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COLLEGE FALL EUROPEAN TOUR 2007 ENTRY 6 - Saturday 1 September 2007 by Musto DENMARK Odder We have spent twenty of the last thirty days in the home of the Vikings... Most of that time we have uncoiled in a farming village of around 10,000 people, called Odder. It's in the Danish rural heartland, which is surprisingly in abundance, yet it is only 30 minutes from the countries second largest city, Arhus. The Danes are a strange bunch... If you had to stereotype a classic Dane I think you'd be throwing out adjectives like quiet, reserved, stoic, nationalist, proud, a little rude to English speaking invaders... but oddly quite sexually liberated. But then again we have been staying in a small country town and let's be honest, in most small country towns around the world, you can describe the locals in pretty much the same way (except for the sex bit). So who am I to judge... Lucky for us we got to spend some time with some fantastic people who made this leg of the trip so damn enjoyable. Stewart (our Danish booking agent) and his family (Vibeke, Emily, Sophia and Christian) were fantastic yet again. They let us hang out at their house, use their facilities and pretty much kept us alive! We are eternally grateful. Jodie and I spent some wonderful times with them on our trip last year - but this time they got to meet what a 'real aussie' is like - i.e. Simo! Of course they loved him, well that was until he started getting into play flights with the kids!! We played again this year at Byfest, Odder's town festival. Our good friend Jacob Kristensen works behind the bar at Underhuset and runs the pub with his family. It was great to see him again, to meet his friends and family and play to a three hundred crazy, drunk Danes... Well, it was great to play to two hundred and ninety nine drunks anyway... there was one particular drunk that we all wish had passed out before we hit the stage... Sea Shanty Man His name escapes me now, but Simo, Jodie and I know him simply as 'Sea Shanty Man'. He's a local bar fly who comes originally from Ireland, sports one of the finest 'crazy' beards you've ever seen and is apparently quite a well respected musician around these parts. Jodie and I met him last year and before the drunken hour he is a really nice, affable character. But on Byfest night he was well beyond the drunken hour... As we loaded in to the pub he stumbled up to us playing some weird wooded flute instrument, announcing his intention to jam with us at some stage during the night... Against our better judgement we agreed that at the end of the show we would ask him to come up. But as the cult shaker's (a Danish vodka and red bull in a lolly bottle) flowed and the gig began, our Irish friend stood right at my face screaming his desire to come up and play a sea shanty with us... It was kinda creepy but kinda funny for the first ten minutes, after about an hour of his ramblings, well we were ready throttle him! He jumped from one side of the stage to the other swearing at me and then Jodie for ignoring him... He even ran up to Jodie screaming "Judi, Judi! Look at me! I curse you Judi". Simo threw a drum stick at him, but he just kept coming like a great white in a lagoon of bleeding seals (we were the seals). None of us knew how to call for security in Danish so we were pretty much screwed! The audience just assumed sea shanty man was part of our show. The next morning we were in the pub packing our gear into the trusty Previa for a trip 3 hours north for a gig in Alborg, and while driving away who came running after us, none other than sea shanty man!! Jodie floored the accelerator and we all pretended we didn't see him. But he spotted me eyeballing him... I saw an apology flowing from his mouth and one of his cd's in his hand - I felt kinda bad for ditching him... but man did he deserve it! We caught up with him again the other night during our second Underhuset show... He was a pure gentleman, but the horse has indeed bolted on that relationship. Alborg Our show in Alborg was a ripper! The best show of our tour so far. We played at a venue called Rock Nielsen and a local band called Scar City supported us... They were hilarious! All very new at the rock and roll game but still quite mature gentleman with some of the longest hair you've ever seen in the world. We were scared we'd be bombarded with a painful death metal droll (let me clarify that Simo was rather excited by that prospect) but to our surprise they were more soft rock than testosterock... It was a relief to see a band looking at each other on stage with more quizzical looks than we usually do! Rock Nielsen is located on Jomfru Anegade which is quite simply the best street in all of Denmark - It's a cosy pedestrianised strip that continues for about one kilometre. On both sides for as far as the eye can see it is jam packed full of restaurants and pubs. In the afternoon it is very quiet but from about 10pm onward it was unbelievable! Go there... promise me you will! Downtime Unfortunately we had a rather disappointing turn of events in Denmark... About seven or eight shows were cancelled pretty much at the last minute. We were gutted. It's hard to explain the deflated feeling when you put so much energy into getting over to the other side of the world and things don;t work out the way you hope. The worst part is that it also gives you time to reflect on your disappointment. But you've got to be philosophical about these things. When you are an indie band and coordinating most things yourself you can't expect everything to be brilliant. After a few days of wallow we decided to make the most of the situation... We took ten days off and Jodie and I went to Germany and Czech Republic whilst Simo made his own way around the east. We caught up with my good friend Udo Klein in Berlin, which has fast become my favourite city in the world. The blend of culture, persecution, stoicism, diversity, cleanliness and history in that city is difficult to explain unless you've been there. We also spent some time with Udo in his hometown of Dresden before heading down to Prague and Chesky Kromlov in the south. Our time with Udo was just brilliant. His stories of life in East Germany before the Berlin Wall came down were quite incredible. It was so different to the capitalist propaganda history I learnt in Year 11 at Willetton Senior High School let me tell you! We pretty much had a relaxing time for our ten-day break but for Simo it was a different story. He went as wild as he could - he couldn't remember too many of the stories, but he did come back on crutches with a sprained ankle... not a good look for a drummer! In other moments of down time we spent the days writing songs, including our new favourites "Confessions" and "Abandon". We hung out with Stew and the family and I even managed to fit in a game of football (soccer)!!! Yep my first ever pro league game with 6th Division Danish side Roerth United. Jacob from Underhuset plays - it was the opening game of the season and they were a player short, so your ol' mate Musto ignited some long lost memories of Aussie Rules football glory and donned the boots! We lost 4-2 but I played right midfield and got two assists (set up the two goals)!! I was chuffed... and Jodie got some film footage of me in my pink football Guernsey, it's hilarious... yet mortifying. I've sent my CV off to Chelsea and Arsenal just in case... All in all we have some great memories from our Danish adventure. Regardless of the let downs it was still such an enjoyable time. We just enjoyed each other and the people around us and made the most of it! But I think we would only return if we had some really strong and solidified shows for the length of our stay... much like what lies ahead in Finland!!
