Jay the promoter was asking me about what's being going on the UK with the riots, he was genuinely interested. I didn't really have that much to tell him although the more we spoke about it the more wound up I was getting. I guess it's been big news everywhere since John from From Ashes was asking me the same thing yesterday.

We are sleeping at Jay's place tonight. We've been sitting around watching an old Sheer Terror video from 89' or something. The need for sleep is hitting me pretty hard now. I felt drunk after three beers tonight. I guess I haven't really eaten a whole lot today and I only slept for four hours last night. I feel really bad because Jay is such a nice guy offering us this hospitality, but he has a couple of really long haired cats and I'm super allergic. I go to bed down in the large room at the front of the house, which has a full size pool table in it. Jay has lent me a sleeping bag, and I've doubled that over to cushion my back from the hard floor beneath. There is a huge ball of cat hair under the pool table. Andy and I debate asking Jay if we may hoover the floor but decide that would be rude.

It's surprisingly comfortable on this hard floor. Jon is in the sitting room, playing that Sheer Terror video stupidly loud and drinking whiskey with Jay and his friend Pete. Johan has joined us in this room now and has just told Jon to turn it down. Thanks for that pappa. Just what I was thinking. Going to sleep now.

Philadelphia

2011-08-16T16:16:00.001+02:00

We're in the van heading towards Albany in up-state New York. We've just been doing some shopping in a Wall Mart somewhere just outside of Philadelphia. Shopping with Victims is like shopping with a gang of old ladies. After a while Matt gave up and went and sat in the van, and we still took another forty five minutes... The journey today should take around four hours but now the chances of getting stuck in New York City traffic have significantly increased. We were only supposed to be buying socks and pillows for Christ sakes!

Quote of the day, Jon: "If I buy these shorts am I a sell out?"

Yesterday was a really good day. It was a long day but it was a lot of fun. Two very different kind of shows.

I got a good sleep at the Greghans as they are collectively known. We had breakfast together at a diner somewhere in south Philly. Classic American. I ordered eggs on toast in a cheese mustard sauce with a side salad and a large cup of coffee. The “side” salad was insanely big and I was hardly able to make a dent in it. I love the coffee in the States. It's as weak as piss and you can drink bucket loads of it without getting the shakes and it tastes good. Old Joe. Whoever he was I salute him.

As were driving around looking for the diner we passed a restaurant that Meghan called the racist diner. Apparently they have a sign on the door saying, “This is America, order in English”. The funny thing is, Greg adds, is that the guys who work there who speak English sound like Rocky and even though they're speaking English, nobody can understand a fucking word they're saying. Cunts.

Isn't like thirty percent of the population of the USA Spanish speaking anyway?

So we headed into the city for the first of the two shows. First up was one of the two festivals we're playing on this tour. Today it was This Is Hardcore Fest. As I've experienced in the past, Hardcore isn't really the same thing in this country as it is on the other side of the pond. The crowd at this festival isn't really what you would call a normal Victims crowd. All the same, it's fun to play these shows now and again. And yesterday we weren't alone either, our dear friends From Ashes Rise were with us, playing both shows. Good times indeed! We hadn't seen those guys since Punk Illegal Fest in Göteborg last year.

I met up with the Touche Amore guys again. They'd also made the Trans Atlantic trip to be here, along with Strife. The Amore guys are a really sweet bunch of young guys. We hung out chatting for a good time and they're guitarist Eric was kind enough to lend me his guitar as a spare. I ended up not needing it thankfully, since the only string I broke during the set was the high E, which I don't need either...

The festival was set up in a really big concert venue, easily able to hold over a thousand people. It was sold out too. There was a big indoor parking garage across the road where we had our merch set up, along with FAR. It was pissing down all day, so we had to run across the road with an umbrella trying to protect the uncased amp heads. When it rains in this country it really fucking rains! It hardly let up all afternoon. It was even raining in the side stage dressing room that we were given for the half hour before our three pm.set! There was a crack somewhere in the ceiling and the rain was gushing in. Somebody had put a bucket on the seat directly below the leak but it was deflecting of the backboard of the benched sofa and just splashing everything in the room. I had to dry my amp off with a towel before Matt came in to take it to the stage.

The show itself was really good. The stage was huge and carpeted and had a great monitor sound all over. It was an absolute pleasure to play on. I didn't really see much of the crowd response in the big hall since the stage lights were so bright you couldn't see much beyond the first row. It felt good though. I guess there must have been some confused macho types around but those I couldn't give a fuck about anyway. I had a great time. We had our good friend Greg Daly, who booked our tour and is helping out with this festival, the FAR guys, Matt, Greg and Meghan and a bunch of other people, all gathered to my side of the stage, all of them smiling and having a good time, which is all the energy I need to have a really good show. And a good show it was. I played really hard and could have carried on for a lot longer than the ten songs we played. And this time, as opposed to the Ieper Fest, we all really enjoyed the show.

Matt just shouted to the back, “Tea Break”, as he always calls me, “Time for the first tea break of the tour!”. We just pulled into a service station somewhere. The clouds are pulling in again and apparently there are thunder storms up north where we're heading...I need tea.

Back on the road, sorted for tea...

So yeah, the first show went really well. We hung out across the road in the parking house for a few hours afterwards, the rain constantly coming down outside. We mainly just around with the FAR guys catching up over a couple of beers. The main guy running this fest is a guy called Joe Hardcore, I don't think that's his real name haha, but that's the title he goes by. He looks about as Hardcore as any person I've ever seen. He would intimidate most people. Tattoos on his face, the odd scar here and there and built like a brick shit house. He's a true gentleman though, despite the gruff exterior and he really looked after us. Thanks Joe.

We headed over to the second show for the day around six pm. I'd felt pretty fucked directly after our set, as we were carrying the amps back across the road in the pouring rain, but by now I was feeling good again. The venue for the second show was a bar called the Barbary. It's a fixture on the punk scene in Philly and a really nice place. It's actually a cop bar, although you wouldn't have really guessed that if you didn't know. Yesterday it was full of punk kids. The stage room downstairs has a smallish stage and the room itself could hold around one hundred people comfortably. My sort of place. Above the stage room was a cool bar area with some really good beer on tap. The Yards Philadelphia Pale Ale being my favourite.

Greg and Meghan hung with us in the van between the two shows, their comedy duo act keeping my laughing pretty much the entirety of the short journey. I was also introduced to another old friend of the band at the Barbary show, a really cool girl called China, who sings in the band Soma from Richmond. She's a really fun, larger than life girl with a really contagious laugh. We hung out all night and for the most part we were laughing at different stuff. Just her laugh is enough to get you going. I asked Jon when they'd first met, to which he told me the following. Now China is quite a broad girl. Apparently the first time she and Jon had met was at a Victims show in Philly in 2004, during their first tour. China had walked into the bar, making quite an entrance, and when Jon caught sight of her, shouted, “I love fat girls!”, and since then the two have them have been great friends! Only Jon could get away with that...

There were five bands playing this evening show. I still seem to be escaping the jet-lag but even so, I couldn't really be bothered watching five bands, even if they were all good. The first band I watched with Jon though, and they were actually fucking amazing! They were a three piece from Philly called Sickoids, and they played a really raging, almost power-violence style hardcore at times. What really made them for me though was the guitarist/vocalist. He was phenomenal and amidst all the craziness came the odd riff hook now and again, really clever stuff. Me and Jon stood there watching them with our jaws literally dropping. We tried hanging out with them after the show, but I think we came across as a pair of over impressed idiots and I think the praise we were languishing upon them started getting on their tits in the end! Oh well, I bought a t-shirt anyway and I await their first album with baited breath.

For most of the second and third bands, I hung outside on the street by the van with the guys. It was another hot and humid night and the rain had stopped by then, leaving not a trace of fresh air behind it. I kind of wish I'd gone in and checked out a little of the other bands because from the street, it sounded pretty decent too. But there is only so much you can take and it had been a long day.

I'd been worried about this show beforehand, assuming I was going to feel pretty beat after the first show, we're not puppies any more after all. But in actual fact I felt really good going on stage. And the energy stayed with all of us for the entire set. It was good fun too, since we changed it up from the earlier show. Since we'd only gotten about half way through the set at the festival, we decided to start from the back and make our up from the bottom. So we ended up in fact playing two totally different sets. We even started tonight's set with We're Dead, which isn't normally part of the set. We threw that one in for China since it's her favourite Victims song. It went well. The only song that appeared at both sets was This Is The End, which is funnily enough the song Andy had been complaining about all day. It's the Victims hit song, if such a thing exists, but he's sick of it. He's been grumbling all day that the set should be fun for us first and foremost, and fuck the crowd. I agree with him in actual fact, but as it is, as Jon said in response, I still think it's fun even playing the song in the rehearsal space. Sorry Andy.

Jon was pretty chuffed after the show when John Bazely from Baroness came up to him to talk and tell him he thought it was a great show. Looking forward to seeing them on our day off at Best Friends Day next weekend.

The FAR guys turned up to the venue when we had about four songs left of our set. They were playing right after us as last on the bill. I thought we had it bad but those guys only had about forty minutes between sets. It seemed like they didn't have the best time at the festival either. They were all grumbling about it upon arrival. I don't know whether they were just being modest or what, but at the Barbary they tore it up. They really are one of the best live bands I've ever seen and I get the same buzz every time I see them.

As it had been for us, the place was pretty packed when they played, although there was the usual gaping hole in the middle of the dance floor, left by the moshers beating the fuck out of each other. It's kind of a shame I think when the place is packed, but half of the crowd are pressed up against the back wall and spend more time watching out for flying fists rather than the band on stage. There was one incident though that had me bent over double, pissing myself laughing. I'd been standing behind Jon and China, enjoying the show when From Ashes kicked into one of their classic songs and the whole place erupted, taking Jon and China with it. The pair of them got a moment of excitement, and with an one arm around each, and the other pumping the air, ran forward towards the stage. They lasted all of two seconds before they were batted back out like a fucking home run. The pair of them went down and hit the ground hard, Jon landing on China and taking a large looking macho hardcore guy with them! As soon as I realised they were both ok, I pissed myself laughing. Because that's the kind of friend I am...

From Ashes really did put on a great show and they seemed far happier with their second performance of the day. Afterwards we hung out with them and Grey upstairs in the bar. It was Greg's birthday and we all had a beer or two in his honour, the old Yards going down a treat. After we'd loaded out we went back into the stage room which had by then been converted into a karaoke club. Most of the people there were young, hip alternative types, doing sickeningly serious versions of middle of the road piss. But then up steps Derek, the FAR bass player. For being a supposedly shy guy, he did an amazing version of Creedence's classic, Have You Ever Seen The Rain? He was brilliant. Brad FAR and Jon signed up immediately!

We waited around for ages for their turns. As tired as I was becoming there was not a fucking chance I was gonna miss a drunk Jon doing karaoke! So taking the bull by the horns, Johan and I switched to booze and ordered some Captain Morgan sours, something I'd first drank in Texas when a bartender refused to serve me the Captain any other way! In time honoured tradition when I'm State side, that's just how I drank it. It was good too. Brad's turn eventually came around and he did ZZ's brilliant, Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers. Brad, although not possessing the same natural sweet pipes that Derek has, gave a hearty performance. He was all energy and his rendition kept veering into FAR territory. He was pretty damn drunk and it was great fun to watch. His dance moves were quite something too.

We hung around for the best part of two hours and somehow, Jon's turn never came around. Gutted! I think there must have been some confusion between him and the girl running the karaoke running order. He's hard to understand at the best of times...Despite not getting to see Jon, we had a great night with our friends. At one point Andy and I decided we were starting a band with Bloody Kev and Mucky Marcus called Lynyrd Skinhead. We thought it was a great idea and I texted Kev immediately to let him know. Despite the fact that it must have been six am. in London, Kev texted back within a minute to let me know he was in! I love Kev.

They actually picked out some finalists and scandalously enough, Derek's performance was overlooked. Instead the five finalists were made up of the other poseurs in the club. Derek was gutted, walking around shaking his head informing all of us of his total disbelief.

As an end of night bonus, China sang a Pat Benetar song. I mean, she belted it out! She was great and we all cheered her on. Apparently she used to sing in a PB tribute band in college. We ended up saying goodbye to the FAR guys around two am. and we headed back to the Greghans with China in tow, picking up some gigantic pizzas on the way back. It was four before I had a shower and went to bed with a belly full of cheese pizza.

New York City

2011-08-15T01:19:00.000+02:00

By the gate at the airport, waiting to board. We've been here since four thirty am. I got a little bit of sleep in the van tonight, since I squeezed in between the seats down on the floor and could stretch out underneath Jon's legs. It's the first time I've slept like that in a van for a long time and I guess it's an age thing, but it was pretty fucking scary lying there, trusting that Nico and his friend Daniel would take care of business and not fall asleep. It didn't use to be like that, but like I said, it's probably an age thing. I'm certainly more in touch with my mortality now than I was ten years ago.
We had no problems checking in for at flights at least. I can't describe the relief of seeing that seat number on my boarding pass. Now it's just the other side of the pond to worry about. We had some really good breakfast once we sat down, a ecological cheese baguette with honey mustard. This airport certainly pisses all over Bremen's poor, dog shit stained excuse for a terminal.

I also scored a sleeping pill from Johan, so my hopes for getting some kip on the flight has increased. If I can get five hours or so I think I'll be ok. Right now I'm feeling fucking exhausted!

We've been doing our best to pass the time for the last four hours... The highlight of this morning so far has been the massage chair that gave my body a severe rub down for five minutes, for only two Euros. I'd been to the toilet and when I came out I found the three guys each sat in these massage chairs. There were only three so I had to wait, but it was worth it for the entertainment Johan and Jon provided whilst I stood around waiting my turn. Jon was getting it on with the nearest chair, laughing orgasmically as it worked it's magic. Andy was sat in the farthest chair silently enjoying his treatment and Johan was on his knees in the middle chair, looking angrily into the coin slot and prodding and poking it, trying to get his coins back. When that didn't work he turned to punching it, but still nothing. He did this for almost five minutes, and the chair didn't make a move. And he didn't get his money back. Jon and Andy sat there totally oblivious to his huffing and puffing, whilst I looked on giggling to myself.

It's now eight thirty four am. We're going to go to the gate to board in around half an hour, although the flight takes off at ten forty five. My plan is to wait until after dinner and then pop that fucking pill and hope it takes me into a much needed, deep sleep.

Aaron has just texted Jon saying that all our gear and a load of beer awaits us at his place. Apparently Jon's hole-less bowling ball has arrived there too? I have no fucking idea but Jon seems to be chuffed.

I have no idea how I am going to feel tonight, I don't think drinking beer before the show will do me much good though. Hope these sleeping pills work..

Later:

The pill worked a treat! I don't think I've ever slept so long on a flight before. I slept just after dinner on the plane, which was surprisingly good, and I got the vegetarian food I'd ordered without any hassle, and I woke up just as we were coming over the Canadian border into the States. Perfect. I feel really good now and I'm looking forward to tonight's show.

We're at the club now. It's a pretty cool place. The bar is really slick and it's painted black, the club is called St. Vitus Bar after all. Looks like they have some pretty nice beer on tap and it's nicely air conditioned, which is a welcome treat considering the humidity outside on the streets of New York City.

We've just been hanging out at Aaron's place for a while. It was like Christmas morning at his place! We had a load of boxes stacked up against the wall in his living room. It's incredibly kind of him to have let us use his place like that. I'm really happy with my new guitar, it looks great! I'm sure it's going to work out just fine. It's great to see Matt again too. I'm happy that he's driving us on this tour, he's a great guy to have around and he always has your back. It was a welcome sight to see him waiting for us when we came through the arrivals hall at Newark. Getting through customs was no hassle at all, although the cue was a joke. I must have stood there for well over an hour, awaiting my turn. And then when my turn came around, I was there for all of three minutes. I had a friendly cop, who looked like he was at the tail end of a long shift. He barely looked at me, just a couple of questions and then he waved me through.

Upon meeting up with Johan, Andy and Matt, I picked up some coffee and doughnuts from a Crispy Creeme stand. Ah, god bless America indeed!

I sat up front with Matt in the van as we drove through the streets of New York towards Aaron's place. I'm looking forward to seeing their new house in Richmond next week too. That day will be our only day off on the tour, and a fun day it will be too. We're going to be hanging out at the Best Friends Day Festival, drinking beer, swimming in the lake and watching some great bands like 7 Seconds, Baroness and Against Me! That's next weekend though. First things first, I'm looking forward to playing this show tonight. We're all loaded in now and just checking merch. Unfortunately Deathwish have sent us a box of the wrong cd's...instead of Victims stuff we have a box of Deafheaven records! Not much use to us..

Time to go in search of food soon.

Later still:

In the van now, driving back with our friends Greg and Meghan back to their place in Philadelphia. It should take around two hours, so hopefully we'll be there around three am. Still feeling pretty good. The rest of the guys are out for the count, but I'm holding up pretty well. The Greg and Meghan comedy act is keeping me amused as I sit in the back. I love those guys.

The show tonight went really well I think. All the equipment worked well, my guitar felt good and the set was tight. The sound on stage was pretty shit though, which was really the only struggle. All I could hear was myself and the faint tapping of Andy's drums. The poor sound didn't deter me from enjoying the show though. Fuck, I'm in New York City playing punk rock, what's not to enjoy? There was quite a good crowd in too, although I was a little worried when the first of the five band's on tonight's bill played to all of about eight people. By the time we went on though it had filled out pretty well. The crowd didn't move too much, it was after all nine pm. on a Saturday night in NYC, which for this city is really early, but they received us well all the same. Jon was in good form between songs. He's pretty chuffed about playing a show with Ringworm and Killing Time and gave them a couple of shout outs. One in particular made me laugh...”It's great to be here playing with a couple of legendary bands, but they've got some pretty big shoes to fill tonight.” He also mentioned that we'd played a city in west Belgium just last night, and then informed them that Belgium was a country in Europe.

Greg and Meghan turned up at the show literally just as we finished playing the set. Meghan was not amused. Apparently it took them five hours to get from Philly to New York by train! That's crazy, it only took us seven and half hours to get here from Belgium! Still, they get to see us twice tomorrow...

