DZ Deathrays - Europe Tour, Summer 2018

DZ Deathrays at Headrow House.

Day 19

Today we had a nice and late lobby call and I ate a microwave cup of noodles on the floor of the hotel room with a plastic teaspoon.
We all got in the van and Ben shouted me a lovely tea from Starbucks.
We started driving to Leeds and stopped once for fuel and once for some food.

We got in to Leeds and arrived to the venue, Headrow House, about half an hour early but were able to load in anyway.
We unpacked the van and then I went and parked it.
When I got back to the venue most things were set up again and again, I finished it off and then went for a bit of a walk around Leeds before soundcheck.
It was a really difficult room for Tom tonight but he did a great job with it considering it was a concrete cavern. He is a very good sound engineer.
We finished up soundcheck and the promotor took us to Belgrave Music Hall and Canteen for dinner.
We had the option of pizza and burgers. I was the only person to have pizza, and everyone else had burgers, a decision they would soon regret. The pizza came straight away and the burgers took about 5 to 7 business days to prepare. 

Tom Clements came to meet us and it was great to see him. He is a very good man.

We went back to the venue and by the time we got there the local support was almost finished.
These New South Whales went on and their show was great as always. Jamie’s Marge Simpson impersonation was particularly good this evening.
DZ went on and I checked everything very thoroughly this evening and I managed to not stuff anything up this time which was nice.
The show was great and The Bronx were there to watch too. It was nice to see them.
I didn’t watch the last few songs because a girl called Molly was unintentionally pushed and tripped on to the stage and hit her head really hard. I carried her with her friend in to the dressing room. Tom let the venue know what was going on for me and I called and ambulance just to be safe.
We packed everything down and Lachlan and I walked to get the van. We came back and the ambulance with Molly was still out the front of the venue and I spoke with the medical officers and they said that she would be fine and they were going to take her home.
We loaded everything out and I said goodbye to Tom and Gabby and drove everyone to the hotel.
Once everyone was in the hotel Ben and I dropped the van back in the secure car park and walked back to the hotel.
Lachlan and I watched Gordon Ramsey yell at people on Hotel Hell and it was great. Looking forward to a cup of tea in the morning 

These New South Whales and DZ Deathrays at Castle Hill.

Day 20

I woke up this morning after a great sleep on a really comfortable bed.
Lachlan and I got up to have breakfast. It was very bad watching the people use their hands to grab everything instead of the tongs next to the food.
We went back up to our room and Tom messaged me telling me he couldn’t sleep all night. He was very fragile and needed to sleep on the floor with Lachlan and I.

Shane messaged saying he couldn’t charge his phone. I went up to his room and let him know the wall had a USB port and he could have charged his phone all night.
He had a big night so I offered to go and get breakfast with him.
We found a nice Indian place in an arcade and got samosas and chicken dosa.
I went to get the van from the secure parking lot and walked past a man who had passed away next to a bus stop in the cold. It was very sad. The ambulance was putting him in a bag. I kept walking down to the van and drove it back up to the hotel.
When I got out I accidentally made eye contact with a big man with face tattoos who spat on my legs and feet. Not the best morning.
We loaded the van and drove towards Manchester, via a place called Castle Hill that I thought had a big grand castle on it, however when we approached and arrived it was a very underwhelming little tower on a hill.
Tom described it as “literally the worst castle he has ever seen” and didn’t even bother getting out of the van.
We took some some photos and almost got blown off the hill and then continued to Manchester.
Another Ibis Budget.
Shane had to go and wash his clothes so I drove him to the laundromat to he had looked up online and we parked next to the venue I was at last time I was here with Dune rats. We went in to the laundromat. It ended up costing a very large £20 and we drove back to the venue feeling a little sad.
The venue is called Band On The Wall and is nice venue.
We went and met everyone at the pub and I had one of the nicest steak and ale pies I have ever had before going back and loaded in.
Shane and I were late to the load in and everything was already in the venue which I felt bad about.
We did sound check and then I took Shane back to the laundromat to pick up his clothes.
Everyone is feeling pretty tired now, but ready to sprint to the finish line.
We had pizzas and during dinner Ben asked me if I’d be interested in working on the logistics for the next season of their tv show. I was incredibly flattered and a bit nervous about it but really excited to say yes. 

I came up to the merchandise desk to relieve Shane to be greeted by 3 gentlemen calling him names and swearing at him for not being able to change the setlist.

Shane surrounded by crowd on stage at Band On The Wall.

I went back down to the dressing room and had to wake up Tom. He was a very tired man tonight but did a very good job at sound engineering.
The show went well, except some girl grabbed Shane’s microphone stand and almost took his head off with it.
Things started getting a little out of hand so I deployed myself as a human crowd barrier.
We loaded out very quickly and got the bus park at the hotel and I went to bed. Shane went out and I was hopeful that he wouldn’t wake me when he came home. 

Shane, Lachlan and Simon backstage at Hug and Pint.

Day 21 

Shane came home at around 4am and tripped over his bag and hit his face directly in to the wall. I turned the light on and he was actually about 10cm away from me face and asked me if he had broken his nose. He was ok and I went back to sleep until about 9:30 and went down for a stupendous full English breakfast.
We set off to Glasgow at around 10:45 and stopped in at a TESCO so everyone else could eat food.
These New South Whales showed us a comedian called Limmy who was absolutely hilarious and made the trip a little funnier.
Driving through the Lake District and in to Scotland was one of the most beautiful drives I’ve ever done. The hills are gorgeous and have amazing dry stone walls holding in sheep and cows. The peaks are either bare or covered in conifers and the road winds gracefully through the landscape.
We arrived at our hotel after about 4 hours of driving and checked in. Our room smells very bad, kind of like a rugby team that’s been sweating heavily in there, mixed with lantana in the hot summer sun.

