Dutch was waiting for us right outside
the airport. I spotted the RV straight away. You couldn't really
miss it. Just four hours earlier I was sure we were being sent home
and the whole tour was fucked, now we were heading off on a big
American adventure in a camper van. Chicago already felt like a
million miles away.
Dutch seemed like a friendly enough
guy, pretty normal. We told him all about Chicago, all of us still
buzzing from the experience. Dutch assured us he'd heard it all
before though. Stepping into the RV felt like stepping into one of
those great 80's films like National Lampoon's Vacation or
The Great Outdoors. It
had that vibe about it somehow, I felt like a kid going off on road
trip with my buddies.
As
normal as Dutch first appeared, the tell tale signs of tour driver
weirdness soon started to appear. I'd been mailing back and forth
with him before the tour about all the usual logistical stuff, and
during that time I'd asked him if there was a dvd player on the bus.
He'd told me that yes there was and that not only that, he had
hundreds of dvd's, so there was “absolutely no need” for us to
bring any with us. Cool, I thought. Bonus. And it's true, there
was a dvd player and there were indeed hundreds of dvd's to go with
it. The problem was that ALL of them were wrestling DVD's. All of
them. Wrestlemania this, Royal Rumble that, “Jake the Snake, the
True Story”, “Mick Foley, the Man Behind the Mask”... John was
chuffed enough, but the rest of us were a little inquisitive. I
asked Dutch if he really only had wrestling dvd's to which he happily
replied, “Yeah dude!” Ok, a little weird that our forty five year
old driver is fanatical about wrestling but what the fuck do I know?
Horses for courses and all that..
There
were a few other things about the bus that weren't quite as described
by Dutch, like the bunks at the back of the van were actually thin
strips of plywood, attached very loosely to the walls, holding an
oblong piece of wood with a slither of yellow foam acting as a
mattress. It was like sleeping on a table and literally every time
Dutch took a sharp curve the bunks on the left side of the van would
sway away from the wall. But all in all we were chuffed. There was
a lounge area at the front with a table, bench seats and a sofa
facing a tv. There was a small kitchen area with a stove and
microwave. Between the lounge and bunk area there was even a toilet
and a shower, although you had to stop the van and wait an hour for
the water to heat up, and then you'd only get five minutes of warm
water. Even so, to us it was absolute luxury.
We
drove into Houston and parked the van in the large car park outside
the venue where the tour would be starting the next day. Even though
it was the middle of January it was still twenty five degrees and the
sun was shining brightly in the early evening sky. It was fucking
miserable at home so being able to walk the streets of downtown
Houston in t-shirts was sheer joy.
We
walked around for a while, in and out of shops and shopping malls,
just killing time really. I remember there was this one crazy
looking black guy in a shabby suit, who had a handmade billboard
hanging around his neck, preaching something about Jesus and the end
of the world. He was literally following people along the side walks
and screaming that the end of the world is nigh in their ears. The
people just carried on walking though, as if he wasn't even there.
We
ended up spending the evening in a sports bar, drinking pints of weak
American lager. All in all, it was an easy going first night though,
I think we were all emotionally worn out from the journey and the
drama that went with it. We retired early, going by Domino's to pick
up some pizza to take back to the van. I'd heard about Houston being
the fattest city in the USA but still couldn't quite believe my eyes
when, as we were sat waiting for our “small” pizza's to bake,
what has to be the largest human being I've ever seen walks in and
orders two XL Meat Feast pizzas, along with an XL diet coke.
The
next day Nile's tour bus turns up in the early afternoon, followed
shortly after by another tour bus that houses Hypocrisy and
Decapitated. Soilent Green and With Passion's splitter vans arrive a
little while later. Nile soundcheck for about four hours, something
I put down to at the time as first night niggle and jitters, but
annoyingly it becomes the norm over the course of the tour. It's
immediately obvious to everyone that amongst all these super
technical bands, musically, we're outsiders here. Our closest allies
in both sound and attitude are Soilent Green, who we'd previously met
in Japan and had a great time with. The other people we quickly
align ourselves with are the boys in With Passion, who are a bunch of
young guys from California with short hair like us, and seem intent
on taking the piss out of everyone they meet, like us..
It's
safe to say we're about a million miles away from Nile in every
aspect of life and music. I'd always quite liked their records to be
honest, I still think Black Seeds of Vengeance is
a great record when it comes to that style of music, but I was
disappointed as soon as I saw them soundchecking since the entire
drum kit is triggered and even worse, the vocals are really weak. I
mean, on record it sounds brutal, that deep guttural growl done so
well, but in reality they're just putting the microphone as close to
their mouths as is possible without actually eating the fucking thing
and growling with absolutely no effort whatsoever. There is no
strain in their throats at all. It all feels a bit like cheating
when you consider that John and Bloody Kev literally tear their
throats to pieces every night.