We stayed around watched Ringworm and Killing Time. I thought KT were good fun to watch, playing their classic brand of New York hardcore. Most amusing though was the fact they had a couple of friends of theirs on the small stage, just kinda hanging around behind the amps. The guy was a serious Latino hardcore guy, whilst his girlfriend/wife was more of a hard rock looking lady. The guy was totally pumped but the lady just sat there looking bored. The guy at some point guested vocals on one song, and then after the song stood there promoting a film he's apparently acted in. The whole thing was a bit weird.

Ringworm played a little bit too long and I lost interest after about forty minutes, although it started well. Anything after half an hour starts to push the limit, especially with this kind of music. I decided to hang out in the warm New York rain outside the club with our friends.

When Ringworm finished their set we pretty much packed out immediately afterwards. We did pretty well on merch tonight. Considering this show was just a bonus show on what would otherwise would have been a free day, it went well. It's now one thirty am. and I'm sitting here in the dark. It's pissing down with rain and every now and again lightning is flashing across the sky. I'm starving and I'm looking forward to getting back to Philly and having a long overdue shower and then some sleep.

Tomorrow is going to be another long day.

Even later still:

Just got back to the Greghans place. Their new house is really nice. They have a bar in the basement, looks amazing! Unfortunately it's four am. and I need to get some sleep. I'll enjoy that bar tomorrow night though. I'm showering and then heading to bed.

Ieper

2011-08-13T23:02:00.001+02:00

As usual, I found it hard to get a decent sleep the night before an early rise and a big trip. Considering I only got five hours of sleep though, I feel pretty good.

We're now in the van, driving from Amsterdam airport where Nico has just picked us up, towards the small town of Ieper in Belgium. We're playing on the tented stage at the Ieper Fest tonight at seven forty-five. The journey should take around three and a half hours. This morning was the first time I'd ever flown with KLM, I have to say I was impressed with both the levels of comfort and service. It's amazing how you don't fear for your life on a real airline, the way you do on Ryanair. It's worth paying the extra money just to avoid the crash landing Ryanair always seem to perform upon arrival. All in keeping in line with their ridiculously false flight time schedules. I heard that they have no end of fines for speeding upon landing...anyway, the flight with KLM was just fine. Pleasant even.

Sleep this first weekend is not going to be something any of us are going to experience much of. I forgot to put in my order with Jon for his strong, prescription only sleeping pills. It would have been good to have them for the flight to New York tomorrow. Fuck. I asked him this morning at Arlanda if he had any extra, but he didn't. He told me I should have notified him beforehand... honestly, the man is a walking chemist! Well well, I'm sure I'll get through it.

The first weekend's schedule looks like this:

After Ieper Fest we drive back to Amsterdam airport, although not until we've watched Sheer Terror who play later on on the main stage. Jon simply won't allow it. So we'll leave the festival site around midnight, get to the airport at some time around four am. where we'll look for some floor space to sleep on. The flight to New York is at eleven am. We land at two pm. the same day. I'm sure getting through customs will take a couple of hours since they're so paranoid over there, as are we actually. We're not taking a fucking thing with us, not even picks. All our gear is at our friend, Aaron from the band Defeatist's place. We pick the stuff up at Aaron's and make our way to the club in Brooklyn and play a show with Ringworm and Killing Time. After the show we then drive to Philly to sleep at our friends, Greg and Megan's house. We have to be at the site of the This Is Hardcore Fest in Philly sometime around eleven am. Sunday morning for a slot in the early afternoon. We're then playing later that night at the festival's after-party with our good friends From Ashes Rise. This first weekend is going to be a real test of strength and willpower, if not a lot of fun of course.

I'm going to try and get my head down in the van for a while now, take advantage of this nice, comfortable van. We've just hit our first stau....

Later:

In the van again now, it's just before one am. and we're heading back to Amsterdam airport. I didn't manage to get any sleep in the van earlier, although I did manage to get some pretty good vegetable soup from a service station at the Dutch/Belgian border. The only thing of note we saw on the road to Belgium was a white dove being hit by a bus on the motorway. We all just kind of caught it out of the corner of our eyes, a cloud of white feathers. Poor dove.

We arrived at the festival site a couple of hours before our stage slot. It immediately hit me that, as has been the norm this summer, we didn't have any extra strings or guitars..and what's more, the strings on my Telecaster still have crusty blood on them from the Fluff Fest show. Luckily I got hooked up with one of the guys from Touche Amore and he gave me a pack of strings. It's normally always the case that if you have backup then nothing goes wrong...but having some sort of back up plan helps me relax and enjoy the show a lot more all the same.

The time before we played was mostly spent trying to find an internet connection backstage so we could check in our flights tomorrow. If Johan has been overly worried about getting through US customs, then I've been overly worried about getting on the plane in the first place. A couple of years ago Jenny had a nightmare journey home from the States with Delta Air, since they overbooked the flight and wouldn't let her on board, even though she'd checked in at the airport, she never did get a confirmed seat on board. And our flights, although booked through KLM, are of course on Delta Air. I won't be able to relax until I see that seat number on a boarding pass. Still haven't managed to check in online yet though, something about there being a problem with the website or something. Nervous as shit about that...

Anyway, the show tonight was one of those typical first gigs on tour. We played the tent stage and there was a good amount of people in attendance, but the sound was king of weird on stage, I could only hear myself and Andy's drums and had to wing it the whole set. And of course, I didn't break a string but I did manage to snap my guitar strap in half! And a lead when on the blink as well, so there were a couple of pauses to deal with technical issues, such as when one of the stage hands was kindly helping me gaffer tape my broken strap to my guitar... It happened mid-song too of course, so I spent almost the entire rendition of Lies, Lies, Lies on my knees. I guess that's why God gave me them though. That's just the way the fucking cookie crumbles sometimes.

Despite this, I still really enjoyed the show. There were people up on-stage and diving off at high velocity, there were a couple of circle pits, and I think we played pretty tight. The other guys in the band didn't seem to enjoy it so much though, claiming it was a bit of a hard slog. I had a good time anyway, I've had far worse tour opening shows...

Since we'd had some difficulties during the set, we decided to cut a song since the schedule was already tight as it was. One crust punk down the front, one of a very small minority at this festival, took exception to this and stayed around after the tent had emptied out since everybody had to rush off to watch Strife, to let us know that it sucked that we played so short. He was genuinely let down by the look of it. As we packed away in front of a now empty tent, he stood in front of the stage, drunkenly babbling on about how we were arseholes for playing such a short set. I don't know why he expects any more than half an hour from a Victims show. He's obviously never seen us before. Thirty minutes is the absolute maximum for fuck's sake! The cunt should be happy. He wasn't though. He was also displeased that Johan had gave his set list to some kid who asked for it at the end of the show, claiming we were sell outs or something. I just cracked up laughing at him. It was quite a funny sight, as we stood there packing up to a now, large, empty tent and this one drunken crusty having a go at us.

With a day's long travel ahead of us tomorrow and a four hour journey in the van tonight, it would have been nice to have had a shower after the show. Typically enough the water storage for the showers has ran out so we were fucked. Johan and I decided to get all Bear Grylls and make the best of what we had, which in this case was a bottle of stage water and my shower gel. We stripped down to our pants and socks beside the van backstage and squirted ourselves with the water bottles between soaping ourselves clean. It was without doubt the shitest shower I've ever experienced but at least I felt a little cleaner afterwards. The band parked in the van beside us looked at us like we were a pair of homosexuals, not that that bothered us.

We bumped into Ben and the Drop Dead guys after the show. They're playing here tomorrow. Sucks that they weren't playing tonight, although Andy and I made a date with Ben to visit his new record shop in Boston on Tuesday. We also ran into the Reproach guys, which was a really nice surprise. We hung out and watched the Sheer Terror show, whose singer, Paul Bearer, was in superb form. He came on-stage and introduced the band by announcing, “We're Sheer Terror, go fuck yourselves!” to a crowd of around eight hundred PC hardcore types. He then spent the rest of the set taking the utter piss out of the crowd. Jon was laughing so hard at points, he was screaming and close to tears. Bearer ended the show with, “Yeah yeah we're going after this song, I get it, the Comeback Kids are coming, the Kids are coming back or something. I don't know them.” The guy was great, looked like a character from The Sopranos.

It was great watching them and hanging out with our friends in Reproach. We were talking about hooking up some shows together next year in the Lowlands region of Europe. I hope that works out.

As the night pulled in and the temperature dropped, and Sheer Terror became Comeback Kid, I decided to head for the warmth of the merch and distro tent. I picked up a couple of good old US hardcore compilation lp's as well as a Youth Brigade album. I could have bought a load more, I'm gutted actually that Andy found an original copy of the Heresy/Concrete Sox split! But there will be plenty of chances to pick up records in the States, and they should be cheaper thanks to the currently weak dollar. We just have the small matter of first getting on the flight and then through customs. It will be ok though, it always is.

All in all, a fun night, a decent first show and we bumped into some old friends. Plus the vegan burgers with pepper sauce were absolutely stunning.

It's now one thirty am. and we're still a couple of hours away from Amsterdam airport. A couple of hours sleep at the airport awaits us, and then hopefully some more on the flight tomorrow. I'm usually bad with sleeping on planes, but I have the feeling after tonight it's not going to be a problem.

Unfuckingbelievable! We just hit another fucking stau! At one thirty am! What's wrong with the motorways in this part of the world? I'm going to try to get some sleep. It's going to be a long weekend...

London's Burning

2011-08-12T00:32:00.015+02:00

The recent events in my home country, England, have been well documented all over the world, via television news, newspapers and social media.

I've watched from afar via CNN and other news sources, barely able to believe my eyes. It has literally been like looking into the dark times of the Iron Lady's rule in the recession hit 1980's. I barely remember Toxteth and Tottenham, I was only a small child at the time, although I've since learned a lot about what those riots were about. Rioting is not the solution to any problem, but back then there was at least the pretence of a political agenda.

What has been so shocking about these latest events is of course, the fact that the people involved, these gang land thugs and louts, are for the most part, kids. The violence has spread like a frenzied wildfire, with the youth of the UK gathering through the powers of social media to wreak havoc upon the streets of the UK.

And what is the political agenda? There is none. Although there seems to have been a flash point that lead to events. A criminal, waving a loaded gun at police officers, got shot and killed. Tough fucking shit! If that's what he was doing with his spare time then he got what he deserved. If that's not the case and this guy was innocently killed, then sure, that's a valid reason for public outcry and indeed justice should be served. Although, quite how setting your own neighbourhood on fire and ruining the lives of your fellow neighbours strikes a blow at the government or in any way retaliates to the police, is beyond me! I hate to agree with David Cameron, but this is indeed just mindless violence at the hands of sick pockets of society.

I have friends in Deptford, South London, who have their businesses, a coffee shop and a tattoo studio, right in the middle of Deptford High Street. They happened to witness first hand these little bastards looting and destroying everything in their sight. Thankfully my friends were spared, but many others around them weren't.

Another friend of mine, Andrew Blackburn, witnessed first hand how the violence spread around the country and into his home city of Wolverhampton.

He's documented the aftermath in his blog, which you can check out here.

What sickens me more the anything, is that if there has been any kind of excuse used at all, it is that of disaffected youth, that there is a serious shortage of employment in the UK, that youth clubds are being closed down. No fucking way! Ok, since the recession hit times have indeed been tougher than most of our generation are used to, I get that. But let's get some perspective here... There are thousands upon THOUSANDS of children dying of starvation in Somalia and other parts of east Africa each week in what is the worst humanitarian crisis we have seen since Ehtiopia. That's thousands of young children under the age of ten who are simply wasting away to nothing because they have no food. It's hard to even imagine that horror from the comfort of our arm chairs here in the western world, the world where we just happened to get lucky enough to be born into.

These kids in Africa will never see a youth club. Many will be lucky to see next month.

Think about that as your smashing in your local corner shop, you vile, vile people.

And to think my grandparents risked their lives on a daily basis for six horrific years, for the likes of you lot...

Fluff Fest

2011-07-30T03:03:00.004+02:00

We recieved some nice footage of our set from last weekend's Fluff Fest. I just love black and white...

And actually, the crowd response looks better than I remember it being at the time...

Rokycany

2011-07-29T16:03:00.001+02:00

Oh for a good night's sleep. And a shower. And a hearty breakfast. About as good as morning on tour can get. I feel a million times better than I did this time yesterday.

We have a longish drive to the Fluff Fest in Rokycany, Czech Republic. We need to leave around eleven am. to make sure we're there in good time for our 7pm. stage slot. This is the show I've been looking forward to all summer. The last time we played there was two years ago and apart from an appalling stage sound, the show was immense! There were about a thousand people in the crowd and about another sixty circled around us on stage, with a constant wave of stage divers flying from the stage into the crowd below. It was one of those “special shows”. If today is half as good, I'll be happy.

Before we load out the van and leave, we sit down to breakfast with the guys from Nothing in the kitchen at the venue. They're a really nice group of guys, and we chat about touring and the likes. It turns out we have a friend in common, a great guy named Zoli from Budapest. Speedhorn had toured together with Zoli's band, Bridge To Solace, in Europe a few years back. It was a lot of fun. Zoli himself promotes shows in Budapest and had organised a show there on our tour, and it turned out to be the best show of that tour. The guys in Nothing were there just last week. We chat through breakfast, which just as last night's dinner, is superb. The woman running the venue has put on a great spread of various dishes such as scrambled eggs and a mozzarella, tomato and basil salad dressed in balsamic vinegar. Washed down with some strong, black coffee, it's a fine start to the day.

We've only been on the road a few minutes when the news starts filtering through...

Jenny sends me a text commenting on how terrible the events in Norway are. At first I assume she means the bombing in the city of Oslo, but she soon texts me back with the news that over eighty kids have been shot to death at a youth camp on an island just outside of Oslo. It appears to be the same person who was responsible for the bombing, just an a couple of hours earlier. News is that the gunman, a Christian Fundamentalist with extreme right wing leanings, travelled to the island on a passenger boat, dressed as a policeman, armed with an assortment of guns. They say that he gathered a large group of children together and then started executing them.

It's hard to get to grips with something like that. The news puts an obvious downer on the atmosphere in the van, and I spend the best part of the next six hour journey to Rokycany silently thinking about the horror that exists in life. Playing a show at a hardcore festival suddenly feels completely irrelevant.

The journey today is another long one. We stop just over the Czech border to purchase a road tax ticket for the rest of the journey. We all get out at the service station, taking advantage of the chance to stretch our legs. The sun is at least shining today, which should make for a good atmosphere at the festival. On the way into the service station I notice a scruffy looking bastard, drinking beer and talking loudly with himself. When we're done buying the usual pile of junk food and we head back out to the van, the crazy guy is still standing there, being loud. We walk past him back to our van, and of course, he stops Jon for a talk. We turn around and begin to laugh at the spectacle. I only hear Jon telling the guy a couple of times that he's Swedish, and then the guy asks him if he has any hash or weed. Jon just shakes his head and walks away. I'm cracking up when Jon gets back to the rest of us, waiting at the van. Jon tells me he's sure the guy was an undercover cop. I hadn't even considered that option. Maybe Jon is paranoid. Maybe he's a lot wiser to the world than I am...but the more I think about it the more I think Jon could well have been right.

We finally get to the Fluff Festival at five twenty pm. On the rider details we received from Tomas the promoter, it said we were playing at seven. It now says on the schedule in the backstage that we're actually playing at six. Fuck. It's lucky we weren't any later, although it doesn't leave us with the best preparation to get up and play a show. Fuck knows what happened with the communication breakdown.

The first person we see when we start unloading the van is our friend Goran, who plays drums in the straight-edge band Stay Hungry. Goran played drums in Jon's old hardcore band, Outlast, who played a reunion show at Fluff Fest last time we were here. They were playing the day before us and I'd flown down with the Outlast guys to hang out for the whole weekend. We had a great time then, and it's good to see Goran again. It also helps us with another thing that's been on my mind today, the spare guitar situation. The guys from Stay Hungry do indeed come to the rescue.

Another thing that was announced on the original schedule I'd seen was that Joe Lally, the Fugazi bass player, was playing right before our slot. I had been completely psyched about this, since I'm a huge Fugazi fan, and this would probably be the closest I'd ever get to playing with them... It turns out that Joe is on right after us instead, which is absolutely fine with me. The funny thing is, his tour manager approaches us and asks if Joe can borrow Johan's bass as a back-up, and if his guitarist can borrow my head. Johan, another Fugazi fan, is as happy as I am to help out. In fact, we're chuffed.

To add to the list of surprises today, I find out that Swing Kids, or at least, Swing Kids minus the deceased guitarist, with two other guitarists in his place, are headlining the main stage tonight. I absolutely loved Swing Kids on record. So, sharing a stage with both Joe and Swing Kids in one day puts a bit of a brightener on things. Again, in the light of yesterday's events it pales into insignificance, but...

The band before us are a hardcore straight-edge band from San Francisco, called Punch. They have a young female vocalist, who screams her lungs out for the entire set. They're pretty good and it's fun watching them. There are a few people up around the side of the stage and plenty of people jumping up and off of it. The only thing that is troubling me is that the stage times are running a half hour late on the main stage, and I can hear music blasting out from the tented stage suggesting that the usual streamlined alternating stage times are of cue.

We set up on the big open stage and there is hardly anyone lingering around in the audience. I guess most are over by the tent. By the time we're ready to start though the main stage area has filled out, although Johan still has to call them to come forward a little. The sun is beaming through the scattered clouds in the otherwise blue sky, the setting is perfect. But something with the atmosphere seems amiss. There are only a couple of people hanging around on the sides of the stage. Before we kicked off last time around there were people literally hanging off the back of my amp. Something feels different this time around. The stage feels wide open and lonely. Not what I'd expected.

Just as we're about to start some Italian guy holding what seems to be a note in his hand, comes on to the middle of the stage and takes a hold of the mic. He then starts reading from his note, informing the crowd that three militant animal rights activists, fellow Italians, have been sentenced to three years imprisonment for conspiring to blow up a conceived target of theirs, in the name of their struggle in the fight against vivisection. He pledges his support to his comrades and it almost feels like we're stood there in support. He gets a rippled applause from the crowd. Now of course I'm against all forms of cruelty to animals, but I'm also against using violence as a means to and end. Violence breeds violence. I don't understand how blowing up a building, with the possibility of inflicting death, can solve anything. It's a weird start to our set.

We kick into the first block and already half way through V5 I've both dropped a pick and Andy and I have lost Johan and Jon on the far side of the stage. We look at each other confused and struggle to find our way back into the song. There isn't a whole lot of movement from the crowd either. Shit start.

