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ok so i finally finished my tour journal and put pictures into it and it's awesome. it's so long though i had to put it into 2 parts. read it if you're bored!
Day 1 -
We all met up at sfo and checked in our huge amount of luggage without any problems.
Waiting in the airport.
While we were waiting for our plane at the gate some Australian girl asked why there were so many of us flying together and I told her we were in a band. We asked her stuff about Australia. It seemed kind of weird that she just started talking to us but I guess it was a good sign of how nice aussies can be. The plane we flew in was a huge 747 and it ruled. They hooked us up with so many things: free wine and beer, two good meals, snacks, a little to go pouch thingy with a sleeping mask and socks and tons of free movies. Seriously there were probably 50 movies to choose from. I ended up watching shrek 3 and part of fear and loathing in las vegas.
Royalty on board.
The flight was super long and there was tons of turbulence but I ended sleeping probably half the flight so that was good. Oh and our flight attendant was this totally awesome Australian guy. You could tell on his off days he was probably some total rager or scumbag, or both; he just didn’t seem like a flight attendant at all, it was awesome. He gave us a list of all the beaches we should check out in the big cities, and I couldn’t read his handwriting at all. Plus all the beaches had weird names so it made it even harder.
We went through some time warp on the way to Sydney because it was two days later or something when we got there. Customs and all that was fairly hassle free. We went to another part of the airport and waited another 8 hours for our next flight to take us to perth. Some of us dined on some hungry jack’s, which is the Australian equivalent to burger king. Same logo and all. I guess there already was a burger king in Australia when they came over so they had to change the name. pretty awesome.
Not to be confused with Jack In The Box.
A few of us got calling cards and it was kind of weird getting them to finally work. I slept some more on the 4 hour flight to perth. When we got to perth we were greeted by the head of the promotional company who booked the whole tour, Nigel and his man weber who was the stage manager more or less. They both looked like your ordinary hardcore kids, with tons of tattoos and band shirts and whatnot but seemed way professional and on top of their shit. Plus they were super nice. After getting our bags we piled into a couple of cars they had rented and went to the hotel they had reserved for us. This place was so baller. We had 2 rooms for just our band and there were 4 beds in each room and 2 bathrooms. Totally nice. At this point we felt like we were treated like royalty.
Saville Park Baller Suites
That night we went to some really good vegetarian Chinese place called Utopia.
Utopia…literally.
After that weber and another guy in their crew took us to this huge club where the owner comped us 100 bucks in drinks. He gave us a little card that had the money on it and it seriously seemed to never end. I swear we ended up getting 50 drinks on that thing. For such a huge and nice club it was really empty. Especially for a Friday. But just about all the girls in there were really good looking. Weber was telling us how perth is known for having really hot girls and you could tell he was right. The club was really huge though, and the surprising lack of people made it seem even bigger. The place seemed like it could be really popular too, but according to weber it was fairly new. There was a huge outside area with a stage with go go dancer cages. But then at 12 they turned the lights on and closed the whole place. Kind of lame, but we were all really tired at that point so we didn’t care. We went back to the hotel and crashed out.
Day 2-
I woke up around 5 and could not get back to sleep until 6:30. It sucked. I tried getting online via wifi in the hotel but you have to pay for it. Extremely gay. Joe matt mikey and I went to get food and find some internet café or something. This is pretty much when it dawned on us how expensive Australia is. Even though the american dollar is worth a bit more than the aussie dollar, to compensate for it they just jack up the price on everything. I bought a little key chain thingy for my tour pass and it was 3 Australian dollars, which is about 2.50 american. Beers here are way more, everything is.
We found a food court in some mall downtown and ate there. Joe and matt had some dishes with shrimp that were way good. All the seafood we were told here is great. I had some curry dish that was decent. We walked around and bit more, found a target and got some sunblock and met up with craig and junior. At this point we were all fairly dying from the heat. It wasn’t too bad but still coming from america where it’s cold now it was a bit weird. We found a little internet place that wasn’t too expensive, only 1 dollar for 15 minutes. We met up in the lobby an hour later and went to the show. This was about 2 o clock and our show started at 8 so we had too much time to kill.
