You know what’s fun? Being on a bus that has to pull over every 10 miles to restart. There was, but more likely is, a big problem with this bus. The fact that the driver seems completely unconcerned about is not doing anything to ingratiate him to his passengers. I think we were all stunned when the bus finally made it to Vigo, and he yelled at the promoter and Brovar, the tour manager, and said “Your problem! Your problem! Not my problem!” because he couldn’t get down a street. Uh, no, your job is to deliver bands and equipment… it is therefore you problem, Yurgen.
Then the bus wouldn’t start, anyway. Weeeee!!
I grabbed all my shit, knowing full well I would not be seeing this bus through the evening. Sean, Jason and I took off to the club, grabbed some snacks from the lunch catering, and headed off to Vigo. Having never heard of Vigo, I thought it would be some small town. Instead, it felt like walking around San Franciso with better weather. There was even a bay. I have to admit… it kinda bored me. City sightseeing is pretty blah. More bars, more stores… always the same.
We keep hearing about the amazing food in some of these places. People must think it’s amazing because it’s god damned impossible to get any and if you do, you’re so hungry already you’d eat shit and call it pate. We went into a cafe, and the nice waitress got us drinks… and never returned. Ever. No food to be had, and no check to pay. I eventually found the lady to pay, and we left, hungry, dreaming of what must’ve been an amazing meal.
We walked along and met up with some of Deeds and JJ from Vile. JJ took off with us. Up the road, I saw a massage place. “Fuck this noise” I thought, and decided I wanted a god damn massage. The fact that it was under 10 Euro clinched it. Yes, it was all to get rid of my stress and work on my neck. It wasn’t just to get an incredible Spanish beauty to lay her hands on my neck. That was just a happy coincidence. For me, not her. Man, I smelled bad. JJ stayed behind with me and fell asleep in the lobby. We must’ve been a sad looking pair to those masseuses.
Quick unrelated note, as I drink this delicious 7-Up… it’s got actual sugar in it. And it’s wonderful. Yesterday I had a Coke and it had real sugar in it. So amazing. I can see why these “soda” drinks took off originally. When they’re not all filled with high fructose corn syrup, like in America, they scrumptious. Fuck America, at least in the high fructose corn syrup department.
JJ and I got back to the dead bus and the equipment was being moved and driven up to the club by an 80 pound girl in a hatchback. The bus eventually moved, however, and left… with some people’s drum equipment, stage clothes, and guitars that were not stored in the trailer. Once we found that out, the other bands got the same girl to drive them some way out of town to the bus and pick it all up. Nice girl.
The venue was rad at first, with these overhead walkways. Then it sucked, when we found out they didn’t have enough power for all our amps. Brovar, after the bus incident, was about to flip his lid and cancel the tour. Luckily, cooler heads prevailed, and a power source was found outside the club. I was not about to let the show get cancelled. Yanich, the sound guy, says to me, “Is no problem, they must pay no matter what.” I explained that’s fine for the other bands, that actually MAKE money, but our share disappears right back into the bus. We only make money if we play and sell shit.
Of course, after the show and I saw how we did, we could’ve just cancelled.
Before we went on, I had to actually go outside and yell “Ocho minutos para el concierto!!!” The people just sat there. They fairly obviously didn’t give a shit about us. The real pain lies in that Raul actually asked me about the speed of the songs, and I told him yes, he should slow it down more. And we played one of the best sets of the entire tour. It sounded fantastic. No one cared, so we just started laughing. Sean dedicated a song to Raul for playing well. I dedicated a song to Sean, and told everyone how we met in an orphanage twenty years ago. Sean sent a song to Jason, the “six-string maestro.” Then Sean sent a song out to me for “teaching” him how to love. This show was for us, because we’re a band of friends out having a good time.
Later on, I was grabbing a beer, and Mark from Monstrosity made some sarcastic remark about “oh yeah, get your drink on.” This was after hearing about me being a mean drunk from Brian. Alright, Monstrosity apparently thinks I’m a huge drunk. Well, they’re kind of right, I guess. I decided to prove them righter. I grabbed a couple extra brews and downed ’em. This drunk, however, is still the one who came on stage during their set to help them get the bass amp working when I noticed it went out. Took a drunk to find the plug had fallen out.
I was having a good time yelling at people backstage and joking, and everyone was laughing. I tried to put a picture of my asshole on Brian’s digital camera, but the stupid camera wouldn’t work. When Mark came up from their show, I think I yelled something about “Yup! Time to go pack up the equipment, cause it RULES when you’re drunk! Only drunks move equipment!” Weeee!
So I did pack the shit up, and was able to talk to some nice chicas in my broken-ass Spanish. Back in the band room, Raul’s digital camera bag was getting beer spilled on it. I came in and got to hear him yell at everyone, rightfully, that we need to respect each other’s gear. I can’t blame him for that. Reno, however, came up and said “I’m sorry, Raul,” and Raul started yelling at him for empathizing. It was irrational. I tried talking to Raul and then he started yelling at me. Then we yelled at each other outside. Then Reno came up to tell me how he thought I should handle the situation, to which I explained I’d been in a band with Raul for 8 years, I think I understood the situation just fine. I told him to stop lecturing, so then me and Reno are ALSO in a fight.
Fuck it. I got drunker. Raul came up like 5 minutes later, said “I’m gonna kill you!” Why? “Because I don’t have a beer!!!” Ah, fight over, good times again. Reno and I spoke again as soon as we sat in the bus. Sometimes that steam just builds up, and the actual nice and well-meaning people can start yelling at each other for no reason. Because we’re all dumb as bricks.