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ENTRY 5 - Friday August 3, 2007 by Jodie Well it’s Goodbye to the United Kingdom and Hello to mainland Europe in all it’s foreign language glory!! Today we start the mammoth drive from the UK to Denmark… Two days of solid driving and service station food – not a great diet but we have no other option – we have a show at a place called the Underhuset in a small town in Denmark called Odder for their town festival called Byfest and we are running a very tight schedule!! We have had a great week…we spent a night in Oxford with our wonderful friends Holly and Sam (and Sam’s sister and boyfriend – for those taking notes). We arrived just when the cities flooding epidemic had begun to subside, so were quite lucky. We managed to see some of the effects though, flooded playgrounds and soccer fields. Bloody hell it rains in this country!! On Sunday we played a show in London at a nice little venue called the Social – we were all a very tired from the effect of Saturday night in Oxford though!! The next day we managed to help Anna and Paul from our record label, Hooked Up, move house….Well we have a great big van which shouldn’t go to waste! We also stayed with a really nice friend of Glenn’s named Dan and his flat mate Dave who were so excellent to us! We had a bit of a logistical nightmare trying to set up 3 camp beds in their small lounge room though!! It was 3 in the morning and we laughed so hard I almost pee’d my pants! Over the next few nights we played gigs to the south of London in Eastbourne, Brighton and Hastings. We meet and stayed with some lovely people in Hastings, Zoe and the gang! A big thanks to them for their wonderful hospitality!! The last week has been very busy with gigs in different towns every night so we are looking forward to staying in the one place for a little while in Denmark! xox Jodie CF ENTRY 4 - Friday July 27, 2007 by Simon G’day G’day It’s the man who sits behind the kit and I’m currently sitting behind the laptop writing to all you lovely people while waiting at the Laundromat for my washing to finish. The joys of being on the road… We had a fairly big show last night at Ride Café. Quite a good turn out (~100 people) and it coincided with our first single release on VINYL! Yes that’s right College Fall has turned old school and we now have 2 lovely tracks on an old fashioned record. We have been in Plymouth for the last seven days and have been staying with a wonderful man called Timmy Creswell. He has been extremely hospitable and has let us squat in his new house which he is currently setting up. We have been busy helping him set up new furniture and beds…all your standard flat packed Ikea stuff. There was one small problem with locating one of the beds up into a loft/attic space… We managed to get the mattress up the spiral staircase but could not get the bedhead up the staircase. It was like 5cm too big! Anyway after much debate and profound deep thought we managed to devise a plan to hoist the bedhead from the second story bedroom window up over the roof, past the aerial and in through the loft window. Sure that will work! Well there were a few minor hiccups. First Timmy left the windows open in the loft and the lovely English summer weather thought it would unload ~ 5 buckets of rain onto the carpet. Then we had a slight problem (well Tim did) with getting the rope thrown down from the loft window to the 2nd story window. Apparently there was a huge gust of wind (which came out of nowhere) which lifted the rope from its desired flight path right up over, through, around, across and extremely knotted in the TV aerial...Awesome! Anyway with some expert fishing skills from Glenn we managed to get the rope free and down to the bedhead and then successfully lifted up into the loft! Needless to say we were all happy and very relieved. We are off to play Maker festival today which we are very excited about, and we have played 6 shows in the last week. We have been selling CD’s and also managed to rehearse twice this week and get some new songs ready for the next album. Anyway as always typing this much is getting to me. We are off to Oxford tomorrow to catch up with Sam and some friends and then head up to London on Sunday for a show. If any one does read these entries please send me a message on myspace to let me know… cheers… Take care all Pop and Roll…. CF ENTRY 3 - Friday July 20, 2007 by Glenn I have a distaste for London. It’s not the individuals, we have met an obviously small percentage of the ten million locals and generally they have been very nice to us (except for the rude fat guy at the post office, who Simon and I got into a fight with…). No, it’s the collective. That overwhelming awareness of the human condition. The eighty square miles that surround the M25 should contain half the population. It might give cause to smile for all of those sad looking faces on the tube. On Monday we arrived from Italy. Thirty seconds after the plane lands, the chaos begins. A war of conflicting movements through a sea of unrecognisable faces. Every plan takes twice as long as your most closely thought out preparations. From walking through Stansted airport to handling the tube, to finding your hotel room. It all feels like a mission requiring military standards of precision, coupled with a fear that you may indeed crumble into dust before you get home to bed. Somehow though, in three days we completed our missions. A car was purchased, serviced, taxed, MOT’d, insured and fueled. Amplifiers were bought. Power adaptors and other vehicle extras were purchased. I met with our Danish promoter, Stewart. And we even managed to fit in a warm up show! Last night at the Electroacoustic Club at the Slaughtered Lamb in Barbican. We were a little nervous, plugging in our amps for the first time and playing an intimate show, which suited the room, but didn’t really suit our recent performance mindset. We have mostly played up-tempo rock performances lately, so the pin drop quietness and lounge bar vibe of the e-a club gave us