It gets better from the second block onwards though. By the time we're half way through the set the crowd stretches all the way to the back of the main stage area, with what must be at least one thousand people. The reaction between songs gets louder with every break, but the crowd still aren't moving as much as they normally do at this festival. It's not until This Is The End that things really start kicking off and people start stage diving.

We play a solid enough set and I feel myself getting more and more into it as is goes on. There are still only a few people around the side of the stage though and try as I might, the atmosphere just isn't the same this time around. I can't seem to keep a solid hold of my pick either, and my index finger of my right hand is streaming a steady flow of blood on to my new strings and the bridge pick up below them. Fucking typical that I only restrung my guitar yesterday. Right at the end of the last song I collide with some stray stage diver, just as I'm about to swing around towards my amp. His leg catches me right in the back of my left calf with an almighty thud and the two of us hit the surface of the stage like a sack of fucking spuds. I manage to save my guitar from hitting the deck but as I roll up onto my feet, like a twat, I angrily sling the guitar down at the base of my speaker cabinet anyway. It lands ok though and manages to stay stood upright. Just. The red mist of anger soon disperses and I start packing down. The crowd screaming for one more song from us. When the PA music comes on the crowd boos us. My leg is faintly throbbing. Some American guy stood on-stage comments, “That was a hell of way to end the set!” I shrug my shoulders and make some comment about that being the way it goes sometimes.

After cooling off back stage and loading the gear, minus the stuff we've lent to Lally, into the back of the van, I go off in search of the wonderful tofu burgers they sell here. And after I'm done with that I want a beer and I want to watch Joe Lally. We get fed and then with beer in hand, Johan and I check out Joe's set. There are probably no more than a couple of hundred people watching him in the early evening sun. This really isn't the festival for him to be playing. He just kinds jams his way through his relaxed set. It sounds exactly as one would imagine it to. There isn't much action but I enjoy watching him play. The guy is an amazing bass player and it's a lesson in musicianship just watching him. I'm starting to feel truly good for the first time today.

After Joe is done and I've put my amp away in the van with the rest of the gear, we hang out for a while at the merchandise area with Nico. It seems things are going well. The show might not have had quite the same magic as last time, but we've already sold more merch than we did a couple of years ago.

I go for a walk around the distro area of the festival, although I'm not really in the mood for buying records. I do pick up and album by a band called Captain, You Ship Is Sinking though. The sticker on the record says they sound like a cross between Aussitot Mort and Envy. If that's true then it's worth taking a chance on. I pick that up and then wander over to a distro called Goodwill Records, that are based in Berlin. I get talking to the guy at the stall whose name is Adam, and of course, he knows Andy. I'm fucking chuffed to find a copy of Peruvian Vacation by The Stupids and we stand there chatting for a while. He's a really nice guy and later on I send Andy over to say hello. It's a small punk rock world..

The news has filtered through that Amy Winehouse has died today. Someone has written a note on a piece of paper and stuck it above the entrance to the festival site. Another one added to the twenty seven club. A friend of ours from the States, Megan, texts Jon telling him she heard it was due to natural causes... This has Jon brings Jon close to tears of laughter.

By the time Swing Kids are about to play, I've meandered down to the front of the crowd on my todd, beer in hand, to watch what was once a great band. There are quite a lot of people in the crowd, although not as many as I expected. Justin Pearson stands around posing for the best part of fifteen minutes whilst they get the sound sorted on stage.

It's a great surprise to get to see them play, but if I'm honest, apart from Pearson, it feels a bit stiff. A bit like the whole festival in general really. I watch the entire set but as much as it's great getting to see classics like El Camino Car Crash live, after a while Pearson’s unashamed posing starts getting on my tits. He doesn't say a word between songs, he just kinds stands there doing his utmost to look like an arrogant cunt. Maybe he is, or maybe I'm just not in the mood. The sound isn't particularly great either, which doesn't help. Although Swing Kids set is still better than most of the stuff you see at shows these days, it isn't quite as good as I'd hoped for and I'm a little disappointed. I guess I'm getting snobby in my old age.

We meet back at the merch stall afterwards and Jon is absolutely lyrical about the Swing Kids set. I make a remark about Pearson being a posing cunt, to which Jon replies, “Yeah yeah, but he's so fucking handsome I almost had a wank in the crowd!”. What can I say to that? Nothing. Whereas Johan and I are the Fugazi fans in the band, it's Jon who shares my love of Swing Kids records...

The festival is closing down for the evening now and we follow suit and start to pack away the merch. This being the third time Victims have played Fluff in the last five years, it's probably time for us to take a break from the place for a while. Too bad that our boys in Black Breath are playing tomorrow night, it would have been great to hang out with them, but we're flying home from Bremen at seven pm, which means leaving the hostel at nine am. for a long days drive.

We pack down the merch and head over to the van. Johan goes off in search of the key for the hostel and is told that the keys are with the festival's band driver who is on his way back from Prague. It's going to be at least half an hour. We decide that the only thing to do is get some beer in. Jon and Andy go off to the beer tent and bring back Gambrinus in abundance. We hang out in by the side of the van behind the stage in the what is by now, dark, chilly night. Stachel is moping around, saying he doesn't like this emo screamo festival...or something to that effect. Come to think of it, I've hardly seen that sod all day.

By the time the driver turns up in his car with the keys, I'm have that slightly warm, slightly cosy feeling that a few beers can give you. We follow the crazy driver guy, I remember him from last time, good guy, always laughing, in our van back to the hostel. I remember the place we slept last time around looking like Resident Evil, this place tonight doesn't look so bad though. Still, we decide to spend as little time as possible in it. We throw our bags on the beds in the dormitory the four of us in the band are sharing and me and Johan look at each other. Johan asks me, “Are you thinking about going for a beer?”. There had been some vague talk of it in the van trip back to the hostel...and I did noticed we had passed a bar just around the corner. I look at the time. Midnight. We're not getting up until eight and all we have to do is sit in the van all day tomorrow...but then I could do with a good night's sleep... “Well, if everyone else told me that they were going for a beer then I would probably follow”, I reply. “Yeah, that's probably what I would say...if everyone else was going for a beer I mean..” Johan retorts, a slight grin spreading across his face.

"Come on let's go"...

The four of us decide to head off in search of that bar we'd passed in the van. I can tell by the look in Andy's expression that he's starting to get drunk. That and the fact he's saying something about having to finish what has been started. Stachel is tapping out for the night, but Nico mentions about tagging along. We wait around outside the hostel for all of twenty seconds and then leave, deciding to call Nico with directions when we get to the bar. Just as we get back to the main road, the driver guy pulls up and tells us to hop in, offering us a lift. Perfect.

The sign above the door says “Sports Bar”. It's a dark, quiet street and there isn't a sound coming from the bar. The light is on though, we step inside.

It's a small, basic room with a little bar in the corner. Behind the bar stands a rather haggard looking middle aged woman, staring into thin air. She hardly acknowledges our presence. The only other patrons in the establishment are a group of three old men, sat together at a table on one side of the room, each with a beer in hand, barely uttering a word to each other. There are a couple of tv's dotted around the room showing a dubbed version of the film Hannibal. We take a table opposite the bar and Johan sorts out a round of beer. The beer is the Czech Republic is some of the finest you will find, and it's ridiculously cheap for us Swedes. At the festival we were selling t-shirts for three hundred Czech kronors, which is the equivalent of the one hundred Swedish kronors, or ten English pounds we usually sell them for. A pint of Gambrinus at this bar costs just ten Czech kronors! “Four beers please”.

We sit around in the bar for a couple of rounds. The old boys and the bartender hardly uttering a word the whole time we're there. We're happy as pigs in shit though! We guzzle down a couple of beers, chatting about this and that. Every now and again somebody comes into the bar, usually an older man, with an empty, plastic one litre bottle and hands it over to the bartender for re-filling, then leaves again after paying. Things certainly work differently here than they do in old Sverige.

After a couple of rounds, with the time approaching one am, the lady behind the bar tells us with the use of sign language that the bar is closing. We drink up and make to leave for the hostel. Andy engages her in some sort of conversation as we're heading out the door. The lady points to the ceiling and says something about another bar being open upstairs. We're all getting a bit drunk by now and we probably should go back to hostel and get some sleep. We don't, of course...

The bar upstairs is a larger, brighter room. Other than that, it's the same deal. The bartender is a younger, happier looking girl who's broad smile greets us as we walk to the bar and park our arses on the four vacant bar stools. There is a group of slightly younger but just as haggard looking men gathered round a table in the middle of the room, albeit far from sitting quietly drinking their beers they're in full song. I like this bar.

During the hour or so we're there we drink three beers each and we share a couple of surprisingly delicious cheese pizzas. The lot of that comes to less than two hundred Czech kronors... At one point Andy goes off to the bog and upon his return tells us he's found a roulette table in another room. Now I'm not the slightest bit interested in gambling, apart from the odd flutter on the pools, but Johan is up for it.

It's one of those digital roulette tables. It's the same size as a normal table, just that it's electrically powered as opposed to having someone work it. We stand around it like a haggle of lost sheep, staring at the contraption. Johan feeds a one hundred kronor note into the slot. Nothing happens. Cue four guys scratching their heads, looking confused... Johan surmises that we probably put too little into the machine and this time tries a five hundred note. Still nothing..

Jon attempts to converse with the bartender, hoping his German will help breach the barrier gap. I can't really understand how, but he manages to get across the message. The girl brings out a complaint form for Johan to fill out. It's written in Czech of course. Johan and Jon actually attempt to start filling it out but quickly give up. The scene is quite ridiculous. We've just pissed away about two hundred Swedish kronors of the bands money, or about sixty pints of Gambrinus! Fuck it, we've had a good day at the merch stall...

After another pint each we decide it really is time to head back. Time and sleep is ticking away. I really feel now that I could stay here until the sun comes up drinking, and if we were playing another show tomorrow instead of flying home, then I probably would. I'm not eighteen years old any more and at some point, some morsel of sense must prevail...

Frankfurt

2011-07-25T00:52:00.003+02:00

Something is fucking strange this morning... Jon is by far and away the freshest looking of the lot of us. I wake up to the sound of the Hårda Tider guys leaving for the Fluff Fest in the Czech Republic today. I have that classic hangover feeling, the one where you feel pretty good for the first thirty or so minutes, almost chipper, and then the wave of nausea hits you.

After saying goodbye to the HT guys I shower and then struggle through breakfast. I manage a single slice of bread with peanut butter, my stomach not being able to handle the buffet of assorted pickled vegetables laid out on front of me. The coffee goes down a treat though. Andy and Johan are also looking pretty rough this morning. I was after all, the first to go to bed last night. Jon was up with the HT guys having breakfast though and is looking fresh as a fucking daisy. I don't get it.

We hang out around the breakfast table with Loffi and the guys from Black Fleck for a while, before packing the van and heading into town, via way of Cyness's rehearsal space, which is also where Loffi lives, to drop of the loaned backline we used last night. We drop the stuff of and then head upstairs to Loffi's flat for more coffee. I'm guessing the coffee machine he has is some kind of new toy since Loffi manically sets about making a chain of double espresso's. He just keeps lining them up on the table. I have two. It's great coffee but I know the second cup is going to come back to haunt me later on.

After we're done at Loffi's place, we head into town in search of a music store. We need some supplies today, namely some new leads for Jon amongst other things. Potsdam, or at least the area of town we're in this morning, is really quite a pretty place. The area we're in reminds me of the Södermalm area of Stockholm. After the music shop, the caffeine starts to wreak havoc on my stomach and I'm suddenly in dire need of food. I have a craving for an English style bag of chips, but knowing that's not happening, settle for a veggie hot dog. It doesn't sit well. It's some sort of weird yellow soya hot dog, and for some reason I choose the chilli cheese option. Loffi tells us this is the best hot dog kiosk in Potsdam, and I'm sure on better days I would have enjoyed it, but the pile of sloppy chilli and cheese sauce on the weird yellow hot dog stays with me, playing on my mind and on my frail stomach for the entire journey to Frankfurt. For some reason, the entire pack of Haribo Happy Cherry gums don't help much either...

It's late by the time we leave Potsdam, around two pm. Stachel, also hungover today, is in optimistic mood and seems to think the journey will only take four hours, getting us to the venue in plenty of time. But no, the journey takes the best part of six hours thanks to the perpetual Schtau!!! signs littering the autobahn. It's grey and raining and all in all a fucking miserable journey. Everyone is quiet, everyone, except Jon, feels shoddy. I try to get my head and sleep off the sickly feeling in my stomach. It doesn't work. I drop off at one point and when I wake I'm sure at first that I've been sleeping for a good couple of hours, but upon checking the time realise it was actually only twenty minutes. Six pm, a road sign reads Frankfurt a M, 289 km... We were supposed to be at the venue for seven pm. That's not happening.

With about an hour to go, we pull over into a roadside toilet and rest area. It's grey as fuck and cold. We all take the chance to get out and stretch our legs. Andy is by the side of the road, in the bushes, stuffing his fingers down his throat and subsequently throwing up. He puts it down to car sickness.. What a miserable journey this is turning into.

By the time the Frankfurt skyline appears on the horizon, around eight thirty, the sick feeling in my stomach is finally starting to subside. Nico is now sat in the back beside me, Andy having moved up front and Stachel at the wheel. I've only ever been to Frankfurt once before, with Speedhorn years ago, and the thing I remember about the place is that the downtown area is very un-European. It looks more like Manhattan. I know that Frankfurt is the finance centre of Germany, but Nico tells me it's also the crime capital. Funnily enough, Nico's home town, Hannover, is second on that particular list. What's funny about that is that the reason Hannover has the second highest crime rate in Germany is due to the fact that nobody pays for the tram when they ride it there, and if you are caught three times without a ticket on the tram then you get taken to court. And there is such an epidemic of train ticket dodgers in Hannover that it has pushed them statistically into second place in the crime city table. Best watch your back when you're in Hannover...

As we reach the city limits, news of an altogether more serious, sinister kind, starts to filter through to us via Johan's telephone. Apparently there has been a huge bomb explosion in Oslo, with at least two people dead. There is also something about a shooting on an island just outside of Oslo, and that maybe the incidents are linked. There is something about the possibility that kids have been shot but the news seems hazy right now. It sounds fucked up whatever it is that's happened.

We finally pull up outside the venue just before nine pm, after what seems like an incredibly long day. We load out our gear, which thankfully isn't all that much, just merch and guitars and amps. I remember as soon as we load out though that I have to string my guitar today. That's another kick in the balls right there! There is surely nothing worse on tour than re-stringing a guitar..

After I'm done with that, we go to the kitchen on the venue to sit down to an absolutely superb dinner. Veggies burritos and salad, with some nacho chips and a fantastic home made cilantro. It's a wonderful feeling to have some real food in my stomach and I feel so much better for it afterwards. A couple of girls who are friends of Stachel's are here and they sit down to dinner with us. One of the girls has previously lived in Sweden and can speak really good Swedish. We sit around after dinner, talking for a while. I'm feeling close to normal for the first time today.

The venue is yet another really cool squat venue. The room with the stage in is a good sized room, which can comfortably hold around one hundred and fifty. It reminds me a little of our very own Kafe 44. The stage is quite high and has plenty of room on it. Outside there is a really nice beer garden which is where the main bar is and where all the punks are hanging out. It's also where Nico is set up with the merch. We hang out there after dinner enjoying the cool night air and yes, a cold bottle of beer...

I'm taking it fucking easy tonight though. I have the one beer as I watch the support band, who are a band from Berlin called Nothing. There are quite a few people in when they play and I enjoy watching the most part of their set. They play a straight up, Poison Idea inspired hardcore. They're good at it too. At one point they even throw in a Poison Idea cover. The rest of the guys seem to think this is sacrilege though. I don't know, I've never been a massive Poison Idea fan, owning on a couple of their classic records.

The guys from Nothing are a really nice bunch of chaps though and they kindly lend us their guitars as back up. I'm hoping tonight we won't need them though. Fuck knows what we'll do tomorrow at Fluff Fest for back up guitars, or even strings in general, if we snap any tonight. Both me and Jon used up the last of our strings today. We should have bought some at the store in Potsdam but my hangover was at the forefront of my thoughts then...

The sound on stage tonight is really good, for me at least. Andy had been a bit concerned with the drum kit we were using tonight, since it's not set up as he normally plays. It must be hard playing on a kit that is set up differently to how you normally play. It would be like me turning up on tour and been given a seven string guitar, or a banjo. Andy seems to get through the gig without any problems though.

The room is full by the time we go on-stage. On any other night on tour, tonight's show would rate as a really good show, but after last night in Potsdam, it feels just ok. It's tight and the audience response is good, but I can feel that we're all hungover tonight and the energy isn't quite there tonight. It's fine whilst we're actually blasting through the songs, but you can sense us all plodding around on stage between them, huffing and puffing. Apart from Johan losing his way in the first verse of Nowhere in Time and Jon going into the solo of Theft a verse early, cutting the length of the song in half, the show is a success. After playing Circles and Scars as extra songs, we applaud the thank the crowd and exit the stage.

I get to the back stage room and once again feel really sick. After taking my sweat soaked t-shirt off, unbuttoning the top of my jeans, and throwing a bottle of water spiced up with one of Andy's Resorb tablets, I start to feel better. After packing down the gear I head back to the backstage room and the four of us and Stachel hang out for a while, just chilling out. At the very moment I'm considering heading to the beer garden outside, a punk girl comes into the backstage room carrying a suspicious looking bottle of booze with her. She introduces herself to us and explains that she wishes us to have a shot of her homeland's, Belarus apparently, finest vodka. Fuck no! That is the last thing my stomach requires! She is quite determined though. Andy tells her straight up that there is no way he can possibly drink it, due to the beating he took yesterday though. The girl has all sorts of reasoning though, such as that your body feels better for drinking a little bit of alcohol than none at all. This seems to be a general theory of hers, not just relating to today. Andy tries to explain to her about yesterday and the hangover we've had today, to which she tells him she doesn't care about yesterday. She's simply not taking no for an answer. She passes the shots around, one by one, and then she takes one herself. Johan goes first, and he says it's actually pretty good. Then Andy, Jon and then myself. It isn't half bad. The girl then takes her shot and we thank her. We tell her we're going for a beer and that she should join us. She tells us that she doesn’t drink beer, that she always feels really bad after drinking beer. Go fucking figure!