I went to the toilet in the McDonald’s. Something very bad had happened in the middle cubicle. Shit everywhere.
We left the hotel and drove in to Hug and Pint, tonight’s venue.
We loaded in and then carried everything down some metal stairs in to the smallest room on the tour. The first thing I noticed about all the staff was how incredibly friendly everyone was.
After soundcheck, Lachlan, Simon, Shane, Todd and I went for a walk around the area of Glasgow that we were in and saw some really great zones with nice church spires. We walked up a lovely stone path and saw the magnificent Nicholson’s accounting building. There’s some really great stoops in Glasgow, looks like a great place for punks to hang out.
We got back to the venue and watched the local opener before both bands played. It was a fun show, something was up with Lachlan’s ears and I checked on the rack and in doing so got a massive mouthful of hazer smoke and had to eat a banana to get he taste out. Terrible tasting stuff.
I really enjoyed my time in Scotland, and I am very glad that I got to go there and looking forward to hopefully spending some time there in the future.
Simon smashed his laptop to pieces after the show. It had been absolutely infuriating him all tour. 

Lachlan, Simon and Shane out the front of Hug and Pint.

We loaded out and Todd set his stage costume on fire before we drove home listening to William Wallace’s speech in Braveheart.
We had an end of tour McDonald’s and went to bed. 

DZ Deathrays - Europe Tour, Summer 2018

Lachlan, Simon and Shane sitting by a canal in Paris.

Day 16

I woke up at about 9am and rolled around in bed for a few hours trying to get some more rest.
I sent Lachlan a message to see if he was up. He was, and I convinced him to come to the supermarket with Tom and I, a decision we would all learn was a poor one.
We drove to the supermarket and I recognised it from the last time I left Paris with Dune Rats.
I put the car we had through a car wash there, it was very strange to have been there twice.
We went towards the carpark and there was a boom gate. We couldn’t get in because we didn’t have the right card to access the carpark however a large lineup of traffic had now arrived behind us. I had to get out and try to get everyone to reverse and allow me to do a 3 point turn to get out.
Eventually we found a nice safe car park next to a burnt out car on bricks with all its tyres removed and walked in through the rubbish filled street to the supermarket.
The supermarket was quite nice and had lovely food. We got all we wanted and headed to the checkout. There was about 50 checkouts and only 1 person serving people -t he result being a line about fifty thousand kilometres long.
A nice lady pointed us to the self serve line, which we just got cut in front of by everyone and when we eventually got in the machine wouldn’t scan most of our items. We very hurriedly left the cursed supermarket and came back to our hotel to make a baguette with cheese and salami for breakfast.
After breakfast I went to the van to check the gaffers tape and Pringle can lid. It seems to be holding up ok.
I cleaned the rubbish out of the van and went and got ready to go in to the venue.
We arrived at Point Éphémère a little early and loaded in. The venue was really hot already before people had even arrived.
We set everything up and then sat by the canal surrounded by rubbish and chatted for a while.
We had a beautiful dinner that the venue prepared which I really enjoyed and then got ready for the show.
I sold merchandise for the first half of the show and then set up for the sweatiest and best show of the tour to date.
These New South Whales did really well, it was their first time playing in Paris. Their show was great as always and had a really good crowd response.
The crowd support for DZ was really wonderful to see and there ended up being around 280 people at the show having an absolute blast which was great, especially considering it was a Monday night.
Will and I packed up, loaded out and got everything in the van. After that Jamie and I waited around looking at all the rats coming out of the canal while Tom offered to buy Lachlan a beer and accidentally shouted about €40 worth of beers for everyone.

Simon trying to cool down after the show.

We drove back to the hotel watching Monty Python in the van and it was very funny.
We stopped at some traffic lights and Tom sang Ba Ba Black Sheep to some people on the side of the road in a beautiful French singing voice.
I was worried about the radiator for the next drive, but decided to check up on it in the morning and re tape it if necessary.

Day 17

I woke up this morning and went down to the reception for breakfast.
The waiter was especially rude however we ignored his arrogance and enjoyed a nice breakfast together.
I checked the tape and Pringle can lid and all seemed to be in order before setting off on our journey to London.
We stopped about halfway at a fuel station and I filled up as well as checking on the radiator’s temporary fix. It seemed to be holding up well.
We continued driving to the tunnel and arrived and checked in after our 3 hour journey from Paris to Calais.
Lachlan, Tom, Ben and I all went through very quickly because we have European and UK passports while the others got put through with the trainee border force gentleman which took quite a while. We boarded the train and settled in for the trip under the sea.

Tom and I switched driving when we arrived back in the UK and started driving to London. We got in to London and the traffic was horrible, as always.
I needed to pee incredibly badly so Shane and I got out of the van in the stand still traffic while we were in Peckham and ended up walking faster than the van. We went to a pub and I went to the toilet while Shane had a Guinness and shouted me a sparkling water with lemon.
We met up with everyone at the arcade games venue DZ were doing their label party at and had a very expensive, very low quality vegan burger.
Tom, Jamie, Lachlan and I left to drive north of London to our hotel, stopping in at a TESCO to get some berries and noodles. We arrived at our hotel between the highway and the train line and checked in. I shared a room with Lachlan and we put the air conditioning on and watched some TV before going to sleep.

Day 18

I woke up this morning and liaised with Jack from the van hire company to get someone out to fix our radiator issue. He said it was easier for me to called Mercedes Benz. After about an hour and a half of waiting in the hotel parking lot a bloke called Neil turned up to fix the van.
He gave us a new cap and replaced the coolant. He ran a diagnostic test on the van and cleared a few errors.
He determined that everything was ok with the van and it must have been the radiator cap that was the problem.
After that I took Shane and Simon to the train station.