all a now rare sense of nervousness. It was satisfying to kick off the England tour in a testing environment. Anna and Paul from Hooked Up said they loved the show so that’s more than enough satisfaction for me! Now it’s on to releasing the record! Today we are slowly crawling toward Plymouth for a week of shows in the south. In two hours we have moved twenty miles. Hopefully we will arrive before Simon’s diary entry next Friday. Until then folks! ENTRY 2 - Friday July 13, 2007 by Jodie Roccamandolfi in all it’s Glory… Ciao from Italy once again! Roccamandolfi to be precise… The place of my families heritage. It’s Jodie here – my turn to update you all on what we are up to over here. Just to set the scene for you, the village where my mothers family originate from has a population of around 1000 people and is actually etched into the side of a mountain, with it’s own historical castle. The history here dates back from around 800AD. Pretty cool huh? My experience has been incredible here in Rocca. The family, the food, the scenery are amazing! While I write this I am sitting on my bed looking through the window onto a beautiful mountain landscape, with Italian terrace casa’s (houses) and lafarme’s (farms). But hey I cant forget to mention the festival we just played called ‘Rocca in Musica’. That’s why we are here! The festival was great. It ran over 3 days and featured around 15 bands from all over Italy. Plus one little Aussie pop band called College Fall! We played on the third evening with a band called Capello a Cilindro who were a fun Italian ska-pop band. We had a great show, it was very challenging playing to an big audience of which not many people understood English. But we had a blast and the crowd seemed to love it. The music set up for such a small village was very impressive. Big stage and lighting set up and a big projector screen flashing images of the bands. The best thing though was the view when looking at the stage. It was set up in the small amphitheatre which has a back drop of the whole village. What a stunning sight in the evening! It was very special. People came from all over Isernia (the province) to watch the festival. We head back to Rome on Sunday for one night and then fly back to London to start some seriously hard gigging. It’s going to be sad to leave but I look forward to what the rest of the tour will bring! In the mean time I’m going to miss my Zia (Aunty) Maria’s fabulous cooking and the fine times we had with the D’andrea family. Ciao. ENTRY 1 – Friday 6 July 2007 by Simon Hello, hello or Ciao, Ciao. Here I sit in Italy on a train listening to an American band Jodie and Glenn have got me listening to called the Hold Steady. Not bad. The UK was a great start. We really spent most of the time getting over jet lag and catching the flippin tube to where ever we had to get to. We did our first small show at a venue called 12 Bar in Camden. It was late Sunday evening (~11pm) with few people left but those still present and standing seemed to enjoy it….and they asked for 2 encores! Quite an interesting venue… Small rooms joined together, very grungy feel, tiny stage about 1 metre high (the 2 guitarists from the band before us actually played on the floor because they could not fit) and the pa that any great sound guy would drool over (not). Anyway it was fun. We caught up with Anna and Paul from our record label and AJ and Kaz from Pinnacle and all went out for some drinks. Met some very nice people so far and have managed to secure our wheels! Basically a Toyota Tarago with a sunroof! Hell Yeah! We have just left Rome where we spent 3 days trekking around trying to introduce College Fall music to Italian people…not an easy feat by any means. The English barrier is a little difficult….people just either seem to freak out at my face or at a combination of me in all my babbling Italian-aussie lingo, my face, and some foreign dude trying to introduce his band and his music from Australia. I tell them that they can keep the cd and they look more confused. I did manage to give one to a famous person but I’ll leave that story for later…..She was cute in person though! We managed to fit in quite abit of sight seeing (Vatican, Colosseum, Ruins etc) and Jodie and I started shooting the film clip for ‘Gravity/Gravita’. If anyone is an animation expert and wants to help out please contact us ? Of course our rates are top notch (?) The train is taking us down to Roccamandolfi. We will stay with family for a little over a week and will also get to play a festival on the weekend! I’m excited about playing! Also excited about real home style Italian cooking!!!! Standby stomach here comes pasta…..and Peroni – the local lager…..yum. College Fall Diary Entry European Tour – Entry No. 7 Wednesday 12 July 2006 - Tuesday 18 July TWO PEOPLE, ONE CAR, FIVE COUNTRIES, TWELVE HOURS… NO PROBLEMS! Wednesday is the worst day of the entire week to have a pole-driving hangover. Particularly when you have to drive six hours from Plymouth to Dover… Then the next day from France to Belgium, Holland, Germany up to Denmark. Oh my god I feel hideous! “That is it” I kept telling myself “I’m never drinking again”. What is so weird about that comment is that at the time I truly mean it. The drive to Dover was okay, considering the dilemma facing my body and mind. Jodie and I shared the duties before the ferry captain took the wheel for the trip to Calais. It was then that everything went a little pear-shaped. I’m sure I would have got the hang of driving a right-sided vehicle on the right side of the road… If only my mind wasn’t already on vacation in Venus at the same time. Two near accidents at the first round-a-bout after the ferry port. I can still hear Jodie’s cackles of laughter resonating inside my brain as I write this. The worst thing is, I am so pig-headed that I wholeheartedly believe that both the near accidents were the fault of the accomplished right-side French drivers that I nearly side swiped! My confidence shattered, my fear escalating by the second, we ended up pulling over