Said our goodbye's at Grandma's house, it was a little sad we had all been through so much together the last three weeks. Huge thanks to Grandma if you read this, don't know how you put up with us all!
Can't wait to get back with the family now, some normallity for a while.
The four of us hit the bar at the aiport and prepared for the flight with some Corona's and crisp's. Flight took off on time, I immiediatly fell a sleep but woke to the sound of Hoggy shouting excitedly to me, "DAVE! DAVE!, they have London Pride!" I awoke and the air hostess had heard Hog and passed me what she said were the last 2 tinny's on the plane, "you gotta find me more" I said, and proceeded to be very nice to her, she said she would do what she could for me, this was a great start to the flight, I tucked into my beer, it was fantastic, proper beer again after all the shitty american lager I have been putting up with (sorry to any American's reading this, don't wanna offend but you gotta admit you beer is horse piss!)
The hostess reapeared, "I nicked you 2 more from business class"
"Oh thanks so much I could kiss you" I said
She then lent down and kissed me... on the lips! and then disappeared. A ripple of laughter went along our seat row! The service on BA has got better these day's hasn't it Dave!
Several hours into the flight had to divert to Goose bay in Newfoundland due to a passenger having a heart attack, this was a major inconvenience and we inconsideratly discussed other ways of getting rid of this pesky ill passenger, "well there probaly gonna die anyway just chuck 'em out" or "ain't they got no bloody parachutes"
Goose bay looked like the artic with snow piled several feet high each side of the runway, they got the faulty person off but then announced the wings on our jumbo had frozen so we had another long delay whilst they de-iced.
Eventually got home at 19:00 several hours late!
When I was asked and committed to do these three weeks I genuinely didn't know how it would turn out, wether I would enjoy it or how I would get on living closely with a set of people that I didn't know that well, it was a risk but hey, only a three week risk, the potential return was high too, on offer was one of the greatest adventures of my life!
It's hard work on the road, I am glad I have the blog so I can remember some detail from the tour, also the blog will make people understand just how hard touring is. In the past three weeks we have flown very nearly 30,000 miles and driven a bunch more in the bus!
The image of a touring rock band is highly innaccurate, the reallity is, hard work, sleep deprivation, dodgy food and sometimes substandard accomodation.
Most of us go on a trip, get home and rest for a few days before going on another.
imagine touring as a load of trips all glued together, it's quite shocking to fly back from somewhere, go home and get on the tour bus straight off to the next venue without even a night in your own bed, you would then gig and get to hotel about 4am. THIS IS HARD WORK!
Tour illness's are common as is a 'tour cough' when you get a group of peolpe living and working together, moving from country to country illness is almost a given!
And sleep... Sleep is something you have to get when you can, ignore an opportunity to sleep at your peril, get it whenever you can, on the bus, the plane, where ever!
Inspite of all this, there are of course good time's it's like being on a working holiday with a bunch of your mates. I would not have done this with many bands, the Adicts are special, they were part of my youth, my first punk gig, they are a truly great band.
After gigs I would hear people talking, "that's the best punk gig I have ever been too!" was a common one, the manager of the Hard rock hotel told us. "that's the best gig we have ever had" now that is high praise indeed. Irrespective of tiredness or health problems the stage performance is always full on, very energetic and polished, they bollock each other during the set if anyone is considered to be not putting enough effort in. After 30 years together you can only admire that. Pete has had a lot of serious health problems as well as the stomach problems we aquired in Caracas (now renamed crackarse), I don't know how he performed some night's, I couldn't have done it.
During the trip I got on well with everyone, they are a great bunch of guys who I know consider to be friends.
This trip has been everything I hoped for, apart from Argentina (which was a blur, I had no energy left and could barely function) it has been the adventure that I had hoped for, , of course there are ups and downs with life on the road but on the whole frikkin' brilliant!
This has been a fantastic life experience and I hope through the blog others have been able to get a taste of what life on the road with a great rock band is really like.
The tour resumes on
May 8th 2009 in SPAIN and then goes to
SERBIA, AUSTRIA, GERMANY, CHZECH REPUBLIC, LUXEMBOURG, ITALY & BELGIUM
So keep checking back for blog entries/updates, sure we'll be having some more great adventures, will be adding more stuff this week. Am also adding pictures to some of the older posts.
P.S.
This Blog is not a contact point for the band, any correspondance should go to the
http://www.myspace.com/adicts
First gig is spain and (which I forgot to put on here) then it goes in alphabetical order.
