It was a beautiful winter's day. The
sky was bright blue and the sun was shining harmoniously above as the
fresh, crisp air gently breezed in from the lake. We had a great day
walking around downtown Chicago, checking out some record stores and
coffee shops, walking by the waterside, having a lengthy discussion
in the lobby of the Sears Tower building about whether to pay for the
lift up to the roof and eventually deciding against. My soul felt
cleansed by an entire afternoon of walking, even if after five
shower-less days, my body did not.
When load in beckoned we reluctantly
headed back to the van that was still parked in the dull yellow abyss
underneath the club. I was both saddened and amazed to find John
laid out on the sofa watching a film we'd all seen together just a
few days before. We were all buzzing from our excursion into the
city, our new found enthusiasm for life washing over the van like a
wave. I couldn't get a grip on the fact John had just hung out in
the van all day, it almost made me angry.
I could barely believe the marvel
before me as we loaded the gear in. The House of Blues is apparently
no ordinary venue. I had no prior knowledge of the place, I'd only
heard the name. I certainly had no idea that it was a chain company.
The concert hall itself is like many other theatre venues the world
over, it's not all that different from the old Astoria in London,
although a brand spanking new, shiny, hi-tech version of it. Like
the Astoria, it's a large room that probably holds about two thousand
people with a full balcony. The stage is huge, it must be three
times as big as anything else we've played on this tour. It's
certainly a contrast from the venues we've played the last few days
previous.
If the concert hall is impressive, it's
nothing compared to the rest of the building. There are separate
dressing rooms for each band, all of them decked out with cable tv
and a monitor showing the stage. There is a telephone that connects
straight to the promoter's runner in case there is anything you need
ran after. And absolutely, most fantastically of all, each dressing
room had it's own shower and bathroom. After five days without, it
felt like the most luxurious shower I'd ever taken. I took one both
before and after the gig just because I could. The grandeur wasn't
limited to the backstage area either, even the sinks in the public
toilets were decked out with gold chrome taps. The place even had
it's own fucking souvenir shop! It felt more like a flashy hotel in
Vegas than a venue for a death metal gig.
I told Kev about the public bogs and
his face lit up. He took off straight away and was gone for some
time. I went to check on him a while later. As I walked in to the
long, empty room I heard Kev in a cubicle at the end, willing himself
to shit, “Come on you little brown buggers!”. I don't know if
he'd heard me come in or not, you never know with Kev, but I pissed
myself laughing all the same.
This is one show when I really did feel
bad for Lasse. The merch tables were set up in a long row against a
wall in a foyer as you entered the building, completely disconnected
from the concert hall and about a twenty minute walk from the luxury
dressing room. I feel really bad about it now, but I kind of forgot
about him sat there on his own. When I eventually went to check on
him later in the evening, I found him right at the end of the line,
forehead flat on the merch table, arms hanging by his side, pretty
sauced up. He hadn't sold a thing, of course. The other merch guys
seemed to be in a crazed selling frenzy, like a scene from a
squabbling Egyptian market, all of them intent on out doing each
other. Lasse was beyond caring by this point though. To be fair, so
were we...
This was one show that was fucking
doomed to failure before it even started. There was a good size
crowd in, although not big enough to justify opening the balcony
section of the venue, so there we sat with our feet perched over the
edge, bottle of beer in hand, checking out With Passion and
Decapitated. Jay, Gords and I had the entire balcony to ourselves,
it was pretty cool to be honest. To be fair, the floor below was
packed with metalheads which meant that the other bands on the bill
were probably in for a good show. The reason I knew our show was
fucked is that although With Passion came and went with a
conservative yet relatively appreciative applause, Decapitated had
the show of their lives. We'd gotten to know them a little by now,
and although they obviously came from a completely different planet
than ours, they were nice guys and I was happy for them.
The thing is, the stage had this big
fucking theatre curtain that opened from the middle to the sides and
of course they had it drawn between bands. Now for a start, I
fucking hate this concept, I always feel like a right cunt being made
to stand on stage, guitar strapped on, waiting for the curtain to
draw. It was right up Decapitated's alley though. Indeed, as the
curtain parted there are the band, waiting in silent, death metal
pose, ready to slay. The singer is stood with fists clenched by his
side, long hair hanging from bowed head, down over his face. The
crowd erupted in elation at the same sight we fell off our seats
laughing at. Decapitated were made for this tour, we most certainly
were not.
It was if the rumours had been
spreading through the death metal community on whatever geeky message
boards these idiots languish on, culminating in a ravenous lava of
hate that would greet our arrival on to this stage tonight. It's not
paranoia if everyone is out to get you right?... I asked the stage
hands to open the fucking curtain before we took to the stage, but
they refused out right. Fuck you then, we put the amps on and placed
our guitars feedbacking against them and then left the stage again.
One of the stage hands starts panicking after a minute or so of this,
and tells us to get on with our set so they can pull the curtain. We
tell him that our performance has started. He's baffled, clearly.
This goes on for about five minutes and the crowd has already started
booing. We finally take to the stage but let the feedback continue.
