Day 1 Wednesday 3/11/04

Thinking of having kids? Take a plane ride sometime soon, and then rethink.

At the Adelaide airport I meet Mike Both for the first time. Mike is the inventor of the Infinitphase, a large-scale sequenced phaser pedal that forms a significant part of my pedal board. He’s kindly offered to put us up for a couple of nights. So four of us pile into his Kombi van and head out into the Adelaide ‘burbs.

Drama ensues when Michael starts a rumour that Rhys’ guitar is missing from our stacks of gear. So I go off to file a complaint. When I come back, Rhys’ guitar is there, so it must be my Fender that is missing. More sunken-hearted feeling. It’s soon uncovered that there is no missing guitar at all, it’s just that I’ve put my Strat in my Tele case and therefore it doesn’t look like it’s there. Eediots.

As we settle down for the night I try out my new self-inflating mattress or, as Rhys terms it, my inflatable ivory tower. Mike’s daughter’s half-size guitar also keeps us entertained.

Day 2 Thursday 4/11/04

Mike’s invented and built lots of gadgets over the years and we get a mass of enjoyment out of a few – the Black Sheep Fuzz, Noise Swash and the curiously named Rubber Fetish.

http://www.prophecysound.com

We go to pick up Fletch. A tour isn’t the same without his innuendo. To make room in the car we drop Anto and Michael in decidedly dodgy area of Adelaide city; they survive by looking more desperate than the locals.

The Jive Bar in Adelaide is a comedy club for at least some of the time. The gig is small but they tell us we pull twice the usual comedy crowd (and get twice the laughs. Show is OK, some small hiccups as could be expected on the first show of the tour.

Day 3 Friday 5/11/04

We wave goodbye to Mike Both and his Kombi van and fly to Hobart via a connection through Melbourne. Rocket Science are spotted in the airport and are on our flight; they’re playing down the road from us in Hobart tonight.

Hobart, as I was expecting, is beautiful, green and natural, but it’s damn wet. It’s continually drizzling. It feels like a country town nestled in the hills.

All our gear is brought in on a trailer rather than the carousel that more civilised airports have. Then it’s a free-for-all. Us against the pensioners in a scramble for our rain-drenched gear and cases.

Damn it’s wet.

The Show. We share gear with both Space Like Alice and Thirsty Merc – a Fender Twin and Bad Cat (drool).

We have a much better show than the previous night. Great crowd response. Thirsty Merc have a big show and seem to like us too. We leave for ‘home’, a Hobart backpackers’. I think I managed to lose my beanie here, it was the best beanie ever. Anto decides to walk home instead, claiming to have ‘unfinished business’.

Tour Essentials:

Tissues/Toilet paper: Never know when you’re going to run out or be caught out. Very versatile too. Can solve a multitude of problems. Fletch has carried his spare roll all around Canada and Australia.

Plastic Bags: Once again versatile. Good for dividing dirty washing from clean, insulating wet from dry or doubling for a case when something goes awry.

Earplugs: Protection from dodgy bands and snoring bandmates.

Day 4 Saturday 6/11/04

I feel good. After a three-and-a-half-hour hour drive, we arrive in Devonport. Rhys calls it Davenport continually, after Lindsay or Liz, possibly. The venue is tiny and reminiscent of the Hydey in Perth.

The hotel we’re staying in here is great as these things go. Rooms to ourselves and very clean bathrooms.

The show is pretty awful. We play pretty well, but the crowd is only partially attentive no matter what we do. About half a dozen people watch closely and the rest – including a hen’s night and a buck’s party – drift in and out, rarely even turning around. We get jammed in a corner and I even cop Rhys’s guitar in the nose at one stage. It’s poor and it makes me want to drink – and I do.