fifty kilometres up the road in Dunkerque to retire for the night. I’ll try driving in this weird new world after a good eight hours sleep. Thursday morning. Then twelve hours and five countries later we had finally reached our destination: Odder, Denmark. Our wonderful little Peugeot handled the trip exceptionally easily. What a buy that was. But our late night arrival in Denmark did pose a few problems: Problem one: We are in a very foreign part of the world, a place neither of us have ever been to, nor could imagine what it would be like. Problem two: we are extremely tired and eager to catch up with our Danish contact Stewart to get a night of rest before tomorrow’s big debut show in Denmark. Problem three: We can’t get through to Stewart on his mobile phone. Problem four: somehow we find his house without a map and only half a clue we were even in the right town! But we knock on the door and low and behold… he doesn’t live there anymore!!! Oh shit. For a fleeting moment Jodie and I panicked. I had spoken to Stewart many times about the tour and all of the happenings. Everything had been brilliant and above-board so far… But then you start to think, “well we have never actually met the guy before, perhaps this is all a big joke that the earth is playing on us!!” It’s weird how those types of thoughts can sneak into your mind when your tired. As you will no doubt find out when you keep reading this diary, these thoughts could not have been further from the truth! As an angel appeared and things turned for the better like you would not believe - We knocked on the door of what was indeed not Stewart’s house. A lady answered which, of-course took both Jodie and I aback a little. A little concerned about having our first Danish conversation, I informed her (in English) that we were looking for an Australian guy called Stewart. As luck would have it, she had just been doing courses learning English and understood what we were saying. She mentioned that Stewart doesn’t live here anymore, but she invited us in for coffee and said that she would be able to get on the internet and find Stewarts phone number and new address for us. It is quite amazing how a tour can hinge on such a pivotal moment like this… We were just so happy to have found him. The next morning, exhausted from the drive and staying in the lounge room of the family home, all Jodie and I needed was a few weeks sleep. But, hey that is not what life on tour is all about!!! Tonight; our first gig in Denmark! At the Underhuset in Odder. Underhuset, basically means “under the house” or basement. It is a fantastic little venue with a real traditional Danish feel about it. We were scheduled to play at 10pm for a two hour set. It appeared that we were the talk of the town as-well! When we arrived we met with a bunch of really nice people that were very eager to hear our music. It was a great night. The strong crowd responded to us very well indeed and it was good to get our first Denmark show off the ground after such an eventful last few days! Now, Jodie and I need a few days sleep…
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Fall Diary Entry European Tour 2006 – Entry No. 6 Monday 3 July 2006 - Tuesday 12 July 2006 BACK TO THE SOUTHWEST AND ON TO GREENER FIELDS How lucky am I? I get to travel back down to Plymouth, play some more gigs and catch up with all of our great friends, all the way alongside beautiful Jodie and Hollie! We traveled via Basingstoke… Why you might ask? Because Jodie’s cousin Janelle is living there. Basingstoke is a strange little town… Similar to Slough and Swindon (remember our awful night in Swindon at the start of the tour!), which were made “famous” by the UK television series The Office, Basingstoke is like a satellite city to London. The kind of young town, stuck on the motorway, where businesses locate at cheaper rents and service London. It is therefore a very rudimentary place to visit, nice in it’s own way but almost completely devoid of culture… (there isn’t a pub in town that has live gigs!) Well unique and meaningful culture anyway. With that all said though, the people that we met were terrific, Jodie’s cousin Janelle and her friend Ashley who took us under their young wings and showed us a great time. On the other side of Basingstoke, just a few hundred miles post Stonehenge… welcomes Plymouth. We caught up with all of the great new friends we had made thirty days earlier and it truly felt as if we had never left! On Saturday night we played a rock show to a full house at the Junction Hotel in support of Albenaza. Albenaza were set to play one of there patented great rock and roll shows tonight, so we obliged by warming up the studious crowd with a higher intensity gig. We got our first heckler for the whole tour tonight! He was drunk (of-course) and rambling on and on about playing Sweet Home Alabama… (as they always do). I had hooked into the Magners cider so I made the executive decision to give as good as I got: “why the fuck would I play that song, A: we’re not a cover band and B: I’m from Australia not fucking Alabama” “ramble, ramble, ramble, glug, glug, stutter, stumble, glug, ramble, glug” So now I had a chance to show off my best “Wedding Singer” impression and hassle the heckler back: “no one is interested in listening to you buddy, I have a microphone and you don’t, so YOU WILL LISTEN TO EVERY GOD DAMN WORD I HAVE TO SAY!!!” Luckily the crowd response was laughter and not shock. I love hecklers. On Sunday 9 July we played a headline show at The Hub. Our friend Chloe Steer played again as too did our new friends, The Dukes. The highlight of the night was hanging out backstage with Tim and Rik from Ecco Jones, I had a bit of an idea for a song and played it to the CF and EJ crew. We basically wrote the song in about thirty minutes and decided to run with the impromptu nature of the night we’d play it at the end of our set and the Ecco Jones boys come up on stage to play it with us! The song: “Give Up Hope”. It has such a catchy chorus and is a really positive song (which is