My dad was an adolescent of the sixties
when San Fran had been the centre of the Flower Power movement and
the shining beacon of the Swinging Sixties. When Flower Power was
happening, my dad was working in the Steel Works in Corby, dreaming
of what life must be like on the other side of the world, over there
in California. Now I felt like I was living his dreams for him,
although the culture I was now involved in was pretty different to
his back then. I knew my dad would want a postcard from Frisco, so
besides the sights, that was top of my to-do-list when I arrived.
Of course, I've long since learned that
if you want guaranteed sight seeing then book a fucking holiday,
because most of the time when you go to these fantastic places all
over the world with a band, you end up seeing fuck all. As would be
the case on this occasion...
We stumbled out of the bus sometime in
the early afternoon, the lot of us hungover to piss. The first thing
I noticed is that it was a lot colder here than in LA. I guess it
was January and we'd travelled eight hours north, so it wasn't
so strange really. The bus was parked outside of the club which was
a nondescript building with a large parking lot out back, which was
actually were the show was going to be. On a stage, in the car park.
The show tonight was a coalescence of two tours. There would be the
six bands on our package plus Anthrax, God Forbid and Sworn Enemy.
We were all pretty chuffed to be playing with Anthrax, who were back
as the original line up with Belladonna on vocals. Kev, in
particular, was really buzzing. He loves early Anthrax. It had all
the tell tale signs of a big party night. Except for Jay, who had
come down with some illness. We'd originally assumed it was either a
hangover or jet lag, or both, but he really wasn't looking too good
and he spent the entire afternoon in bed in the van. It was touch
and go whether he was going to be able to make the show..
The point I was getting to though, is
that Jay didn't miss much. The venue we were playing could just as
well have been on the Earlstree's industrial estate in Corby. There
was nothing but warehouses and units to see around there. We were
actually on the other side of the bay from where the real San
Francisco was. I took a walk with a couple of the guys down to the
outskirts of the industrial estate we were on, which eventually led
us down to the water. From there we could just about see the
silhouette of the Golden Gate bridge, although it was so grey and
foggy a good deal of imagination was needed to confirm what we were
looking at. So this is Frisco eh? Great!
We trudged back to the venue a little
dejected and loaded the gear into the venue's compound. We soon
cheered up though when Dutch told assured me that he'd take us into
the city in the morning, since the next drive was only a couple of
hours. Nice one Dutchy! Considerably happier, we started on the
beer. Although the stage was out back in the large car park, the bar
and the merch area was inside the club house, or whatever it was.
Jay was still looking really pale and I was starting to worry about
him. I told him that he should just stay in bed and forget the gig
tonight, we'd be ok with just me on guitar, but he told me he wanted
to play. I was proud of him. With the way the shows had been going
on this tour I wouldn't have blamed him for taking the easy option
and fucking the gig off, but he wouldn't have it.
It must have been around six pm when we
took to the stage. It was still fairly light out and there was a
good size crowd already in through the gates. It seemed like word
had been spreading around the internet about us though, I can only
imagine the hordes of death metal nerds on message boards slagging us
off, as before we even started the set, in fact, before we even
strapped on our guitars, some young guy who looked like he was
straight out of Heavy Metal Parking Lot, shouted, “Fuck off back to
England you wankers!” H.M.P.L. looked chuffed as punch with his
witty remark. I looked over at a very pale Jay, hoodie tightly
wrapped around his face. The two of us just smirked at each other.
“Fuck me, we haven't even started yet!” laughed John as he got in
to anger mode.
We kicked the living shit out of that
stage. Tore the fucker apart. And apart from a couple of hardcore
kids down the front, no one gave a cack. This was the first show on
the tour where the boos started to come between songs, so to combat
the cunts we just left the amps to feedback loudly when we weren't
playing, Kev and John looking for a fight with anyone who wanted to
come near us. Good show...
The night did get considerably better
from there on in though. Kev was on top form. He was really chuffed
about seeing Anthrax with Belladonna and to enhance his mood further
he was throwing beer down his throat like it was going out fashion.
Apart from Jay, who went straight back to bed after the show, the
rest of us got on board with Kev. We hung out by the merch area for
most of the night, with Chrissy who was selling Decapitated and
Hypocrisy's merch, as well as the Soilent guys. It was just one of
those spontaneous nights that ended up being a lot of fun. It was
the first night that we'd properly hung out with a lot of the other
guys on tour. You could feel the ice melting, aided by the flowing
stream of beer and we were all in very high spirits, despite yet
another shit gig.
By the time Anthrax came on, we were
all pretty pissed up. Kev in particular. We were stood on this
porch at the back of the club house that overlooked the by now packed
parking lot, watching the first few songs of the Anthrax set. They
played a few classics and they were sounding good. As they went into
Keep it in the Family, a
large mosh pit erupted in front of the stage. I turned towards Kev
to comment on it, but before I knew it he was off. He'd hopped of
the porch and was now running full pelt into the mosh pit. I watched
him all the way in. He ran straight up to this big metaller and
clocked him right in the fucking chops! The metaller barely had time
to gather himself before Kev disappeared into the sea of mosh. Fuck
me you old bastard! I could barely believe what I'd just seen. I
stood there, watching the next couple of songs, wondering when Kev
would return and in what shape. He eventually arrived back at the
porch, with this really sad look on his face. “Some cunt stole my
cap...” he muttered to me. “Ha ha, serves you right you wanker!”