Day 5 Sunday  7/11/04 

No one in this state can spell Fourth Floor Collapse. It’s one L in Collapse for Hobart. Most common error is FORTH and that’s what we’ve had for the past two nights. Not as bad as Margaret River who once spelt all three words incorrectly – FORTH FLAW COLAPSE. The barman tonight asks us if he’s spelt it right (which he hasn’t). The guys correct him, and he thanks them but he doesn’t change the sign.

Saloon Bar – Launceston. Over the years we’ve had a few shows where there has been next to no one here, but still I have to admit to being disappointed tonight. Launceston is a ghost town, it seems, where you can wander down the main street without the vaguest danger of getting hit by cars. The venue is funny in an ‘if it wasn’t so tragic’ way. It’s a real saloon – moose heads, number plates on the walls, bistro meals. I’m very wary about playing in bistros these days. 

Sunday is not a band night here and there really is no one in attendance. Okay, I lie. Two bar staff, three members of Enola Fall, two of their friends who take photos and another couple of guys with them. There are also four guys who wander in for a game of pool, a beer and then wander out again. They also sit on the saddles that pass for seats but face backwards to the stage.

Earlier in the evening Enola Fall play a good set of Muse-y atmospheric rock. It’s pretty good.

We spend some time after the show talking to Corey the barman. He sorts us out with some beers and even some free samples of Boag’s new St George – a summery type of Corona-style beer. We have a good talk about a lot of things including a touchy subject down here – Aboriginals. Corey seems nonplussed when he says “We don’t get many of them around here”. I wonder why.

After the Saloon Bar closes quietly we retire to the gaming lounge for a nightcap and to draw straws for who gets to do the six-hour round trip to Hobart tomorrow to drop the amps off. I have a phobia of drawing straws. I’ll happily play paper, scissors, rock but I always seem to lose drawing straws. Tonight my luck is in and Fletch draws the short straw. Starngely, I volunteer to do the chore. Partially ’cause of the forlorn look in Fletch’s eyes (I’ve fallen victim to that before) and partially because it has been decided that the poor saps who have to do this drive get the bonus of not driving for the rest of the tour and are exempt from future responsibility, something that I’ll happily endure so I can watch the world go by and write. (Of course it’s never going to be a total exemption, is it?)

Day 6 Monday 8/11/04

We soon find out that this place has good meals, but this plus is balanced out by appalling showers, like the worst lo-flow piece-of-shit showers ever invented. Total bollocks.

Anto and I drive to Hobart and back to Launceston. One end of Tasmania to the other and back on the same day. It really is uneventful and mostly unenjoyable. Anto fancies A Perfect Circle, Radiohead and Slipknot as a soundtrack. I’m content with my iPod’s random selections, which today mostly consist of Neil Finn’s various guises for some strange Appley reason. Highlight of the trip is another Subway visit (third of the tour) when we’re very hungry. Dull, huh?

The other guys go to some gorge. Bet it wasn’t that good. The physical exertion will do them some good

We hit the Saloon Bar again in the evening for another great meal – mostly cheap steaks – and then retire to see Courtney Murphy get kicked off Idol and then South Park and Six Feet Under.

I stay up late listening to Poddy (my iPod) and reading Rolling Stone. I can’t sleep. I think have a temporary solution for the music industry.

Déjà vu is actually hitting me all the time at the moment. Even as I write now in a Launceston hotel room I feel I was here in a dream.

Day 7 Tuesday 9/11/04

Go for a walk through town searching for coffee. Solve the music industry then drive to Georgetown. We look around the Low Head Lighthouse. There’s something life-affirming about rockhopping. I end up pondering the existence of life on earth and the distance across Bass Strait to Victoria. Sickness is going through the band, I’m doing well to keep it out so far.

The sea air makes us think fish and chips, so we ask some friendly locals where the best fish and chips are. One guy directs us to the best one, which is on the other side of Georgetown Bay where there are ‘a shitload of chippies’. After a wild goose chase that takes us past the sewerage plant, we find Chris’s Fish and Chip Shop. An anachronistic old school chippy manned by an old school Greek bloke with a huge moustache. Chris serves us some of the greasiest fish and chips I’ve ever had. Unfortunately it’s quite horrible and doesn’t sit well for the rest of the drive.