We sit around at the merch table outside with Nico for a while, and I enjoy a cold bottle of beer. It's only the one though. It's nice just hanging out and having a laugh for a while. Afterwards we load the boxes of merch into the van and then head for the band flat above the venue. The bedroom area is really nice and the beds even have pillows! Heaven! I brush my teeth and hop into the sleeping bag on my bed. I lay in bed reading my book for a half hour before the old eye lids start to weigh down on me. I drift into a comfortable, sound sleep.

Potsdam

2011-07-25T00:49:00.001+02:00

It's been a few weeks since the last lot of shows. I haven't written anything in that time. I haven't really had the energy to, although there is plenty that I want to write about. It's been a hot summer so far and the heat in the bar has been really exhausting, so the eleven shifts have been taking it out of me more than usual, leaving little energy for sitting indoors writing on my days off. I've been entrenched in Ian Glasper's superb book, Trapped in a Scene, UK Hardcore 1985-1989. Well worth a read I can assure you! I'm now nearing the end, and have started to feel a little more inspired to start writing again. And with this weekend, plus a tour of the States coming up in August, there are plenty of tour diaries on the way..

Not much has happened since we played the Leipzig show, although we played a show in Stockholm with Terror, which was organised by the people at Stockholm Straight-edge. There wasn't really much to write about that... I sat at home, played Pro Evo Football on the Playstation, walked the dog, played a pretty cool show and went home.

There have been a couple of things of note, footnotes if you will, since the last time of writing though:

After Leipzig we flew home from Bremen. It rained most of the journey and I slept for most of the time in the van. We flew with Ryanair, which is the first time I've flown with them in a while. At Bremen airport Ryanair has it's own “terminal”. It's a grey, steel hanger, with barely any lighting and a welcome mat by the door that was covered in dog shit! After checking in we walked through to the main terminal where we were almost blinded by the glow of light bulbs in the ceiling. We attempted to buy some food from a restaurant, which was ran by a middle eastern looking man with a face like a smacked arse. I don't know why but he seemed to hate us. Andy and I ordered pasta with cheese sauce, and when we got it there was pork all over the plate. We returned the food and were greeted by a mere grunt. We tried to explain we didn't want meat, but were left standing around as he completely ignored us. We left for the darkness of the Ryanair terminal and flew home.

The show we played with Terror was pretty good. The show took place at a nondescript square room with a small PA, the sound wasn't great but there were plenty of people there and although it wasn't our crowd, we had a good show. Strange playing a show without even one beer in the system. At one point during the show Jon made a quip about the fact that he was normally drunk by this point of the night (he's actually not, he's actually good about restraining himself, but I enjoyed his taking the piss out of the crowd), and then asked if he could get a cup of coffee on stage, adding he's like it with “real milk”. Johan, Andy and I seemed to be the only people in the room who found that funny. After our set we packed down and packed out into Johan's car, before going to the local bar for a quick drink with a bunch of friends that were there. I was surprised to meet a couple of the guys from Terror there., sat at the bar drinking alcohol free beer and alcohol free wine. They sat there complaining about the fact they weren't allowed to drink at the venue, that you weren't even allowed in the venue if you had been drinking. I spent about five minutes talking to them as I was waiting to be served, trying to work out if they were joking or not. I thought they were straight edge...

And finally, the people from the Crowbar in Groningen have been in touch and said they found Johan's jeans, or at least, they've found out who has them and it is indeed the person they had suspected...they are currently trying to work out the best way of re-obtaining them! Fucking weird! I'm guessing there is some local hard-nut punk who is known for stealing clothes from shows...

So the first show of this weekend is Potsdam. Our good friend Loffie was the promoter and his band Cyness were supporting us. It's always great to see Loffie, another of the many legends of this great scene we're involved with. It's actually my first ever time in Potsdam. I've been around Germany fuck knows how many times but for some reason never made it to this town. Strange really considering it's one of the bastions of the scene. There are a load of punks in Potsdam as well as some great squat venues. Tonight, we're playing a place called Black Fleck, which is a tiny little squat. It's going to be another packed and sweaty show by all accounts. Victims have played Potsdam a few times and it's always been really good shows for them. I'm looking forward to my first Potsdam experience.

Another bonus tonight is that our friends Hårda Tider are also playing with us tonight. They too, like us, are playing Fluff Fest this weekend, although they're playing tomorrow and not Saturday. There was talk the last time we were out about them playing the show, and thankfully it worked out.

We flew in to Berlin quite late today, so when we land, it's in the van and straight to the venue. Stachel has already been to the venue and loaded in our gear though, which makes things a hell of a lot easier for us. We get to the venue around seven pm. and the only thing we need to do is set up merch.

I'm in the mood for a couple of beers tonight. There is a good feeling about the small venue, what with Loffie and our fellow Swedish friends here. I have a couple before we play whilst we watch Cyness and Hårda Tider play their sets. The crowd is packed in by the time Tider play and they're already kicking off. It's going to be a good night. The best thing about playing these squat venues is that they almost always have sleeping quarters for the bands, as is the case tonight, which means, no packing the van, just play the set, cool off, after-party and then go to bed when ever you need to.

When I opened up my guitar case upon arrival tonight, the first thing I noticed was that my strings are crusty as fuck, completely doused in the sweat of the Zoro in Leipzig. We don't have any backup guitars with us on these fly in/fly out shows. I don't have time to change the strings tonight, so we'll have to talk with Peter from HT and see if we can borrow his guitar as a spare for the show. There is not a chance in hell I'm going to make it through the set intact. Peter, being the nice guy he is, happily lends us his guitar though. I just hope Jon isn't going to break a string, because that's going to put a serious delay to proceedings.

By the time we get on stage to set up, the sweat is already dripping from my brow. There are over a hundred in the venue tonight, which has the place pretty fucking packed! It's a low stage, that just about fits me and Jon either side of Andy's drum kit, but Johan is on the floor. And it's into V5 we go. We blast through the first block and the place goes berserk. Johan is going to well to avoid eating his mic tonight.

It is extremely hot on this small stage tonight. I have next to no room to move, which is probably just as well since my normal monkey having an epileptic fit routine would most likely have me puking up about half way through the set.

We experience small technical difficulties during the early part of the set. Jon seems to be having problems with one his leads and I of course break a string during the first song of the second block. Peter's guitar does indeed come to the rescue. It works out well for me though, he's got a lovely SG, which is exactly the same as the one I have just purchased for the States tour, so tonight is almost like a test drive. It plays beautifully...

Despite a stop/start start to the show, the set goes down really well. From the third block onwards it flows, and such is the atmosphere in here a couple of technical difficulties is not going to bring the energy down. Since my movement is a little confined, I actually manage to catch some glimpses of the crowd tonight. I feel a surge of euphoria rush through me when we play Lies, Lies, Lies and I see what feels like the entire crowd on top of Johan, singing along into his mic. He can hardly get near his mic to sing at times, with members of the crowd taking over instead.

We get to the end of the set, but there really is no point trying to escape from the stage and out through the crowd, since they want to hear more and they most likely won't let us leave. We pick our guitars up for one last song and blast through Scars. And then we're done. Great show, job done.

It takes a while to cool off after the show, the sweat is simply pissing from every pore. I take a cold beer from the bar and head out for the street, where most of the crowd have adjourned to. I hang out for a while, stood on my own, enjoying my beer and the fresh air in the company of about one hundred of Potsdam's finest citizens.

Once cooled down, I pack my gear down from the stage and leave it in the back room, ready for pick up tomorrow morning. I head to the bar with the rest of the boys, where we hang out with Stachel and Nico, who is driving us this time around in Micha's place. Nico works for Micha at Punk Distro too, so once again those boxes of records are with us, my wallet as usual itching in my pocket.

I don't know why, but I'm in the mood for some shots tonight. I feel like getting a bit drunk and partying. I know, I know I will regret it in the morning because I am a weak, weak man, but that has never stopped me in the past. Johan starts buying the shots in at the bar, they cost a mere Euro each (the beer we get for free), and by the time the third Jagermeister has gone down, I'm starting to feel a little tipsy...

At some point Johan has gotten hold of a permanent black marker pen, and since the venue is called Black Fleck, meaning Black Stain, Johan thinks it's funny to draw black marks on everyone's face. He gets me in the nose, the annoying fucker. At the time I don't realise that it's permanent marker, or at least, I'm too drunk to really compute the fact, so I think a simple rub of the nose will suffice in removing the stain. Not so it turns out.

We hang out for an hour or so with Loffie and his crew before moving upstairs to the band flat. I'm in a very happy, giggly mood and I have that loving feeling. We hang out with the guys from HT in the big living room area of the band flat, drinking beer and laughing over a few old stories. They are a great bunch of guys. I think I head to bed around three am, still in a sound enough state of mind to brush my teeth before doing so, although that is about the last thing I remember, that and frantically scrubbing my nose with a nail brush trying to get ridden of that fucking stain!

I only have a hazy memory of climbing a somewhat shaky wooden ladder up to the row of punk made bunks, that are built into the ceiling of the bedroom. I'm fucked if I wake up in the middle of the night needing a piss.

Head down, no pillow, just Stachel's sleeping bag and a dirty mattress.

Leipzig

2011-06-20T14:11:00.002+02:00

With three bands sharing the band apartment there is an almighty cue for the toilet and the shower, both located in the same room. By the time we stir from our beds it's almost eleven am. and it's time for breakfast in the club. I decide I'll leave the shower until after breakfast, the need for food and a piss being more important to me at this moment in time.

After breakfast, which takes place in the gig room of the club, I finally wash away last night's sweat and grease in the shower. And then we load out the gear. Whilst we're stood around on the street loading the van we make enquiries into what happened last night. Three things in particular need to be ratified.

One: Stachel wants to know who's leg he was grappling with in the club last night and indeed what lead to the “pushing incident”.

Two: How did Micha manage to climb over Johan and out of the bunk this morning without disturbing him. Johan is truly confused by it. Micha is a pretty big guy after all...

Three: Where did Micha go?

Stachel states that some guy in denim shorts from one of the other bands kicked him in the balls. I can't remember exactly how or why this happened but it did. I'm guessing Stachel must have been attempting to wrestle. Stachel took offence to the ping in the balls and grabbed a hold of the guys leg whilst deciding what to do with it. As he stood there considering his actions Johan then intervened and pushed him away, albeit a little too excitedly, catching Stachel off guard and sending him into a crowd of people stood behind him at the bar. What Johan hadn't realised is that the leg Stachel had been holding was guilty of kicking him in the balls. Johan had wrongly assumed Stachel was just being a drunken asshole. So that worked out, and all forgiven, we still don't know who's leg it was.

As we're pondering this riddle, the guitarist from Gust comes out of the venue wearing cut off jeans. Stachel asks him if it was his leg he was holding last night. The guy looks at Stachel and asks him what he means, “My leg?” Stachel tries explaining to him the trail of events and says he had someone's leg and was close to doing it some harm. The Gust guitarist is by now really confused, “What did you do to my leg?”. By now me and Andy are pissing ourselves laughing. That particular mystery no closer to being solved, we continue with the load out whilst Stachel mumbles something about his hangover.

After a while Micha appears and quickly clears up mysteries two and three.

After Johan had crawled into the double bunk besides Micha, pissed as a fart, he started snoring as loud as a mating gorilla. Micha quickly understood he wasn't going to able to get back to sleep in such circumstances and opted for the van instead. Johan asked him how he managed to climb over him and down from the bunk without disturbing him, to which Micha replied, “I woke you up and asked you to move!”. We once again piss ourselves laughing. When Micha has gone back into the venue Johan says he actually has a vague memory of crawling into the bunk and trying to watch his new favourite tv series that he's downloaded on to his Iphone, I can't remember what it's called but it's about knights and seems to have a lot of fucking in it, and he'd propped the phone up against Micha's feet in order to get a comfortable viewing position in which to watch said knight-porn. Poor Micha, now wonder he fucked off and slept in the van!

After we're done loading out, and with last night's mysteries kind of solved, and Stachel being in a far better mood today despite his hangover, we head off into town and meet up with Daniel. There is a big flea market in the St. Pauli area of the city which only takes place once a year. There are a lot of record stalls there as well as some other cool stuff.

As we're parking the van it starts to rain. Micha is attempting to pocket park the van into quite a tight space on a main road. There is a large truck behind us. He fails at the first attempt and then again at the second. You can sense he's getting annoyed when he shouts fuck off in English at the van. At the third attempt he makes it into the space but then there's a bit of bang at the rear of the van. We all go quiet, Micha simply puts the gear stick into first, as if he hasn't heard anything and straightens the van up. We get out and inspect the lorry behind us and Micha assures us it's nothing. I guess he hasn't seen that the lorry's bumper is cracked. Either that, or he simply doesn't give a piss. I find the whole thing thoroughly amusing.

We spend an hour or so walking around the street market, the atmosphere almost carnival like. It's really nice hanging out with Daniel for a little while. He seems pleased with the show last night, as are we. I pick up a couple of lp's of course, an original Gang Green lp released on Taang! and a Violent Femmes record I've been looking for for a while.

Whilst we've been walking around checking the flea market out, Stachel has met up with some friends who have their kids with them and they've been hanging out in the playground in the park which is in the middle of the market area. It's really fun to see how much the toddlers love Stachel. He would make a great infant school teacher. The kids just can't get enough of him and they all take turns in saying goodbye to him as we make to leave.

Just as we're heading back to the van the sky turns black and in turn starts to piss down on us. We run for cover under a marquee that belongs to a bar and we stand there waiting for the rain to pass. With the rain coming on so quickly and so strongly I guess a lot of the stuff at the market has been ruined... When it finally lightens up we carry on in the direction of the van. On the way there we meet Litty and his girlfriend who are stood taking cover under some shelter outside the door of a supermarket, each drinking what looks like a Caipirinha. I then remember that the last time I'd seen Litty was across the bar at the Cobra, he was stood with a ridiculously large looking shot in his hand, pissing himself laughing...

The drive to Leipzig takes about four hours and we pull up outside the venue around six-thirty pm. The Zoro. One of the best, if not the best, squat venues that I've ever had the pleasure of spending my time in. This place is amazing, and as usual, ran by a wonderful group of people. The venue is huge, it looks like maybe it was a school previously, although they have been squatting this place for years now. There are three floors. The top floor is where the kitchen and eating area for the bands are, as well as the big sleeping dormitory. On the second floor they have a record shop where our friend Frank is working, and the bottom floor is where they have the gig room, which holds around four hundred people. Across the hallyway from the stageroom there is even a cellar which homes a cocktail bar. The bands merch as well as Micha's and some other distros will be set up on the lagre hall areas that are halfway up each stair case. The place is quite simply stunning.

There are two touring doom/sludge bands playing with us tonight. A band called Thou from Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Moloch who are from Nottingham. It's a pleasant surprise to find a guy we know called Henry, who used to play in Army of Flying Robots and who booked a Victims show in Nottingham last year, is playing drums in Moloch. He's a really good guy as seemingly are the others in the bands and with of us all hitting it off straight away I know tonight is going to be a really fun show.

We all share gear for the night so there is no messing around with change overs. The Moloch and Thou guys are sharing guitar amps and we're all using our cabinets and drum kits. Simple and very easy. Whilst the Moloch guys are sound-checking we hang around upstairs in the band flat and the record shop. I pick up a vinyl copy of Gorilla Biscuits Start Today which for some reason I've never owned.

The food that the people at Zoro make for the bands is legendary on the touring circuit and this being my first time here, I'm dying to experience it. I'm absolutely starving by the time food is served, and I'm by no means disappointed. They have prepared a quite superb vegan buffet for us. I'm so hungry I make it through two plate-fulls and even have room for vegan chocolate cake afterwards. In the space of thirty minutes I go from being famished to so full that I feel sick. Thinking about the fact we're on stage in a couple of hours time, I quickly regret my gluttonous ways...

I go down to check out Moloch when I hear their set starting down below in a storm of feedback. The place is packed. There must be at least three hundred and fifty people here. It's also hot as fuck in here, the sweat almost dripping from the stone walls and ceilings. I flit in and out of the gig room during both Moloch and Thou sets since the heat is almost too much to take, I need to save some energy for our set. I also seem to need a shit about every thirty minutes. Tour guts are a real fucking nightmare. Of what I see of Thou, I'm really impressed, especially with their bass player who is phenomenal! It's nice to have a couple of doom bands on the band to mix it up with what we do. Playing a show with a bill full of crust bands can sometimes get a bit boring...although that seems to happen less these days.

I get on stage to tune up both my guitar and the guitar I've lent from Steve from Moluch and even before I'm done with that short task the sweat is dripping off of me. The room is packed out and there is a real buzz in the air, as well as a lot of condensation. A quick line-check and into V5 we go. It feels great from the get go tonight.

We blast through the set and although I feel my energy level dipping at points I seem to keep finding another wind from somewhere. We're all bang on tonight. I have to admit it's always a bit of a buzz for me to see members from the bands we're playing with amongst the spectators, it's a good feeling to have that support. Tonight the guys from Moloch and Thou are at the side of the stage and they seem to be enjoying themselves. Steve, the guitarist from Moloch who so kindly lent me his guitar as a back up, is right down the front of the crowd and he's really getting into it, he even seems to know the songs we're playing. I'm glad that the necessity to use his guitar doesn't arise. It's never comfortable to play on someone else's guitar, especially the way I normally play. If I use someone else's guitar then I have to be far more careful with what I'm doing on stage and that takes a lot of the fun out of it. I don't actually mean to throw myself around like a bollock on stage, it's just that playing this kind of music is such an outlet.

Anyway, the set goes through without any major hiccups and the crowd really move with us the whole way. When we're done with Circles and Scars I'm soaked to the core with sweat, but the buzz from the show is enough to overcome any tiredness I feel. We head upstairs when we're done and cool off, hanging out with the guys from the other bands and once I've had enough water in me, I enjoy a cold beer from the fridge.

Janne, our friend and singer from the brilliant band, Herätys, is here hanging out. He's actually together with girl who was doing the sound for the show. He's looking pretty pissed and has that look on his face that all Finnish people seem to get when they've had a few. It's good to see him. When we've wound down from the show we go downstairs to load out the gear into the van. We're leaving around eleven am. tomorrow to get to Bremen airport for our flight home so it's better that we spare any pissing around in the morning. We all agree that tonight probably shouldn't be a late night...