The curtain draws and we're stood facing a lot of pissed off looking
metalheads. There is one, who has made his way down to the very
front, right up against the head high stage, who is standing with his
back to us, right arm lofted high in the air, giving us the middle
finger. We feedback for about another thirty seconds and then start
the set as usual with The Hate Song, John's
opening line, “I hate you all”, fitting like a fucking glove on
this particular occasion.
We
blast through what is left of the twenty minute set, all of us
putting more into this show than any other so far on this tour. We
go fucking nuts on stage. Between every song we simply ring out and
feedback, which seems to just piss the crowd off even more because
we're drowning out their booing. Some of these idiots have veins
that look ready to explode from their strained necks as they scream
their disdain in our direction. It's pure fucking hate. The more
violently we play on stage, the more it seems to anger them. And the
tit down the front holds that finger aloft for the entire twenty
minutes we're on stage. As we get near the end I look at him and
actually feel a certain respect, I mean, it must have taken some
effort to hold his arm in the air for that long. As the last song
ends, we put the guitars back up against the amps, leaving them to
feedback as we exit. Kev on the other hand, walks up behind Robo
Arm, who of course is still flipping us off, and boots him in the
back of the head. “Good gig!” laughs Kev as he walks towards the
rest of us waiting for him in the wings as the curtain draws to a
close.
I
check on Lasse once I've dried off, he begs me to let him pack up the
merch early. John is up for manning the station though, so we leave
him to it. Good times. We watch Soilent's set but spend the rest of
the time taking advantage of the dressing room and it's amenities and
since the promoter has no problem with re-filling the fridge with
beer, we have him do just that.
The
hospitality we enjoy at the House of Blues unfortunately comes to an
abrupt end as soon as the stage is cleared after Nile's set. The
people working at the venue make it clear that they want us packed up
and out of the dressing room pronto. It comes as a bit of mood
zapper but at the same time I understand them, I've been there myself
many a time. Of course, when you're on tour it's easy to forget that
everyone else is leading a normal life whilst you're taking a break
from yours.
No
matter, it's a short enough drive to Cincinnati tomorrow that we
don't have to leave immediately, the night is still young and we're
all half pissed. Dutch has set a bus call time for two am and right
now he's happily sleeping in his bunk in the van. We head to the
nearest bar, intent on sampling a bit of Chicago's night life.
We end
up in some Irish bar where there a few people from the show hanging
out, drinking Guinness and shooting Jameson's. The whole of our crew
is there, along with Chris and Brian and a couple of the other SG
guys, as well as our friend John, Nile's stage manager. To our
amazement, Ghost Tramp and Fat Jeff are sat at the bar too.
Stage
Manager John has a couple of friends in tow with him, guys who live
in the city. He's in high spirits and insists on buying a round of
something called an Irish Car Bomb, which he supervises as we
individually take turns to drink. As lethal as it sounds, it's
actually a pint of Guinness with a shot glass of Bailey's dropped in
it. The crack is you down it, obviously, although it's not that much
of a challenge. John seems chuffed enough though. Of course, we all
end up pretty fucking wasted a few rounds later. It's fun to see
John taking some time off to relax, since most of the time he's
running around stressed out, looking after Nile. When the booze
starts to hit him he opens up and tells us that he really likes us
guys, loves our attitude. He admits that he doesn't understand our
music, but he loves the way we don't give much of a fuck about
anything. The night starts to get blurry...
It's
funny, because I was happy to see Ghost Tramp and Fat Jeff sat at the
bar when we'd walked in but they've sat in the same position the
whole time. I thought for a moment this might be the night when we
do the drunken hang out thing with them, but it doesn't really
happen. Daz and I make an effort an one point and we approach them
at the bar. But we're both boats and obviously have a foolishly
heightened sense of our diplomacy skills. We walk up behind them and
start slobbering something in their sober ears, which they return
with an awkward smirk that screams PISS OFF as they attend to the
plate of nachos they've ordered in. Realising we're getting nowhere
with the conversation our attention soon turns to their grub and
before I know it I've got my paw in Ghost Tramp's food, helping
myself to a free snack. Daz is attending to Fat Jeff's on the other
side. They must have thought we were a right pair of wankers.
A
little later on in the night, after another round or two of Irish Car
Bombs, we fall in to some chat with a young mother and daughter team
who were at the gig. The pair of them are done up in standard denim,
hard rock attire. It's hard to tell who has what role in the team
since they both look about the same age. They're flirting with the
whole gang, telling us our accents are funny and that we're cute. They must have been the only people in attendance tonight who didn't think we sucked. Or maybe they did... Anyway, when
the time comes to leave they want to hang out on the bus and come to
the next show in Cincinnati with us. We tell them that's not
possible, that Dutch simply wouldn't allow it.
I'm not sure how Kev
ends up involved in the middle of it, but the mother now has her sights set firmly on him. By the
time we stumble back to the van, Dutch is up and making himself a
coffee before we set off. Kev is the only person who's missing. We
all crack up at the thought of Kev getting it on with Hard Rock Mom. We rush up and stick our heads out of the van door to
see where he is and find him running towards us with the woman chasing him across the busy street, “Start the fucking van!”,
he's shouting, panic spread across his face. Even Dutch, still
brushing the dust from his sleepy eyes, pisses himself laughing at that one.
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