We
soon have new names for the Nile guys. One of the singer/guitarist
guys is re-christened Ghost Tramp, since he looks like the tramp from
that scene in the film Ghost, the one Swayze meets on the subway.
The other guitarist is given the moniker Fat Jeff, since he looks
like a fat Jeff Hanneman and the bassist is called Zanussi due to the
fact he is doing the Jason Newstead swirling headbang thing, even
during soundcheck, and looks like a fucking washing machine on spin.
I can't remember what we call the drummer but then I can't really
remember the drummer full stop, since you never see him. It turns
out Zanussi is only nineteen years old and this is his first tour
with Nile. I can't help feeling sorry for him although he seems to
be living the dream.
The
first show is not so bad, for a first show. We're not all that tight
and we're still figuring out Soilent's backline that we're hiring,
but as far as the crowd goes, we'll face much worse on this tour.
There are about five hundred in the venue. Some of them are down the
front and seem to be in to it and then there are a bunch of people
behind that are either disinterested or totally confused. I mean,
right before us you've got Decapitated who play solid death metal,
very technical, very fast, very long hair, very static on stage. And
then we come on. Short hair, regular clothes, not technical in the
slightest and performing what looks more akin to a scrap on stage
than a gig. Even most of the other bands look confused. I guess I
can see why.
Afterwards
I hang out with Lasse who is sat at our merch table looking bored,
something that will become a regular feature, and we share a
bottle of Captain Morgan that Lasse has snuck off and bought from a
liquor store, another thing that will become a regular feature, and
watch Nile on stage whilst listening to The Bear Quartet on Lasse's
Iphone. He has these shit hot earphones that block out all other
sound and it's quite a trip watching Nile and the crowd bang their
heads to a soundtrack of northern Swedish folk/pop. It's like being
in a David Lynch film.
The
next night is in Fort Worth, about an eight hour drive from Dallas.
The venue is this large, brightly lit hall, that is carpeted all
over. It's kind of reminds me of the lounge at the Silver Band club
in Corby, only way bigger. The gig is a bit of a non event, we play,
get little to no reaction and fuck off again.
I meet
a guy here who used to live in Corby and was friends with my good
mate Kimmins. I think they worked together or something. Anyway,
he's moved back to the States and is here on Kimmins' instruction.
He's a really nice guy and he was one of the few people who really
liked the gig. He insists on buying us drinks and paying for a
t-shirt. We'd all been pretty hungover during the day, something
else that will become a regular feature, but the adrenalin from the
gig has us all restored and we're ready to go again. We hang out at
the merch table with Lasse, who is already starting to make the odd
comment or two about not wanting to sit at the merch the whole time.
I get the feeling this is going to be a problem but try to ignore it
for now. I tell everyone that they have to take turns hanging out
with Lasse at the merch and help relieve the boredom of not selling
anything.
The
night rolls along and we all get pissed up. Kev meets two big, shady
looking guys at the bar who he befriends and they buy him some shots.
When I meet up with Kev he's pretty pissed and introduces me to his
two new friends, Uni Bomber and Tit Cutter. They've just got out of
prison apparently. So the story goes, Tit Cutter got into a fight
with his girlfriend and then got sent to prison for cutting her tit
off. I don't know what the fuck that's all about but they seem to be
lapping Kev up, who is happily drinking anything they buy him, the
whole while that big stupid grin spread across his face.
The
next day we're in San Antonio at a really small club. It's another
eight hour drive and we haven't even left Texas yet! It's a luxury
having Dutch drive the van though since he likes to drive through the
nights and sleep during the days, so we wake up at the venue. We're
in San Antonio so obviously we have to take a look at the Alamo.
There are hundreds of people swarming around but it's very little to
see. Just a brick wall basically. Obviously it has huge historical
importance but if you didn't know it you'd walk straight past the
thing.
The
venue had a record shop right beside it, which I spent a few hours in
whilst Nile were soundchecking. The fun thing about tonight is that
there is this young kid here with big hair that is really into
Speedhorn. The venue is packed out with about two hundred people,
our kind of gig, and this kid is down the front singing along to all
the songs. The crowd in general is much better for us this night,
which becomes a general rule on the tour, that being that the smaller
cities are way better for us, since it's not just purely death metal
kids in attendance, but punk and hardcore kids too, which gives us
more of a chance.
