Go Fast Or Go Home

Here is my take (Ryan) on our tour of France back at the start of the month.

28/04/11 - Mansfield, UK.

Sat in work worrying for hours about having problems picking the van up, last time we went on tour, we had major problems hiring a van and we got fucked over at the last minute so I was worried the same was going to happen this time and fuck the whole thing up.

4 o clock arrives and me and my work mate go and pick the van up and it goes smoothly, drive it back to work to finish up and then head off home from Nottingham. Pick our driver Simon up, he drives me home and leaves me to get changed whilst he picks all lads and equipment up.

I manage to sink a few cans of scrumpy jack in this time and I'm feeling good. We all head down to Saints bar and unload the van, have a chat with the drag the lake lads, they're sound. So now, what we gonna do for a few hours other than sink some brews and watch some sweet bands? So, I do exactly that.

The Winter Hill Syndicate - Not watched them for quite some time and apparently they've not gigged for over a year, well they we're really good and I was very suprised, hopefully they'll keep it up.

Drag The Lake - Unfortunately at this point, my memory has gone, an indication of how pissed I was probably and I didn't watch Drag The Lake but I booked them for this show for the reason that they're fucking brilliant and I'm sure they killed it, wish I was watched them.

So now it's our turn to go on and there is a lot of people there waiting to see us, some great pre-set tunes played by the clubfist boys, (eg - biggie, dre, etc) gets me in the mood to play hard. We open up with our new intro track and it all goes great from there, people circle pitting round a palm tree, surfing, mic grabbing, couldn't ask for a better show to open a tour with. Everyone played really well and I'd like to think we nailed it this night.

After the set, clubfist was on and they killed it as usual, they've done wonders for the Mansfield Music Scene, there's been groups set up to Save our scene (SOS). Well in my opinion, if you came to this show and go to most clubfist nights, you'll see, nothing needs saving, you've got to have the right bands, the right venue, the right time (the most important thing) and Mansfield will turn out, with lots of promotion.

After clubfist was done, ended up knocking about outside with some people and eating a Calzone, watching Kris argue with some buck tooth ginger girl was a highlight, said bye to my girlfriend and headed off to taxi rank with the lads to get a taxi home but first of all, Jordan threw up a few times, well done Jordan.

29.04.11 - Sheerness, Kent, UK.

It's the day of the royal wedding so I'm up at 7am in anticipation of it, NOT! I wake up around 11 and my Mum has asked me to take a fuck load of bags to the skip with empty grass cuttings in them, just what you want when you're hungover and have hayfever and you're going on tour 2 hours later.

I do this and get it out of the way and pick up a bacon, sausage and cheese cob from a greasy as shit cob shop, very nice. Grab a shower and pack my bags for tour, realise I haven't got a sleeping bag so I am screwed. I decide to take an old bed sheet which is as thick as toilet paper.

Simon is picking us up at 1pm and it's approaching fast so I just chill for a bit until he arrives. He pulls up and we get other people and head to tesco in Mansfield to get some tour essentials, like 10 chicken bites for £1, 6 cans of pepsi for |£1.30, big bag of dorito's for £1. We fill the van to the brim and head off to Sunny Sheerness.

Now, Sheerness, I'd heard of this place years ago as I was meant to play there in Mel Gimpsuit and knew it was a small island near Dover, although Cresswell was trying to prove me wrong with this fact. I had no idea what it was like though, well after 5 hours of driving and stopping to take a few pisses and doing wanker sign at big lorries, we arrived.

I'm from a less than glamorous place but this place takes the piss, it really is horrible. I genuinely feel sorry for you if you live here. We load into the venue and there's a band sound checking, Adelphia Of Kings, have a talk with these lads and they're from Isle Of Wight, seem top lads and we hope it's gonna be a good night.

Ceri from Sphinkta Spit shows up, don't really know the guy, only from the internet and he's putting up after the show, he's playing on the show too, seems a nice lad though. We do a sound check and get the beers in and wait for people to show up. We wait, and wait and people are showing up but not the people who usually come to our shows, basically just chavs turn up.

First Sphinkta Spit go on and Ceri shows us his one man band of porno grind, very interesting, some great samples, enjoyed it. Next Adelphia Of Kings go on and they play some death metal, again very good, hope to do some shows with them in future. We go on next and we're literally playing to the bands, I think it gives us a good attitude of fuck it and get on with it and we play probably the most energetic set we've ever played and we really give it some and it was a great set to be fair.

