For the second time in 2 months the MJ band wagon set off south in search of bratwurst, cheap beers and smiling fans. Bags packed and ipods set to stun. Stockholm was last night and we are now heading 640 kmtrs to Malmo with stinking hangovers. Not the nicest way to spend the day I can assure you. Having teeth pulled out would have been preferable to this.
The new Debaser Malmo is certainly a good looking place. It has only been open 2 weeks and still smells of fresh paint and new wood, or at least it did when we arrived. SPF have arrived 30 minutes earlier and its pretty easy evening. The crowd is great, the sound rocks and everyone is smiling. It also has the coolest dressing room décor in Sweden, although it might give you a headache if you stayed in there too long. Playing with SPF has become pretty easy. Everyone knows where the lines are drawn and it is always a pleasure to see them and hang out.
May 17th. Travel Day.
Back to our second home. Hamburg, St Pauli,. City of rock history, cheap beer, and more rock n roll excess than you could possible need. We love it. As many people know, Hamburg St Pauli is one of the worlds famous liberty ports. For 200 years the sailors of the world have docked on the river Elbe and made St Pauli their own. Most cities of the world have a crest or a coat of arms. Maybe a shield, two rampant horses, and a crown. Some majestic symbol that proudly displays events in its history. St Pauli's crest is the pirates flag. A scull and crossed bones. Pirate flags hang from every apartment balcony. Every second person you see is wearing it on their shirt, on the back of their jacket, or has it painted on the side of their camper van. The funniest example we saw, was the bus used by St Pauli's football team. Bundesliege 2. It's black, with the pirate flag on the front and sponsored by Jack Daniels and Astra Bier. St Pauli is so punk rock its unreal.
The day ends like it always does in this town. Sitting in Rosies bar at 3.am The DJ looks like Mr Spock from Star Trek and plays a fantastic set that goes from the Sex Pistols to Wagner. It will be back to pulling teeth out again when tomorrow comes.
May 18th. We bid farewll to Felix , our friend and host from Turbonegros label Bitzcore Records, and head off down the autobahn to Bad Bentheim. Where? Yes, even the Germans were saying this. BB is close to the Dutch border. On our last tour we met a very pleasant gentleman by the name of Johan Bardenhorst and he has arranged this gig at a local venue he promotes. We arrive in Bentheim around 4pm and immediately begin to wonder what this show will be like. The streets are like some ancient spanish village. Tight, narrow, and twisting. Almost too thin for the bus to travel down. The venue is the towns Kulturehaus. The concert room was about the size of my living room and had a PA system designed for a room 10 times bigger. My god it was loud! Johan looks after us in the way that we have come to realise is the way of all the Germans we have met. Nothing is too much trouble. The cooler is never less than full, the dinner is excellent, and we get a wonderful surprise when Isa, one of the fans we met on the SPF tour, turns up with a home made chocolate torte in the shape of a guitar. She's travelled six hours on the train with it. The next nice surprise is the arrival of our friend Marion from Cologne. She's as wacky as a box full of frogs and, true to her character, sets up hair salon in the dressing room and does the bands hair. Why? We have no idea but that's why we all like her so much. Expect the unexpected.
The gig is fun, if far too loud for the venue, but it's a good start. Lots of merch gets sold and we finally head of to the hostel. Much to our amusement we are sleeping in an windmill.
As usual, this is always the time of the night when things get stupid. It starts with Oskar trying to flick people with a towel. Within seconds a table of beer bottles has hit the hard tiled floor and were are slipping around in beer and glass. Johnny jumps from the top bunk and captures Anton in a duvet cover which he spend the next 2 minutes trying to find a way out of. Johnny goes to the bathroom and gets a trash bin full of water {and trash} thrown at him when he comes out. We all then decide to run down the corridors and collect as many toilet rolls as possible and turn Anton in to the Mummy. No one notices Oskar pour 2 litres of water into my bed. Oh how I laughed!!!
May 19th. Munster.
Breakfast is a little uncomfortable. Mainly because the rest of the guests seemed to be made up of happy clappy christians. They stare at us with the narrow eyes of disapproval. It was either disapproval or they were all unable to use the bathrooms due to no toilet paper. We eat quickly and disappear before we are burned as witches. Bad Bentheim looks like it has probaaly burned a few over the years. Best not to take the risk.
Munster is only a short 90 minutes drive. It's the weekend of their annual student carnival and we are informed that Munster is one of Germanys biggest univeristy cities. It also has more bicycles than China!! Once again we find the venue and wonder about the gig. It is in some kind of old railway yard just behind the city centre. It seems so hidden everyone starts to ask themselves if anyone will find it. As it was such a short journey we have the whole afternoon to chill. It's a warm sunny day and there is no stress. We camp out next to the bus, kick a football, catch some sun, and finish off last nights beers. Oskar is leaning into the bus to find something. He is wearing no shirt and I cannot help but notice his white Calvin Kliens above his belt. I also cannot help notice the 2 litre bottle of Evian water standing by the van. Revenge time I think.