Nonetheless Johan and I decide we'll head down to the cocktail bar for one drink. Another friend of ours, Helene, has travelled down from Berlin and we hang out with her for a while. Her friend lives in an apartment in the same house as the squat, which she has pretty much built herself. Helene asks us to come along and check it out since there's a bit of an after party going on there. In all honesty, I'm not in the mood but it would be rude not to at least go and have one drink with Helene since she's travelled a way to come and see us.

We all head over, along with Steve, and hang out with the Helene and her girlfriends for a while. I just have the one beer, although the girls are drinking some really good cocktail made up of fresh raspberries and white chocolate liqueur. I have a taste and I could easily be tempted to have one but I hold strong. Steve, Andy and I stand over in one corner of the living room, allowing space for the girls who have started a dance floor, to do their thing. It turns out Steve and I know a bunch of the same people from Nottingham and Boston and we stand there chatting about things back home, and what's going on in the scene right now.

When the beer bottle empties, the clock is nearing four am. Fuck, only six hours of sleep as it stands right now. I could really have done with more. Andy has been saying to me all night that he'll most likely be taking it easy tonight, but he's had a few by now anyway. The three of us head back to the band flat, leaving Johan, Jon and Stachel at the party. When we get back we bump into Andy from Thou who has just blagged a crate of Budvar beer. We start chatting in the kitchen and before I know it, it's almost five am. and we've all drank a few more beers. I'm far from drunk though, and even the the hour is so late, I'm not really that bothered since it's been really nice hanging out and chatting with the other guys tonight. And besides, I can sleep in the van for a few hours in the van later on.

The four of us head to the dormitory. I've only been lying in bed five minutes when the rest of our lot come back. Johan is kind of giggling a lot and looking mischievous so I'm guessing he's had a few drinks.

Micha, most wisely, has decided to sleep in the van tonight.

Hamburg

2011-06-19T21:52:00.003+02:00

Why the fuck is the music so loud? What is that, a Kate Nash song? Lilly Allen? I don't know what it is but it's fucking loud and it's doing my head in! I open my eyes. Broad daylight fills Pelle's living room, Stachel is asleep on the sofa beside me, or at least, his eyes are closed. I'd be amazed if he's sleeping. I put the pillow over my head and try to drown it all out.

I lie there in for another song or two before realising that I need a piss. I struggle up to my feet and make my way to the stairwell towards the toilet, checking the time as I go. It's seven am. Jon and Pelle are sat at the dining table, drinking beer and talking. Jon looks like he's in quite a state.

After taking a piss I head back downstairs to the sofa bed, put the pillow back over my head and try to regain the ignorant bliss of sleep. It's not happening. Another couple of songs go by before that stupid song by Shaggy comes on the stereo, Mr. Bombastic, or whatever the fuck it's called. That's fucking enough! I can't take any more of this shite. I get up again and walk over to the table where Jon and Pelle are sat drinking. Pelle tells me that he doesn't understand why I'm not sleeping in one of the bedrooms upstairs. I don't really know what the fuck he’s talking about. He tells me there is a bed upstairs with nobody sleeping in it and I'm more than welcome to it. Ok, thanks, I will take that offer gladly. As I leave the living room, Pelle explains to me that he's having a very interesting and intense conversation with Jon. - “I bet you fucking are!” I tell him as I head upstairs.

I get up to the bedroom and there is indeed an empty bed waiting for me. For some reason, Andy is stretched out on the floor beside the bed. It's all very confusing. I lay down in the bed and breathe a sigh of relief. Within minutes Stachel has joined me. He grumbles something and goes to sleep.

I wake up a few hours later, and apart from a slight headache, feel pretty good. My alarm goes off just as I'm stirring, Journey as usual heralding the new day. After only a few seconds Stachel starts moaning at me to turn it off. This is all the encouragement I need. I sit beside him on the bed playing air drums to the song and singing along to the words. I finally turn the song off but then sit there talking to Stachel for the next ten minutes, trying to get a rise out of him. It's easy enough. He continously tells me to fuck off.

After a shower, an Ipren and a antihistamine I feel ready for the day. I head back downstairs. Jon is passed out on the sofa previously occupied by Stachel. I head to the kitchen in search of coffee and am surprised to find Pelle there, still awake. - Do you ever sleep? He tells me he got his head down for an hour. Amazingly, he looks no worse for wear. He's still wearing the impish little grin that he's had on his face since I first met him. He insists on making me a cup of tea and giving me some oat cookies to eat, since I'm an Englishman. Who I am to argue? The Earl Grey goes down a treat.

Within the space of ten minutes, Jon rises from the sofa looking like he's been pulled through a hedge backwards, sits down at the table, smokes a cig, has a clunk of beer from an open bottle left on the kitchen table and then heads back to the sofa and passes out again.

Pelle then kicks the stereo back on and starts a relentless barrage of various punk and crust songs. After about five minutes, Jon, now hidden under a blanket of quilts on the sofa, shouts aloud “I fucking hate hardcore punk!” This is followed by a series of other randomly spaced exclamations. I guess he's not feeling too clever...

Michel, the promoter from last night's show, turns up around eleven- forty five with some breakfast for everyone. We hang out for a while, eating and drinking some pretty foul instant coffee before heading back to the venue to load out the gear. When we get there and start packing out, we soon realise that the jeans Johan had on during the show last night, that he'd left hanging on his amp to dry off with the promise that they would be safe, are gone. We pack out everything whilst searching for the missing jeans. They're nowhere to be seen. Fucking weird. Of all the stuff on stage that the punk piece of shit could have stolen, why take a pair of sweat sodden jeans? The real bastard for Johan is that he had his specialised ear-plugs in one of the pockets. Michel feels understandably bad about the situation. Not that it's his fault. I'm just happy that they didn't take a pedal, or worse, an instrument.

Not the best start to the day. Stachel is pretty pissed off about everything this morning it seems. He's in a real grumpy mood. Lack of sleep and hungover probably the reason being. Not to mind though, he has plans for today before we head off to Hamburg. He's been told about a micro brewery that is in town somewhere and we're going to pay it a visit. Michel has given him the address and with that we head off. I like that Stachel always plans some extra tour-curricular activities for us.

Unfortunately it seems that there is construction throughout the entire city of Groningen, so the GPS is being outwitted at every turn. After the fourth or fifth attempted route we think we've finally cracked it, only to be confronted by a closed road bridge. We decide to get out and walk, since the brewery is supposedly close, and some fresh air wouldn't do anyone any harm.

We spend the best part of the next hour walking through an industry estate that is under construction. We finally find the address that has been given to us by Michel. Nothing. Just warehouses and units. There are a couple of old boys driving forklift trucks around. Stachel stops them to ask about this mystery fucking brewery. They look at him confused, although they kindly offer to go in to their office and check it out on the internet. We wait around for a few minutes before one of the old boys comes out laughing, telling us that there is no brewery anywhere near here. Never has been. Great. We head back to the van. Waste of fucking time.

The drive to Hamburg takes about four hours. It's raining and dull and Stachel seems to be in an even worse mood now. He doesn't like it when his plans don't pan out. It's not like we really care, he's more bothered about it than we are. The failed brewery expedition just offers up a good chance to take the piss, but he's not taking it too well. We leave him be, sat up front in the navigator seat, feeding his fish on his aquarium app on his Iphone (no shit!) in silence.

I sleep in fits and starts during the journey and by the time we get to the wonderful Haffenklang in Hamburg I'm feeling pretty good. This venue has to be one of my favourite places to play in Europe. The atmosphere is always really good, there's always a good party afterwards and the place has it's own band apartment. And most importantly, the people here are fantastic. Daniel, the promoter, is one of the scenes real good guys and it's always a pleasure to meet him.

We load in the gear and say hello to the other bands, who tonight are Gust, a young band from Sweden and a metallic hardcore band from Dortmund called Remember. They're out playing some shows together in Germany. They seem like nice group of chaps. We decide that Gust can sound-check and we'll just have a line check before we play. The sound-girl here always does a great job so it's no worries. Perfect. Dinner time. Today it's a vegetarian curry with soya meat. It's spot on.

We spend the next couple of hours hanging out, drinking a couple of beers, hanging both inside the club and outside. The venue is right next to the docks and there is a square across the road on the water-front where you can sit and have a drink. Some other punks are hanging out there. Whilst hanging out in the venue I'm inevitably drawn to Micha’s distro. If there is a table with boxes of lp's on it in front of me then I will end up flicking through them, out of habit as much as anything else. Nothing like browsing through a box of records. I pick out a few for purchase, a Ripcord and a Lärm record amongst others.

Besides looking through Micha's distro, I help Jon start his own blog. I was telling him about a funny email interview Jay Speedhorn did once, where when asked the question, “Which band are you currently listening to the most?”, he had written, “Not your band, baby!” Jon thought this was absolutely wonderful and told me that that would be the perfect name for the blog he was considering starting, a blog which would be solely based on explaining the wrongs of every band out there today.

By the time Gust go on stage the place is filling out. They play a good set, kind of old school hardcore. Jon seems chuffed, especially when they do a cover of Strife's song, Overthrow. I don't know if Jon is getting drunk again but he seems to be in that special mood of his. I stand in the crowd with him and Andy watching Gust and Jon is chuffed as fuck with the Strife cover. And then at some point between songs, he shouts at the stage, enquiring of the boys in Gust if they've cracked open a can of deodorant. The singer in the band looks at Jon confused, as do Andy and I. Jon then proceeds to start sniffing the girl in front of him. Time to get the man some water.

I watch the Remember set from the back of the room. The place is by now pretty full and the sound from stage is big. Remember play a solid show with a lot of energy. They play metallic hardcore and do it well and dersvedly get a good reaction from the crowd.

By the time we get up on stage it's around eleven pm. I'm once again feeling a bit jaded and in need of some energy from somewhere. It takes a while to line-check and I'm not feeling my normal self. Something tells me this gig is going to be a bit of a shift.

After about ten minutes of line-checking in front of a full room, we kick into the set. I can feel it straight away. The energy isn't there tonight, I'm going to have to work at this. The first block doesn't really kick off. Whereas normally we go straight from VIB #5 into Rewind and Forward, tonight there is a pause because we have to get some more guitar into Andy's drum monitor. We do get through the first block but I can tell Andy is struggling to hear. The second block continues in the same vain. There are a couple of dropped sticks and then Andy goes into the wrong drum fill half way through Lifetaker. It's nothing major and we recover it. It's one of those things that the we probabl notice more than the crowd. In fact, the crowd seem to be having a good time. Maybe this is going to be one of those gigs that is more about the public than the performance. I've had plenty of them over the years...

I can feel myself that I'm not playing as tight as I can do. There are some missed notes here and there where I'm just landing wrong on the guitar. I think I'm most likely over-compensating with trying to put too much energy into the performance, instead of worrying about hitting the right notes. When we get to the third block, where normally we go straight from VIB #6 into This is the End, I end up standing on the power socket that my pedals are connected to and in doing so pulling the power on my sound. It takes me a few seconds to work out what is going on before we get going again. Fuck! The momentum is refusing to build it seems...

Thankfully after that, the set finally gets going. Nowhere in Time is really solid and from there on in I start playing like I should. The rest of the set feels good and the crowd continue to voice their approval. By the time we get to the end of the set, Andy tells us that he wants to just go straight into Circles and Scars, instead of doing the normal going off stage and coming back on routine. We do just that and we end the set with a strong climax. We head off to the toilet area beside the stage to cool off. I don't think we should play another song. After a while Stachel comes back to us and tells us to get back up there. He seems to be in a far better mood now that he's had a few drinks. We head back to the stage and it feels to me like we've left it a bit late, that the crowd is sagging, but to my surprise, when we kick into We Are Dead, the crowd kicks off and there are even some people up on stage diving into the crowd. It turns out to be a really strong end to the show.

We remain on stage after the song is done and start to pack down. Overall the show feels like a success, although we had to work for it. I can see there are plenty of people over by the merch table buying shirts and records, so I guess we did a good job. After packing down we head over to Micha and Stachel and hang out for a while. A couple come over to us and ask us if we'll sign records. I tell them that of course we will. They take some photos with us too. We hang out talking for a while, they seem like a really nice couple.

Later on, Jon tells me he thinks they're are getting around to suggesting a three-way to him, which is an image I do not wish to have in my head. Although I'm not sure if he's all that far wide of the mark, the way they seem to be looking in his direction. Saucy buggers.

After hanging out at the club, drinking our way through the beer tickets we have, Johan and I trading in two each for a very strong Jim Beam and Coke, something I very rarely drink, we head off to another bar with the other bands. I'm starting to feel tipsy again.

We end up in a place called the Cobra Bar, although Stachel first takes me to a bar called Uncle Otto's. He wants to show me the place, since he used to hang here a lot when he lived in Hamburg. It's pretty dead though and we don't stay for a drink. When we get to the Cobra Bar which is right next to the Reeperbahn, it's packed out. The rest of the boys are there, as are some of the guys from Gust and our old friend Litty, who we always seem to bump into somewhere along the way when we're on the road in Germany. The bartender is a friend of Stachel's of course, he really does know people everywhere, and he tells me that we all get the first beer for free. Chuffed, I order a Staropramen. It doesn't go down all that well though and I have to concede I won't be able to handle that many more.

Stachel is drunk by now and it seems that as usual he's in the wrestling mood. The place is packed and the music is loud. There is an incident with Johan and Stachel and one of the guys from Gust, at least I think. It's all a bit hazy.. I'm not really sure what happens, but one minute Stachel has the guy from Gust's leg in some sort of hold, and the next minute Johan has pushed Stachel really hard into some people behind him. It's quite a fucking push and I'm not sure it's all that playful. Johan seems pretty drunk too. They seem to work it out, whatever it is, or at least I think they do. I'm sure we'll get to the bottom of that in the light of day tomorrow. Stachel looks a bit sad though. I think it's getting to the point where everyone is getting a bit boats. I know that this second bottle of Staro will be my last. We drink up and head out of the club in search of some falafel. Stachel is leading the way and he's drunk and grumpy again. The rest of us are laughing about the leg incident although Stachel doesn't seem to think it's so funny.

We stop at a vegan falafel place on the way back to the band apartment, drunkenly nosh down some food, Stachel saying something about refusing to come in, although when Andy asks him if he wants some food, he tells Andy that yes he'll have something to eat. When Andy asks him what he wants him to order, he just drunkenly grunts that he wants “something”. We just laugh and order him some falafel. Drunk, grumpy Stachel is quite entertaining.

The food, at this late, drunken hour tastes fucking great. That taken care of, we continue down the road, laughing again about how Stachel flew when Johan pushed him. Stachel is up ahead ignoring us.

By the time we make it back to the apartment, we all stand in line in the hallway, waiting to brush our teeth. That done, I crawl into the double bunk I'm sharing with Stachel. I'm using the rolled up sleeping bag he has lent me as a pillow, but then then he refuses to share the quilt with me. My final foggy memories are the two us drunkenly pulling the quilt back and forth and Johan snoring like a fucking elephant in the bunk above us. He's sharing that bunk with Micha, who at the moment is going through a non-drinking period and had not been in attendance at the bar with us...I'm sure he's chuffed.

Sleep.

Groningen

2011-06-17T20:01:00.002+02:00

I didn't feel as tired as I thought I would. I'd only had a few hours sleep on a mattress on Johan's floor since I worked a twelve hour shift in the bar last night, finishing at two am. By the time I got my head down at Johan's place it was two-thirty and the alarm clock was set for six-thirty. We had to be at the airport for eight-thirty. It was going to be a long day.

I was awoken by the alarm on my phone playing Wheel in the Sky by Journey. I'm getting pretty fucking sick of that song now. I've had it as my alarm for the last couple of years, it's time for a change. Anyway, when the alarm went off Johan and Pia's dog, Sigge, a very cute little chihuahua, came running through and jumped on my chest. I lay there for a couple of minutes enjoying the massage from Sigge's little paws before getting up and into the shower. After a coffee and some knäckebröd Johan and I left for the tube and off to Central Station to meet up with Andy and Jon.

We're playing Groningen tonight. To get there we're flying down to Hamburg via Copenhagen, which is actually a pain in the arse since it's two flights that are about an hour each and a direct flight from Stockholm to Hamburg is only an hour itself. Of course it's cheaper taking an in-direct flight and that's what we have to do, since the money we're making from these shows is going towards the flights for the US tour in August. Anyway, when we get to Hamburg Stachel and Micha are picking us up in the van and we're driving to Groningen and the infamous Crowbar pub, which is run by Esta from the band Fleas and Lice, to play what should be a really fun show.

We get to Hamburg airport and have a couple of hours to kill since Stachel had to work late today and he can't make it to the airport until three pm. Last time we were here, when we were going home from the Bremen show, we'd settled from some pretty shit airport pizza, that had so much grease on it you had to tip the pizza up to pour off the oil. As we sat there disappointed with our meal we spotted a sign advertising a sushi bar. And this time we would settle for nothing less.

The sushi was expensive, I worked it out as costing four lp's from Micha's distro, but it was worth it nonetheless. We sat there for a while, drinking green tea and chatting. By now I was feeling really tired. Last night's lack of sleep catching up with me. I felt tired in the way that you almost feel drun. I had a pain in my back too since yesterday at work was delivery day, which means lugging heavy kegs of beer around. Still, the green tea was helping my mood.

As we sat there at the sushi bar, which was just opposite the arrivals door, a young girl came running down the stairs towards a group of other young girls who were there to greet her. The group were waving both German and American flags, suggesting the girl who was running towards them with her arms out, tears running down her face as she was almost screaming with joy, had been away on an exchange program. When she reached the group she took the whole lot of them into her arms for one huge hug, before tending to them all individually, the screaming only barely dampening down into a long, squeaking sound. This scene of joy lasted for the best part of ten minutes. I found it quite heart rendering to see that sort of joy on other people's faces. Airport and train stations can indeed be both the happiest and saddest of places...

After having moved on to another airport café for some coffee, Stachel and Micha arrived for us in the van. Really great of them to have packed the van and have everything ready. We were on our way to Groningen, which is about a four hour drive.

A little way down the road I picked up the book I'm reading at the moment, The Story of Crass, but I barely got through a paragraph before my eye lids started sagging and I dozed off for an hour or so. It felt nice to get just a little sleep, even if it wasn't the most comfortable of rests. When I awake I'm feeling the better for it anyway and we spend the next hour packing records for the coming weekend. The four of in the back of the van, working in factory style, wrapping the limited editions of the A Dissident album that Stachel has pressed up for these European summer shows. They look really nice with a brown paper wrap around over the cover, which has the new version of the Victims logo that Richey designed for the album. Stachel has done a nice job on them. Packing your new lp with your band mates is a great way to pass time in the van.

