Hey there everyone.
Having an awesome (I’m speaking the lingo now) time on tour so far!
I got thrown in the deep end when I arrived after having slept for 4 hours over 48 hours I arrived in Indianapolis and got to the hotel to meet up with all the guys on the tour. At reception I rang up to Brian (our tour manager on the Hotel Café tour) to say “I’m here…what now?”. So he tells me that in 10 mins they’re all going to a
Motley Crue concert and that my presence was requested to go with them from namely Carey Brothers (on the tour with us). He figured it was a good way to break the ice...he was right! You can’t get more full on metal than Motley Crue! So we all met up at the bus (very nice! Totally different kettle of fish to our UK busses!)...apart from Butch Walker (also on tour with us) who was already hanging out with his pal Tommy Lee backstage in his dressing room at the venue. We all piled into Jason (our stage manager/ friendly guitarist/ bass player should we choose to abuse him)’s brother’s car and headed for the gig. We eventually found our way in thanks to Tony (part of the Motley Crue team) who escorted us in through the back and straight into Tommy’s dressing room...greeted by him, top off, tatts out, drumming on anything hard surfaced psyching himself up for the gig along to his “aftershow” playlist on the Apple laptop, itunes playing through a mobile disco with a great little sound system. Now THAT is rock and roll! I’m liking this so far...It’s almost time to go see the gig so we gather together some Coronas into plastic cups and follow the leader to the sound desk where we were going to watch the gig from. The atmosphere was primal, excitable, ready to blow! They came on stage in spandex and ***k you t-shirts in amongst a host of scantily clad ladies in black latex. I wouldn’t expect anything less. I’m sure they’ve all got some form of tourettes as every other word was a swear word. It just added to their charm...The gig had so much pyrotechnics going on. It was pretty funny to watch the guy who was “playing” the fire and smoke on his computers just in front of us. I really needed to go get me some ear plugs so Tony escorted some of us to the dressing room again to pee and also so I could chew up some bogroll into a little ball and stick it in my ears as some kind of make shift earplugs (gross I know but needs must...I like my ears). It was really really loud. He asked us if we’d like to go watch Tommy play drums on the stage...er...YES! So three of us found ourselves say 6 feet away from Tommy ripping the skins to pieces. It was quite an experience. We definitely had the best seats in the house there that night! Occasionally Tommy would take a swig out of the Jagermeister bottle for a pick me up and eye up this lovely young lady who had appeared behind us. He’s like a kid up there. Glancing round to us (well mainly Butch) everytime he pulled off a cool fill like “did you see that?” Tommy ran off for a second and came back on with a harness. He then proceeded to the front of the stage where he was winched up to the rafters where 20 feet up was an electronic kit for him to play on...then he swung mid air to the one on the other side of the stage where there was another electronic kit! That was something I’d never seen before...again...funny but strangely brilliant and totally metally over the top!
The show finished and we all met up again and piled into the dressing room...booze was a flowing...young ladies were a hanging and empty beer bottles were a dying a quick death against the dressing room walls. I must admit to really enjoying having a little boogie to Tommy’s “aftershow” playlist. He’s really into his hard electonic jagggedy beats which is right up my village lane. It was a great night and we were all well and truly bonded by the end of it.
It was time to skip on back to the bus...stopping by a Taco Bell on the way for a healthy does of calories. I could never do this every night as I’d be a complete wreck but you gotta do the rock and roll bit every now and then!
So the day of the first gig. I was nervous that the gear in my 5 suitcases may have been damaged and was itching to get it set up to see if it was ok. The gear in soundcheck was fine thankfully. I was so much more relaxed and getting back into the swing of things. It’s so warm here I really feel like I’m on holiday. It’s so nice to be able to walk out of building and not need your coat. The gig was getting closer and the queue started to talk to me as I walked past from some of the peeps who were here to see me. There were 4 other artists playing last night and the idea is that none of us are headlining. We all rotate. We are all SO different from one another too which makes for an interesting crowd! I had time for 6 songs. The first gig in the states for this album has now been achieved. It was really a relaxed atmosphere and I’d met quite a few people in the audience prior to going on which also put me at ease. I’d like to say a big thankyou to everyone who did come out yesterday. I loved signing all that stuff. Makes me feel like a pop star! If any of you took any pics please post them up on the ibabble.
Big love to you all and see some of you in Cleveland tonight! Xxx
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