unusual for me) and the crowd absolutely loved it. The song was delivered with no firm lyrics except for the chorus “no I’m not gonna give up hope” But no-one seemed to care. Fans were dancing in the crowd and having a great time. It was definitely one of my absolute favourite moments from the whole tour! Tuesday night 11 July was our final show in the UK and what better place to celebrate than out our favourite new venue; Ride Café. Gee-sus was it a big night full of insane drinking. I had so many bottles of Magners that night that I am sure that it will stay in my system for at least the next twelve months. We even dedicated our unique version of Web In Front to to it, changing the lyric “I’ve got a magnet in my head” to “I’ve got a magners in my head”. The crowd sing-along was something to behold… It was sad to say goodbye to everyone, but I think we all knew that this is only the start of some wonderful friendships and creative moments. There will be plenty more College Fall tours to Plymouth and hopefully a tour or two to Australia from Albenaza and Ecco Jones. And to our good friend Sam Magree, who is basically responsible for setting up this little scene in the south-west: You have set up an incredible vibe down there mate and if it wasn’t for your love of music and your inspiration, so many people would not have had their lives so profoundly affected. It is people like Sam that make you realize how wonderful playing music can be and how pure of heart some people are.
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Fall Diary Entry European Tour 2006 – Entry No. 5 Sunday 25 June 2006 – Sunday 2 July 2006 THE MIDLANDS Today, the three of us drove from Manchester to Coventry. It will be our new home for the next five days. An interesting city with the inner area encompassed by an elevated ringed motorway, creating a pedestrian mecca within its walls. Monday morning. Mission one: purchasing a new keyboard stand for Jodie. Mission two: travel out to the town of Hinckley for our first show in the midlands. It was a quiet Monday night in town so it was easy to navigate to our destination; Karns. We were the headline band being supported by a number of open mic artists. It was our first show back with drums and unfortunately we didn’t play up to our usual standard – we didn’t get a chance to rehearse with Steven and things did feel a little wobbly from time to time. It is one of those musician things though… I’m sure most people viewing the College Fall train that night, would have though it was traveling along as smooth as silk! Once again we were treated so very well by the venue staff and the event organizer Olivia. The kindness of musical strangers is unparelelled. This is such an unbelievable and beautiful way to see the world. On Tuesday morning we had a jam with Stevie in a Coventry park to iron out the wrinkles on a few questionable songs in time for our gig that night in Leamington, which, I might add, is possibly the ritzyist town in the whole of England. I can simply guess the kind of rates land-owners pay in this town, with employees filling street lamps with flowers on a daily basis, or cleaning the moss from the gaps in the pavement with what looked like a toothpick! And the bar we played in, fitted the mood of the town perfectly. And the class rubbed off on us. we played a strong band show, meeting a few people and winning many of their hearts in the bargain. Come Wednesday night our performance moved to Coventry and a venue called the Golden Cross. It is a little indie venue with a grungy bar downstairs and a dedicated live area upstairs. Thursday night was our fourth gig night in a row, back in the band routine! And it meant that we had hit the simple routine of: sleep in, late breakfast, early dinner, gig, drink, see previous day. Our gig tonight was at the Hope and Anchor, the biggest show for the midlands gigs. The bill included “What About Cube” and “The Enemy” both two very accomplished rock bands… We decided to rock up our set a little bit as a result. The packed house seemed to appreciate our work, particularly some young fans who we met last night and came down again!! Many thanks to Olivia for putting together a great bunch of shows for us. We’re definitely keen to come back to Coventry next week. After the midlands experience, Jodie and I met up with our wonderful friend Hollie in Chelmsford (the birthplace of rado apparently!), just east of London. We stayed with her lovely family for a couple of days. It was so great to be staying in a beautiful home and getting to chill out for the first time on the trip! We had some great times with Hollie… drinking and eating way too much. Isn’t gluttony the best of fun! We all had such a great time that Hollie decided to come down to Plymouth with us next week and be our official tour manager!! Before that trip though, we were faced with probably the hardest day of the tour: Sunday 2 July 2006. Two gigs in two different parts of the country. One. The “Eat The World Festival” in Oxford in the afternoon, and the other, our big Dublin Castle show in London in the evening. It was doable, but it was going to be agonising. And then the weather forecast came in… hot and sticky, thirty five degrees. With England traffic being England traffic and the festival being a typical festival (ie – impossible to get in and out from) we arrived about half an hour late, but noone seemed to mind. It wasn’t a well put together event unfortunately… There were heaps of people to watch us but shambolic organization meant we left the town with a little bit of a sour taste in our mouth. No matter though, it was time to drive back to London and obtain a little bit of rock and roll redemption! And redemption my friends, was ours! The Dublin castle show was a corker! Probably one of the best shows we played on the tour. Stevie was happy to play a full kit for the show and we were all excited about being on such a well-known and accomplished stage. Tonight was also the night my fascination with Magners Irish apple cider became a bonafide addiction.