The Capitol, where we played our first show.
After getting our gear in order and some free vans we took off to get more food which of course was all expensive. We stopped at some Belgian beer pub and a few of us had some hoe gardens which of course were great.
Best order number ever at the Belgian beer pub.
After that I had a steak kebab pita that was excellent. Then we just hung around the venue and waited. And waited. And probably did a little more waiting. Finally we played our first show in Australia and it was fucking awesome. Tons of kids were going off, it was a really good time. I fucked up a couple parts but nothing too bad. Amon amarth was playing a show right next door to ours so I went in there for a minute after we played to check them out but it was way too hot in there so I left.
Amon Amarth
I went back into the dressing room and started drinking beers with joe. By the time we left I was definitely drunk it ruled.
DRUNK.
But there was a ton of beer left in our room so we put a couple six packs in a water bottle case and joe carried it out to the car we were taking back to the hotel. On the way out some guy stopped joe and was super pissed, yelling at him that he couldn’t take beer out of the club. At first joe was like what the fuck why are you taking my beer but dude yelled back that he worked there and would get fired if he let him so he took it away from joe and we were assed out of beer. It didn’t really matter though at that point because I was nice and drunk and tired. Bronwyn, our tour manager took us back to the hotel and I had intended to just put my stuff upstairs and go out again, but I laid down on the couch in the room and just passed out. I somehow woke up later in my bed with just my shorts on, not quite sure how that happened. I could hear Jordan and matt talking to some girl that I can only assume they picked up after the show. But then I heard her leave so nothing must’ve happened there.
By this point I’ve come to the conclusion that Australians are super friendly people and I’d be totally into coming back here for vacation. As long as I could afford it.
Day 3 -
I woke up with a killer hangover at like 7 in the morning. Sleeping in is virtually impossible in Australia for me because of the time change. Plus whenever I’m hungover I’m terrible at sleeping; my body just doesn’t let me do it. Anyways, Mikey, Matt and I went to the restaurant in the hotel across the street from our’s to get food. Mikey and I had their continental buffet breakfast which was pretty good. We loaded up pretty well. Matt however declined the buffet and instead ordered the vegetable breakfast off the menu. What he got could really only be described as “swamp food.” It was a huge Portobello mushroom, steamed spinach, grilled onions, potatoes and a tomato half, but it all looked so incredibly unappetizing and dirty. Matt had a few bites and pretty much couldn’t put anymore down. It also didn’t help that he doused it with some gnarly smelling and tasting white pepper.
Matt and his awesome swamp food breakfast.
After mikey and I stuffed ourselves to the brim and matt was thoroughly disillusioned with his creature from the black lagoon meal we met everyone else in the lobby and took off for Freemantle, which was about twenty or thirty minutes south of perth. We loaded in at the venue and chilled out for awhile. The show was an 18 and under show. Under. That makes no sense to me. Basically we were playing a kids’ show. A wondershowzen. Whatever. I ventured off for a bit and made some phone calls. I didn’t really bother to explore freemantle but it seemed really touristy. I think it was a beach town, but I didn’t discover exactly where the water was.
Joe in Fremantle.
Apparently back at the club there was a wireless internet connection but of course again it didn’t work. The myth that Australia was the land of no interent is alive and well at this point.
Matt asleep back stage due to lack of internet.
Nigel gathered a few of us and took us to see bon scott’s grave though. It was surprisingly very unostentatious. It was just another little plaque in a row of plaques. There were of course beer cans and a whiskey bottle there though, amongst flowers. Junior joe and I left picks. His mom also made a gate out on the sidewalk that said bon scott memorial. It was pretty cool. Nigel told us how Australians still hate on brian Johnson because he’s not bon scott.
Joe and I ate Bon’s grave and the memorial gate his mom put up for him leading to the sidewalk.
The two roadies for silverstein took turns driving to and from the cemetery. They said it wasn’t too hard to get into the swing of it.