I’m not feeling very well at all. The road climbs and winds around the hills. The scenery is impressive and as green as I feel. There are many logging trucks on the road and some clear-felling is visible. I love wood and paper products but the result of clear-felling is one of the most ugly sights on earth and fills me with guilt.

We continue on until we reach the lookout almost at the summit of the hill/ mountain. We’re level with the clouds and the view through the valleys and across is magnificent. Now if I can just keep my lunch down…

Ah, nature – beautiful, but it makes you wizz on it.

Back in the car and we go on to St. Helen’s Point where we get out and clamber down dirt tracks across rocks to peruse the Tasman Sea.

Fletch loses his compact flash card cases from his backpack and down the crevasses in ancient rocks. He manages to retrieve most of them in a strange reverse entry move.

It’s getting towards an extended twilight from about 8pm due to daylight saving.

We’ve seen two massive expanses of ocean today, one in the north and one on the east coast of Tassie.

My stomach is settling but still sore.

Day 8 Wednesday 10/11/04

Did anything interesting happen today? We wandered around Lonnie, went to net café, went to the airport. At the airport some tool is complaining at the rent-a-car counter about all the logging trucks on the road in Tasmania. I have no idea what he expected.

Launceston airport is perhaps the smallest I’ve been to and would have to be the smallest that isn’t operated by the regional carriers. I like it because it’s easy to get baggage trolleys for free – although I’m quickly learning where to snaffle freebies from. Slightly more annoying is that the departure lounge isn’t open yet, so we kill time waiting for our one-hour flight to Melbourne where we’ll transfer to Sydney (after a one-hour delay in Melbourne).

The Sydney leg is very fast. A tailwind means we’re going at over 1000kph.

Rhys’ interview with Drum Media gets a few laughs in the evening. The headline is Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush.

Day 9 Thursday 11/11/04

We have a notoriously slow start to the day. Fletch and I pop out for breakfast and tour the music store strip along Parramatta Road. After coming back and finding the only other option for now is to watch Foxtel before an interview at 4.30, I head back to the café for more coffee and ponder the music industry and the rise of life on earth while listening to AC/DC. It’s a heady mix.

Just our luck. Major thunderstorms hit Sydney on our most important night. Really cool sheet lightning and downpours. Bound to keep a few inside. It probably halves our audience at the Annandale show tonight. The show is good but we play too loud (it’s always an issue with borrowed amps). The crowd is reasonable for our first headline show here and far from embarrassing.

My déjà vu is continuing.

Anto expresses our feeling about our hired Kia over a mandolin riff of mine – “Seven-seater my ass!”. It’s a very tuneful ditty.

Day 10 Friday 12/11/04 

I bought a guitar!

Selena, Fletch and Anto have made an early trip to airport to pick up a friend and try to return the Kia for something that has some semblance of not being shit. The Kia Shitbox. Don’t believe the ads. It may be a bargain price (that car rental companies can’t resist) but a Kia is not a patch on a Tarago. No band will tell you otherwise.

I get up to get some breakfast for the rest of us. Run into Andy Fuller of Pete Stone and the Assistance in the newsagent strangely enough. Very random. He passes on some of his ideas for the future of music.

I wasn’t even going back to the guitar store today being as I had the day before, but Rhys and Michael found me reading the paper and having coffee at Café Webba. I was quite content to sit there but the thought of vintage guitars got the better of me and I had to have another look at the gloriousness of Jackson’s Rare Guitars.

I found a guitar that I hadn’t seen yesterday: A second-hand Heritage H-150. It’s basically a boutique-y Les Paul made by the people who made old Gibsons, with higher quality and lower prices than Gibson. Thankfully this one was half its own low new price too. A lovely guitar in Almond Sunburst.

