rink lay

Thursdsay nov 24 bilbao cake anzokia w/dirty three and decemberists
So it is an 8am load in bad weather in the basque country. No one has managed to sleep despite not moving. We call the hotel our production facility, and I do the usual tour managerly duties round town. It is sort of slow going but everyone is happy to be in spain, and the smell of something sweet, sticky and black is very reminiscent of days of yore. Presales are apparently slow, but we are assured that they always are in bilbao. I hunker down to work in anticipation of the upcoming trip to the Balkans. We meet merce and Cynthia who will be our hostesses for the following 4 days. Hey now is in heaven, to be sure.
We get caught up in a fruitless search for turkey on thanksgiving, and I beg off to go back to the club for a perrito caliente and patatas fritas. As usual, catch ten minutes of the decemberists who had their bus break down and are looking a bit frazzled. They are definitely much different than I had expected. The dirty 3 are up next, and it is safe to say that these cats are bona fide bonkers. Situated on the cd shelf between the dirtbombs and the d4, I had never seen them live before, despite dp being in charge of them for some time. They are brilliant. The rev take the stage next, and it is safe to say that the crowd is so stoned that they are mesmerized, confused, and quite flummoxed by what is happening.
It looks great, like the kind of theatre that Lincoln was shot in or something, with a thick layer of hash smoke permeating the air. The 500 or so punters totally give it up, but we have to do the disco load in the rain and roll immediately to Madrid. Funnily enough, a large group of teenage girls drunk on too much something or other find a skip full of bricks and proceed to throw bricks at any car remotely resembling a posh one.
All of us find our bunks and kip it to Madrid.
Nov 25 madrid aqualung w/dirty 3 and the decemberists
We awake in a strip mall in Madrid and tuck right into a fantastic Spanish breakfast. Our drivers are psyched, bacon and eggs and fresh coffee. I settle into the production office for an afternoon of dial up and a night of debauchery , no doubt. We get the ball rolling very early with the decemberists who play to a relatively light crowd, but a strong reaction. More people are present for the dirty 3 and they get a big hurrah, ‘link wray,link wray,link wray’. Warren is insane. My kind of guy, as is jim and patch their tm/foh. Mercury rev take the stage with a thousand crazy Spaniards givng it their all and they proceed to play the best show I have seen them play. It is fucking exhilarating, and I am one proud poppa today, and the rioja certainly helps.. the mood in the dressing room is great after ther show and we call a late bus call to Valencia. Everyone packed off in various cars to the Costello bar in c aballero de gracia. Fuck if I know but hey now and I find it and tuck right into the ‘yim beams’ and modern alt rock soundtrack. Things begin to get a bit hazy for some and bus call approaches with carlos and hopper and I escorting a member of the extended rev family back to his hotel for the early flight back to London town. Poor bugger. We barely make the bus call due to serious cab shortages and no dearth of late night drinkers. Another good night in Madrid.
Nov 26 valencia republica w/ dirty 3 and the decemberists
It is opening night in this big barn of a club outside of Valencia so we are stuck in the burbs with no internet and whatever else it is that modern musos get up to on thanksgiving weekend, sans Trojan football and turkey sandwiches. But fuck it, we have crianza and the best paella of all time, and no I do not see gene hackman this time, but all is good rocking the eagles of death metal in the dressing room. It is quiet early on for the decemberists who seem like they have a great show all the same, and the crowd begins piling in for the dirty three, and it is more ‘link wray’ which I am unsure if the Spaniards can quite suss out. They dig the three and then give the rev a lot of love for the next 90minutes. A great show once more, and a very enthusiastic crowd. Afterwards we get patch and merce and all revs involved in some product placement type of drinking(for relaxing times make it san Miguel times), we enjoy some tremendous late night kebabs and I crawl in my bunk for the short trip to Barcelona wondering if ronaldinho will make it or not and whether those shriveled hot dogs got stashed in someone elses bunk.