The Indian Ocean.
Our set that night was just kind of eh. The young crowd seemed kind of awkward. Matt would ask how they were doing and the response would just be silence. And it was really hot on stage too. Kind of sucked. After the show both bands went back to utopia, the vegetarian Chinese place. I had a great spicy chicken dish and a couple bubble teas. We all pretty much agreed that if utopia was in sf, we’d all go there all the time it was so good. I loved how you would just write your own order down on a slip of paper and give it to them at the cashier. Pretty simple. After that we were all pretty much dead but a few of us managed to watch some wondershowzen before nodding off.
Day 4 -
I didn’t wait for anyone this morning to get any food, I just took a shower and took off. I got some food at the supermarket across the street and it was really cheap. I got a meat pie and salad for six bucks. I kind of wished I had been doing that the whole time. Oh well. It was pretty good too. Alison called me while I was in the room so I got to talk to her. That was good. Even though I was talking with food in my mouth the whole time. Everyone met up in the lobby and we were off to the perth airport. Because of it being Monday and everyone going home from the big music festival over the weekend it was an absolute clusterfuck. The airport was about the size of the Oakland airport but it was packed to the brim. But we managed to get our stuff checked in with no real hassle. After getting past security mikey, craig, joe (whose birthday was today) and I had some beers at a little café. We all asked for crown lagers, one of the bigger beers in aus but the server recommended us the local beers. We all get it but then realized it was just some con because the local beer is a dollar more than everything else. Whatever. At least it was decent. But after that I had a pint of victoria bitter, which seems like the Budweiser of aus. We watched some great late 80’s early 90’s music videos on their tv.
Bar in the Perth airport.
We boarded our plane, but I forgot my bag with the laptop back at the gate. Oops. Luckily they were cool about me going to get it and Jordan had it with him. The flight was pretty fun actually, a bunch of us took pics with a sleeping craig. a lot of beer was drank too.
We connected in Adelaide but it wasn’t really a connection; we pretty much just got off the plane and got right back on the same one. Not sure how that works. This flight was mellower, I watched an Australian movie called September. It was eh. And of course more beer was had. Spider web and Bronwyn were there to meet us in Brisbane, but a few of our bags didn’t make it past perth. But the airline had it handled to send them to the hotel the next day. We got to our hotel which, again was totally baller and nice. Separate rooms, a kitchen. Good times. There was even a tennis court.
Lobby at The Point Hotel.
The weather was super muggy in Brisbane. Bronwyn and web took a few of us to get food. Driving around the city it really remind me of seattle, but nicer. A few bridges over a centralized body of water and lots of hills. Kind of reminded of Vancouver too. More palm trees though. I had another awesome kebab. So good. Then we went back to the hotel and crashed out.
Brisbane.
Day 5 -
I woke up pretty early in the morning and wrote the preceding journal entry. At around 11 a bunch of us met in the lobby and Bronwyn took us to this koala sanctuary that was more like just a real zoo. Some guy who works there let us all in for free, some awesome Australian thing they do for bands just about anywhere. Way different than the u.s. where people couldn’t give two shits about bands. Anyways, we pretty much started with taking our pictures with koalas which was awesome. The koala we all took our pics with was named jagger, she was really mellow. I assume they just give her some sedative so she doesn’t freak out when people get their picture taken with her but I could be wrong. It only cost us 5 bucks each as opposed to the usual 20 or so because we were in bands. We got to pick up copies of our pics that the zoo photographer took us. Inside the little gift shop where we picked up the pics there was a ton of pictures of famous people and bands that took their pics with the koalas, like new found glory, marilyn manson, bonnie raitt, Mikhail gorbechav, as I lay dying and tons more. It was pretty cool. After we gathered our pictures we went and hung out with the kangaroos. That was awesome because there were seriously about fifty of them and they pretty much were all really calm and just chilling. We all got a ton of pics with all of them. One, who I assume was the alpha male had some seriously huge low hanging testicles. It was definitely a sight to be seen. I was pretty wary at first of the roos because I thought they might just go bezerk at any second but they were actually really chill. After the kangaroos we only had a limited amount of time so we went and checked out some dingos really quick, as well as some fruit bats and parrots that said goodbye as you left. Pretty neat.