After the show, we load out of this strange venue which needs to decide whether it's a liquid or a rock club and head back to Ceri's house. Get back and head straight to chinese for some chips and shit, giggling like a bastard in there for some reason, probably because I was pissed.

Head back and watch Ceri's house mates and Akko play some computer game for a bit then I try and get some kip in preparation for a hella long trip tomorrow, early start of 6am leave for euro tunnel!

30.04.11 - Tours, France.

Alarm goes off at 5:30am and get up and get ready, everyone's struggling, probably managed to nab 4 hours sleep on this floor with some old rug over me. We are booked in the euro tunnel for 8:20 but you can get on it whenever you want, so we manage to get on one about an earlier than that, never been on euro tunnel before and it's a strange experience but very quick and we're in France half an hour later.

Adrenalin hits and we're no longer tired, just excited but nervous about driving on the other side of the road but Simon manages it excellently. We pull into the first service station and buy the essentials of what we need for the road in France, some of it is bollocks and I don't agree with buying it and think we wasted money on it but i'm just a negative cunt.

We head off from the service station on a 6 hour drive to Tours. Driving on the roads over there is a lot easier, nowhere near as busy and we soon realise why. Toll fucking roads, no one mentioned these bastards when i've spoke to people about driving over there. The roads are always dead because no cunt must be willing to pay anywhere between 10-50 euros for the use of a road.

I think we hit about 2 toll road's on the way to Tours at the cost of about 40 euros in total. We rolled into town and what a beautiful place it was, absolutely lovely. We got called cunt's straight away though. Parked up and rang the promoter Mathieu and he came down to meet us, cracking fella, he went in the shop and brought us all a beer and we waited outside for the venue to open.

Loaded in and Mathieu told us that he'd put a load of beer behind the bar for the bands to drink so we started cracking on with them. Me and Stig went and brought some food (Halal chicken nuggets) had a little walk around the town, it was picturess. Headed back to the venue and cracked on with more beer, Thrashington DC arrived and we just hung with them drinking and getting to know them.

We we're on first, played quite hard, realised how much the language barrier affected talking to the crowd, still tried but it was very difficult, we played pretty well but not our best, crowd seemed to like us and sold a few CD's. Somebody also filmed the audio of our set and sent it me.

Daily Mind Distortion went on after us and they we're really good, told them they should come play some shows over here, they'd go down well. Thrashington DC we're really good and the place went off for them, everyone was surfing and moshing and Curtis (guitarist) was surfing too haha

After the show, the real drinking started and we all got really pissed except for Danny and Simon. I'd say Cresswell got the most pissed as he appeared from an alleyway stumbling and a skinhead appeared afterwards with a massive cut on his head, there we're rumour's that he sucked him off. It was getting late and Mathieu wanted to go back to his house. Cresswell was a state by this point so we loaded him into van and headed towards the house, half way back going down some back street, we have to stop because Cresswell wants to be sick, he gets out the van and he's got chicken legs and being sick everywhere, don't get too see this too often so it was hilarious.

We get back and all go to sleep. Thrashington are already back and in bed, we call them a bit before bed and I tell them I hope they get raped and killed.

01.05.11 - Nantes, France.

Wake up around 12 and Thrashington are just busting out as they're going to Brussels. We're off to Nantes today, first of all, grab a shower and Mathieu makes us some tea and some cracking pasta and cheese and we have our photo's taken together and head on our way, not a long drive, around 2 hours and we don't get nailed too bad on the toll's.

Arrive here and park up, have some pics taken infront of the venue and have a walk into the town, reminds me very much of Nottingham on a Sunday, really, really dead and not a lot to do. Just sat down and had a coke, headed back to the venue and met the Wrong Answer and Guilty dudes, absolutely sound.

Loaded gear in and promoter gave us some beer vouchers, like two pitchers worth of lager, we smashed that in about 10 minutes though. There was some great food put on by some girls who we're involved in putting the show on, pizza, rice, chocolate, bread, all good shit and plenty of it. Me and Akko we're still smashing the chocolate cake 2 hours later.

There was a local band on before us who reminded me of pelican or something, cool. We played next and played a good set, sweated a lot, place was hot and some people we're two stepping and shit. Guilty played next and they killed it, very good. Wrong Answer after and i'd right been looking forward to seeing these after non stop playing there demo's for a few months, they we're great.