Neil checking our van.

When they came down to the van they let me know that the merchandise couldn’t be delivered to the hotel because the courier couldn’t work out how to do his job and deliver a box of t-shirts.
After dropping them off at the train station I rang the courier and just got him to park where he was and to tell me where that was so I could go to him, as he was incapable of doing the simple task. I got the shirts, went back to the hotel and drove to the venue with Lachlan and Todd.
We arrived at the venue, called Borderline, in Soho and the load in was absolutely horrible.
We had to double park on a very busy Charing Cross Road in the middle of Soho and load through the traffic and a worksite. After that I had to move the van to a car park a few blocks away from the venue and call up Ringo Toll Company to try to pay for the carpark. It took about 25 minutes before it finally worked.

I went back to the venue and almost everything was already set up so I finished setting up what wasn’t.
After I had done that I walked to a cash exchange shop with all of the merchandise money which was in Euros to exchange it in to British Pounds.
I went back to the venue and and did soundcheck. Ecca Vandal was there and she checked with the guys as well.
They did Sabotage and it was very good.
After soundcheck we went to get Vietnamese for dinner.
On the way back to the venue I saw a barber and stopped in, to get my hair cut. I just told him to turn the chair around so I couldn’t see what he was doing and that he should express himself. I think he did a great job.
He was a funny fellow from Romania and had been working at the barbers shop, called Rogers, for 6 years.
I got back to the venue and had a bit of a rush to set up the merchandise.
I also had to rush to write out the set lists and managed to stuff up both Lachlan and Shane’s setlist.
Shane broke a string in the first song and Lachlan broke a string in Shred For Summer, the only song in a different tuning and I gave him the guitar in the wrong tuning. He dealt with it really well but I felt absolutely terrible about the show and I was very disappointed with myself. 

After the show Ben and I packed everything up on the floor and I went to pick up the van. The road was closed and I had to go a different direction which turned a 6 minute drive in to a 36 minute drive.
I got to the venue and parked on the footpath and everyone brought gear up.
We loaded it on the footpath through the middle of a nightclub line up.
Lachlan bought me a felafel kebab which was lovely and we drove back to the hotel.
We watched a bizarre rip off of Kitchen Nightmares and then went to sleep.

Ecca Vandal on stage with DZ Deathrays in London.

DZ Deathrays - Europe Tour, Summer 2018

Lachlan, Simon and Shane in Dornstat.

Day 13

Today I woke up after a really great sleep in.
I went down to breakfast just before they started pack everything away and got some food for everyone and put it on the table before it was all taken.
There is some sort of maze festival called Labyrinth happening in the corn fields around the hotel, so it was quite busy there.
Lachlan, Shane and I had a nice breakfast and Lachlan took Simon a pretzel.

I went to the van and cleaned the whole thing out. It was filthy after yesterday’s events.
After I’d removed all of the rubbish and cleaned down all the alcohol stained surfaces and checked the coolant level. It was the lowest it’s been so far. I filled it up and the warning light is now staying on. Worrying. 

We were totally out of coolant so before we went to the festival we had to buy some more. We went to a Bauhaus and found some coolant for future fillings.

After we got some food and the coolant we drove to the festival. 

I went the wrong way because the worksheet had the wrong address but then we followed the signs to the festival and found it quite easily.
We arrived way to early to the festival and sat around eating food for many hours as well as talking to a German bus driver called Eddie from Red Car bus company. 

We played some basketball in the parking lot and then ate some food for dinner. 

There was an amazing dune buggy at the festival and I asked the man driving it if I could have a go. To my surprise he said I could. Tom and I drove it around the car park for a while and it was very fun. 

I spoke to our stage manager and he said the festival, Obstwiesenfestival, had been running for 26 years. It’s a totally free festival to enter and camping costs €10 while parking costs €3!  

The guys played their show and the tent was mostly full and had a great mosh pit happening. People seemed to really enjoy the show.

We loaded out very quickly and started driving to Cologne to stay in the same ibis budget we stayed in the first night in continental Europe.
Tom drove and Simon, Shane and I rested in the back. 

We arrived at the ibis budget at 2:30am and Simon and I went to the self check in to begin the process. We entered the reservation code and it didn’t work. We tried several more times, figuring we were tired and were probably just doing something wrong. 

Shane, Lachlan and Tom arrived and to our dismay Shane had accidentally made the hotel reservation for the right date, but for the following month. Shane very quickly (surprisingly so) found a new hotel only 5 minutes away and we drove there to park and check in.

There was no parks so we parked on the grass. The check in process was so incredibly slow and painful. The receptionist said we had to move our van so Tom and I went back to it and Tom drove it very far across some grass which was very funny. 

We parked in a hardware store car park and walked back to the hotel. The check in was still happening. Very disturbing. We eventually got to our rooms at around 3:30 and Lachlan and I shared a bed and went to sleep. 

Shane in the crowd, Amsterdam.

Day 14 

This morning Lachlan and I woke up in our shared bed and I got up and fetched the van. 

I cleaned it out and checked the coolant. The leak is definitely getting worse. I topped it up and pulled up to the hotel to pick everyone up. 

We went to Edenka for breakfast and snacks before we started our drive to Amsterdam. The drive to Amsterdam was pretty short and uneventful with only one stop at a fuel station for exactly €100 worth of diesel and €5.50 for sanifare snacks.
When we arrived in Amsterdam we picked up the These New South Whales gentlemen from their hotel and drove to the venue.
We arrived at the venue, called Bitterzoet right on time for load in and set up quickly before I moved the van to a car park. I was absolutely amazed I found a car park close to the venue and took it, even though it resulted in a €49 parking ticket.