Credit card and money clearing issues meant I couldn’t pick it up straight away and we have to go to Newcastle anyway.

The traffic is once again awful on the way to Newcastle. 

During our set, Sean breaks a bass string three songs in and it’s hard to recover. We play an impromptu version of Surround Sound which saved us in Jindabyne, but Michael doesn’t remember the lyrics and then to show how desperate we were, we do an abysmal version of The Lion Sleeps Tonight to buy Sean some time. Thank God the drive back to Sydney goes mercifully quickly.

Day 11 Saturday 13/11/04

We’ve done the Hopetoun Hotel is Surry Hills four or five times now and we’ve had mixed experiences. Tonight with the Hampdens and Andy Clockwise we pull out an absolute blinder. The industry people in attendance are suitably blown away and so is the near full house. A total reversal from last night. 

We’re back on track. 

Day 12 Sunday 14/11/04

Today is the Newtown Festival. So it’s late in the afternoon and many residents have had a few brews in the sun. I’m sitting with the window down in the Kia in the backstreets of Newtown with my sunnies on, talking to Selena on my mobile.

I must have looked something like a drug dealer anyway as a couple of what seemed to be locals came up asking me for pot. “Come on sell us some” they asked, VB cans in hand. I protested my innocence and they left me alone. Weird.

I gotta admit to being a little sceptical about this show at the Roxbury in Glebe. And when we first soundcheck my fears are confirmed by my acoustic that has been turned to fuzz by the PA with a dying power amp. Throughout the show the amp cuts out – it’s never good to see sound guys fanning down the PA in order to stop it bursting into flames – so, cruelly in our loudest moments the sound would cut out and then return when we got quiet again. Our meagre complement of two acoustic guitars and a couple of vocals pushed the amp beyond its limits.

Despite the technical hassles this actually turned into a remarkable show. Anto even did a tune of his own called ‘Let it Sink’, his stage singing debut. He was backed by us, the seasoned pros, who amused the audience backing him with handclaps. Finally the amp gave way and we had to call a brief halt to proceedings. It wasn’t long before we were back and going again and finished what were to be our final two songs, Sun and Stories Unglued. The roar when we finished was deafening, with continual ear-piercing whistles. So of course we had to do a couple more. It’s always great and a great surprise to get such a response.

Word is that there’s an after-show party. With some mixed feelings in the group about whether to go or not we find the place and there’s none of the promised beer. Earlier I’d been offered whatever drug I wanted on behalf of the band. I respectfully declined. What is it with me and drugs today? But at this party there was none of the promised beer and things were looking a bit dicey. With second thoughts weighing heavily upon us the beer finally arrived, most of us only wanting one or two and later declining the lines of coke in the kitchen (I kid you not). We also got self-absorbed to the point that we started using our beer bottles as pipes to beatbox on but while it created a lot of amusement at the time, this was the very un-lofty high point of the party.

Day 13 Monday 15/11/04 

Everyone is now going their separate ways for a couple of days. Fletch is going to Canberra early, Michael to the Blue Mountains with his girlfriend, Anto to visit his Aunt and me to hang in Newtown with my girlfriend. It’s time for some R&R before the Victorian leg of the tour.

I have important business to attend to regarding the purchase of a lovely guitar from Jackson’s. For those that don’t know it, it’s a veritable museum of beautiful American guitars, some dating back as much a century and priced well into the tens of thousands in some instances. I’m usually a mere tyre kicker and I visit every time I get a chance; I don’t even play them very often because of the heartache they’ll cause. But I’m no tyre kicker today.

On the way back we find Rhys, Fletch (pre-train to Canberra) and Sean and visit a local jeanery. Fletch and Rhys buy up big. I add a cap and shirt to the suitcase.