Afterwards we we're kinda fucked and feeling down, we had nowhere to stay, we drove around and tried to find a hotel, finally found one after about an hour, watched a bit of footy and went to bed, crashed out big time. First proper sleep in days.

02.05.11 - Bordeaux, France.

Stig woke me up with the words 'Osama Bin Ladens dead' hilarious. Didn't believe him but checked CNN and it was true, laughing at the yanks celebrating outside the white house. Grabbed a shower and we busted off to a supermarket, realised that this was a MUCH cheaper way to eat than what we'd been doing in service stations.

Had another not so far drive to Bordeaux, around 3 hours or so. Arrived there and it was a bastard to drive around, pulled up to the venue, everyone gets out to stretch and Stig steps in the biggest pile of shit ever, brilliant.

Just chilled in van drinking some 40's outside the venue for a while, promoter turned up and we loaded our stuff in, he had provided a fridge full of booze and put some food on for all 3 bands, wrong answer and guilty again.

We went on first and played pretty well again, sweated like fuck, again people we're two stepping and shit, pretty cool. Guilty and Wrong Answer absolutely killed it this night, great sets and great dudes.

After the show, had our pictures and shit took with them dudes and headed back to Remy (the promoters) house, he gave us load of fold out beds and shit, went to sent. Awoke in the middle of the night to Akko floating above us all with his eyes gleaming red and his head spinning round violenty, he had become satan.

03.05.11 - Bordeaux, France.

Woke up and Remy said because we didn't have a show this day that we can stay at his house again for the night, what a guy. We got ready and went around Bordeaux for the day, had a kebab, went to see all the sights and have a beer on the beach. Akko borrowed some kids skateboard and skated Bordeaux park, cool skatepark.

We headed back to the town centre and sat in an Aussie bar getting pissed until late on and went round a few other bars and got pissed. Headed back to Remy's and went to bed, the next day was to be a disaster.

04.05.11 - Paris, France.

Woke up with Akko saying 'Where is the van gone?' I said 'Fuck off, you're joking' unfortunately, he wasn't. We absolutely shit ourselves, we thought our van had been stolen then we realised it'd probably been towed, we went on Simon's ipad and found the local police station, headed down there and told them our van details and indeed, it had been towed away, they gave us a piece of paper with an address on and told us to go there.

We got all our stuff together and headed to the tram stop to try and find this place, it wasn't easy but an hour or so later we found it. The damage was 140 euros to get it back so we had to pay it and it took a big chunk out of our budget.

We headed off on a 6 hour drive to Paris and hit a huge amount of tolls which must have cost us 70 euros or more in total. We we're exhausted by this point and this was the low point of tour so when we finally started to get into Paris, we cheered up a little then we got further in and got majorly angry, the road system was insane and almost impossible to get around but absolutely huge respect to Simon for managing it.

Arrived at the venue late and apologised to the promoter, he was cool, took us an hour to find a parking spot. The place we we're playing was a squat and had heroin addicts in, a turkish style toilet (hole in the floor) was rough as fuck but pretty cool to be playing there.

We went on first and played hard, took a day of frustration out on playing, it felt good. Youth Avoiders and Thrashington DC also played. I didn't see either of there set's, just wanted to sleep but just hung out and drank water, was feeling ill as shit.

Show finished and we got paid well, headed off back to this guys house to sleep but we got stuck in a traffic jam at 1 o clock in the morning, finally got there and slept like a baby.

05.05.11 - HOME TIME

Set off to Calais mad early, got back into UK around 9am. Had a little accident, pulled into a service station and Stig was hanging out the van and another driver asked me to move forward and doors shut on stig's head when I put the brakes on, knocked him over and gave him a black eye. Got the van back to Nottingham for 4 and went home and slept like a baby.

All in all, it was a great time and I was very happy with how it went apart from a few mishaps, i'm sure we'll do some kind of out of UK tour again but we'll be much more prepared this time and I think this tour will only improve us musically aswell, we picked up so much knowledge and influence. Thanks to everyone who made it happen and all the hard work from my fellow band and Simon.

Go Fast Or Go Home

Tuesday 24 May 2011

Tour De France 2011.

Wednesday 6 April 2011

Famalam.

Monday 14 February 2011

Gig listings.

SURVIVE!

Friday 22 October 2010

Alright then fuckers, it's the GFOGH blog

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