Before we headed back to the hotel we stopped at some mall food court downtown where I had one of the greatest burgers of my life. It had cheese, onions, lettuce, tomatoes, pineapple, bacon and a fucking fried egg. So goddamn delicious. It probably took a few months off my life…no regrets though.
Epic burger is epic.
After that we went back to the hotel and then reconvened to head to the venue. It was pretty boring waiting for the show to begin but we walked for about a half hour before just to kill some time. And of course me joe and mikey dipped into the beer in the dressing room. We played a couple hours later and it was a lot of fun. Not a whole lot of people knew the songs but we still all had a good time. After our set we just drank beer with full force and didn’t stop. Us and pretty much everyone else on the tour who was drinking all were pretty smashed. I met a lot of the dudes in deez nuts, who were all really down to the earth guys. Pretty much just reinforced the fact that just about all Australians are super nice people. After the show we went back to the hotel and joe mikey and I tried to go to the bar down the street but when we got there it was closed. My feet were killing me with all the walking so I just walked back barefoot. Back in the room mikey and I ordered some fries and potato wedges that were super delicious. After finished those off it was bedtime.
Day 6 -
I woke up in the morning with a pretty decent hangover, but then again nothing I hadn’t handled before. We met up in the lobby and Bronwyn took us to this place called the alibi club. People were telling me they had some epic breakfast but I didn’t really know what to expect so I figured fuck it might as well get out of the hotel room for a bit. Upon showing up there it definitely reminded me a lot of rudy’s, at least with the full on hipster clientele and funky atmosphere. But that made it pretty comfortable and familiar at least to me. So back to the epic breakfast, I ordered something called the trucker’s breakfast, it sounded pretty good. It arrived fairly quickly and consisted of this: coffee, orange juice, toast, two fried eggs, hash browns, French fries, spinach, mushrooms, baked beans, a half tomato, sausage, bacon and steak and it was fucking AWESOME. Easily the best breakfast I’ve ever had. I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise. I was so unbelievably full after that I could barely walk. We went back to the hotel room and I tried to take a nap but it just didn’t really happen.
We went to the venue, I changed my strings and we just did more chilling. Went to the convenient store next door but that was about it. A bit later we played one of the worst sets ever. The stage basically had three levels, so when I was down on the lowest level I couldn’t hear anything but myself but the cabinets were blasting right into my ears. Everyone agreed the set was just terrible. I messed up essentially every song. It was just embarrassing, for me at least.
Worst set ever.
After the show we went back to the alibi and I got another great Australian burger, with the fried eggs etc. I ate half of that and brought back the rest to the hotel room, where I passed out accordingly upon returning there.
Day 7 -
We woke up pretty early, 7 o clock for lobby call. I finished the remaining half of my burger from the last night really quick. From there we went straight to the airport and got everything checked in with really no hassle or problems. Huge surprise there. The flight was fairly short and uneventful. We got into Sydney and Bronwyn took us to an area in Sydney that reminded me a bit of haight street and a lot like capitol hill in seattle. Bronners took junior and me to a thai place called thai tanic that was awesome. I had a great panang curry with tofu and veggie dish that filled me the rest of the day. After that we went to the hotel which was really really nice. The rooms we stayed in were huge, there was a Jacuzzi tub in each bathroom, and an HDTV.
Meriton Hotel in Sydney, the view from it and Mikey.
We didn’t get to settle in too much though because we all wanted to check out the beach. So we took off for the venue which was at the new south wales university. From there scott the driver took us to bondi beach which was one of the nicest beaches I’ve ever been to. The water was super warm and we all went body surfing. Lots of fun.
Bondi Beach.