We get to Groningen around eight-thirty pm. which makes us kinda late but it doesn't seem to be a problem. Stachel had sorted it in advance. We're only two bands tonight, a young Dutch band, Sandcreek Massacre, being the opening act. According to the original schedule they were supposed to be going on stage at nine, but there's no stress with that since the place has a curfew at midnight. We park the van up outside the venue, which is a small bar in the middle of a small one way street in the middle of town. Bloody Kev and the Regimes boys were here a while ago and they'd told me that it had been a great show, so I was looking forward to playing tonight.

We load in through a small door which leads into a thin passageway which in turn leads to both a curtain at the back of the stage and the bogs just a little further ahead. It's a tight squeeze for load in but it works. The stage is small and Johan will probably have to stand on the floor during the show. The room itself is narrow with the bar running most of the way down the left hand wall, leaving a small floor area in front of the stage that would probably fit around twenty people. I love playing these tiny places.

We get set up and are treated to some vegan lasagne and spinach pastry pie, which we nosh down in the small back room behind the bar. It's not the tastiest meal I've ever eaten but with some cayenne pepper on top it more than fulfils it's purpose. And I'm always grateful for food.

After dinner we sit around drinking a beer next to our merch table. We're not really talking that much, just kind of starting off into space. It's been a long day for everyone. I'm gonna need to get some energy from somewhere before we play tonight. I decide to take it in the form of more beer. That first Grolsch didn't really do it for me, but as that's all we're getting for our beer tokens right now, I decide to throw back the second Grolsch in an attempt to kick start my system. I drink my way through the bottle in no time and it actually does the trick. I'm feeling better.

Sandcreek Massacre go on stage and I head down front to watch them with a third and final beer before we play. I'm now starting to feel good. I enjoy watching the band. They're a guy and girl on guitar, the two of them growling and screaming respectively, a guy on bass who also does the occasional grunting and a drummer who is hitting the shit out of our rented drum kit. They play a sludgy kind of d-beat, reminding me at times of Kylesa, although that might be more to do with the fact the girl playing guitar and screaming in a similar style to Laura. Anyway, they're good and after their show I arrange to swap a seven inch with them. A really nice bunch of guys.

After that I'm ready to play.

We get our shit together and everything is sounding good. Nice to be playing my Telecaster again. Jon has arranged with Sandcreek to loan a guitar from them as back-up, which I have a strange feeling I'm going to need tonight. Jon seems to be having trouble with his tuner pedal so while he deals with that I tune up the spare guitar, which is a jagged, metal looking type of guitar, something like a BC Rich Expolrer, but not. The strings are all wound up different from each other, half of them seem to be on backwards, so with the three beers I've drank and the lack of sleep from last night, it takes me a while to get my head around tuning the thing up. We finally get everything sorted though and we kick into VIB #5. The small place is now pretty full and the atmosphere is really good. It's also pretty fucking hot on stage.

We're playing tight and controlled but by the time we get to the end of the second block I'm already feeling the burn. I guzzle water down between blocks but I sense that I'm not feeling totally right. Still, Stachel is down the front enjoying himself, as are the guys from Sandcreek Massacre, and beyond that lot are a load of other Groningen punks and everyone seems to be into it. It sounds good up on stage too. It's hard work but it's a really enjoyable gig. There must be around sixty to seventy people in the place which is enough to make it look pretty packed. Good first show for the weekend.

Despite the exhaustion creeping into my system I'm really enjoying playing. And then just as we get to the break in This is the End, my bottom string goes. Pretty good timing if you're going to break a string though. I quickly whip off my guitar and grab the Metal guitar. I hadn't really noticed before when I was trying to tune it, but the strap is set pretty high and as I play out the rest of the song, coming back in just exactly in time for the last chorus of the song, I realise I must look like Dave fucking Mustaine! I can't help but crack up. The funny thing is, as soon as I put the guitar on, the young guys in Sandcreek all run at me cheering and bowing in front of me as I play their guitar. They all look really chuffed.

I get through the rest of the set without breaking another string. By the time we're done with Your Life is Red, I'm off stage and into the marginally cooler corridor behind the stage to gasp for some air. I really don't feel that great now. I stand there guzzling water as fast as I can feeling dizzy. The rest of the guys come back and I'm happy to hear Andy is thinking along the same lines as me, as in fuck playing another couple of songs! Before we really get around to talking about it though, Johan and Jon are heading back to the stage to appease the crowd and their calls for more songs. Fuck. I follow behind, glad at least the Circles and Scars are only about a minute each. I think I can get through that.

Before we kick in to the two encores I manage to readjust the strap on the Mustaine guitar making it much easier to play. We blast through the two songs, finding the energy from fuck knows where. When Scars comes to an end I grab the bottle of water, turn my amp on to stand by and head for the exit again, politely telling someone to fuck off when they shout for another song. This time I'm not coming back. I run out of the back door and into the side alley beside the venue. It's absolutely pissing down outside. It feels fucking wonderful. I throw up the lasagne all over the pavement...

I stand in the pouring rain for about five minutes, thanking the heavens for their kind blessing. By the time I head back into the club I'm so wet it feels like I've stood in a shower. I don't feel one hundred percent right, but after throwing up I do at least feel a lot better. I guess it must have been a mixture of the heat in the club and the lack of sleep. And probably the throwing myself around on stage like a twat. By the time we've packed our gear down I really do feel a lot better. There is a girl who has been taking photos during the gig who now wants to take a band shot of us in front of the stage. She wants us to give the big shout on the count of three, so you know, we look all metal and stuff. God how I can't be fucked with this right now. I feel like a right twat stood there in front of the crowd. We try it once and the girl tells us it was really lame, that we have to shout louder. She's a nice girl and all but come on...I want to get the fuck away. One more attempt, we all shout a bit louder on the count of three and the girl is happy. She shows us the photo, I look like a right berk as usual. We thank her and then I head for the bar...

We hang out for a good while, drinking some beers and hanging out with the friendly punks in Groningen and the guys from Sandcreek Massacre. I now feel really good. This Finnish girl called Jenny comes up and introduces herself, saying that she'd heard that I was a big Liverpool fan. I tell her I am, as is Johan who is stood beside me. She shows me a big Liverpool tattoo on her arm. We become good friends very quickly. It comes to light after a little while that we're both friends with Bloody Kev. Kev, like Andy, seems to know people all over the world. Jenny and her boyfriend, Johan and I hang out drinking beer and chatting about football for a while. Jenny buys me and Johan a shot which is apparently called Dropshot. It's black and tastes like Salmiac. It's actually pretty friendly and goes down well. Although, I'm glad we only have to drink the one.

After a while Andy comes over to us with a big glass of Weiss beer in his hand. It seems that we're now allowed to drink whatever we want from the bar, such is the good atmosphere in the place. I guess that people from the venue are happy with the show.

At some point during the night a guy starts talking to Johan telling him he's a big fan of the band. He says that he'd never seen us before and that we didn't look like he'd imagined. I guess he thought we'd all have dreadlocks or something. I guess the only person who actually looks like he belongs in a crust d-beat band is Jon. Maybe...

After a couple of hours we decide it's time to head off to the place we're sleeping at tonight, which is the flat of a friend of Stachel's, called Pelle. I think.. He used to play drums in Fleas and Lice. He seems to be a very friendly crust punker type of chap. Before we leave the club, we stuff some bottles of Strongbow into Jon's bowling bag (which doubles up as his suitcase) and head for Pelle's place. I'm now feeling pretty drunk. Jon and I spend the best part of the trip back to Pelle's flat laughing about Danny Dyer...

When we get back we hang out in Pelle's living room drinking cider. I really don't need it by this point. I know that, but it goes down all the same. Pelle is explaining something about the sleeping arrangements but I'm not really taking it in. He says there are rooms upstairs and we can sleep there. He says to Johan not to sleep on the floor by the computer since he will be walking back and forward there. The computer is in the corner of the room so I figure he means he'll be up in the morning working at the computer desk. Johan heads upstairs with his sleeping bag. I decide that the fold out sofa I'm lying on in the living room will do just fine. After half-assedly brushing my teeth, I tuck up into the sleeping bag Stachel has lent me and close my eyes. Pelle has some loud crust punk on the stereo, and he and Jon are sat at the table drinking, immersed in loud, nonsensical conversation, but it's not enough to disturb me.

This long day is finally coming to an end.

Sleep.

Bremen

2011-05-16T18:19:00.007+02:00

It was only six hours, but I slept like a baby. Six hours is the average amount of sleep you can expect when you're out playing shows anyway. It's the quality of the sleep and not the amount of it you get that counts.

Today is another short drive. I could get used to this. I think anything up to five hours in the van is pretty much a breeze, it's when you start getting past that that it becomes a chore. Sometimes in the States you're doing ten hour drives a day, if you have the wrong people booking your shows. I'm glad we have Stachel taking care of all our European stuff this summer. Today's drive is little more than two hours...

I wake up around ten-thirty am. and spend the first forty minutes or so sitting up in bed checking emails and Liverpool stuff. Kenny Dalglish got the manager's job on a permanent basis yesterday, news that had Johan and I in good spirits. I'm looking forward to next season already. I'm already forgetting this one since it looks like the Scum are going to take the title today and with it and our record for most wins. Only the news of King Kenny signing on permanently could lift the gloom off that fucker.

After a hot shower I head down to the venue and into the back garden to enjoy breakfast with the rest of the guys and with Daniel and Ellen, our two new friends who did a great job of running last nights show. The spread they've put on for us is great, although the coffee with soya milk doesn't quite hit the spot. They have this mushroom paste in a tin that is for spreading on your bread that although doesn't look that great, is absolute delicious. I can't get enough of it. The coffee I'll make up for at the first available stop.

After breakfast I sit chatting with Ellen about the venue and the local scene and all the usual stuff. She tells me that although there are a lot of kids in the area that are really into the music, they're not so concerned with the politics involved. I guess to be fair I'd count as one of those people. Of course I'm on the side of everything our great scene stands for, but I've never been one for workshops and all that. It's good that there are people like Ellen that are though. She's a really nice person and it's interesting chatting with her. Making new friends is a wonderful thing. She asks me to teach her some Swedish words which I find quite funny since it's not a situation I'm used to. And then my thoughts go back to the essay I have to complete for the end of next week...

Just as we're starting to think about making a move and packing the van, we're joined at the table by a few punk kids who are drinking beer and making way too much noise for my liking. They must have stayed here last night and I'm guessing they're friends of Daniel and Ellen, although it's kind of hard to make the connection. They're not quite pulling off the old beer for breakfast cliché. I've seen it a hundred times and it doesn't impress me, but I guess we've got a few years on them and they'll grow out of it at some point. One of the guys offer Johan a swig from his beer, to which Johan firmly says, “Nej tack”, although Jon happily takes a gulp. It's kind of annoying though when they abruptly put an end to the pleasant conversation we were having. We do our best to ignore them in the politest possible manner, but when one of them jumps on something Johan says about Facebook, making a big noise about it being a corporate networking community or something along those lines, I'm already beyond bored and head back into the venue to start getting the stuff packed into the van.

After saying our goodbyes and once Stachel is done with wrestling Andy, we get into the van and head towards Bremen. It's only a two hour drive but there is a lot of traffic expected on the roads around Dortmund today since it's the last game of the season and Borussia have taken home the title. It doesn't work out that way though and Micha gets us to the venue in Bremen just before five pm.

The place we are playing tonight is fucking awesome! The stage is in a small room on the first floor of an apartment building, which is home to a punk communal. The room the stage is in would feel tight with fifty people in it. Exactly my kind of show. And to top it off, Stachel is actually the promoter tonight so I know it's going to be good.

With the venue only having a vocal PA there is no need to sound-check tonight. Instead we just load in, set our gear up on the small stage which can be no more than a few inches high, and then head off in to town to chill out for a while. Johan will most likely have to play on the floor tonight since there is no room for him in front of Andy's drums. I can't even imagine it's going to be later on with a room packed full of punks. I can hardly wait.

Once loaded in and set up, we have a couple of hours to kill before the venue opens, so we take the van down to the river near Werder Bremen's football stadium. Checking out football grounds all over the world is another favourite past-times of mine. Bremen's looks like a big upside down cake tin.

After a relaxing walk around the river area we head back into town and sit down to some pizza. I opt for a topping of feta cheese, spinach and onion. It's nothing special but the restaurants home made hot sauce is awesome and makes the meal thoroughly enjoyable, as does the bottle of Moretti that washes it down.

By the time we're done it's seven pm. and we decide to head back to the venue. It's one of those lazy days today. When we get back to the venue, we head upstairs to the living room on the top floor and sit around watching episode upon episode of the American version of The Office. Jon and Andy are glued to the sofa pretty much right up to show time. When I hear the the support band, Zodiac, have started playing I rise from my slumber on the sofa and head downstairs to check them out. When I get downstairs I make my way down the hallway to the stage room. There are people milling around all over the place. Outside in the street, in the room to the side of the stage room where Micha has set up his distro and our merch. There is a nice buzz about this show tonight. After chatting quickly with Micha and buying another couple of lp's, I go to check Zodiac out. I can't even get through the door! I stand in the doorway for a while, which is to the right behind the low stage but it's no use, I can't really see anything.

I head back to Stachel who is sat at the door taking money and he tells me there are one hundred and twenty people in tonight. The room where the stage is is roughly the combined area of my living room and kitchen. This is going to be one beautiful gig.

When Zodiac are done I make my way to the stage and help the guys with their gear. The guitarist on my side of the stage looks like he's had a shower. His t-shirt is soaked through and glued to his chest. You can almost see the steam in the room...

By the time we're set up, tuned up and ready to go, we are pinned in and surrounded by the crowd. I have people in front of me, people to the side of me and behind me. It's absolutely packed. I fear that with my normal flapping guitar style, I'm going to plant my guitar in someone's coupon! I'll have to try and restrain myself.

Before we even start I almost belt Stachel's lovely flat-mate, Mica. I give her a hug and tell her I'm sorry. As she does so often though, she just laughs and then tells me she can't wait for the show.

I have a space of roughly one square foot to play in, and already the small space on the stage I have, which almost puts me on top of Andy's kit, is as slick as ice. Johan is on the floor in front of the stage, in the crowd. I'll be amazed if he doesn't get to eat his microphone at least once tonight. We blast in to the first block of V5, Rewind and Forward and then Who The Fuck Are We? By the time we're done with that block, about two and a half minutes later, I'm soaked in sweat. By the time we get through another couple of blocks I'm already nearing my limit.

At the start of the set I'd been full of energy and I noticed the people in the crowd in front me having to duck my swinging guitar a couple of times. By the time get to the start of Lies about half way through the set, I notice Stachel right in front of me and decide to take advantage of his strong little legs and use them as a seat during the brief moments of Jon's guitar intro.

I look over at Jon during the gig and his space is as limited as mine. Johan is rocking out hard on the floor in the crowd, he seems like he's having a great show. As much as the heat is punishing, I'm absolutely loving this show, as is the crowd. I'm very glad that I remembered to take a bottle of water with me to the stage tonight. As I swigging from it between songs near the end of the set, Andy warns me that I keep getting really close to stamping on my pedals when I'm playing. I hadn't noticed. I had noticed that Andy's cymbals have come pretty close to my head a couple of times.

By the time we get to the last two songs, Broken Bones and Your Life Is Red, I'm not even sure I'm going to make it through. I feel physically sick and dizzy. By the time the songs are over, I put my guitar down and almost run to the cool air of the hallway beside the stage, out to where Micha's merch is. I wonder if the guys are going to follow. I'm hoping they do. They don't. I guess if we're going to play a couple of extra songs it's hardly worth their while fighting their way over to my side of the crowd. A couple of minutes go by and I hear Johan talking to the crowd. I guess we're going back on. The couple of minutes of cooler air have helped me though and I no longer feel that dizzy. When I get back on stage I shout over to the guys, joking, “You fucking cunts!”. Andy looks at me exhausted, “I know!” I love playing in this band.

We get through Circles and then Scars with a renewed vigour and then it really is time to clear out. This time I head straight for the street outside and park my ass on the pavement up against the wall of the house. It's pretty cold outside now. Sweet relief. I sit there for a good ten minutes before heading back in.

Nobody is in a particular rush to pack down tonight. We pack up the stuff and then leave it on stage so we can drink a beer ad chill out before we load the van. I get talking to a couple of interesting people. There is one nice gentleman who tells me he really liked my blog about the songs on the album. I thank him. We chat for a while and he asks if we're going for a drink anywhere after the show. I tell him that Johan and I are most likely going back to 1^st. Class Suicide since our friend Daniel is working in the bar tonight. I tell the guy we'll see him there.

We pack up the van and head back to Stachel's to sort ourselves out. Andy and Jon are opting for a night in front of Stachel's tv. Jon wants to continue watching The Office. It's around two am. when Johan, Stachel and I head back out in to town where we meet up with Stachel's friend who has done the posters for this tour and who also does a lot of the graphic stuff for Stachel's label. A really nice girl called Kurzi. We're all starving. We head back to Torno's and I once again enjoy their superb falafel. And then we head to our friend Daniel for some drinks.

When we get to 1^st. Class Suicide, Daniel is looking ready to close up. We put a stop to those plans. He's such a big friendly guy though that he doesn't mind, and he truly loves making cocktails. And anyhow, he drinks as much as he serves anyway! We sit down at the bar and after an initial Whisky Sour, the theme of the night turns to gin. Daniel gives me a drop of this superb gin called Monkey 47, which he serves me straight up. It's smooth and has a slight hint of lingonberry in it's flavour. It's absolutely superb. Next up is a shot of Bombay Sapphire with a dash of sugar-water laced with dill. This blows my mind. I've never heard of anything like it, but it tasted amazing. The night goes on...and before long Stachel is pretty drunk, whilst Johan is a heady mixture of drunk and exhausted. He's struggling to keep his eyes open. I feel like I could go on all night though.

The guy I had met at the venue and mentioned this place to, is indeed here. Although he's sat on a chair with his head between his legs, his long hair hanging down to the ground, an undisturbed Bloody Mary on the table in front of him.

Johan can hardly take it any more, he has to go to the toilet just to move himself and keep himself awake. Stachel is looking pretty toasted. He cracks me up, he's got long hair these days and with his hat on looks like Brian Johnson, the AC/DC singer. He does a great impression of Johnson's stage moves, which I had him doing earlier. I look at Daniel and tell him it's time to go. The clock is nearing five am.