I laughed. Kev looked truly gutted...
The
partying continued after the show, long into the night. We all ended
up back at the merch stalls, Lasse and Chrissy having now become
friends. It seemed like everyone except for the Nile guys were on
the piss. Before long we were all chatting merrily to each other,
drinking shots and dancing.. At one point we were sat by Chrissy's
table, looking at some photos on her laptop. The Decapitated singer
thought it would be funny to draw a Hitler tash on a face on one of
the images. We all laughed our tits off when Chrissy went to wipe it
off only to find that he'd drawn it on with permanent marker. I
don't think he'd really meant it since he looked pretty guilty as
Chrissy went berserk at him.
The
night rolled on and on. By about three am Kev was absolutely steam
boats. You can always tell when he's fucked because he gets this
stupid grin on his face and his eyes are half closed, like he could
fall asleep at any moment. He wasn't falling asleep right now
though. He had his sights set on these two young, good looking
girls. We watched him hobble over to them and attempt to strike up a
conversation. They looked less than impressed. Kev was not to be
discouraged though and persisted with his line of approach. It
turned out that the two girls were actually a couple. We heard them
tell Kev that they weren't interested, that they were in fact
lesbians. “That's alright, I don't mind”, he reasoned. “Well
we do!” they replied sharply. As this truly classic conversation
was in motion, Gords had gone behind Kev and pulled his jeans down,
leaving Kev stood there in his boxer shorts with his jeans around his
ankles, stupid grin in tact. The girls just walked away shaking
their heads.
It
must have been four am by the time we rolled back into the bus, and
we were all pretty fucked. There was beer in the fridge though, so
we carried on drinking. Once again we had the old disco bus theme
going. Fuck knows how Dutch managed to sleep at all, if he in fact
did..
And
then, the funniest thing I have EVER seen happened...
Gordon
was by now off his tits and had the crazy look in his eye, the one he
gets when he's gone over the border. He got in to a daft argument
with an equally drunk Darren over something trivial and before long
the two of them were wrestling. Nothing serious. It went on for a
while and eventually Gords had Daz cornered in the bunk area. Daz
was recoiling into his bed, trying to escape the depraved clutches of
Gords, but to no avail. We were filming the whole thing as we
crowded round to see what was happening.
Daz
had crawled head first into his bunk, but Gords had pulled him back
by the belt and then ripped his jeans down. He then pulled Daz's
boxer shorts down and started slapping his bare arse, the whole while
shouting in mock American wrestling commentary, “Oh yeah! Here
comes the big slap down! Now he's gonna get it!” and the like.
And the like. This went on for a while, the lot of us pissing
ourselves. And then Lasse turned to me with an evil grin on his
face, “Watch this.” I filmed Lasse as he approached an oblivious
Gordon from behind.
None
of expected what happened next, least of all Gordon, the poor
bastard. Lasse pulls his cock out and starts slapping Gordon on his
left shoulder with it. Gordon is still bent over Daz, slapping his
arse when he feels something from behind. In a blurry instant, Gords
turns around, mouth wide open as he continues with his American
commentary. Lasse's cock goes straight in to Gordon's gaping pie
hole! All the fucking way in! And it's all caught perfectly on
film.
Gordon's
face turns white as a ghost and his eyes roll in horror. Lasse, who
can't believe what just happened, falls back pissing himself
laughing. And then the laughter erupts in the bus like a volcano.
We're all laughing so hard that a few of us are crawling around on
all fours, crying and choking. Gordon is fucking horrified! Lasse
comes trundling back to me, crying with laughter, “Fuck me, I
wasn't expecting that!”
My
first thought is to show Jay the film. The poor bastard is lying in
his bed, trying to sleep off the illness, unaware of what's happened.
I wake him and tell him he has to see this film. He begs me to
leave him alone, that he'll see it in the morning. I promise him it
will be worth his effort though, “Mate, if I only ever beg of you
one thing, then it's this, you must see this film right now!” He
reluctantly crawls out of his hard bed and wipes the dust from his
eyes. Within seconds Jay is rolling around on the floor with the
rest of us, sick with laughter. I've never seen him so happy.
Gordon,
absolutely gutted, decides he has to call his girlfriend Katy and
confess what he's done. Fuck knows why but we don't hinder him. I
guess Katy is at work or something since it's the middle of the day
back home and is not expecting to hear from her lad. “Katy, I
think I'm a gay!”. Holy shit, we all puke up laughing again.
Unfortunately
the film has now been erased. In it's place is just a blacked out
bit of film, where you can hear Gordon in the background
exasperatedly asking us, “Why is it always me?”. We begged him
to let us keep the film but it was not to be. Although the image is
branded into my memory anyway.
Gordon
was able to see the funny side of it shortly afterwards. We have him
on film a little while later, singing Phil Collins, his head rolling
insanely about his shoulders. Every now and again he looks in to the
camera and says, “I'm sorry dad. I'm sorry big man!”
My
stomach was in agony when I finally went to bed, sometime around six
am. Dutch was going to drive us into the city around nine so we'd
have a couple of hours to do some sightseeing. Have to get that
postcard...
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