An hour later weber picked us up and we went back to the venue. Our show that night was easily the best so far. The sound was decent and the crowd was really going off. After our set we goofed around, of course, writing dirty notes on little fliers for the after show party that we threw into the crowd. At first I thought that I wasn’t going to get to the after show party because we had a 6 o clock lobby call but eventually I figured fuck it and I decided I would pull an all nighter. Before we left I met some girl who had a California tattoo on her back so I started talking to her and found out she lived in marin county. Pretty weird. So we went back to the hotel and I took a quick shower. Mikey started banging on the bathroom door as I was drying off yelling at me to hurry things up so I just ran out and around the hotel room completely naked with Jordan mikey and matt in the room. Good times. And then mikey came into the bathroom with a video camera after I went back in there and I flashed the camera. More good times.
On our way to the club.
From there we went to the after party which was really just some dorky club with a bunch of sceney boppers and kids from the show. In one room was just a normal club vibe but the other room was a dude spinning pop punk stuff. Kind of lame but whatever. When we got there we got a bunch of drink tickets from a dude who runs things but one of the bartenders refused to take the tickets because the tickets were two days old. So weber ended up cussing her out, calling her a stupid fucking bitch and he would get her fired. It was fucking great. I paced myself fairly well enough to stay awake all night, I only had a few beers. Eventually we left the club around 4 or 430. I went to hungry jack’s before going back up to the room. I wrote more stuff in the journal. By the time I ended up passing out it was about 530 but I only slept until about 6 because we had lobby call. By that time I was absolutely dead. I could barely stay awake and I was hating life. We were off to the airport to catch our plane to melbourne.
Completely dead after an all-night rage-athon.
Day 8 -
So for some bizarre reason I couldn’t manage to fall asleep on the plane. By the time we boarded everyone was dead but I was officially awake for 24 hours, not counting the half hour power nap I took. I was miserable. And to make things even better a few of us had to go to the club to help load in because it was some serious pain in the ass. Of course no one wanted to actually do it so we picked numbers and mine was one of the lucky ones to get chosen. Yay. The alley of the place was so gross and urine soaked. And the stairs from the alley down to the club were even worse. The load in wasn’t actually too bad though. By this time my body was pretty much just on auto pilot. I went back to the hotel room to find everybody passed out and a bunch of food wrappers and stuff everywhere. I was mad with jealousy. I went downstairs and just went to the café next door and had some decent chicken sandwich. Then I called alison and went upstairs and passed out. That nap was probably the best one I’ve ever taken. It was so much-needed.
The address to the hotel in Melbourne…we were in good hands.
Train depot in Melbourne.
A few hours later I was ready to go. We all went back to the club where we were greeted in our dressing room (which was huge and looked down on the club via big windows, pretty awesome) with tons of food, beer and water. It was heaven. And for probably the first time on the tour there was actually working wireless internet! We all just nerded out and drank and ate. It ruled. Our set that night was awesome. Junior and I agreed to turn the volume down on our heads that night and it totally worked out to our advantage because everyone agreed the sound that night was perfect. Obviously a lot of that had to do with the sound system being good but still it was great to finally have a really good sound. Things seemed like they couldn’t get any better until in the middle of silverstein’s set they played a lifetime cover and we were all into for about 30 seconds until joe crowd surfed over the barricade and security flipped out. Joe tried showing them his pass but they were for some reason just losing their minds. Silverstein stopped the song and all of syg ran into help which in turn made the security even more maniacal. They seriously looked like they were going to kill everyone. Imagine your quintessential british or Australian huge rugby player or soccer hooligan looking absolutely mean and terrifying and that’s what these guys looked like. They were like something straight out of a cartoon or movie. Weber had to jump and keep us separated from the guards because he knew if we actually threw down with them, which we obviously didn’t they would kill us. But then they even shoved weber into the wall for some reason. These dudes were serious dicks. The whole night they were just being too rough with kids. These guys were about 6’ 3” and 300 pounds and they were yanking kids like they were rag dolls. Totally retarded. But the fun didn’t stop there. After the show was over a few girls Jordan somehow knew were hanging around the merch table just talking and deciding on some last minute purchases when security just started almost pushing them out the door. So Jordan told them they needed to chill out and then the beast in them almost started to come out again. They threatened Jordan and said “shut your fucking mouth you stupid american wanker!” ridiculous. And then a bit later craig tried to just make peace with them and came up to one with his hand out to shake on it and a bunch just swarmed around him acting like they were going to beat him up. So stupid. Luckily though nothing serious happened. It was just a lot of tension.