jamon, jamon

Tuesday nov 22 lisbon centro cultural de belen
So after numerous police checkpoints and about 2000klicks, we make it to rainy, gray, Portugal. Nearly lost we make it to the gig, do our late load, retire to a dressing room in the bowels of the building and spend the day basically going, ‘huh?’ I am paid nearly immediately, benefica are playing in town thus not a big crowd is expected I am told. So I use the time to catch up on some accounting and data processing and shaving which is quite a novelty. It is only the rev tonight and the guys spend their day checking as it is cold and miserable outside and there is no internet so what else is there to do? We manage to rustle up some bacalao in the canteen of the arts center and bobs yr uncle. The guys play 2 hours to a very satisfied audience, hang about backstage with management, pack the bus and drive right back to spain.
Wednesday nov 23 bilbao/off
We miraculously make it back to bilbao and I miss my radio 4 interview(the station, not the band) and it is straight into the low speed internet(at 15yoyo/s a rip off). Do all the emails, catch up on some correspondence and basically destroy the minibar for lunch as I am locked into to the ‘net. I get out for a walk late at night, and the guys have an early one after some decent grub in old bilbao. I opt for the room service option and some European futbol, before retiring to zorba the greek and then bed. Not exactly the thanksgiving eve one is used to.

day in day out

Sunday nov 20 gent de vooruit
So we get the bus worked on in the early hours and everyone miraculously makes the call. Belgium is freezing this morning and we get the bus parked up lickity split right outside for the day which most of the guys sleep off. Bart and his crew at vooruit have us sorted right out with the hospitality, including tons of Belgian chocolate and delcious deli trays. A right relaxing day with a very professional local crew, the venue reminds me of the inside of st Andrews in Detroit if they gave a shit. That is where the comparisons stop. I/m stuck into the production office getting mac tutorials from whomever is handy. Real nice. Hell we even make telephone calls to the s.o./s on the computer. Very strange,indeed. After a brilliant lamb dinner, the guys play the best show that I have ever seen them play, 90 minutes of blessed out Belgians. A real love fest in the frosty November night. Afterwards we pass on our many thinks and the guys go round the corner to the local beer bar, but alas tis a Sunday and quite frozen to boot, so we move the party on the bus and begin the 1300 mile trek to Portugal.
Monday nov 21 sur la route/san Sebastian
Across france we sleep off the previous nights seisun before getting pulled over by the French police for some odd reason(they like to check the ‘tacho’, hell, who doesn/t), and it is onwards and upwards to san Sebastian, a bit of paradise by the sea. I am straining to remember the name of the restasurant in Anthony bourdain’s book, but it does not come, nor any internet access to chowhound it. But we find a brilliant little tapas joint right at the entrance to a very beautiful old church. Oysters, jamon iberico, tempranillo, verdejo and out the door to some beer bar outside where we enjoy the crisp Spanish night. We manage to bring together everybody but squid and wind up in some place called the old Dutchman which is not what I imagined for the basque country, but the clams and duck confit where pretty damn delicious all the same and that/s where the evening falls apart. Monday night in san Sebastian, god help us. We cannot organize a piss up in the proverbial brewery. We wind up in some ropey bar on the seaside that is either the gayest straight bar ever or vice versa. And boy were they mean. Hopper had to ask the waitress if she was a witch as she was sporting the biggest pentagram of all time outside a trenchcoat mafia reunion tour. I have been abused by an awful lot of barstaff over the years but these two took the torta. Rightfully fucked off, we retired to the bus ensemble and paqssed out for the 14 hour drive to Lisbon. Great town, but the maratimo bar is mierda.

