I've never really managed to create any
sort of written record of tour before, but a number of factors have
combined recently to make me want to try and document more of what
we're doing and this trip culminated in a fairly lengthy train
journey for me, so this trip seems like as good a time as any start.
Recently my good friend Jeff Rowe has
been recounting his most recent European tour over on his blog
(www.jeffroweboat.weebly.com
if you're interested, it's good!) and he had a bit of a nightmare
with the UK leg of the trip. Fortunately he enjoyed his stay in
Dundee and said some really nice things about Scotland in his
dispatch. We had had something of a quiet show with the Survival
Tour the same week and it really brought something home to me –
touring and promoting shows can quite often seem like a pretty shitty
idea. Feelings both good and bad are amplified and a bad time can
easily become a terrible time. On the flipside though something
going well can make it all worthwhile and seeing someone who I have a
lot of time for talk about how a good show in Dundee made a whole
portion of his trip worthwhile reminds me that while the bad times
can be pretty crushing, the good times make it seem pretty minor and
they're what's worth remembering and talking about, so here goes...
I'll admit that I had some pretty
serious reservations about this Irish trip before we started –
details of the shows were pretty fluid going into the weekend changed
pretty frequently for a number of reasons and I foresaw a bit of a
disaster unfolding, but fortunately thanks to the help of a bunch of
friends over the sea, by the time we departed everything was pretty
watertight. The journey across the Irish Sea was far from the
easiest we've ever done – hiring a van and paying to get it on the
ferry was not financially viable for us at this point so the four of
us, our hardware, instruments and merch were crammed into my
long-suffering father's estate car for the weekend. This made sure
that we were not going to be living in luxury when we left Dundee at
6am for what it turned out would be a 13 hour trip to our first show
in Galway.
After the aforementioned number of
replans on the shows, we were lucky enough to be hooked up with the
guys from Vamos, Antipop records stalwarts and Galway locals, for
what would be their final weekend of shows before bass player and
vocalist Vinny departs for pastures new in Iceland. We'd be playing
with them the whole weekend in Galway, Dublin, their hometown of Tuam
and Belfast and we'd be joined by Sheepy from Liverpool for the first
three shows too. On arrival in Galway it was pretty clear that Vamos
planned on going out with a bang for their final weekend. Uniforms
have never been a great deal of a “party band” but we're
certainly not shy of the odd beer if the occasion is presented, so we
were happy to be in the company of guys who were clearly as up for
the weekend of shows as we were and we resolved to let them do their
thing and enjoy the experience of being in a whole new country to do
ours. Vamos comprised of Vinny, his brother Tom on guitar who shared
vocal duties and former Dead Class drummer Tony, while Sheepy was
another 3 piece – singer/guitarist Luke (Also called Sheepy),
Drummer Olly and another Dead Class journeyman Villy on bass. Along
with Vinny's Icelandic girlfriend Una and their dog Toby, who was
enthusiastic but terrible at fetching sticks and sneezed a lot when
he was excited, this would be our group for the weekend.
The trip to Galway was something of a
slog even for us. I always feel like an asshole when people ask me
about tour or say things like “I hope you have a good holiday”
and the only reply I can muster is something along the lines of “it's
not like you think”. Don't get me wrong, we always have an
incredible time when we're away and I like to think that Uniforms
cope as a whole pretty well with the rigours of travel, but it can be
hard work being faced with an entire day of motorway travel,
especially on trips like this one, or in fact most UK trips, where
there are a limited number of said motorways and you can find
yourself driving the same stretch 3 or 4 times in the space of a
week. We arrived in Galway just after 7 in the evening and I must
say I was a big fan of the city, but it wasn't long before we were
faced with the second “wild card” of tour trips. UK shows are
among the most organised affairs I've been a part of – 3 or 4
bands, efficient changeovers, shows wrapped usually by 11. In
Ireland, not so much. For our first show of the weekend there were 6
acts and doors were at 9pm, which meant that by the time we took the
stage it was around 1.45am, close to 20 hours before we started our
journey. As previously mentioned, we take a degree of pride in our
ability to face down the rough spots of touring and taking it in our
stride and so we did what we always do, we found a mexican restaurant
and waited. Despite my initial apprehension, Galway treated us to a
great first night – a good mix of local bands, good first chance to
see Vamos and Sheepy, a big and enthusiastic crowd, some of the best
stage sound we've experienced in a long time and most importantly
some top quality Mexican food. I'm happy to admit that when I finally
crawled into bed (and by bed I mean floor) near the dark end of 4 in
the morning, I was feeling a lot better about this trip than I had
been previously.