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Fall Diary Entry European Tour 2006 – Entry No. 4 Monday 19 June 2006 - Saturday 24 June 2006 SCOTLAND AND THE GREAT NORTH It’s Monday night 19 June and Jodie and I simply need to escape from London. The two days break has been great, but London is the kind of town where just the thought of challenging the daytime traffic demon sets off your brain seizures. Thus, the twenty-second hour of the day had arrived and we hit the road en-route to Glasgow. By three am we were two thirds of the way to Scotland, but the red eye fever had overcome us both, and so, we began our first car-sleep in the UK. Though calling it “sleep” is a little ambitious… four flittering and wandering eyes peaking at uncomfortable dawn-light, would be a more accurate description of the happenstance. Bloody, weeping and narrow; our eyes followed our aching bodies toward the Scottish promise-land… Crossing Hadrians wall like it is a sheep fence (for the most part it is a sheep fence these days), we were left wondering how those pompous Romans and English-folk had so much trouble “taming” the highlanders! Perhaps all they needed was our Peugeot 406… First stop Edinburgh, possibly the most beautiful city upon this little island. Scenically dominated by the Edinburgh Castle, we were tempted to flirt with our own arrogance and ignore it and it’s tourist overtones completely. But our guilt flirted with us and we let it win, deciding not to forego a closer view at the most famous castle in the kingdom. It did indeed win the battle for our hearts (and pounds!) Second stop, Glasgow. The city had been waiting for us, holding off on the world’s biggest torrential downpour until the moment hit that we reached the cities hinterland. Seriously, the rain in Glasgow made south east asian monsoon season seem like a trickle. Swimming along the streets, we did manage to find our way to our destination; The Liquid Ship and the Free Candy Sessions. And so began one of the most memorable nights of music I have ever had. We played won of our finest shows, truly capturing the essence of what we are about – Two intense and beautiful people writing intense and beautiful songs about each-other and our lives. Headlining the evening; Scottish singer-songwriter aficionado Mr Larry Guild. Just him and his acoustic guitar, it was mesmerising. Songs such as “Morning Sun” and “Bus To Boston” were incredibly engaging. My heart slowed then quickened with every beat. An interesting side note to our Scottish experience; all bars in the country became smoke free in March ’06. From a non-smoking singers point of view, this is tremendous. Only when smoking is banned in Australia would I seriously consider my follow up dream to touring the world playing music; opening up a live music venue and café in inner city Perth. By Wednesday night June 21 we were back in England, playing at the hallowed turf of Liverpool’s Cavern Club. College Fall; playing at the home of rock and roll surrounded by icons from the days of Beatlemania (these days are of-course nowhere near dead for most Scowsers!). It was a show that we will always treasure, however in some ways it was very strange - The venue is actually quite soulless. Perhaps because the staff care more about there tongue rings than about supplying the crowd with the most important of needs: water. Perhaps because the promoter put us on last, headlining over a swaggy rock band and a horrible metal band - It almost felt like playing a gig in a casino. The juxtaposition from our previous shows to this one could not possibly be anymore stark. The soul had gone from the venue but not from us, it was once again one of our best ever shows. We’re on a role now!! Two great shows in a row! On Thursday we made the trip across to Manchester to play at the Blue Cat Club. The accommodating staff and friendly locals we’re just outclassed by our tremendous support act for the evening Mr Jason Dunkley. With drum-kit finally in tow Stevie Rea met up with us tonight. It was a fantastic show too, Jodie and I played a really happy and up-tempo gig – I think we were all buoyed by watching Australia qualify for Round two of the world cup before we played… With heaps of Aussies in the room, the vibe was great for an Aussie band to come up on stage and continue the party. Three fantastic days really… until a minor tragedy struck… Yes we had our first musical fatality tonight: The keyboard stand was somehow left behind… never to be found again! So much driving, so much gigging, we need a break. And so, we broke. Batteries were set to re-charge for two days. We even got a chance to do a little sight-seeing. Jodie was very keen to visit Lyme Park which is a huge parkland estate and homestead not far from where we were staying. It is an incredible place and it was used for the filming of the BBC Pride and Prejudice television series. The entire house was set out as it would be six hundred years ago, which was quite incredible, and allowed Jodie’s ‘interior designer’ mind to explode with intrigue and excitement! |