I took apart Shane’s bass head and reseated the valves that had come loose from the constant bouncing journey in the back of the van.

After soundcheck Lachlan and I had a beautiful gnocchi al ragu before going for a walk around Amsterdam to see the sites. 

We were walking over a bridge when we heard some really loud engine noises, screaming and bashing of something. A speed boat with suited hooligans appeared in a canal with a man holding a bright red flare zooming at top speed down a canal. Chasing along side the canal was a golf buggy with around 10 other suited hooligans on board, trailed by people running, three mopeds and one motorbike. It felt like a crazy scene from a Jason Bourne film, but I think in reality it was some sort of bucks party or possibly a fraternity type thing. Regardless it was very uncouth.

Hooligans in the canal.

We walked back to the venue and got ready for the show.
The show was good, had a good turn out and was really fun.

I went and got the van, my map said if I went forwards it would take me 15 minutes to get to the venue which was only 100m away, so instead I just reversed all the way down a one way street and it took only 40 nerve racking seconds. We loaded out and Lachlan, Tom, Tom’s partner Eva and I drove to our hotel and checked in. I put all the These New South Whales bags in the baggage storage for them, and took Shane and Simon’s bags up in to their rooms. I had a shower and was in bed before midnight. Very pleased.

Day 15

Today I woke up pretty late in a very dark hotel room in Amsterdam west. Lachlan and I packed up our stuff and went down to the van for Burger King breakfast - I elected to have nothing.
I went and packed the van for our drive to Paris. 4.5 hours.

We noticed the tyres looked a little low so figured we best check them at a service centre. The radiator still seemed to have coolant though upon my visual inspection so that was a positive at least. We drove to a petrol station and then to a Media Markt to try and buy a PlayStation controller and a HDMI cable. The whole ordeal took one whole hour I’ll never get back of my life.
We stopped at a BP for lunch and Lachlan got me a nice ham sandwich.
A girls car had broken down so we pushed it out of the way for her over to a car park while I steered. It wouldn’t even start with a roll start so something definitely was wrong. I hope she is ok.

We kept driving and about 1 hour out of Paris an abrupt warning on the dashboard saying “check coolant immediately” came up. I pulled over and Tom popped the bonnet. The radiator cap was no where to be seen. Very concerning. Using our combined 9 person intelligence we used a lid from a Pringle can and gaffers tape to make a temporary cap. Tom affixed it very professionally with delicate gaffers tape and impressive attention to detail. We continued driving and got to Paris safely - Pringle can lid intact. 

A fusion of Australian and German engineering.

We checked in before going in to the city for dinner.
We went to Montmartre and saw the cathedral and looked in some souvenir shops. Shane bought some shirts and an oven mitt.
After very, very much deliberation we finally settled on a wonderful French restaurant called Le Poulbot and had beautiful buttery cheese, meat, bread, vegetables and steaks for dinner as well as a delicious wine.
After dinner we wandered around for a while before ending up at Moulin Rouge. After that Shane, Lachlan and I went back to the hotel and went to bed.

I lay there thinking about how our van is literally held together with gaffers tape and a Pringle can and wondered if it was a metaphor for my life.

Lachlan, Will, Tom and Shane at Moulin Rouge.

DZ Deathrays - Europe Tour, Summer 2018

Simon and Lachlan thoroughly enjoying our 11 hour drive.

Day 12

I woke up to the sound of trucks whizzing past at 6:00am after a few very restless moments of sleep.

I needed to go to the toilet so I walked to a nearby supermarket to get water and paprika chips for breakfast. Ben, Jamie and I sat silently in the van with the door open sharing a bag of chips and staring on to the street to watch the trucks go by. It was very grim. 

We finished breakfast and I drove Ben and Jamie to central station so they could get their train to Amsterdam. These New South Whales aren’t playing the festival we are doing tomorrow so they went straight to Amsterdam for a day off.

Lachlan, Shane and Simon emerging from Gun Club at 8am.

I drove to Gun Club and picked up Tom, Shane, Simon and Lachlan. They were all absolutely hammered. 
We drove to a fuel station and filled up. 
Simon, Lachlan and Tom got beers at 8:30am and we started what ended up being our 11 hour journey. 

We stopped in at quite a few service stations along the way and got various snacks and drinks. Tom drank a warm bottle of rosè and was incredibly drunk for 99% of the journey and very, very funny to sit next to. 

Some highlights of his shenanigans were falling straight out of the passengers door on to the ground of a car park and accidentally squirting a warm bottle of mustard all over his clothes and Lachlan’s bag. He also accidentally smashed Lachlan’s phone which wasn’t as funny.
He eventually fell asleep and looked disgusting. 
It was incredibly hot in the van and everyone had thin layers of sweat over their bodies. A mixture of the horrendous night before and the difficult day that transpired. 
The air conditioning of course didn’t work and the warning lights were all on again.

We arrived at the hotel and I checked in. No one wanted to come in to the hotel because we all looked absolutely horrible, so I checked us all in. 

I was feeling awful. Driving 11 hours on less than an hour of sleep was a really terrible idea.

We got in and Shane, Simon, Lachlan and I went to the sauna and pool and had such a wonderfully relaxing time that made me feel a thousand times better. 
Tom went straight to bed.
After swimming we went and showered and came down to the hotel restaurant for schnitzels.  We had ice creams for dessert and Simon thought he ordered cookies and cream but it ended up definitely not being that - although I have no idea what it actually was.

Midway through the meal a massive convoy of tractors turned up which was incredibly unexpected but also very interesting. All sorts of tractors, all of various ages and styles, some very old and some very new. 

Tom, Lachlan, Shane and Simon on one of many toilet breaks.

DZ Deathrays - Europe Tour, Summer 2018

Lachlan and Shane in Treptow Park.