When we walk back to Stachel's place, the sun is beginning to rise and the birds are beginning to sing. This doesn't please the little man who is lagging behind us further down the road. He's shouting at me and Johan ahead about how much he hates it when the birds come out in the early hours and sing. “I hate the birds! They fucking suck!” We crack up and keep on walking. A little while later we hear him whining, “Gery (as he always calls me), my shoes are open...” Johan and I just laugh at him and keep walking.

By the time we get back to Stachel's pad, Andy and Jon are of course fast asleep. I don't feel so drunk although it's late and already I'm starting to feel that Andy made a wise choice in getting some sleep tonight. We have to get up around eleven. But then I think, fuck it. When I'm home I work and study and take it pretty easy, right now I'm out with the boys playing shows and having a good time. I can get a full nights sleep tomorrow night instead.

Wermelskirchen

2011-05-14T20:19:00.003+02:00

I wake up shivering. It's seven-thirty am. I look over at Micha who is fast asleep on the mattress next to mine. Where am I? Why am I so fucking cold? It takes a few seconds for the groggy haze to lift before I remember where I am. I'm at Ronald's place. I'm lying in just a t-shirt and boxer shorts and all I have for a cover is a small hand towel. No matter how I pull at it, try and arrange it in to some sort of position, I can't get it to cover my legs and bring me warmth...

I wake up shivering. It's eight-fifteen am. I look over at Micha who is fast asleep on the mattress next to mine. Where am I? Why am I so fucking cold?....

This happens at least another three times.

Eventually I awake dying for a piss and thus, after much deliberation, I slumber off in search of a toilet. My head is thumping again. I'm still fucking freezing. I make my way downstairs in search of both somewhere to piss and something to use as a cover. My decision against bringing a sleeping bag with me for this trip now something of great regret to me. With all my experience of touring I can't believe how stupid I've been. That doesn't matter right now though. I need to piss so much that my stomach hurts.

The guys are spread about Ronald's living room, fast asleep the lot of them. I step over a few bodies and reach the asylum of the toilet, making sure I avoid the mirror as I relieve my self. Christ, my mouth is as dry as a nun's fadge. Still, after pissing I feel about a stone lighter. Relief. I head back upstairs and back to the mattress and the hand towel.

I wake up shivering...

It's only when I'm awoken by Micha getting up for a shower around ten am. that the idea hits me. I see my jeans lying on the floor beside me. Ahhhh...warm legs at last. I sleep for another half an hour and then it's time to get up. I head for the shower. As the warm water hits me and my head begins to clear, the headache now subsided, I wonder if all that fighting with the hand towel had actually happened, or if it was just a drunken dream...

After some breakfast at Ronald's place and everyone is showered, except Jon who declines, we are back in the van. I'm starting to think these weekend trips are the way to go. Or more to the point, Stachel's planning is the way forward. When Stachel books a show with a promoter, he doesn't ask them what time we have to be at the venue, he asks them what the latest possible time we can arrive will be. Very smart. That way we avoid hanging around at a venue doing nothing for hours on end, and thus wasting a perfectly good day. If you ask a venue what time you need to be there, they'll inevitable tell you to be there at three pm. or something equally unnecessary. If that happens, nine times out of ten you'll be waiting outside the venue before the sound guy even turns up. Thanks to Stachel's meticulous planning, today would be no such occasion. Today would be the perfect day on tour...

The drive from Ronald's place, just outside of Amsterdam, to Wermelskirchen is somewhere between two and three hours. In tour terms, nothing at all. A breeze. We decided we would travel to Amersfoort and visit an old friend of the guys, Jos, who plays in the band Seein' Red as well as many others. I'd never met Jos before but I was looking forward to doing so.

Unfortunately, a couple of days ago we'd heard some very sad news concerning Jos. Nobody seems to be quite sure why or how, but he'd lost a large part of his hearing. Whether it was an infection or playing loud music for so many years, his ear drums had burst, leaving him with only twenty percent left in his right ear and as yet, an undetermined amount in his left, pending examination. Really tragic news.

We arrived at Jos's place around one thirty pm. The first thing that struck me was what a giant of a man he is. He's as big as a bear. The second thing that struck me was what an absolute gentleman he is. We sat around at his place drinking superb black coffee and talking with him about what had happened. Despite the circumstances, he seemed in good spirits. His ability to hear what we were talking about, even with my mumbling accent, was surprisingly good. Jos is one of those people deeply embedded in the scene. One of those people everybody knows. We talk about what's going on in the community right now, old friends, old records, what's happening in Japan and friends that are over there, everything. He tells us that he's waiting on finding out how damaged his left ear is and the possibility of performing an operation to mend his hearing. Best case scenario, he can play music again in a few months time. Worst case scenario doesn't even bear thinking about.

We spend a couple of hours at Jos's place, just catching up and shooting the breeze. He has a really nice house and an even nicer record collection. There must be at least a few thousand on the shelves. There is nothing more fun than viewing someone else's collection.

As we sit there talking, somehow the topic of Stachel's fear of sharks comes into conversation. At first I don't really catch what he's saying. I mean, isn't everyone kind of scared of sharks? Everyone should be at least. It soon becomes apparent though that Stachel's fear is on a whole other level.

He tells us that watching Jaws as a nine year old had really put the shits up him. It was so bad that after seeing the film that one time, even though he was only in the local swimming baths, when another kid had joked that there was a shark in the water, he'd swam out of the pool, fast as fuck, shitting himself. We all burst out laughing at this. He explains that in Jaws 3 the shark had gotten into the pool somehow, so in his nine year old mind, a shark being in his local swimming baths was perfectly plausible. Again, we burst out laughing. He tells us that this fear has now developed into a general fear of swimming in murky water, be it lake or ocean. At one point he actually says the following: “I don't like it when I'm swimming in water and I can't see what beneath my feet. It could be sharks or whales or submarines, I don't know. Scary shit!” Now we're really fucking pissing ourselves! The thought of Stachel paddling around in the water worried about a submarine creeping up on him is a quite brilliant image...

When we're all done laughing at our good friend, we decide to take a walk around the town of Amersfoort with Jos as our guide, a trip to the local micro-brewery being top of the agenda. Now this truly beats hanging around at a venue all day.

Amersfoort is a beautiful old city encased by ancient parameter walls. It reminds me a little of York. Jos takes us to this little brewery situated next to the river, which is a working micro-brewery and bar in one. Between the lot of us, we sample all they have to offer. The beer is superb. After a glass of Bock which is 5,9% and another beer named Triple, which weighs in at 6,8%, I'm feeling that warm, cosy afternoon hit. We all are. I buy a few bottles of the Triple to take home. I certainly won't be needing any more this afternoon.

We walk around the ancient town with Jos as our guide, all pleasantly toasted. It's a good thing we're not playing for another eight hours or so. Before we leave for Wermelskirchen, Jos introduces us to one of Amersfoort's proudest delicacies. Hand cut chips with spicy peanut butter sauce. There is a great little shop which exclusively sells these chips, with an assortment of different sauces. Although there is quite a choice, I'm totally sold on the spicy peanut butter. As strange as it sounds, it's absolutely wonderful.

After thanking Jos for a great afternoon, we drive the rest of the way to Wermelskirchen. We get there just in time to load in and sound-check. The couple of hours in the van being enough time to let the effects of Amersfoort's beer wear off. The guy who does sound at the venue tonight, Frank Bolz, is another good friend of Stachel's. He does the mastering for all of the records Stachel puts out on his label, as well as recording a lot of bands himself. He's very serious about his job and he's very fucking good at it. The sound we get on stage is one of the best I've ever played with. It's very rare that sound-checking is this enjoyable.

The venue itself is a great place, with great people running it. It reminds me a little of Truckstop Alaska. The room where the stage is at is just the right size, it can probably hold about one hundred and fifty people. The stage is about five feet high and has plenty of room on it to make a show of yourself. The room next door is where the bar is at and on the back side of that is a garden area where there are sofas and tables and a food bar where they are grilling some amazing looking vegan burgers. Above the venue is a band apartment where there are beds for everyone and a kitchen and dining room. The two people running the place are called Daniel and Ellen, two of the friendliest people you could wish to meet. As is often the case when out on tour with Victims, I find myself wondering why we couldn't have played more places like this with Speedhorn.

There are plenty of people at the show tonight and a really good band supporting us called Patsy O'Hara, who are kind of German screamo style mixed with some d-beat and instrumental parts that remind me of Fall of Efrafa in their quieter moments. They are really nice guys too and I enjoy watching their show, all the while getting pumped up to play after them.

In keeping with the smooth flowing operation that today has been, we're on stage by eleven-twenty. I'm buzzing as the room starts to fill up with people filtering in from the bar and garden area as we let the feedback ring. It sounds amazing. I'm ready.

Tonight's show falls into a category of show I've played down the years. The room is pretty full, the energy on-stage is buzzing, we play really hard and despite the heat don't ever feel like tiring. It's that magical third gig. After warming up with a couple of shows it's now back at the level where you can bounce your guitar of the wall mid riff, catch it and still land on the right note. It's a truly great feeling. I feel like we're killing this show tonight. The crowd on the other hand is another matter. It's one of those that even though they're not kicking off and going crazy, somehow you still feel a really good energy from them, which is confirmed with the generous applause and shouting between song blocks. When we leave the stage at the end of the set, the calling for an encore is in full unified voice. We go back out and play Circles and Scars, no discussion this time.

At the end of the set proper, we thank the crowd and crawl off to the corridor at the side of the stage. Frank seems to take an age putting the disco music back on, apparently wanting more from us himself. As we sit there waiting for the music to come on the crowd continues to chant for us to come back on. One voice, pleading it's way through the drone particularly cracking me up. - One more sooooong! And then a few moments later... - Pleeease! And then... - Halllo! Brilliant stuff.

Frank eventually comes into us and asks us if we're done. We are. He nods and heads back to the sound desk and puts some music on. We sit around chilling out and discussing the show. We're all really satisfied, although Jon says he had some boring looking bird stood in front of him looking like she was falling asleep during the entire show. Haha, why do some people bother? It turns out she was there with her boyfriend, who was enjoying the show somewhat more.

I'm not sure but I think Jon was playing the show in a t-shirt tonight...I know this is nothing out of the ordinary for most people but Jon has been going bare-top ever since I joined the band, in itself stemming back to when he saw High on Fire, and in particular Matt Pike, one of his idols, playing without a top on. This is the theory according to Andy and Johan at least. I ask Jon if he had indeed played in his t-shirt tonight, to which he replies shaking his head, “Yeah. I saw a picture of myself on-stage a while ago...You can't go up there with tits for fuck sakes!” I love the self-distance Jon has from himself.

When we're packed down on stage, leaving the gear there for the night, we chill out upstairs with the guys from Patsy O'Hara and a couple of bottles of local beer. It's not Amersfoort Triple, but it will do. Jon's friend Luc is also hanging out with us. He's got a pretty cool Victims tattoo on his leg. We talk with him about the possibility of playing his festival, Bloodshed, later on in the year. I hope that is something we can work out. After a while we head downstairs to the bar area where we hang out with Stachel and Micha and Andy and I slowly go about dissecting their distros. I pick up around twelve records, as well as Yaphet Kotto lp from another distro the Patsy guys have.

We spend a couple of very enjoyable hours drinking beer, telling stories and hanging out with Daniel and Ellen, who's birthday it is today. Jon hangs out by the fuss-ball table with a big smile on his face, watching some German punk kids play a game. He's at the point where his brain is disconnected and he's barking Swedish at nobody in particular.

This has truly been the perfect day on tour. I feel a little tipsy when we head to bed, although far from steaming. Just good. Me and Jon have been laughing about this English actor named Danny Dyer, who did a documentary series about football hooliganism called The Real Football Factories a while back. He's this really over the top cockney actor, who in truth, can't act for shit. The documentary series was great though. Well, really funny anyway, full of stupid people. It was actually Viktor from Nitad who had started going on about it on the Gothenburg trip a couple of weeks ago. Jon has been obsessed ever since.

We go to bed in the dormitory we're sharing, me and Jon laughing about that. A few muffled giggles soon turn into a wave of hysteria. It's fucking weird. It's like being back in school. Andy, Johan and Stachel are lying in bed sleeping and every time I hear Jon start laughing I burst into a fit of my own. At one point I'm lying on my stomach with my face in the pillow in order to stifle the laughter. Absolutely ridiculous. This goes on for about fifteen minutes.

When I fall asleep tonight it's not with a headache, it's my stomach that hurts.

Amsterdam

2011-05-13T22:24:00.005+02:00

“We'll go there for one drink and then we'll head back and get some sleep.” Famous last words that have been said many a time. You think we'd learn...

I woke up in bed next to Stachel with my head pounding.

We flew in to Hamburg last night where Stachel had picked us up in the van with all of the gear we're renting for this weekend trip. We couldn't find any affordable flights into Amsterdam for the first show tomorrow, so we opted to fly into Germany the night before and hang out with our good friend Stachel for one extra night. We just can't get enough of the little man. And besides, it's nice starting with a day off.

We landed around ten pm. and by the time we got to Bremen it was just before midnight. The roadworks on the Hamburg to Bremen autobahn still no nearer completion it seems. They must have been restoring that road for the last decade. By the time we get to Stachel's place we're all starving. I've never been in Bremen before, it must be the only big town in Germany that I've not played in, although that will be accomplished on Saturday.

We take a walk into town and it's pretty quiet. It's a nice looking place though. Stachel had promised us Bremen's best falafel and I was dying to check it out. The place is a nice little no frills- hole in the wall kebab shop called Torno. The falafel hits the spot perfectly and when Jon cracks open a large bottle of Becks, the temptation for a beer is too much for both myself and Johan. It feels good to have warm food inside me after a dinner of airport and air-plane sandwiches. The beer doesn't feel too bad either...

Stachel has been telling me for a long time now about a friend of his called Daniel that is a great cocktail bartender. He's also played in a few hardcore bands, one of which was Mörser. Anyway, he works at this really nice little place called 1^st. Class Suicide on Wednesday evenings, and with all we've been hearing about the place, the man and the drinks, and this being Wednesday night, we feel obliged to check it out, even if it's just for one drink before we go to sleep at Stachel's place...

I opt for a drink that is made up of gin, melon, cucumber and chilli. It might sound a bit strange but it was absolutely tremendous. Johan goes for a Ginger Cosmopolitan. I know as soon as the cocktail menu comes out that this won't be the last drink. And then when the Jagermeister shots arrive courtesy of Daniel I know I'm going to have a headache the next day. I really don't like doing shots anymore but you don't want to appear ungrateful. Jon starts getting stuck in to some other crazy booze that smells like cloves but I make sure I stay clear of that fucker... A few more drinks and a beer, as well as some good chat with Daniel about old shows and new bands, and we head back to Stachel's. I can feel the headache even before I go to sleep. So much for only one drink.

A couple of paracetamol and a shower later and I feel better, although my head was killing when I first woke. By the time I'm done with the breakfast Stachel has made us I'm feeling good for the day ahead. The drive to Amsterdam takes around five hours. Another friend of ours, Micha, who runs the wonderful Punk Distro label, is coming out to the shows helping with the driving. He's bringing a few boxes of records to sell at the shows too, so I guess I'll be coming home broke as per usual. The drive to Amsterdam goes by pretty fast since I spend most of it studying. The college term ends next week and I still have a bit to do, so I don't have much choice. I'm trying not to get stressed about it, but next week I have a big essay to write on Selma Lagerlöf's Kejsaren av Portugallien, which has to be handed in by Friday. So for the first time in my life, I actually sat in the band van doing school work. I'm not planning on making a habit of it...

We get to Amsterdam around seven pm. Perfect timing. The doors to the show open at nine and we're on around eleven so the night should fly by nice and smoothly. Nothing worse than hanging around at a venue doing nothing but waiting around.

We get done with soundcheck, it sounds good. The gear Stachel has gathered together for us seems to be concrete. During soundcheck tonight I can tell that we're all a lot more relaxed on stage than we were at the first show in Gothenburg, when even in soundcheck the songs were flying along at an uncontrollable pace. It feels now like that show helped shake the cobwebs off. We play through a few songs and everything feels really good. After we're done we tuck into some delicious risotto that the venue has made for us up in the room above the venue. I'm not that hungry but it's so good that I'm forced to take seconds. Can't let good food go to waste on tour.

We don't have any spare guitars with us on these shows, which for me can be a fucking problem. After dinner I put new strings on my guitar, which is without doubt, the most boring chore known to man. I hate it. I'm hoping that this new set will get me through the three shows at least, otherwise there is going to be some uncomfortable pauses onstage. When we're done with dinner and strings, Jon and I take a walk around the park opposite the venue. Good to stretch the legs for a bit. It's a beautiful night and the park provides some welcome fresh air.

It's nice to be back in Amsterdam. It would have been fun to get into town a bit earlier today and hang out with some friends, but at the same time, getting to hang out at Stachel's this morning without any stress was too good to pass up. After hanging out in the park for a while, listening to Jon tell me about some French film he's been in to recently, we head back to the venue to meet my friend Lotje. Outside the venue is one of Amsterdam's many heavily trafficked cycle lanes and as we approach the venue Jon gets belled at by some old lady on her bike, who comes cycling up behind him. Jon almost jumps out of his skin whilst grabbing on to my arm and shouting some expletives in Swedish at her. I crack up laughing as does the old lady and a few other people who witness the spectacle.

Lotje comes down and meets me at the show and we go to a bar on the corner and catch up over a beer. It's always good to see her. It seems like things are going really well for her at the moment. She and a friend of hers opened up a hostel a few months ago and it's gone amazingly well. As well as that she's doing some work tour managing for the Swedish pop singer Robyn. She's off to the States in a few weeks with that. It's really nice to catch up in this quiet bar just a few doors down from the venue, although our time is too short as always since I have to worry about getting back for the show. Lotje doesn't feel like coming in to hang out a noisy punk show so she heads off home. As I say goodbye to her another friend of mine, Igor, texts me letting me know he's at the venue. We chat for a good fifteen minutes before I head into the venue to catch the end of Hysteria's set.

I like this venue. It reminds me of a slightly larger Kafe 44, but with a bar and a bigger stage. There are by now about eighty people in and it looks pretty good. I'm looking forward to playing. Hysteria sound really good, the girl singer has some pretty brutal vocals. The bass payer is a friend of Jon's who we were talking to earlier and who I only now realise is playing in the band. I'm going to have to pick up their record.