Regardless of how tired I still was
waking up on Saturday morning, I've long said that one of my very
favourite things about this band is being presented the opportunity
to experience things that otherwise I'd have no chance of, and being
in Dublin on St. Patrick's weekend was certainly one of them, so I
was perhaps a little insistent in dragging everyone out of bed the
next morning. We've discussed before the importance of experiencing
as much as we can while we travel and this is especially true now
that we've dialled back the drinking between shows, but after a 20+
hour day and 4 hours sleep on a stranger's floor that's a much more
appealing theory than it is practice. Regardless, I reasoned that
this was not an opportunity that would come along very often and
throwing into the mix that Ireland were attempting to wrap up a Six
Nations Championship that afternoon, we should take in as much of the
Dublin atmosphere as possible, so we were into the car by a fairly
decent noon for the 2 hour trip back up the M6 to the capital. While
we're keen to take in all the “famous” sites anywhere we visit,
we can also be quite cynical about our tourist experience (look out
for my impending Tumblr collection “disgruntled tour photos at
Stonehenge” coming soon). Nevertheless, the lure of a St.
Patrick's weekend was too strong, so first stop was St. James'
Gate for a Guinness brewery visit. In our traditional style, we
wandered around the area, looked at the queue and price list for
entry, made a disparaging comment and with a “well that's that over
with” attitude, moved on. We were all more interested in the fact
that a visit to a metropolis of the scale of Dublin gave us the
opportunity to sample all 3 of our band's main interests – artisan
coffee, mexican food and record shops. Eat your heart out Sid
Vicious. After spending more time than is probably tolerable to most
people indulging these, we ventured back to the venue, Sin E on the
banks of the Liffey.
Tonight's show was an entirely different
situation to last night in Galway – similar length of show, similar
late running, but this time rather than being an advertised,
pay-at-the-door affair, it was an open rock bar with a great mix of
Dublin bands and our tour party. Kudos once again to the Irish public
on their level of interest and enthusiasm for a bunch of Scottish
roasters who they didn't even know.
In discussion with our hosts, we
decided that finding a sleeping place for a party of 10 in Dublin on
the Saturday of St. Patrick's weekend was a near impossible task, so
all that was left after loading out was the daunting prospect of a
late night drive back to Vinny's house. Derrick did an admirable job
keeping me attentive to the road the whole way back and we once again
crawled into our sleeping bags towards the business end of dawn to
try and catch up on rest. After a similar sleeping experience to the
night previous, we were up again and thankful that the drive to
Sunday night's show in Tuam, Vinny and Tom's hometown., was a mere 15
minutes. Before the business of the show could be tackled, however,
there was the matter of finding a venue to settle down for the
afternoon's Manchester United vs Liverpool match. Luke and I are
thoroughly disinterested in football, and I doubt Derrick would admit
to more than a fleeting interest in the English game, but Jamie was
keen to see the match and the guys from Sheepy (obviously) wanted to
see Liverpool, so we ventured to Tuam after a hearty breakfast thanks
to Vinny to find a pub. I can honestly say without reservation that
I can't remember the last time I enjoyed watching a football match so
much. The pub we picked, The Brogue, was jam-packed full of
supporters of both sides and the atmosphere was tangibly crackling by
the time we arrived 10 minutes in. Jamie pointed out that “it's
always more fun watching a game if it means something to the people
you're with” and watching Luke and Olly really come out of their
shells as they watched Liverpool deliver something of a masterclass
certainly made our afternoon much more enjoyable.