Day 10

I was woken up this morning by a gentleman changing all the hostel’s beer kegs, which I respect is a difficult task to do quietly, however question its necessity at 7:30am. 

The mattress was very firm and appears to be bedbug free which is always a nice touch.

Lachlan and I walked our bags to a laundromat near Cassiopeia and couldn’t work out how to get the tokens to wash our clothes. Eventually we got a lady working in the bar across the road to help us and I still managed to mess it up by putting washing powder all over the floor.
We had breakfast up the road from the laundromat and Shane rode a rental bike over from the hostel to meet up with us. Lachlan was very upset because we were being overrun by wasps.
Some plain clothes police offices kept smirking at his discomfort with the situation.
We finished breakfast and then headed back to the laundromat. Our washing was finished so we put the clothes in little wheeled baskets and drove them to the dryer. I needed help working that too.

We left and walked around near Cassiopeia and took photoautomat pictures before going to an Aldi to get some groceries and then walked back to the laundromat.

We waited for the last few minutes of the dryer cycle and then took everything back to the hostel.Once we had put everything back in our rooms we hired some rental bikes and rode to the Soviet Memorial in Treptow Park. We wandered around for a while before riding back towards the hostel to get kebabs for lunch. On the way I almost got hit by a police car. We had kebabs and finished our drinks down by The Spree. There were also many more wasps there.

I folded all my clothes and then met Shane and Lachlan down by the van to go and pick up These New South Whales from their hotel. I was really excited to see them.
We picked them up and it made me really happy to see them all. We went to their friend Corey’s place to pick up their strobe light and smoke machine before driving to the venue and loading in.
I got Simon a new snare drum head and he put it on his snare in the car park out the back.
The venue was called Musik and Frieden.
The in house engineer, Peter was really great.
We set up and sound checked both bands and then Lachlan and I rented bikes and rode to the chemist to get hime some ulcer ointment.
I saw Alex Lahey and said hello to her but she either didn’t recognise me or just really didn’t want to talk to me because she completely ignored me.
When we got back to the venue we saw Clowns and said hello to all of them and invited them to the show.
The show was very good, one of my favourites so far and the crowd really enjoyed it. A man in the front row spent more money on merchandise than I’ve ever seen before. I think he bought one or maybe multiples, of everything.
It was really special to see the first show These New South Whales played overseas. They played really well and the show went down a treat, I thought. I’m really happy they’re on the rest of the tour.

The local support band and all their friends managed to get in to our dressing room and drink all the rider before DZ Deathrays had finished playing which was very nice of them. The singer looked like Indiana Jones and asked everyone what they thought of his band about a thousand times.

We loaded out and packed the van. I drove back to the hostel by myself while everyone else has gone out partying. Hopefully Lachlan is quiet when he comes home. 

Simon putting a new head on his snare drum.

Day 11

I woke up and walked down to the front of the hostel and hired a bike to ride to breakfast. I got some muesli and walked around for a while before riding back.
Shane asked me to get my Leatherman out of the van so he could pry his power adapter out of the wall.
I remixed some coolant concentrate and topped the van up again. It was at its lowest ever this morning. When I topped it up and I think I might have found the problem. There appeared to be a split in the plastic reservoir. Maybe not though, I might have just spilled some coolant.
I unpacked almost everything out of the back of the van to get my Leatherman out, just to have Shane tell me he didn’t need it anymore.
We checked out of the hostel and I sat around waiting for everyone for a while. 

Lachlan and Tom leisurely went to breakfast while Shane, Simon, Jamie, Todd, Will, Ben and I waited (almost) patiently for them. 

We departed slightly after schedule and ended up in a terrible amount of traffic. The safety warning light came back on even though I’d only just filled up the radiator. I went in to the slow lane and prepared for a breakdown. 

We stopped at a service centre to check everything and everything seemed ok when I turned the van back on. Very suspicious. We got food there and that pushed our arrival time back a bit.
We arrived at Hafangklang and I went the wrong way but eventually got to the load in. We loaded in and I struggled around the venue to a park for the van. I saw a park and did a 12 point turn blocking a lot of traffic to get in to it.
The street I parked in made me chuckle, it was called Buttstraße.
We did soundcheck and Tom had forgotten his iPad so I had to walk back to the van and get it for him. 

While Tom was tuning the PA, Jamie, Ben and I went for a walk in the park and looked at some dogs and had a nice chat.

After soundcheck Lachlan, Shane, Simon and I sat on some stairs and drank some water before we had dinner.
After dinner we all went for a walk to the Reeperbahn which is always a really interesting experience.
We all went to a pub and Jamie and I had some sparkling water while everyone else had beers. 

Simon, Will, Jamie and Lachlan watching Shane explaining the inner workings of The Reeperbahn… or something.

We looked around in a few shops, saw a few knives and a few guns as well as a lot of homeless people and people generally down on their luck.
We made our way back to the venue via The Beatles tribute and there were already quite a few people in the venue for the show. The show was good and Murray turned up, he’s very easy to spot in a crowd.
Everyone helped loading out and we were packed and in the van quite quickly. 

Everyone except Jamie, Ben and I decided to go out and before they had formulated a plan for the night we had already started driving back to our accomodation. The drive time was 30 minutes and about 8 minutes in to our drive Jamie realised he had left his backpack at the venue. I turned around and started driving back to the venue. About halfway there, Ben, who was sitting in the back at the time started to smell a strange smell of alcohol, specifically wine. Eventually we could all smell it and by the time we got back to the venue it was quite overpowering. There was a really strange man working at the bar that night and he had taken Jamie’s bag and was trying to be funny by not giving it back to him but just ended up coming across as a dickhead.