We're
only three days in but we notice Dutch is starting to get a little
weird. He starts a hate campaign against Lasse, who up until now had
been the person making the most effort with him, because Lasse had
stupidly put a plastic cup of coffee in the microwave to warm it up.
Whilst Lasse is in the toilet the coffee explodes and Dutch goes
fucking crazy. Alright, it wasn't Lasse's finest hour but it's not
the end of the fucking world, nothing is broken, and Lasse cleans up
the mess. But Dutch has decided that's him and Lasse done with and
from this point until the end of the tour addresses him with utter
disdain. I can't help finding the whole incident hilarious, as does
the rest of the band. Although, we don't let Dutch know that.
Tonight
is Daz's birthday and we all get pissed with him. The Speedhorn fan
joins us as well. It's a good night. Daz ends up steaming, stood at
the bar with a grin on his face and his balls hanging out of his
flies, Lasse ends up hitting it off with this cute emo girl and
suddenly seems chuffed to be hanging out at the merch stall, Kev is
drunk and furious since he seemed to like the girl Lasse has pulled
and is a little jealous, “I don't get it Gaz! How the fuck did he
manage to pull her? He's got weird eyes!”
This
turns out to be the first big party where we really hang out with the
Soilent guys. Their tour manager Chris, this big loud guy with a
great sense of humour, has decided he loves our attitude. Ben, the
Soilent singer, has decided he loves Gordon, “that weird kid on
drums”. The night turns into a blur as the shots fly down the
hatch. At one point Gords heads back to the van in search of
something he's lost, and finds one of our guys (not saying who) who
had been preaching about how they're in a solid relationship and
who's days of fucking around are behind him, tied up to the ceiling
of the lounge in the bus with his top off, with some girl whipping
him with her belt. Gords stands there shocked at the scene as our
boy casually greets him, “Alright mate, what's up?” Gords just
pisses himself and comes running back to tell us all. The thing that
makes me laugh is that Dutch is trying to sleep in his bunk above the
driver's seat whilst this is going on!
The
next day is a day off in El Paso and we're all understandably
hungover. The Mexican border city is an ominous place at night, our
fears no doubt aided by Dutch warning us not to go near the border
bridge, which is apparently a simple wooden bridge that people go
back and forth over to pick up drugs. We spend the day flaked out in
the van but by night time we've picked ourselves up and decide to go
bowling. Unfortunately I get talked into going with Lasse in search
of some electronic super store that has a camera he wants to buy.
I kind
of want to go with the guys but feel bad for Lasse and tag along with
him. I find myself regretting it shortly afterwards as we end up
completely lost, walking around dark, unlit streets on the outskirts
of the city. We're walking about for an hour and after a while the
side-walk diminishes and it's pitch fucking black. Lasse has a map
on his phone and insists we're on course, but I feel like shit and
want desperately to get back to the boys and go bowling, where there
is light and it's safe.
As
we're searching for this store, we see what we think is a UFO in the
sky. It's really weird. We figure it's something from the military
base nearby, but this being UFO territory our minds can't help but
wonder. It's a really bright light over in the distant dark sky,
that seems to be moving in a very strange manner. It goes from
seemingly hovering in one place to suddenly shooting off at high
speed in all kinds of directions. The two of us stand there
mesmerised by it for what must be twenty minutes before it finally
shoots off and disappears into the night. I don't know what it was
but it was fucking weird and we decide to get the fuck out of there.
As it happens we soon come across the store Lasse is looking for but
they don't have his camera in stock. Great.
We end
up waking all the way back, which must take an hour, and head to a
Mexican restaurant. Lasse offers to buy me dinner, which I happily
accept. The food is very welcome and the beer tastes like heaven.
Satisfied, we head over to the bowling alley and meet up with the
rest of the guys, excitedly telling them about our UFO experience.
We end up having a relaxed night and hitting if off with the
bartender there, who happily pours us pints of Amber Bock. I think
we end the night watching a wrestling film with Dutch. We decide
John should buy some dvd's when he gets the chance. Not really
because he has great taste in film or anything, more that he loves
spunking his money on dvd's.
Dutch
pulls the van out about two am and we head to Arizona. Most of us
are soon fast asleep but Kev ande I lie awake, chatting through the
night whilst laid up in our bunks. Despite the bed being as hard a
table and the bunk frame tilting with every bump in the road of which
there are many, it's still pretty cosy somehow. As we're chatting
away, Gordon shouts out in his sleep, “If you fuck my mum in the
arse then I'll fuck you in the arse!”. We stare at each other for
a brief second and then burst into laughter! I hear Lasse giggling
from his bunk too.
A
little while later we drift off to sleep as Dutch shunts through the
night, across New Mexico and on towards Arizona.
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