The night is then spent in Newtown’s fine establishments again. Although we did come close to heading to the city, a clothes dryer incident put it back somewhat. Maybe tomorrow.

Day 14 Tuesday 16/11/04

Nice start to the day again. Breakfast, paper and coffee. This is how every day should start. Feels like a holiday. I go with my girlfriend to Circular Quay to do the touristy thing for a bit, Harbour Bridge, Opera House. We’re not very touristy people and it loses its appeal quite quickly so we head into town and drink coffee and read books in Borders. It’s where I learn we’re going back to Perth a day early, apparently to play with the Tea Party at Belvoir Ampitheatre. This is most awesome and may make up for us being turfed off the Muse show. Rhys has gone to the Powerhouse Museum.

The night is spent watching Night Hour at the Annandale. They’re not loud but man, my ears are ringing. But it’s okay, I’m drunk and there’s much more lamenting of our situation. Everyone laments their situation …but we might leave it at that. (I don’t even know why I wrote that down in my diary).

Day 15 Wednesday 17/11/04

Canberra just got plonked down in the middle of nowhere and it still has that vibe. Man, this place kinda stinks. Okay, maybe I’m being a little harsh. But speaking of stink, we have to do a stunt while we’re here. We have to Jump the Cheese for RTR-FM in Perth.

24 Bega super slices are purchased and it’s game on.

I win, being the only one to clear the final distance. My textbook two-foot landing sends a nasty shockwave through my body, up my spine and out my groinal region. Ow!

After the cheese-jumping, we head off to find the venue. We do a lap around Parliament House and onto Canberra’s freeway, when we hear a clunk. Anto has left his wallet and phone on the roof of the van and they’re now in the middle of the freeway. We stop and try to find them. No luck. We end up going back to the venue while a couple of folks go a bit further back up the road to eventually find them. The phone, miraculously, hasn’t been smashed into a million pieces. It’s actually survived mostly without damage.

Our show is good, although Rhys’ guitar has a dodgy connection that limits his movement. Faker are good, although some people say they’re a bit too Strokes. redsunband have great posters. We run off early back to Sydney.

Day 16 Thursday 18/11/04

Oh my god, worst start to a day of the tour so far. Have to get up early to go to airport. When we’re there we get charged $560 in excess baggage and we’re late. They call our names on the PA. Have to get a Kia again at Melbourne airport – they’re shit. We’re tired, hungry and the rain seems to have followed us.

When asked in an interview what it’s like to see these Perth bands overtake us (or at least get signed) Michael likens it to sitting in a warm bath with ice cubes in your mouth. Quite possibly the most ludicrous analogy in history and just the answer that question deserves.

You gotta give credit to the Aussie sense of humour. What other country would name a pool after a Prime Minister who drowned. Where’s the logic? Melbourne’s Harold Holt Memorial Baths are a glorious joke.

The Duke of Windsor in Melbourne is a lot like playing at the Hopetoun in Sydney; we’ve done it so many times that it feels totally comfortable, although we haven’t done it with this line up. Helping us feel at home is a bunch of Perth people who seem to have come out to support us, including the Hampdens. There are so many friends, it can’t help but be a wonderful night. We pull out all stops again and it’s a corker. Some people who have seen us a lot say that it’s the best they’ve ever seen. Distracting me is Senator Andrew Bartlett who watches the whole show intently, amazingly. When I first spotted him I gave him two songs before he lost interest but to his credit, he stayed.

Day 17 Friday 19/11/04

What is it with Melbourne haircuts? I’ve previously ranted about the number of wanky hairstylists here and their very visible work but today, Anto decides he wants a Mohawk, which I’m all for just because it’s so not us. Selena and I are both looking for haircuts too but they can wait. Anto has shaved most of his hair off anyway but he’s looking for some styling. The first place he goes into makes him wait too long and the second tells him he’ll have to wait about an hour for the two minute job he wants, not too mention that they would have charged him at least $19 for the privilege 

We visit the home of the Hampdens and when we turn up, there is one Hampden (Jules) giving another (Gav) a haircut. Bizarre.