We got back in the van and Ben had discovered the source of the smell. Someone had not put the lid back on a bottle of spirits that Tomas had given us which caused it to leak through the whole van and smell absolutely putrid. I’m not sure who was the last person drinking from it was, but they really blew it not putting the lid back on properly.

We got back in the van and drove back out to the accommodation, now another 30 minutes in the van. 

About 5 minutes before we got there, the darkened forest, lack of street lights, houses and general civilisation left a dark foreboding cloud of doubt over me. We arrived at the motel and all my suspicions came to life. The motel was dark, no lights to be seen and no people in sight, nothing, despite me calling earlier to confirm a late check in. A note was left on the door to call a number, which I did. Many, many times.

I was greeted by an automated message in German which I couldn’t understand. I tried saying my name, other touring member's names, but the effort was futile. I rang a door buzzer, rang reservations, banged on the door, tried to get in for around 30 minutes before giving up and calling Simon.
The decision was made to try to book a new hotel. All the hotels I called were not answering their phones. I decided that staying in the car park at the motel quite a way out of town and also in the wrong direction for tomorrow’s drive was less productive than trying to get a hotel in town by driving up to one. This was a decision I would most certainly come to regret.
We started driving back towards the city, another 30 minutes in the van before I saw a Holiday Inn. I tried to check in there but couldn’t. There were several other hotels in the area and I tried all of them too but was turned away at every one.
I saw an Ibis and Ibis Budget and hoped beyond hope that they would have room for us. When I arrived, to my dismay they also had no room for us.
Jamie, Ben and I all decided to sleep in the van overnight while the others were forced to party all night because there was no where for us to stay. We found a parallel car park by a main road and tried to make the best of our new sleeping arrangements. I slept at the back of the van, Jamie slept on the seats in front of me and Ben slept on the seats in front of Jamie. We drew the curtains and settled in for some sleep at around 4:30am. I felt sorry for them, it was the second night of their first international tour. Sleeping was next to impossible and every time a truck or van drove past our van, we would rock violently back and forth.

Ben, Todd, Shane, Simon and Jamie in a bar in Hamburg.

DZ Deathrays - Europe Tour, Summer 2018

The most helpful and efficient tire shop I have ever been to.

Day 9

I woke up just before 8am this morning feeling mostly better. I packed up my things and drove to a place I was recommended by Irvin, called Tyre Joe’s to get the tyre fixed.
When I got there the compressor in the shop wasn’t working and I was told it was “impossible to fix this tyre at this time”. I asked where else I could get it done and started driving there. It took about 30 minutes and when I got there the man working was really helpful and sorted it out very quickly.

An older gentleman with a fantastic handlebar moustache diagnosed the problem. A split where the intake valve meets the tyre had blown out and caused the flat, most likely when we went over the speed bumps coming across the boarder. The van is really heavy so that makes sense I guess. 

It cost €25 to fix and I gave the service assistant, Steve, who was working behind the counter a Bloody Lovely CD. He was pretty confident he wouldn’t like it, but I gave it to him anyway.

He explained to me that he went to the USA often to go fishing and Americans always confused Austria with Australia and he had to tell them “no I’m from Austria, no kangaroos”.
I stated driving back to the venue and on the way got pulled over by the police for another incredibly mediocre van check before arriving back at the venue where everyone was still asleep.

We drove to a music store in one of the giant round gasometer buildings and couldn’t find a car park so parked in a sports club car park while Shane and Simon went in to the store.
We then stopped at a Billa supermarket and got breakfast. Tom dropped his apple on the ground and his blackberries were covered in mould. 

After breakfast we started driving towards Berlin.
The drive was mostly just long and uneventful, however Tom really needed to have a wee so we stopped in one of the most repulsive rest areas I’ve ever seen and when he emerged from the bushes he looked like he would never be the same again. He said he saw a red poo with beetles in it. He’s had a rough morning.

We continued driving through Brno and Prague and stopped off at a KFC. I had some of Simon’s chips and everyone expressed it was the best and cleanest KFC they’d ever been to.
We kept driving towards Berlin via Dresden and got stuck in a massive traffic jam which was very boring. 

We had some Haribo lollies, pretzels, Riffler chips and fizzy water to keep us entertained though. While we sat, we listened to the new Regurgitator album which was great. 

We stopped a lot of times so everyone could go to the toilet and do some stretching after sitting down in the van for so long. 

We arrived in to Berlin at around 9pm and checked in to Plus Berlin. Good to be back - I guess. My phone still remembers the wifi network which is nice. Lachlan and I went to the kebab shop on Warschauer Strße and had a lovely kebab. We walked up across the train tracks towards Friedrichshain and took some pictures in one of the photoautomat’s. I pretended to be German and some people believed me which was funny because I can say probably less that 20 words in German.
We walked back to the hostel, got in to bed and watched Mission Impossible with German overdubs. Lachlan has got a very sore ulcer in his mouth.

Lachlan, Shane and Simon stretching at a petrol station just outside Dresden.

DZ Deathrays - Europe Tour, Summer 2018

Lachlan and Shane in the city park, Piestany.

Day 7

This morning I woke up in Piestany still feeling a bit sick. 

Shane, Lachlan and I got up and had breakfast before we went down to the “wellness centre” and had a really hot sauna and a soak in the spa. 

After I got out of the sauna Lachlan tipped a giant bucket of cold water over my head that was attached to a little chain.
The steam made me feel a fair bit better, but I’m not sure the cold water really helped other than for comedic purposes. 

After our time in the spa we went for a walk in to town through the city park and past an old abandoned hotel called Hotel Slovan. It was very creepy but also really cool. We later learned that shortly before we arrived in town it had been on fire.