shake, europa

Thursday nov 17 brussels/off
We do the overnite from jfk, everyone scattered across the half empty flight to London. I manage to finish two new Yorkers, watch an incredibly bad movie(why did they need to remake bad news bears?), drink some Chilean red, and sleep an hour. They wonder why no one is eating the chicken on the overnite flight, hint, avian flu is the number one topic of conversation in the usa. Go figure.
A couple of hours to kill and I spend most of my time wondering why the fat fuck at my local cel phone place had not activated my international calling plan. But hey, I am wireless in heathrow airport thanks to tmobile. Wireless. Christ, the 21st century. Well it is a trial and tribulation trying to get the cel phone activated, that and the fact that travelex will not take amex to activate the uk phone. Thus I drop my last 150 sterling on the phone and get the plane to belgique where after a bit of rigamarole with the immigration, we are ushered to our van and chauffered into the place rogier and our very spiffy digs.
It is cold as, and I manage to get online at a very high price and find out that our bus driver is sinead o/ Connors driver , so it is over to the cirque royale to say hey to fionna, meet our driver, eat a croque monsieur and drink a pint of leffe, and back to the shack in the subarctic temps to get our back drop from v2, and try to hook up with my sister inlaw. No avail as she is out in the burbs,, meet amelie from v2, and deal with the bus cock ups in the uk which keeps my phone ringing for the next few hours. Sleepless, I decline dinner with the guys and work on some production issues. Those resolved, squid and I go over to cirque royale to catch a bit of sinead/ sly and Robbie. I am instantly stoned by the amount of weed in the air, look out for fionna, say hey to amy Davidson the tm, manage to quaff a pint, catch one song of sinead, and hit the streets looking for my brother in laws pub in les sablons(the black sheep,an irish pub in Brussels). There I enjoy a few Belgian ales with jean marie and claude, and after three drinks and 36 hours of no sleep, I am comfortably scoobied and jean marie gives me a lift back to the shack where I am accosted by a pie eyed red faced American muck savage who shouts, ‘ron jeremy’ in my general direction, and I wonder, ‘how does this guy know about my numerous connections to the hedgehog’. He offers to buy me loads of drinks thinking that my insider knowledge of international pornstars is going to give him a leg up on getting his leg over on some air hostess. I beg off, he tried the same trick with Anthony, yelling ‘jimmy page’, he didn/t bite either.
Friday nov 18 tongeren /de velinx
So we manage to get the bus and we are all 1 big happy family of 10 men for the next 3 weeks. Meet the driver and the double driver and set out on the short journey to tongeren, the oldest city in Belgium, which holds some sort of irony as the boys basically live in the oldest city in new york, or something like that. And it is easy peasy, a nice little community center in a small town in Belgium, the kind of place that does not exist in the usa. Locally funded arts centers with real equipment and an interest in the artist. For me, it is as easy of a day 1 that I could ever ask for(thanks Danielle, and everyone else over there). The guys keep coming in and giving me 30 second mac tutorials, hey now and I check on the nba scores, I tunes are rocking from 5 computers and everything goes smoothly. We are served a very delicious and simple buffet at the café next door and its all good. Potato croquettes, man.
The crowd filters in, giving the local openers a good response, and the rev knocks em out with their 110 minute set. A very happy house,I too am psyched. It is the first time I have seen the guys since byron bay and the first real headline show I have seen with real production. It is fucking great.
Afterwards, hopper, Anthony,the kid, ogro, jd, amelie from v2 and her mate sophie, and I head into the town of tongeren to enjoy the local scenery. Ogro and I get a lift from Danielle as the others had left earlier, and what do we find but the burgundy room of Belgium. People are rocking out, singing along to all sorts of music, drinking 2 euro pints, dancing, and just general shenanigans. It was pretty spectacular, alright. Anthony was teaching people how to dance merengue, hopper was showing the rest of us how to drink, pure insanity and a potentially blown bus call.
Somehow we all make it back, catch the last 20 minutes of chopper, and sleep the 3 hours to den haag.
Saturday nov 20 den haag theatre an spui
The crossing borders festival should be nicknamed the crossing fingers festival, cos ya keep yr fingers crossed hoping something happens, hoping someone has a sense of humor, hoping that yr rider will arrive, but hey, it is an arts festival not donnington.
I meet macy and maria taylor in the lobby of the mercure hotel, and miles from the akron family, who is my neighbor., I tell em to give a shout out to old uncle mike g, and go back to the club for meat and cheese on bread and whatever else it is that is going on.
I miss most of which is what I want to see because it is all playing at the same time. Nice.
I can go no further, they tried. The guys played 65 minutes to a good response, salif keitas maracas player lost his chapeau blanc and had an aneurysm(it was in his dressing room), van der graaf generator brought the house down, the guys got loaded at the after party in the sky, I went to bed to the Sunday times magazine.