Tonight we’re at the Espy once again. We had a show lined up at the Hi Fi Bar that I was looking forward to but that got cancelled and so at the very last minute we got added to the front of a bill with Foreshore and Fur Patrol and Goldenhorse from NZ. We play alright but not as brilliantly as last night.

I spend another drunken night talking to Matty Quartermaine of Empty Pockets fame about Wilco, music and comedy.

We get another parking fine and a flat tyre. I wish all parking fines were like the one we got in Launceston. For overstaying your welcome the penalty is $10. Kinda like landing on Old Kent Road.

Day 18 Saturday 20/11/04 

I learnt a new word today. Razbliuto. It’s a bittersweet Russian word that describes lost love. Nice one.

On the road to Ballarat we stop at a roadside service station and Hungry Jack’s, not a promising combo when Fletch claims at one time this store gave everyone who ate there food poisoning. None of this stops the rest of us from partaking of burgers. I gotta say it was risky but it makes me feel much better and ironically makes me feel less like spewing in the car. Just what the doctor ordered, especially to deal with a hangover.

When we get to Ballarat it’s a ghost town. The brilliantly named DJ Salinger is due to play at the venue soon. That’s clever. The pub is run by a Peter Jackson lookalike (just minus the big round glasses).

Fletch runs out to get something to eat and decides to take the van, being as the town is frigid. He gets to the main street before realising he’s forgotten his wallet, so he goes back to get it. When he comes back out and gets to end of the street another car is driving in. Only then does he realise that he’s just gone the wrong way up a one-way street. Unfortunately the car that was trying to enter when he left follows him down the main strip and after a short while puts up a blue flashing light and pulls him over. Needless to say, the officer is none too pleased with Fletch. Looking at his license he says ‘April 29^th, huh? So how many birthdays you had in your lifetime?’ At this point there is no comeback. ‘Er, officer I think you mean February 29^th.’ You’ll score yourself a night in the lockup for that shit.

The Epicure boys show up to see us the night after their own tour has finally finished. But the show is generally not one to remember.

Day 19 Sunday 21/11/04

Selena and I end up walking about 20kms in three hours or so to see the Killjoys at a pub in Fitzroy. For some reason I was under the impression that it was just over the next hill, etc., etc. We ended up walking through the Jewish, Chinese, Turkish, er…just about every ethnic centre of Melbourne today. 

The long walk enables us to come up with a draft for some fashion laws for Melbournians and well, for the rest of us really.

Fashion laws (or things that should be outlawed):

Blonde tips
Ugh boots outdoors
T-Barring
Hair teasing
Faux Hawks and;
Tinted sunnies (Anastasia style)

From Fitzroy, it’s off to see Architecture in Helsinki play in an alley. They squeeze 180 people into this alley, more than they ever have before. The organisers want us to do it next year sometime. It’d be great. The only downer comes when some guy ODs, spews and then has to get rushed out to an ambulance. 

We wander home on the trams and don’t buy a ticket because we see the ticket inspectors’ Christmas party getting off the tram and going the other way. Many of them are very drunk and certainly unfit to check tickets 

Highlight of the night was seeing Spiderman (or rather some guy is a Spiderman-esque tracksuit with full mask) riding the tram quite casually.

Day 20 Monday  22/11/04 

The Hampdens have recommended that we visit a store in Carlton that might be good for gear. Rhys gets me lost on the way and almost sends us to Dandenong. The Music Swop Shop unfortunately is not the be all and end all I was led to believe, but they do have some really cool amps and a dulcimer.

Day 21 Tuesday 23/11/04

Fletch and I have breakfast at an odd hole in the wall café until we get called back to drop gear off.

