Faking It – wings on fire tour week 1
First, you book some shows around the country. If you’ve done it right it will be relatively easy to get from one show to the next, without too many days of downtime(a day off = no money) and with reasonable distances to cover each day. Every time you have to stick 5 people on a plane the cost goes up, so you want to play lots of shows consecutively and drive the distances between.
For this tour we’ve got eight shows, not a lot but still more than a lot of indie bands touring in Australia. We’ve had to book a few flights; the first being from Brisbane to Melbourne and the second and third from Melbourne to Hobart and back. Otherwise we’ve been driving a hired Toyota Tarago (the touring bands’ vehicle of choice) as none of us own a vehicle that would fit the five of us and our basic gear(guitars, pedals, snare drum, cymbals).
Because of the few unavoidable flights and the fact that most of us play in other bands that also tour regularly, we have nice rugged road cases for most of our gear, with the few standard guitar hard cases slowly being phased out. Baggage handling staff and machinery are notoriously hard on musical equipment (and probably normal luggage too), so it’s a must to have solid road cases for all the fragile and expensive vintage guitars we cart about the place.
All of this, the professional looking cases, the flights and the shiny hire car add up to make it feel a bit like you’re faking it. We are a largely unknown band playing fairly unfashionable music and we regularly get less than 50 people to shows. Things are slowly building up, sure, but I regularly get a bit tweaked when someone in the check in line at the airport asks which band we are in, clearly expecting a name they’ve heard of, I mean look at all the ‘stuff,’ surely we must be important!
Anyhow, that’s been running through my mind for the past few weeks as we’ve started our little tour. Here are a few stories from the road…..
On Thursday 12th November we picked up a brand new Tarago with less than 4000km’s on the odometer and hit the road for Canberra. Over the past couple of years I’ve had a lot of trouble with long distance driving, I struggle to last for more than a couple of hours without wanting to fall asleep. This tour I seem to have bounced back, smashing out 4 and 5 hours at a stretch. Rad. Setting the tone for the whole tour, we listen to a mixture of The Beatles, Ween, lots of soul music, The Savage Love Podcast and This American Life. We make it to Canberra in roughly 7 hours and head straight for the Asian Noodle House to grab a Laksa with Hugo, his wife Emily and my friend Nick. We haven’t had a chance to practice with Hugo so most of the conversation is taken up with discussions about new songs and bits and pieces we need to sort out in sound check…..
….Which as it turns out, we won’t be getting. We’re loaded in and ready to go with plenty of time to check, but the in-house sound guy doesn’t want to and doesn’t see the point of it. As a live sound engineer myself I can understand his feelings regarding this, but it’s always a good idea for a band to be able to get a feel for a stage prior to walking on for the main show. Instead of sound checking I change strings on the guitars and smash a pint or two of Little Creatures Bright Ale. Mmmmmm.
The show winds up going really well! We get a decent turnout, sell plenty of merch, our support acts are ace and I don’t get too drunk to play. It’s a very nice start to the tour, though we all know it may well be the highlight until we play Melbourne.
Friday afternoon Joe, Huw and I drive to Sydney. I’m going to mix Denim Owl (Aleks and Janita from The Ramps) at The Metro where they will be supporting Maximo Park. An early dinner at Spice I Am is amazing as always and the D’Owl show is really great and well received by the large audience of what seems like mostly British ex-pats.
We all crash at a hostel in Glebe, not sleeping for a few hours due to an extended round of celebrity name/food morphing. Some choice ones included; Almond Schwarzenegger, Edgar Rice Burritos, George Squashington and Bran Parsons. This game continues for the next week or so, alternately becoming tiresome and then funny again. We’re hardcore.
Saturday Morning we drag our hung-over asses to Big Brekky in Petersham for excellent coffee and a tasty feed. I have a very Larry David moment when I order Vitasoy in my latte, while everyone else orders Bon Soy. I realise soon after how much of an ass I must seem and how annoying it is for the barista to have to steam a separate jug of milk just for me. I head inside the café to try and explain myself and change my order but the staff won’t have it. I am only mildly less embarrassed.
We later head to Newcastle to play at The Lass O’Gowrie. Dinner at some café in Cooks Hill is as Huw described ‘either cooked with a total lack of joy, a total lack of skill or some mixture of both.’
The show is weird. We are playing sandwiched between two very hippie-ish acts and while there is a decent crowd they mostly head out to the beer garden while we play. Those left in attendance barely clap after songs, so with a too-hot stage and many awkward silences between songs we cut the set a bit short in an effort to escape.
We do manage to get paid the princely sum of $108, which is $108 more than The Ramps got at the same venue back in July, so it’s not all bad news.
After playing we get really drunk, eat McDonalds on the way back to the hostel and regret it in the morning.
Sunday we have a fairly slow start ahead of our drive to Brisbane. Google Maps has it at a 10hour and 40 minute drive, so we’re up at 730am. Huw and I realised before bed that we’d have an extra hour up our sleeve due to Queensland’s lack of daylight savings, but elect not to tell the rest of the band so they’ll get up at a reasonable time.
We get Breakfast Burrito’s and decent coffee and finally hit the road at about 9am. The drive is really rather nice, and we make it in 9 hours, arriving with plenty of time to load in, pick up an amp from good mates Halfway, eat dinner and sound check.
The show is quite fun, The Troubadour being on of the best venues in the country IMHO. The crowd however is scarce, which is a shame as Eulogies are bloody excellent and Seabellies play a really great set. We strike up an immediate friendship with the guys from Eulogies, I think we recognised a certain earnestness in each others music. They are super nice guys and we really look forward to seeing them play again in Cronulla.
Monday morning we head for the airport, where we’ll dump the hire car and head home. Hugo is on the first flight and due to heavy traffic, amp returnage and extensive road works we only get him there 20 minutes before his flight. He is unable to check in any baggage, leaving the rest of us 23kg over limit. Stung, is what we get. $230 excess baggage, up until which was destined for Huws’ credit card to help pay for the hire car. Balls. Hopefully things will pick up next week.