Player and Richard, Silverstein’s merch guy, in Melbourne.
After the show we went to this incredible place called lord of the fries where they serve meatless burgers and great fries that you can get all these good sauces on, like thai peanut sauce, this sort of ranch stuff, bbq sauce and you can even get poutine! They were out of gravy though so I just got a mix and match of thai, ranch and some ketchup and it was so delicious. After that we adjourned to the hotel room with the rest of the beer we took from the our dressing room and called it a night.
Lord of the Fries Guys.
Day 9 -
I was barely able to make it up in the morning. It was 11 o clock and I just barely had it in me to get out of bed. We had lobby call at 12 because the show was a matinee on account of it being an under 18 show. But since the club was a five minute walk from the hotel I skipped on lobby call to take a much needed shower. While I was taking the shower the hose just popped out of the shower head out of nowhere. Lame. But I was just about done anyways. We played again at the same club. We got there and the owner informed us that one of the security guards got fired because after roughly escorting a drunk girl out of the club the night before he proceeded to spit on her. Plus I guess some of them got shit for the debacle with us. So we were pretty much confident that this time they would behave because no more of them wanted to lose their jobs. Before the show mikey junior and I went and found some really good Chinese place. I got this great noodle soup to go. It was so big I just had half of it before our set. I pretty much think that asian food in Australia is better than the US. Maybe it’s on account of it being closer to asia but I just know that I like everything I tried there more. During deez nuts’ set a few of us went on stage and sang the sing along part to their closer song “rep your hood”. it was pretty fun. Our set went really well again.
Boys of Summer Tour photo.
It was early after we were done, so mikey craig and I went to subway. Melbourne pretty much to me is like the san Francisco of Australia. Lots of culture and cool architecture and the weather seemed pretty similar, hot in the rest of the country but cool there. Definitely my favorite aussie city I had been to at that point. After subway we went back to the hotel where mikey and I tried doing laundry in the washer/dryer combo in our room. It was a fucking pain in the ass. The room came with a couple packets of detergent that were 2.50 each so I was like fuck that so I bought some detergent at the IGA store downstairs. I put some in and starred the machine (which was way too difficult to figure out how to use) and read the directions. However the directions said to use front load detergent only, the machine being front load and all. The detergent I put in was definitely normal detergent. Oops. It didn’t fuck the machine up though, but I don’t know if it could have done anymore damage because the machine was such a piece of shit. I set the machine to “rapid wash” but that didn’t stop the cycle from taking about an hour and a half. Ridiculous. Then the machine took in the end about 3 hours to dry our clothes. Four and a half hours to do one really small load of laundry…I hated that machine. Anyways, weber came by the room and a few of us went back to lord of the fries. This time I got poutine and it was delicious. By now I was totally full. Then everyone as well as a couple silvestein guys went to this club called bang where we partied the rest of the night. It was fucking awesome. Because weber of course knew the chick running the place, coupled with the fact we were scheduled to play there in a week we all got comped tons of drink tickets. It ruled so much. There were multiple rooms, one was a big club room, one a little dance room, a metal room that was playing tons of lame nu metal and then just a quieter bar room where I started the night out. A bunch of the amity affliction guys were there. Those dudes are just complete drunks. Hilarious. Matt junior and I did a bunch of dancing in the little room it was so much fun. I probably danced for an hour straight. Total work out. I was never out of drink tickets that night. They just kept coming. I got them from all sorts of people. It ruled. We all agreed it was the most the fun night of the tour. After bang matt junior and I walked back to the hotel. Junior and I grabs some slices of pizza on the way because we built up a good appetite from dancing. By the time we got back to the hotel though my feet were killing me. Blame vans. The slip ons I got free for being on the tour destroyed my feet. Even after switching back to my nb’s my feet still hurt a ton. Oh well.