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Fall Diary Entry European Tour 2006 – Entry No. 3 Monday 12 June 2006 - Sunday 18 June 2006 BACK TO THE CAPITAL The rambunctious frivolity of our Devon and Cornwall experience is over… it is a little strange making the move on to a new part of the country, saying goodbye to our “best friends for a week” and good friends for a life-time. But come Monday 12 June we mustered the energy to traverse east for five hours from Plymouth across the south coast to Brighton. Mid-way, we escaped the highway and settled into a local pub in a little town called Lyme Regis. It was a prescribed stop. A stop explicitly designed to reignite our patriotic spirit and watch the debut Australian game in football’s world cup. Yes I know we are on tour and to be proper, we should not squander our time on tour watching sport on television, but hey this is an exception, it’s the world cup! So as all Aussies know, the first eighty minutes were gutting, but three goals in the last ten minutes, one goal each for three excited Aussies, made for a very special afternoon indeed!! I don’t think I’ve ever been so nervous watching other people live-out their own lives and dreams! Exhaulted and a little drained, we continued on to Brighton. We arrived just in time for the seven pm sound check at the Joogleberry Playhouse. The Joogleberry is an interesting theatre great, line up adjacent to the famous Brighton Pier and pebble beach. As a musician, this venue is perfect – every punter is seated and just before you play the lights dim to black, you are introduced, and so begins your show. We were playing as a duo tonight so the feel in the crowd was perfect. It was a jam packed house as well, which generated a fantastic feeling in the room and of-course for us on stage. Tuesday was the first day in fifteen that we did not have a show. It is the longest run of gigs I have ever had. We spent the day touring the sights of Brighton before an evening drive an hour up the motorway, to London. Tonight we met up with good friend (and previous manager of my band The Nordeens) AJ. AJ graciously let us abode at his house for the next couple of nights which, with our cash being drained by the unbelievably high petrol costs, was an absolute godsend. On Wednesday night we were back into gig mode with a London show the Electroacoustic club in Barbican.. The room is downstairs at the Slaughtered Lamb Hotel and it has a lounge vibe. Dedicated to acoustic music we played with a selection of five great artists. We caught up with some of our best friends on the night aswell including Perth sound engineer Michael “Fletch” Fletcher, Angela and Brooke and our very good friend Hollie Romain. It led to a great feeling on stage between myself and Jodie and we played probably the best set of the tour so far.Our set list: Back Down; Five Years Later; Gravity; This Direction; Closer; Built An Empty Home. The next day (Thursday 15 June) Jodie and I continued out to Oxford. Our performance was in a community hall, adapted for live performances. The adaptation complete with the name change from “East Oxford Community Hall” to “The Catweazle Club”. The show was as interesting as the venues transformation. We were basically the headline and feature artist with about ten artists supporting us, but performing for only fifteen minutes each. It was full of interesting characters, who would sing songs, recite their poems or tell short stories. Yet what was most interesting is that there were no microphones - just a stage… So we had to play just singing and playing guitar. There were one hundred people in the room sitting in judgement, waiting for us to begin. And when we hit the stage they were all as quiet as a mouse, hanging on our every word. It was such an awesome experience to play in a room like that and to people that were there simply to listen to us. It’s the kind of show that any troubadour dreams about playing… just us singing our little hearts out. As pure as you can get. With a few days off before we were scheduled to head up to Glasgow in Scotland and the north of England, we took the opportunity to return to London for meetings and to catch up with friends. |
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Fall Diary Entry European Tour 2006 – Entry No. 2 Saturday 3 June 2006 – Sunday 11 June 2006 PLYMOUTH AND THOSE CORNISH DAYS Ladies and Gentlemen: It has been one hell of a last ten days! The tour has hit full throttle and only now, during our first day off since the Friday before last, do I finally have a chance to reflect on this concoction of travelling to incredible towns, meeting great new friends and performing some of the best gigs of my life. When I last checked my thoughts in at the Diary door it was Friday 2 June and we were about to head off to Plymouth (in the county of Devon) and Cornwall County for a week’s worth of shows. Unfortunately before travelling we were struck with a bit of a snag… Steven’s drum kit was not correctly freighted and after a three-hour chase through the back docks of inner London, we were left listless and indeed kitless! Alas though, we drove out in our newly purchased Peugeot station wagon with a one night stop-over in the worlds second worst town (Swindon) – this place has the worst accommodation options in the entire world! Escaping our lodgings as early as possible, we arrived in Plymouth by lunchtime on Saturday. It is a beautiful town set on the south coast of England and is populated by about three hundred thousand Brits and probably less than twenty Australians! We met up with our good friend Ben from the band Albenaza who took us down to play our first show, a fundraiser for Tibet at a venue called Porter’s in the Barbican district. Both Albenaza and Ecco Jones played and that day we met seven of the most fantastic people and musicians who definitely became our best friends for the next seven days. And Tim from Ecco Jones lovingly let us stay in his spare room for the week. On Sunday 8 June we were scheduled to play at Ride Café, but unfortunately due to a mix-up between old and new management it was re-scheduled for the following Sunday. Instead though we were offered an impromptu spot at a fantastic event venue in the middle of town, called The Hub! It was the opening of a new acoustic night that the town’s media had got strongly behind. It was a great show to a truly appreciative crowd. We played along side a fantastic soloist: Chloe Steer. These first two gigs are a true testament to the music scene that exists in Plymouth, great bands, committed venues and fantastic people. Come Monday 9 June we kept building on the promotion for our big show at Ride Café the next night. We also took a day trip into Cornwall to a place called