We spend the day going to Federation Square, although Michael thinks he knows where the gallery we’re looking for is, so we walk to Fitzroy for an hour or so. Unfortunately the gallery was back the other side of Federation Square.

There’s a Edvard Munch exhibition running until mid-January. Sure, Edvard was no barrel of laughs, but the exhibition is fantastic.

We take the tram home and partially due to lack of funds, and partially due to being emboldened by riding them without tickets for a while now, we go-ticketless once again. Our hearts sink when a conductor gets on around St Kilda. To our mild relief he announces that anyone who hasn’t got a ticket should get off at the next stop – the entire population of the tram gets off. Thankfully we’re only a single stop away from where we wanted to be anyway and it’s off to the Big Mouth for $5 pizza and $1 pots. 

When we get there ready for cheap beer and pizza, we find Anto upstairs. He has just received the news of the death of a close friend. 

Day 22 Wednesday 24/11/04

Today we fly to Brisbane then drive to Byron. The hinterland is very pretty.

The Gold Coast itself isn’t quite so pretty, but Byron is an eye-opener. It’s full of hippies, schoolies and toolies.

We’ve played at the Great Northern here before. A really nice, mid-sized venue with good food. We do a good show with Intercooler and 78 Saab. Get Up Again takes on a slightly new meaning as it’s dedicated to Anto’s friend.

We do impress some of the kids, and even make some schoolie friends but whether they’ll remember us in another year is another matter.

Fletch takes Sean to the beach to make a man of him, but they come back rather quickly. I guess there won’t be any man-making on this trip.

I’m feeling like getting a good night’s sleep but there’s banging on our door in the middle of the night yelling out for Heidi. ‘Where’s Heidi? …I bet they’re fucking.’

Day 23 Thursday 25/11/04

Byron Bay starts its day with a downpour but it soon fines up. The bay itself has beautiful but small perfectly peeling left handers and soon to be peeling sunbakers. We have a little time to kill before heading up to Brisbane, so what better place to recharge the batteries? I’m feeling a little under the weather and Anto is a little worse for wear. We made a huge $117 last night and this morning it has been seriously eroded by a $70 parking fine – our third of the tour. This is crazy. I think we’re learning the hard way. 

It’s back to Brisbane to play the Troubadour in the Valley Mall, where they play great music between and after bands, like Tom Waits and The New Pornographers. It bills itself as ‘David Lynch’s lounge room’.

It’s another cracking show; Anto and Sean even engineer snare drum change mid-song. 

After the show we have an insanely tired interview with Base TV. I tell them ‘our songs come from a stable of children’.

Day 24 Friday 26/11/04

This is gonna be a big day. A good sleep at Stu Badhair’s place somehow fails to fix everything.

We drive to the Gold Coast in peak hour. Ugh. Like Byron, Surfer’s Paradise is hosting schoolies but worse. It’s extreme. It’s not a great advertisement for humanity but it’s a rite of passage I s’pose.

Sean gets taken for a strip club initiation. There are several determined people it would seem to see that Sean has a bit rite of passage himself.

We put a lot into the show and we have a few loyal crowd members, but there is near silence at the end of the set. Tumbleweeds. I’m ready to go home. 

So it’s back in the cars after midnight and the two hour drive back to Brisbane. We sit in the loading bay at the Brisbane airport trying to get some sleep before the airport opens. To amuse ourselves we take to riding on the baggage trolleys. The local security guards don’t take kindly to it and ask us to shove off. Little do we know that the airport is always open and we could have just waltzed in.

At the check in, not wanting to be hit with another $500 excess baggage whack, I work my magic. By keeping the conversation ticking and being friendly, the girl on the counter doesn’t really notice that we have almost 30 items of excess baggage to check in. Phew! 

So, a 5am flight to Melbourne, an hour asleep in a departure lounge and a five-hour flight and we’re off to play with The Tea Party at Belvoir Ampitheatre in our sunny home town. Tired but happy to be home.