Shane and Lachlan went shopping in some souvenir stores and bought some stickers. Shane tried to buy a shirt, but everywhere we went they only had extra small or extra large. After the souvenir shopping I bought us all ice creams. Lachlan had dark chocolate and caramel, good combo. Shane got pistachio and mango, and I’m not too sure how I feel about that. 

We walked over the river to the hot springs and palace area of town and had a look around. The town used to be a retreat for royal Slovak families and appeared to have been quite wealthy at one stage. We put our hands in some 60 degree water that smelt like sulphur and then started heading back to the hotel to go the festival.
We stopped in at a pub and Lachlan and Shane had Pilsners and I had a lovely sparkling water. As we left the pub we found Simon sitting alone in the corner of a dark restaurant eating nothing but beef cheeks and drinking beer.

We arrived at Grape Festival and checked in. The festival is held on an old Soviet era airfield. It’s a really great place.
We met our festival guide, Monika and she was really helpful. 

Shane and I split the merchandise and then Simon, Shane, Lachlan and I went to catering and had some lunch before going to watch some music.

We met up with Tomas again and he gave us 3 bottles of his home made wine and some apricot liquor from his local area. 

I thought something was wrong with Shane’s in ear monitors but it just turned out that Tom had forgotten to unmute them.

They allowed us to have a drum riser as well as two skids for the guitar amps which made change over a breeze.
The show went quite well and had a good crowd response. 

After the show we loaded out and I collected the merchandise from the stall. I was still feeling pretty sick but Simon, Shane and Tom decided they would like to stay a bit longer. Lachlan and I decided we would sleep in the van because we are gentlemen. 

After we had been sitting in the van for around an hour, Tom came and told us that they were all in for the long haul and to go home without them, so we had waited around all that time when we could have been at the hotel sleeping. Disgusting.

Day 8

I woke up feeling a bit better, my sore throat had mostly gone which was nice. 
I had a lovely breakfast with Lachlan at the hotel.

Tom is very hungover and was very late to lobby call. He emerged from the hotel with an incredibly swollen face and was entirely unable to lift his own enormous suitcase in to the van. Once I put it in for him we started driving towards Vienna and stopped off at TESCO for food. 

I wondered where our soccer ball had gone and it was revealed that Tom had kicked it in to the darkness and it was lost forever.

Lachlan and Tom went to the toilet and the smell the toilets were emitting made Tom vomit. 

We kept driving to Vienna and when we reached the Austrian border we pulled over to get our vignette sticker for €9. 

When I came out Shane had discovered we had a flat rear tire from something we must have hit coming in to buy the sticker. Terrible stuff, and not a good start to our immediate entry into Austria, however at least I wasn’t put in a van by masked, armed men in Slovakia this time.

I changed the tire quickly and we continued on our way towards Vienna. I accidentally went the wrong way at the border and the patrol officer sent me to the truck area, for what was the most mediocre van search of all time.

We arrived two hours early to the venue, called Arena. It’s a very trendy looking place.

Lachlan, Shane, Simon and I went to get schnitzels and Tom watched soccer in the van alone because he is a coward.

The place we went to was called Schnitzelpalatz. We ordered, of course, schnitzels. Shane and Lachlan had chicken with chips and a beer, and Simon had the same but with a water. To his dismay it was sparkling.

There was a strange show on TV about Ryan Gosling playing the whole time.

We got back to the venue and started loading in. The venue was very punk and DIY feeling.

Midway through soundcheck a beautiful dog, which looked like a German Shepard turned up. The promoter, Irvin, got very angry at me because we were taking too long to soundcheck and he didn’t like it - to which I paid absolutely no attention.

After soundcheck I walked around the compound (for lack of a better word) that the venue is in. I think there is about 4 different stages there. It is a really interesting place and the big amphitheater looks great.
The buildings look quite old and would have once been very beautiful but have been let go, however they have taken on a different life and a different charm. 

I asked Irvin what the buildings used to be and he said it was once a giant slaughterhouse that became a squat for punk rockers in the 1970s.
We talked about punk rock for a while and I commented on his black flag tattoo. He said he regretted getting it because he thought Henry Rollins turned in to a dickhead. 

We went up to the apartment and made up our bunk beds. I got some lovely floral sheets with only minimal staining and put them over the raw foam mattress filled with holes and cigarette burns, which unfortunately did not have only minimal staining.
I noticed there was heaps of band tags in green room and spotted a Break Even one and a massive Mawds one too! It always makes me happy to see a Mawds tag in a venue. He’s definitely one of the best people in the world.

The show was fun even though there wasn’t a massive amount of people there, but it was still a great show and I love hearing the band every night.
A gentleman in a red shirt with a mohawk danced really hard the whole time and that really made the show for me. I spoke to him after and it turned out he had driven two hours to see the show. He loved it. 

After the show we loaded out really fast and I parked the van in a safe spot and went to bed. 

Tomorrow I have a long drive up to Berlin, but first I have to get up early to get the punctured tire fixed.

Simon, Lachlan and Shane enjoying the most popular pastime on tour.

DZ Deathrays - Europe Tour, Summer 2018

Shane, Lachlan and Simon at Sedlec Ossuary - doing their best “metal band” impersonation.

Day 5

Shane and I went to the van and I noticed coolant had leaked on to the ground. We checked it, it was low and a warning light had come on the dashboard. We drove around looking for breakfast for us and some coolant for the van. We topped it up and all the warning lights went off.
We then went back and met up with Simon and Tom and then went to Aldi for breakfast before starting our drive to Prague. 

We arrived in Prague and met up with Lachlan.
Load in for the show at Cafe V Lese was down a tiny set of wooden stairs into a cavernous basement where we proceeded to have arguably the longest soundcheck I’ve ever endured and then went back to our apartment that the promoter had booked for us.
I didn’t get a bed, however I pulled some pillows off a lounge and slept on the floor. 

