Boston isn’t a big college town anyway…

09/08/07

You join us somewhere outside of Boston.

So we’re just over halfway through our stretch on the Warped Tour, and I’ve got 5 minutes to fill you in on the latest, whilst I wait for this crazy 8 minute video to download on youTube… you know the one, its sweeping the world apparently, a 3-way animal attack on the African Plains.

So says the BBC news anyway.

Apologies for letting the diary slip in the past week, internet connections are few and far between on the Warped sites, and when they work, its generally for around 3 minutes at a random point during the day.

The band have made motions towards adding little entries themselves.. certainly, they’ve posed for a few photos for it, which is a significant inroad, I’m sure you’ll agree… Until then though, I’ll crack on.

So we’ve seen Chicago, New York, Columbus (where we witnessed the craziest rain and thunder storm of our lives), Pittsburgh, and various other car parks outside major cities. We were in Minneapolis the day before that bridge collapsed, and in a disturbing twist, actually drove over it 4 (yes, 4!) times during the day. It actually appears in the back of some photos that the guys did for an unnamed British music weekly…

The weather has been knocking lumps out of our pale scottish bodies, not least Ben, who a few days ago, was redder than any human being I’ve ever seen. Its taken a few days for us to get used to the utterly dominating sunshine over here.

Another aspect of Warped, we’ve found, is that showers are less accessible than the internet, and so we’ve had to invest in 5 ‘solar showers’. Essentially rubber bags, with hoses on one end, you fill with water, and leave out in the sun for a few hours.

Its a fairly ghetto way to get clean, but needs must… they actually get quite hot, and its amusing for the americans, who seem less inclined to group together in swimming shorts at the back of the bus, and get lathered up.
At least we’re clean and fresh.

We’re looking forward to getting back to Europe anyway…

We fly back from Kansas City, (after which we can fulfill at least someone’s dream, and be able to say "we’re not in Kansas anymore) arriving the following morning in Brussels, Belgium, to go do the second best organised festival in Europe, Pukkelpop. (and T In The Park in case you were about to ask…)

We then go through Germany and Netherlands, before returning to the UK, where there is a plan afoot to film a video…

The treatment sounds pretty special.

Reading and Leeds isn’t far away either… that will be the last show in the UK for a couple of months actually… we go back to the USA with the lovely Editors boys, back to Europe for some headlining shows, and then straight back to the USA to open for Queens of the Stone Age. Then its UK headline shows, then there’s chat to maybe have a crack at some more of Europe, and maybe even another quick jaunt to the USA… we’ll see though, as everyone might be ready for a week in bed by that point.

And then its christmas.
And then next year, will hopefully see tentative footsteps into the Eastern part of the world… Fingers, as they say, crossed.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.
We’re in Buffalo, NY state tomorrow, then up to Canada.

5 more Warped shows…

I’ll leave you with some quick bits of interest.

– Yesterday, Ben and Churd shared a small rowboat and a large lake, with Kevin Lyman, the Warped organiser, and Howard, the singer of Killswitch Engage. Churd was starstruck. Ben was concentrating on landing a fish. He didn’t. He managed later though.

– Ben has had more solar showers than anyone… He’ll use it even if there are regular showers available. The rest of us will wait in line to use a plumbed effort if possible, but not our Ben.

– We’ve been watching loads of bands, and have found ourselves watching two bands every day (or as much as we can).

Gallows and The Matches have become our favourite bands and people on this tour, absolutely lovely to a man, and incredible bands. I’m sure most of you are aware of Gallows, but the words you’ve read doesn’t do them justice. They’re fucking… something else. I’m not sure what sort of profile The Matches have at home, but really, they’re absolutely mind-boggling… The craziest pop songs you’ve ever heard… Just beautifully odd. And fucking great live, the most fun 30 minutes you’ll have on the Warped Tour. You can’t take your eyes or ears off them. Much like Gallows actually.

– We’ll be able to announce support bands for November soon.. at this point, we’re going to split the tour up into sections and try and get a few great bands on different parts… its looking really exciting… More on that soon…

– The bsides on the next single might be really special… something quite different than usual, but very cool… again, fingers crossed.

– Does anyone want to design us a cool tshirt? Designs on the messageboard…

– We’ve invested in a razor scooter to get around these places. Its proving useful.

– Warped provides its water in cans. CANS! It even tastes a bit funny.

– We miss water from taps, regular tea bags, non-fried food, salads, warm running water, bands that don’t preach at other people, our girlfriends and friends and families, a nice hospitable temperature and our own beds.

– We don’t miss not being able to watch cable tv on the bus, not having iPhones in Europe, not being able to buy pretty much anything under the sun at your local supermarket, not seeing movies in advance (is Bourne Ultimatum out at home yet?) and we certainly don’t miss being charged £15 a time for the internet in a hotel.

More soon….
Maybe.

lots of american love.x