Mount Edgecombe. The views were incredible and we passed a fantastic little town called St Germans. One of the most intriguing things about it was the main road through the town, at one stage it thinned down to literally three metres wide with houses and front doors abutting either side… quite incredible. In the evening we met up with Tim and jammed for a few hours, before heading down to the nearby open mike night and before you know it, we were up on stage yet again, playing an impromptu set! Tuesday night was our big Ride Café show. It was an irresistible night… standing room only, we got a fantastic response and sold heaps of cd’s… It truly was incredible to be so accepted in a place so far from home… The Albenaza and Ecco Jones boys all came down to support and it made a huge difference. Stevie got his head around the Djembe which he needed to use in replacement to a kit and it worked well. Albenaza opened for us. We even ended up playing an encore of more than 6 songs… they wouldn’t let us get off! And from there we were invited out to the local late night bar for a celebratory drink (or ten!) On Wednesday we travelled into the heart of Cornwall to play at a beachside town called Perrenporth. It was a fantastic day (about 25 degrees), which meant there were heaps of topless and burning Brits to cockle at! We had a last minute cancellation for our show in Plymouth on Thursday night so we headed back into Cornwall to watch our now great drinking buddies, Ecco Jones, who were playing in support of Australian act Carus and the True Believers at a similar beach-side town called Porthtowan. On Friday night we supported Albenaza at On The Rocks in Newquay. We had an opportunity to play with a full kit so we played more of a rock show. There was a really big crowd for this show (about three hundred) which was great! Ben from Albenaza came up and did bass with us on Perish Union and we managed to win over the raucous locals by the end of our set! Come Saturday night our Cornwall experience took us to the capital, Truro, and a fantastic little venue called Indaba. We had a bit of time to check out the town that afternoon.. We were greeted at Indaba by the owner Nicky, who nearly has to be the nicest person in the whole of Cornwall!! She took care of us with food and drinks and fantastic conversation… Oh and our show was great too… it was a quiet crowd utonight but we still made some fans and met some great people after our set. Later in the evening we caught up with Simon (who helped book our Cornwall shows) and his partner Vicki… We checked out the new venue that Simon is opening, in a really old church building! We then went on to have a huge night at the local nightclub before retiring to their beautiful home in a rural area just outside of town. On Sunday we headed back to Plymouth to play our final show in the area, back at Ride Café. Being our last show in the area it really did top off a fantastic week. We played our full set of songs but ended up again being asked to play more! All we had left were a couple of cover songs, so we played “Time After Time” and “Mr Brightside” before the Albenaza boys insisted we play their favourite song “Back Down” one last time. I have heeded advice from a number of fellow musicians who have told me that your first big overseas tour is the one that changes your career the most. I already realise that this is true… Not because it is the tour that makes money or makes you “famous” (those of you who know me well are more than aware that I am dogmatically more likely NOT to go on tour if money and fame became the key result), but because of how it opens your heart and mind to an intense amount of development. We have achieved so much so far. It feels like two months since we left Perth and it has only been two weeks! The “time of my life” does not feel a worthy enough cliché to use… perhaps “a dream come true”: although a little limp-wristed, it is the most appropriate.
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Fall Tour Diary Entry European Tour 2006 – Entry No. 1 Wednesday 30 May 2006 – Friday 2 June 2006 LONDON: WELCOME TO COLLEGE FALL Phew... we arrived in London on Tuesday morning (May 30) and has it ever been helter-skelter since. Meeting up with friends, sleeping off the jetlag, delving into the London car dealership underworld to buy a car for the trip (our beautiful Peugeot 406!), navigating the appalling London traffic road works and getting everything sorted for our debut international show: Thursday 1 June at Push Bar in Soho – Central London. It is a night put on by Perth girl, living in London, Anna. And what a great night!! It is a cosy little basement bar right in the middle of the entertainment district - the kind of room that a little Australian band like us has been dreaming about playing in for years! We were playing in support of a great London band called Co-Star. And all was going well until we set up for sound-check and realised that we left the Australia-UK power adaptor back at the hotel... One of those little things that you can easily forget when your playing your first show overseas. Stevie, myself and Anna scoured all of Soho to buy a plug (All the stores shut early in this town!) but somehow we managed to sweet talk our way into shut appliance store and pick one up. Once that dilemma was solved the gig went fantastically. There was a strong mix of ex-pat Perth folk and locals and we went down extremely well. We played for thirty minutes, which is pretty normal for these types of gigs in the UK. We played a mix of tracks from our Demonstration EP and our new European Tour EP. Today we are off to the southwest of London for a week of shows in the counties of Cornwall and Devon. Our next show is at a cafe called Ride in Plymouth and we have just been asked to play a Free Tibet fund-raising show that afternoon as well!
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