We walked down to the venue from our accommodation through some lovely cobblestone streets past several interesting convenience stores.

Shane has been sick so his voice is pretty hoarse but he sang well and the show sounded great. 

Eileen sold merchandise and did a great job.

The show finished, it was really fun but definitely one of the hottest shows I’ve ever done. There was no ventilation and I don’t think capacity limits were in effect at the venue.

We met up with Tomas Pikart after the show and he gave Lachlan a hand painted Midnight Oil hat he had bootlegged. He’s such a lovely guy, it was nice to see him again. 

We didn’t have to load out tonight, which was nice so we and got kebabs and pilsners and went to bed. Sleeping was a struggle because all the doors kept slamming.

I, like Shane, have started to feel sick now too.

Day 6

We woke up and I had an allegedly “traditional Czech breakfast” of boiled sausages with mustard and sauerkraut. It was really nice. 

We then went to the venue where Lachlan was already loading out.

We got everything in the van and Shane counted and labelled each piece with some fluorescent tape and a marked number, so we don’t forget anything.

We got in the van and started driving to Sedlec Ossuary. It was an incredible experience. It is a cathedral made of human bones. There is an estimated forty thousand human remains in the cathedral. There are chandeliers made of skulls and bones and giant piles of what looked like femur bones in the four corners of the rooms resembling some form of dark pyramids. It was quite macabre, but a strangely beautiful place.

All the warning lights have come back on in the van. Radiator problems ensue. Also worth noting, the power in the van for the TV and playstation has stopped working too. We’ve only done one show…

We then drove to Slovakia, which was a beautiful drive through rolling country Czech Republic and then Slovakia before eventually making it to Piestany, where we are going to Grape Festival.

We struggled to find a vignette for our van to allow us to drive on Slovakian roads.

It’s my first time back in Slovakia since I was put in a van at gunpoint, so I was a little uneasy at first.

Every time we stopped people were staring at us like we were aliens.

It’s strange, I often feel like an alien on these tours. I move in an aluminium tube propelled by turbines to the other side of the world, and then drive a steel van (or my ‘spaceship’) and visit places and cultures different from my own.

We stopped at a beautiful petrol station that looked like the scenery was out of Lord Of The Rings and the lady working there said we could get a vignette 2 kilometres down the road but the place was closed. Eventually we found one at a petrol station and went to our hotel. It’s an amazing hotel, I believe graciously provided by the festival.

After we checked in we walked to an Italian restaurant and had pizza and pasta for about €3. Once we had finished out meal we headed back to the hotel and I am feeling pretty sick, with a really sore throat. Lachlan is also feeling quite ill, which was very alarming for Tom and Simon, however he seems ok. Time for sleep. I hope I feel better in the morning.

DZ Deathrays - Europe Tour, Summer 2018

Simon and Shane enjoying some bratwurst in Nuremberg

Day 1

Today mum and dad dropped me off at Simon’s house. Simon, Lucille and I drove to Manly to go to the pub before meeting up with Shane at the international airport. We signed the carnet and got ready to board our Etihad flight to Abu Dhabi. We couldn’t check in because an older man had been assaulted in the line and someone was being arrested. We eventually checked in and the person working on the desk was great. They let us get away with a few kilograms of extra weight. We then went to the Air New Zealand lounge to wait for our flight. We boarded and sat down for a really long time.

Day 2

We landed in Abu Dhabi and raced to the first class lounge for a shower before boarding our next flight, with only a few minutes to spare. 

I got asked to move, at the time having a nice window seat, got asked to move again and had an aisle seat, and asked one more time to move, where I was then sat in the middle seat with air conditioning liquid dripping on me for 8 hours.

We landed at Heathrow and picked up our van from a British gentleman called Jack. We drove in to Camden, London to pick up backline from John Henry’s and then on to Simon’s auntie Rose’s house to pick up the lighting that she had left in a garbage bin in her front yard for us. It was pretty funny.

We then drove to a very quaint little hotel in a place called Hickstead and checked in. It was 36 degrees in London that day, which was very hot for the UK.

We went a pub in Burgess Hill and had a Guinness and Cumberland sausages with mash and then drove back to the hotel and went to bed.

Day 3

Last night I had a pretty restless sleep because the room was so hot. We drove to TESCO and bought food for breakfast before going to Brighton to do pre production at Stinky Mike’s. I met Tom, who is doing front of house for the tour.

I’m glad we did pre production because Simon’s hi hat stand was broken, however  we managed to fix it and ended up pretty happy with how everything was sounding. 

We decided to drive via Cologne on the way to Prague, which was a good idea at the time. Tom drove really well the whole way from Brighton and by the time we got to the euro tunnel a massive storm had started. After exiting in to France we drove through an incredibly violent storm. There was more lightning than I ever remember seeing.
We made it to the Ibis budget at about 3am and Tom struggled to park the van for about 10 minutes before an old German gentleman yelled at us so we just parked on the street. 

Day 4

We woke up and Shane and I drove to a supermarket near the hotel and got some food for breakfast before meeting up with the others and doing the same. We started driving to Nuremberg.
Today was really hot, 37 degrees at times and the van started overheating with quite a few warning lights coming on. Not a good start.

We stopped a few times and let it cool down and eventually made it to Nuremberg. The back 6 seats in the van get really hot so we tried to buy a fan, or ventilator as they’re called in Germany, but had no luck after trying about 10 different stores of all varieties. We checked in to our ibis budget and Shane had a really nice bratwurst restaurant he wanted to take us to. Bratwursthäusle bei St. Sebald. I had 8 sausages, potatoes and sauerkraut. It was really delicious. After dinner we walked up through a beautiful castle and then went home to bed.