Hysteria finish just after eleven which gives us about fifteen minutes to set up since the venue has a curfew set for midnight, which is mainly due to the fact that the last train away from this part of town departs not long after. We want to get up on stage and get on with it, since there is nothing worse than playing a show to a crowd of people that are forced to leave before the end of the set due to transport restrictions. We get set up quick though, and it still sounds good up on stage, which is credit to the in-house sound guy. Hysteria had their own sound engineer with them and I don't know who's fuck up it was, but the settings we had on the desk from soundcheck got wiped.

Since we played the show in Gothenburg a couple of weeks ago we've rearranged the set. That night at Truckstop felt like we were just playing a bunch of songs in no particular order. We've since been back in the rehearsal room and sorted it out. We've cut a couple of new songs away and everything feels a lot more structured now. We start off with Victims in Blood #5 and when we're done with the first block, three songs and two minutes later, I know it's going to be a good gig. Even if I did snap one of those new strings before we'd even started...

I didn't bother mentioning it to the guys since it's only the High E string and I don't need it. With time getting on, I decide to just play the set without it and hope that it's not a bad omen for the rest of the show. It isn't. Although it's in the back of my mind, I don't really hold back from playing since you can't really do that and enjoy the show properly, so I decide to just go for it whilst making sure that I have a spare pack of strings within reaching distance.

The crowd is really enthusiastic tonight. They tepidly creep forward from the back of the dance-floor to the front of the stage on Johan's demand, but once we start, they kick off. Amazing how one gig can make a difference. After about six songs in Gothenburg I thought I was going to pass out, but tonight the energy is flowing. I can sense that the other guys are feeling it too. Everybody seems to be enjoying the gig and in no time the set flies by. We finish up by playing Circles and Scars as a couple of extra songs and then we're done. We stand there discussing the fact that somebody had requested For We Are Dead but I want to stick with the plan. The guys are keen to play the guys request. I joke with them asking them if we're a cabaret act. I get my way.

The show felt like a really good start to the weekend. I make my way through the crowd to get a gasp of fresh air and enjoy the rest of my bottle of water. It was by no means the hottest show I've ever played tonight but I'm nonetheless dripping in sweat by the time I make it out in to the cool night breeze.

I meet a couple of people out there who really seemed to enjoy the show. One is a guy from South Korea who is in Amsterdam studying for a year. He tells me his name is Moonsick. I don't know how you spell his name but he explains it to me by first pointing at the moon and then holding his stomach and making a puking action. Really nice kid. We talk for a while about South Korea and the punk scene there. He tells me it's small but there are a few bands trying to do something. He tells me he's collecting a load of new records whilst he's here to take back and introduce to people at home since there isn't a lot of access to punk rock over there.

Another kid comes out of the venue who I recognise from being at the front and dancing throughout the entire show. He's covered in sweat and gasping for air by the time he gets to the street. He tells me that he travelled two hundred kilometres to come to the show tonight, which absolutely blows my mind. He keeps thanking me over and over for the show. I tell him that is I who is thankful to him. I chat for a little while longer with my new friends before heading back into the venue to claim a well earned bottle of Budvar. It tastes superb flowing down my throat.

We hang out for a while longer, chatting to our friends in the band Vitamin X who are from Amsterdam. We talk mostly about touring in the States and our friend Scotty, who has put out our records on his label Tankcrimes. As much as playing shows is what it's all about, hanging out with friends and catching up in different cities all over the world is what holds your heart dear to touring like we do.

We load out around one am. The bike lane is still really busy and as I'm in the middle of throwing gear into the back of the van I'm almost hit by a lady on a Paralympic style wheel chair. She's moving fast as fuck and I barely see her as she whizzes past me irritably ringing her bell. When we're packed we drive out to our friend Ronald's place, who was promoting the show tonight. Even though he's straight-edge, he's filled his fridge with beer for us and bought us a load of food for breakfast. Great guy. We sit up drinking beer and listening to records by Infest, Jerry's Kids and Herätys, all on a suitable low volume. Perfect.

By the time four am. comes around, we all start flaking and making plans for how we're going to sleep. The guys spread themselves around the sofas and the floor of Ronald's living room. I make a bee-line for the back room upstairs where Micha has already crashed out.

I feel another headache coming as I crash out on one of the mattresses Ronald has laid out for us.

Gothenburg

2011-05-02T23:29:00.007+02:00

I always have a hard time getting to sleep the night before an early rise. It's the hours I work. I'm used to going to bed at four in the morning and getting up around ten. If my alarm clock is set at any time before nine then my head refuses to turn off. This morning the clock was set for seven and last night I lay in bed reading my book until two, and even then, when I finally turned the light out, I only lay there thinking about that fucking alarm clock.

Jon and Ana were picking me up in the van at ten past eight. I knew they'd be bang on time too, Jon is impeccably fucking punctual.

Despite only sleeping for five hours, I felt pretty good when I woke up. After a shower, a cup of tea and some marmalade on toast, I took Bonzo out for a quick piss. It was a beautiful morning. Tonight we would be playing the first Victims show in almost a year. I can't believe it's been so long. Seems crazy. This is the longest I've been without playing a show, since I started playing shows. The only gig I've played in the last nine months was when Battle of Santiago performed with Stig Larsson at an antique book store, and that was in November. I'm looking forward to getting things going again with Victims, now that we have a new record out.

I'm not sure how the gig is going to be tonight, though we're sure to be a bit rusty. The venue we're playing, Truckstop Alaska, is absolutely great. Last time we played there it was with Regimes, AC4 and We Live in Trenches. It was a fun night. This time around though, the show has been arranged at short notice. Martin At The Gates only asked us a few weeks ago, so that coupled with the fact that it's Valborg tonight (which seems to be a big deal here in Sweden), makes tonight's turn out hard to predict.

Jon calls me at ten to eight. I'm still out with Bonzo. He tells me he's on his way. We have to be at the venue for three pm and besides the other guys in the band, we're picking up Viktor Nitad and Stachel who runs our European label, La Familia. They're two great friends and it's really fun to have them along. I'm always happy to have extra faces in the van, and with Jon's girlfriend Ana driving, we have a good little crew today.

The van journey down to Gothenburg takes around six hours including the compulsory stop for a veggie burger at Max in Jönköping. We'd picked up Stachel from Björn Disfear's place, just outside of Nyköping. Stachel had flown in from Bremen last night to hang out and drink beer with Björn and Markus, who are really into brewing their own beer. It was good to see them and chat for a short while. Things have been pretty fucked up the last few weeks, since Henrik, the Disfear bass player, passed away. I'm sure the three of them had a toast or two in his name last night.

We arrive at the wonderful Truckstop Alaska on Hisingen Island, which Jon informs me is Sweden's third largest, just after three pm. This is one of the few times I've been to Gothenburg and seen the sun shining in the sky. Even though we're in the middle of an industrial estate, baked in the sun, the place right now looks beautiful. I'm looking forward to tonight.

We load in and then hang out for a while in the beer and grill garden they have out back. The guys who run this place should be really proud of what they have created here. They have put a lot of hard work into it. The venue itself is awesome. Really good stage, loads of sofas and lamps spread around the venue, a great selection of beer by the bottle that they keep at very cheap prices and some great food. They have a band apartment in the back with around seven beds, a kitchen and a shower, even a tv and a bunch of DVDs. As soon as you turn up here, you feel welcome. I wish we'd played more places like this with Speedhorn.

Whilst waiting to soundcheck, we hang out in the back garden, sitting on a sofa in the sun, drinking a cold bottle of Oppigård's wonderful Golden Ale. I have barely drunk a drop during the last two months. I took what we call a “white month” in Sweden, but when I got to four weeks, just carried on. No special reason, I just haven't felt like drinking for a while. It does me good to take these periods at least once a year. It's always healthy to have a little inner certification that you can go a month without drinking, not that I drink that much any more anyway... I'm happy to leave the partying for touring. There is nothing worse than being really hungover at home, and these days I get hungover after four beers. I don't even have to be drunk to get hungover any more! I must be getting old...

The beer in my hand, whilst sat on the sofa in the sun, chatting away to Viktor, tasted fucking brilliant though. I'll have to limit myself to just a couple before we play. The problem is, we're not playing until midnight. The one draw back about playing Truckstop is that you play late. Well, it's not that late, but we're here from three pm. since they open at six. I'm not sure why really. They set the stage times late since they say that “everybody comes late”. Well then, why open at six? Or why not put the bands on from ten pm. and tell everybody to get their fucking arses down in time. As much as I like Truckstop, hanging around at a venue for nine hours, waiting to play, is going to kill your energy for a show. Either that, or you're going to end up steaming before you go on.

Whilst waiting around for soundcheck, Johan and I witness something that dampens the mood of this most glorious afternoon. We're sat on the steps that lead from the club down to the grill garden at the back, drinking black coffee. There are a couple of denim vest-wearing hard rocker guys (everybody in Gothenburg looks like they're in Graveyard right now) hanging around in the yard messing around with an air rifle. At first, we just chuckle to ourselves, since it's the perfect picture of the classic hard rock stereotype... dudes with beers, firing guns at shit. We soon notice though, to our horror, that they're firing at a wounded seagull that is flapping around on the ground over by the fence. We wonder what the fuck is going on! We sit there, getting wound up, when one of the guys from the club tells us they'd found the bird with a broken wing, and they were performing the humane necessity. I feel bad for even doubting the guys, I had thought that it seemed weird for people at this place to be acting like cunts. The image of that poor bird makes me pretty sad. Eventually they have to break its neck, since they can't get a shot on it. I hear the bird screaming in panic as they grab it and I have to take a deep breath. What a fucking downer. The guy who had explained to us what was going on, manages to lighten the mood ever so slightly with the comment, “Could this scene look more white trash!?”, and even though we snigger, the mood is a little sombre for a while.

We soundcheck. It sounds good on stage, although we're playing the songs a little too fast. Viktor tells us that it sounds good out front, which is the most important thing. Satisfied, the whole gang heads of for a walk around the area. It's either a bus or a boat journey into the city, which feels like too much of an effort, given the time of day, so we head down to the waterside and sit there in the sun, whilst Jon points out the different landmarks of Gothenburg situated across the water. He lived here as a kid and still feels a big connection with the place. We sit there in the sun for a good hour. It's nice just to change the scene for a little while. It would have been kinda fun to head over on the short ferry to the city centre for a while, but nobody bothers even suggesting it. We're happy just sat there chatting away.

I limit myself to just two more beers before we go on stage at midnight. The coffee continues to flow though. The guys make a really great veggie lasagne that we gratefully tuck in to as well. We sit around at the venue on one of the sofas for the next three hours or so. Viktor is happily letting the beers fly, Andy is sticking to his hard disciplined ways of not touching a drop before we play, although he admits around ten pm. that he's “fucking thirsty!”. Stachel has had a few and in his usual mischievous manner, has decided a sofa wrestle with Viktor is in order. Samsa and Ulf from We Live in Trenches are here hanging out, it's good to see those guys. Jon has gone off exploring his old neighbourhood with his good friend, Robban, who was the guy who did all the poetry stuff on the second Acursed record. Jon had actually brought his bowling ball bag (he's fucking obsessed right now), but a game hadn't panned out. The night is casually flowing along and by about ten pm. people slowly start steadily trickling through the doors.

Miasmal are playing before us tonight, which is Pontus from Martyrdöd's other band. They're pretty good, kind of trashy death metal with elements of crust. The bass player looks like Cliff Burton and plays fast as fuck with his fingers. I spend most of their set watching him, very impressed with his style. The drummer plays the first few songs wearing sunglasses, which looks a bit silly. I'm glad when he takes them off. I enjoy watching Miasmal although I'm starting to feel like my energy is seeping away. More coffee. There are quite a lot of people here now. I head over to Andy who's stood on the other side of the room, and from there I notice for the first time, that the drums don't sound too good. I don't know who's kit it is, and I don't know if it's the kit or the PA, but the drums sound like cardboard boxes. As I'm thinking about this, Andy leans in to my ear and shares the very same concern. We can only hope for better when we play...

With all the coffee that's being flying down my throat, I constantly have to piss. Just as Miasmal finish, I decide that I should go one last time before it's time to play. Nothing worse than being on stage dying for a slash. When I get to the Gents, there is a space between the two guys stood at the urinal. One is a Graveyard type, the other is some drunk idiot I noticed walking around the dance floor doing silly moves whilst Miasmal were playing. He's now stood there pissing, singing full blast with his eyes closed. He has this really weird, squeaky voice. I sigh, unzip and try and squeeze out a piss. I takes a while. In fact, it doesn't seem to be happening. Graveyard is looking at me. The idiot is still singing. Graveyard looks down at my knob and then asks me, “Are you just standing here holding your balls for no reason?”

“Why yes, it appears I am,” I say, “I must have some sort of stage fright.” The idiot is still singing and Graveyard is now grinning at me. Well this is fucking awkward. I wonder why the fuck I didn't go to the toilet in the band apartment. I joke with Graveyard, “I normally hang out in the bogs actually, it's a good way to meet people, since I don't smoke”. This raises a laugh. The piss finally starts coming, although it's nothing more than a dribble. Graveyard walks off laughing, I zip up and wash my hands, leaving the idiot to his merry tune.

We're finally ready to play the show. Our first show since July 2010. All of sudden, I feel a little nervous. There are at least a hundred people in tonight. It's not as many as last time, but under the circumstances, I feel the turn out is pretty good.

Andy starts the drum fill into Death Do Us Part from the new album, and we're on our way. We're actually on our way pretty fucking fast! I'd almost forgotten that there are three tempos to every Victims song. Album tempo. Practice room tempo. Stage tempo. Stage tempo tonight feels very fucking fast! We go straight into Lifetaker and I'm already feeling the burn. I don't know if it's lack of actual gig practice, nerves or what, but it doesn't feel very tight. I guess that was to be expected though, it has been a while. The first gig of any tour is always the same. It takes a few gigs to find your stride, for the tempo of the set to find itself, until everything magically goes on to auto-pilot. That's what makes these one-off shows all the more difficult.

I get the feeling that the sound out front is not the best. I can here it from the stage even. The crowd are enthusiastic enough between songs, but there isn't much movement during them. The set feels long tonight too, and I feel that maybe we're playing too many songs from the new album. This is all stuff that comes to you during the set though. There are certain things you can only measure from gig experience.

The show is by no means shit, but it's not one that will go down in history either. It has more the feeling of a pre-season football match. A couple of things go down with Jon's gear, which takes time to get going again. Simple stuff like a lead cutting out. It all conspires to kill any momentum we're building up though. It's not until we get to about the halfway point of the set, when we play Nowhere In Time, another new one, that things start to feel like they're settling down, at least musically. But it's not long after that song that my body lets me know it's starting to tire. It needs more training, simple as that.

We get to the end of the set, not even entertaining the crowds calls for an encore. I'd snapped a string at the start of the final block, Circles/Scars, which although easily manageable, serves as a good enough excuse for everyone to call it a night. Besides, I don't think encores should be an automatic part of the set. You should go back up and play a couple more if the mood fits, and tonight it didn't.

I'd almost forgotten how fucked up I can feel after a show. I'd followed through with my new rule of not having beer on stage tonight. It's a complete waste of time in every aspect. The trouble is, I'd forgotten to take any water on stage. I'm sitting backstage, flaked out on the sofa, with Samsa and Ulf hanging out, telling me that they thought the show was really good. I can hardly focus on what they're saying for the first few minutes, and my neck feels like jelly, making it difficult for me to hold my head upright. My head eventually comes back to me though, and when it does it's nice to sit there and talk with our friends. As is often the case, people standing in the crowd have a different perspective of the show than the people standing on stage. I'm glad they enjoyed the gig. For me, it felt like hard work.

We chat some more, cool off, and then pack up. Samsa and Ulf have to leave for the night, so we say goodbye to them and then chat amongst ourselves about the gig. We decide we have to cut the set down and most likely a couple of the new songs. It's healthy to sit and dissect the gig afterwards. I'm already looking forward to getting back into the practice room, tweaking a few things, and then getting back on stage in Amsterdam in a couple of weeks time.

When I've finally cooled off and my head feels stable again, I head out to the bar with Johan. Andy is already there with Viktor and Jon, Stachel is floating about somewhere. Andy is now happily getting stuck into a few beers. I exchange one of the tickets I have for a beer of Oppigård's but it doesn't taste as good now as it did this afternoon. I think I'm too fucked to appreciate it. I end up leaving half of it. Stachel decides to start wrestling with Andy, usual Stachel behaviour when he's bored. It's funny watching the little bugger trying to pick Andy up off the floor.

We're getting up at nine in the morning, with the aim of leaving for ten. I'm working tomorrow night. The gear is packed down, but still on stage. I look at the clock and it reads three am. Johan and I decide to head back to the apartment and get some sleep. Today has been a long day. We leave Andy, Viktor and Jon at the bar who are happily getting stuck into their beer. They look chuffed.

The camping bed in the apartment doesn't look like much cop, but at that moment it feels like the most comfortable bed I've ever lay in. My body aches. The gig took a lot out of me. I give a lot to each show and my body certainly pays more for it now than it used to. I think after a few shows I'll start building up a resistance again.

When I wake the next day to the sound of my alarm, my neck is fucking killing. We all eventually stir, one by one. I ask Viktor what time they went to bed, he mumbles something about six am. Andy rolls over, looking pretty fucking tired. He asks me the time. When I tell him it's nine thirty, he moans that he thought we were leaving at nine. Brilliant. The ambitious bastard only went to bed three hours ago. He lies in bed grumbling about that whilst I sit there wondering why he didn't set his alarm.

After a quick shower we load the van, down some strong, black coffee and then we're actually on our way by ten. Ana at the wheel again. She's driven this whole trip and sold merch for us. She's a really great girl, always willing to help out. The journey home is considerably quieter than the journey here. I sleep long sections of the six hour journey home. Every time I wake I tell myself that I really should be getting on with school work. I've only got three weeks left and with a trip to Barcelona next weekend with my family, followed by a weekend of gigs with Victims the week after, I don't have much time left to get my assignments completed. I just can't keep my eyes open though. I'll have to crack down during the week and get some work done.

We get back to the Bunker at around four pm. Johan drops me off at home when we're done loading out.. Before I go to work, I'm going to need a bath and a cup of tea or two...