* Remover lid
* Check it is nice and cold
* Ram it down the back of Oskar's Calvin Kleins
It took him a few seconds to work out what was happening and when he finally stopped running around the parking lot and pulled it out, there was maybe one quarter left. Oh how I laughed!!!
Anton discovers a guitar shop a few hundred metres from the club so while Oskar is in the bushes changing his underwear, we decided to check out a few guitars. One hour later Anton is dancing around the carpark with his new Fender Jaguar. He informs us it is called Bruce Lee.
Being the 2 football fans , Anders and I have been searching for a bar in which to watch the FA Cup final between Chelsea and Manchester United. Anders finally locates one and we rush off to see the game. We spend the rest of the afternoon bored to tears by the most boring foorball game in histroy. What an anti climax. We return to the club at 9.15, having had dinner in the city centre, and find a big queue sitting in the evening sunshine. The promotor cannot believe it. Being the cities annual student weekend, there are lots of events going on in town and he admitts he wasn't expecting much of a turn out. It is one of the best MJ gigs ever. The crowd are mad for it and bouncing up and down from the first strum of Bruce Lee.
Sun 20th May.
After breakfast with Evo, the promotor, we take an easy drive back to Hamburg. We have a few days off now before Berlin and then the Hamburg show, so most have an easy night. Felix takes us on a tour of some of Hamburgs famous music bars. Did I say and easy night? Well, easy for Hamburg maybe.
The next 2 days is taken up with sleeping, myspacing, postering, working from Bitzcores office, er…more drinking, and finally a nice dinner in an Italian Restaurant.
Felix and Dennis from Bitzcore are cool guys. We decide Felix looks like Shaggy from Scooby Doo and Dennis looks like Bart Simpson at 30 years old. They are great company and Anton informs them that the Swedes have a word for people like them. Fire Souls. They do everything with heart and passion. I think they like this more an 'Shaggy' and 'Bart'
Wed 23rd May.
It's the day of the Berlin gig and everyone is feeling good. All except The Bean who has come down with some kind of influenza due to little sleep, hundreds of cigarettes and 100 litres of beer in the last 5 days. It is a warm day and not the best weather for traveling with a fever. By the time we get to The Magnet Club he is looking like merry death himself. We meet Bibo, the booker and all immediately like her. Also on the bill are the Far Cries and The Michelles. We hang out with the Far Cries for a while. They are from London and seem friendly and easy going.
The gig is fun. Although it is no surprise that Anton found it hard work. Never the less MJ only drop one song to save his voice and it is another well received show.
The promotor immediately takes him to his bed and he is under orders to get some rest before Hamburg. He's clearly wasted and goes without needing to be forced.
The rest of us decided to hang for a while and have a few drinks. We then discover that there is some kind of Karaoke going on in the bar area. Before too long Johnny and Oskar are pissed and decide to wow the crowd with a few numbers. Its hystrical and shows that Johnny is a good singer as well as a great drummer. First up is Can't Stand Me Now by the Libertines, followed later by an all singing all dancing verison of that on-tour MJ favourite , Grace Kelly, and all accompanied on backing vocals by The Mollies the wonderful and dedicated entourage who are at every gig.
A big suspicion this will appear on youtube at some point as several people were filming it. The evening ends with Johnny, Oskar and myself, sitting in the court yard of our apartment, drinking cold beers and talking about nothing very much. Just as we are about to call it a night we are suddently confronted by a very strange sight. Anton is wandering around the court yard dressed in his velvet jacket , Chelsea boots and underwear. He informs us he is looking for the bathroom but he appears to be sleep walking. A surreal end to the day.
Thursday 24th May.
We have breakfast with Bibo, Florian, her boyfriend, and Steffie, her business partner. She has the coolest apartment you could imagine and serves up a fabulous breakfast of ham and eggs, cheese, salami, and rubarb jam. That was new expereince! At 1pm we head back to Hamburg for the last German show until the fall. Anton is looking much better and seems to have shaken his fever too. Before we have got 50 ks from Berlin we suddenly encounter a worrying situation. There has been a big accident on the autobahn and we are caught in 15 kilometres of stationary traffic.An hour goes by and it looks doubtful we will make Hamburg for the 4.30pm load-in. After a while we decide to leave the autobahn at the next exit and try to find an alternate route. It seemed like a good idea until we realised everyone else had thought the same. We then spent the next 90 minutes in an equally slow moving traffic jam on a tiny back road. We call Felix. He checks it out on the internet and informes us where the accident is. More by luck than good map reading we manage to rejoin the autobahn just after the crash and once more get moving. It is 3,30pm and we stll have 200ks to go. At 6.45 we pull up outside the Logo in Hamburg, tired, stressed, and soaked in sweat. There are already fans outside and we quickly load in the equipment and set up in record time. It is only 75 minutes to doors.