The evening's show
was a third totally different approach, meaning we'd run almost the
full range so far this weekend. It had the feeling of something of a
going away party for Vinny, who was playing a cover set with some of
his work colleagues as well as his Vamos set. It was also the first
time to my knowledge that someone on this trip had come out
specifically to see us. Jack, who we had communicated with
previously, was from Galway but had been unable to make it on Friday,
so he'd driven down with a carload of friends to see us play. This
was probably my least favourite show of the weekend performance-wise
(Derrick and I share a dislike of stage lighting and we were
struggling to see under the effects) but the feeling of being on your
first trip in a foreign country and having someone tell you that
they've taken time out of their day to drive out and watch you play
is an incomparable feeling so it's hard to look back on it
unfavourably.
On Monday morning we made what I hope,
and I'm sure will, be a short term goodbye to the guys from Sheepy
and prepared to make a trip back to the North for the final show in
Belfast. This show fell on St. Patrick's Day itself and, with not a
great deal of intention given the date, we made quick stops at the
Fields of Athenry and the Battle of the Boyne site. Neither carried
much fanfare but it was one more opportunity to tick something off
the “not everyone gets to do that” list. We arrived in Belfast
in good time and the show, in the iconic Warzone Centre, already had
a feel more similar to our usual UK experience. This was the first
time this weekend that we got to catch up with the catalyst for the
trip, William. Our first face-to-face meeting was at last year's
Book Yer Ane Fest and William carries the familiar air of a punk
doing what they can for the scene for no other reason than the love
of the music that we all share. He's truly one of the good guys and
I for one was happy to spend some time in his company. As is usual
for these kinds of shows, the DIY community who frequent the Warzone
treated us admirably, laying on top notch vegan food, beers and
snacks on our arrival. It's hard to relate how well appreciated it
is when you're away from home on tour to have someone take care of
you and, especially from my driver's point of you, I will always be
in a great mood if I arrive and there's a decent meal. Add to this
the fact that I'd just been told that we could leave the car at the
venue overnight and walk to our sleeping place and I instantly became
annoyingly happy.
I've always assumed that the Irish treated St.
Patrick's Day as somewhat cheesy and a bit of a cringeworthy event
but our experiences over the weekend were causing me to call this
into doubt and the events of Monday night's show blew that theory
clean out of the water. Imagine the sort of drink-fuelled carnage
you'd find in any Student Union or Irish theme pub in Britain,
multiply it by about 10 and sprinkle it liberally over an entire
country and that's Ireland. What that essentially meant for us was
that by the time we took the stage, every Irishman in the vicinity
was beyond lubricated. A weekend of celebrating their hiatus had
taken its toll on Vamos, who it must be said stumbled through their
final performance and the sound engineer for the venue had
over-indulged himself to such an extent that myself and Derrick
decided to tackle our sound ourselves with a little help from Vinny
Vamos, who manned the desk while we played. While the venue and
company in Belfast held more of a UK type vibe, the somewhat lax
approach to show times had carried over the border and we once again
took the stage in the early hours of the morning. While the crowd
was probably the smallest of the weekend, they were certainly the
most “into it” and we had a couple of hairy moments with
enthusiastic stage invaders before we eventually wrapped it up 40
minutes after curfew.
After what can only be described for
tour as an incredible sleep in William's well-located flat, none of
us were much in the spirit to do any of our planned sight-seeing
around Belfast on the morning of our departure. Late nights and long
drives had taken their toll on us over the last 4 days, so we
vegetated at William's for as long as possible, leaving just enough
time to fuel up on burgers before checking in at the ferry. The
drive home from tour is a difficult one – there's none of the
excitement of the initial journey, you're worn out from the trip and
everything just seems to take far longer than it should when all you
want is your own bed and, in my own borderline OCD case, a bath. To
be fair though, it's also a great chance to reflect on the events of
the last 4 days, and we spent most of this one planning our next
trip, which will hopefully be accompanied by a more concise report
than this one.
