The U.K. Part III

Taller Than Einstein, the Same Height as Cindy Crawford

Leeds –

After not wanting to leave Edinburgh….Ever...we hit the road for our big show in Leeds. The Who album thing that I’m sure every band mentions when they play Leeds was on our minds too…We’re not very original.

We got into Leeds late so we had no time to see the town at all really.

This show had all sorts of wackiness. The first part of October in England have this thing called freshers….It’s where all the 18 year olds go out and get wasted and write with sharpies on each other, and generally act like jackasses. Well, our show in Leeds was right in the middle of freshers week, so we go into the band room before we play, and some kid is peeing all over the place. Mostly on the floor, but some of it on our gear as well. The bar throws him out of the room, then makes him clean it up. The bar arranges for Mark to go talk to the kid, who is very apologetic, but also very drunk and he says he mistook the room for a toilet. He then tries to shake Mark’s hand….Mark has some unkind words to say to the kid, and does not shake his pee soaked hand. We are later told that people from the bar walked him to a cash machine and made him take out 50 pounds. And he cried. He'll never pee again.

We play…..It’s ok, but nowhere near The Who's recorded performance. Manatees played too and killed it. We had to follow them. That was tough.

After the show, we come to find out that it’s been raining all night and we have to load our equipment down 2 flights of slippery outdoor metal stairs! Leeds!

Doner pizza after the show…Not our greatest idea. English breakfast complete with black pudding the next morning, much better idea.

London –

This show was a birthday show for the promoter, who’s name was Lloyd. Awesome guy. Maybe kind of had a slightly older, British John Benetti thing going on? The best part of this show, was that they had a Rottweiler living on the roof, and a backyard full of Rottweiler puppies.

This show was jam packed….7 bands. Oh, and the music had to end at 11PM. We were playing with Attack! Vipers! again, which was a good thing. Those dudes rule. It was actually tough to keep track of who was playing and when. Also, there were two backlines for the show, one for the first half and one for the second half. Ours was for the second half.

Friends came out….That was nice.

After the show we went back to Ryan and Jess’ place. Ryan runs the EYESOFSOUND label and has put out some killer music. Their apartment is insanely awesome. I think we all wanted to live on their back deck. And they were food nerds, always a plus. Mmmm... cave matured fancy cheese.

This was also notable as the show where Scott discovered the Daft Punk app on his iPhone.

Brighton -
Throughout the UK leg of our tour everyone was hyping up this town, the "San Francisco of the UK", and it totally lived up to the hype. Cool vibe, interesting people, lots of cool graffiti...

Scott and Ralph took a bro-mantic walk on the pier before the show and talked about getting old by the sea...

Played at a venue called the Prince Albert, once again with the always awesome Attack! Vipers!, who helped Scott looked more glamorous on stage than usual by pointing a fan towards his silky Fabio hair... but seemed to take offense to Mark's bass in the process, "accidentally" unplugging his gear. I guess that's what you get from a guy who exclusively wears shirts of Louisville bands ...jk.



After the show and a couple more pints we retired for the evening, bidding farewell to the UK early the next morning as we headed back to the mainland... first stop, La Havre, France. More on that later, but let's just saying getting out of the UK was a helluva lot easier than getting in.

But one last awesome picture of some Brighton graffiti... click for a larger image.