Molotov are done by 7.30 and , after a quick wash and brush up, everyone chills with yet more cold beers. The ticket sales are good and the blood is rushing for a great gig. Support tonight comes from our friends 1000 Robota and fellow Swedish band The Bondage Faries. 1000 Robota are fun. 18 year old Hamburgers we have met here before, Arctic Monkeys in German and lots of fun. I love their song Fuck the Driving School.
Bondage Faries are a whole different ball game. 2 guys who wear some kind of mutant Star wars helmets and perform to a backing track whilst playing bass and guitar. Their backdrop says DEATH BY PENIS. Very tatseful. Felix has signed them to Bitzcore and informs me they are Nihlist Gameboy Punk, what ever the fuck that is? Its fun for a while. By 10pm theres a good crowd and they are clearly up for it tonight. The show is great. Great sound, good lights, very loud, and a great show from the band. A great way to finish this short tour. The merch is selling well and it is smiles all around. Time to hit the aftershow party.
Back to St Pauli and its down to the very well named bar. Lunacy. The best White Russians in Germany.Everything after this point is a little hazy.
Lots of friends and fans, lots of drinking, and loads of MJ from the DJ. Johnny and Oskar are the last to bed as always. 8.am.
Its morning once more and the prospect of 7 hours back to Malmo is not nice one. Only Anders looks even half healthy and does great job of doing the whole drive. We arrive back in Malmo around 7.30pm and enjoy pizza infront of the second Lord of The Rings movie before almost crawling to bed. Germany does that to you.
Sat 26th May.
Today we are on the final show. The Siesta Festival just outside Helsingborg. It's the last show until they Arctic Monkeys supports. The drive is only 70 minutes and we arrive early and in great weather. Also on the bill is Ed Harcourt, Sahara Hotnights, Shout Out Louds, The Concretes, and loads of others. Molotovs show time is 3pm on the Chilli Stage. Festivals are always a bit more hassle to play as there is never any real sound check and people are moving from stage to stage all the time.
However, the show is great fun and quite chaotic. Anton trashed half the stage at one point, Johnny knocked over most of the microphones around his drums and the audience loved every minute. By 4.30, we have everything back in the bus. The hard work is over and all that is left to do is gather all the toys, paintings, letters, and messages that are stuck to the outside of the bus… oh yes, and get drunk in the sunshine.
Sunday 27th May.
Today is going to be a comedy but we don't know this yet. Neither will we laugh very much. The band get to bed around 3.30 am and had not realised we had to be out of the hotel by 10.am. By the time we get to the bus at 11.am no one feels sober enough to drive yet.
The cops are always very keen on the day after festivals and everyone is worried about getting behind the wheel. The Swedish law is very hard on drink driving and the cops are not known for there polite smiling faces. Oskar decided he will drive but he wants a breath test first to make sure he is OK. We walk 30 minutes in to the town to find the police station. Its closed!! We finally decided that the walk there and back will have done the job and by mid day we finally set off the 520 kilometres back to Stockholm. Now, we have been pretty pleased with ourselves on this tour. We have not taken many wrong turns, and on the few occasions we have, we have found another route that lost us no time.
30 minutes after setting off we suddenly realise we are going east rather than north east. It is decided that turning around is probably a waste of time and that we will soon see a sign for somewhere we recognise. Two and a half hours later we are still heading east until we reached Kalmar. For those of you whose geography is cleary as rubbish as ours, Siesta festival is on the west coast of Sweden and about 70 kilometres from Malmo on the southern tip of the country. Kalmar is about 90 kilometres from the southern tip of Sweden on the east coast!! It's the Homer Simpson syndrome again. Doh! We finally find the road north but, unlike the E4 freeway, it is more like a country road. It takes us more than 3 hours to do 175 ks. By 6.pm we have made it to Norrkoping, still 170 ks from Stockholm. Luckily we managed to find the freeway again at this point and with rocket Johnny Handsome behind the wheel once more, our lead footed drummer man got us back to Stockholm by 7.30pm.
It is points like this that you say Never Again, but you know it is not true. You just need sleep and a good dinner. 3500 kilometres in 9 days is tough on anyone, especially with shows and parties at every stop.
Next stop . Artic Monkeys support. More festivals and then back to Germany with the album finally in the stores. 2007 in going to carry on being a Molotov blast. Watch this space.
Read more: http://www.myspace.com/plan9management/blog#ixzz0wDkTuT2T
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