Day 10 -
I woke up with a fairly decent hangover. Fortunately lobby call was at 11 so I was able to sleep a bit. I took a few ibuprofen to take the edge off my hangover. We piled in the van and made our way to the airport. We were all super hungry but the food selection at the airport was horrible. There was hungry jack’s and a few other really bad places. Joe and I abstained but mikey got hungry jack’s that looked horrible and matt got this fluorescent green fettucini with this really runny marina sauce that was so unbelievably bad. It was disgraceful. Only junior came out on top with a decent looking English breakfast. We arrived in Adelaide after a short and uneventful flight. We were all pretty much starving after having either not eaten or eaten only garbage so Bronwyn took us to the asian area. Mikey and I had this beef noodle soup at some noodle place that was totally delicious. One of the best soups I’ve ever had. Only six and a half bucks too. Like I said before asian food in Australia is so kick ass. After food we went to our hotel. It was a nice little place with multiple buildings all surrounding a nice little courtyard.
Hotel in Adelaide.
the room matt mikey Jordan and I were in wasn’t quite ready to we kicked in the other guys’ room for a bit, then went and napped a bit when it finally was done. I also able to clean the rest of my dirty clothes in a washer and dryer that both worked just fine, thank god. Shortly after we adjourned to the show. We only stayed for about 5 minutes before weber took us to a vegetarian Chinese place. Despite the fact that like I said asian food in Australia is really good I was starting to get a bit tired of it. I probably should have stuck with my intuition because this place was kind of lame. I got some chicken satay that was really good but my salt and pepper tofu was super lackluster. I tried some of matt, junior and mikey’s dishes and their’s were decent enough. I just happened to choose the wrong dish. It also didn’t help that our dishes took about an hour to come out. I had to get mine to go because we had to get back to the club. During Deez Nuts’ set tons of people got on the stage to sing rep your hood. It was fun. Our set went well again. Billy from silverstein got on stage again to sing to be continued with us and ended up jumping on Jordan during a sing along, sending both of them and a few kids tumbling to the floor. It was pretty hilarious. Silverstein played some weird set this time, doing more different songs. They played lifetime this time and it was great. But of course joe almost got in trouble again with security for coming onto the stage after the song. Security didn’t know he was in a band so they got in his face for a second.
Reppin our hood with Deez Nuts and me aka Rocky Balboa aka Towely.
The rest of the night before we left the club we just drank a lot, shot the shit. Good times. The girl who was friends with weber and Bronwyn who was going to tattoo us showed up for a minute and we all talked with her quickly about what we wanted. After we left the club a bunch of us went to the casino. A few of the dn guys were there. Shane from silverstein ended up coming out on top with a few hundred. Mikey made some money. I played 20 bucks and lost it in a second at blackjack so I was like fuck that and didn’t bother losing anymore of my money. Junior was saying ridiculous shit. We were out until about 4 in the morning. When I got back to the hotel I passed out immediately.
Day 11 -
Last night was the last night of the boys of summer tour, so today was just an off day. We stopped and got some food around 1 before going to malika ‘s tattoo shop. It was in a total touristy beach area with expensive shops and food. But it was a nice area. The weather was perfect. Malika had a couple drawings for our tattoos and they were perfect. The one I got was a little koala head with a thought bubble, and in the thought bubble was a lime because we had such a hard time getting limes here. A few other people got an op ivy skankin koala. And mikey’s was a fat koala with a total beer belly. Even matt got one! His first tattoo! We were all in there watching him for that. He made the best faces while getting it, it hurt him so bad he said. Malika was really fast. She did mine in almost half an hour. It ruled.
Set Your Goals gets tattooed.
I pretty much just walked around while everybody got their’s. mikey junior craig and I stopped at some fish and chips place across the street for food. It was really expensive and we ordered our’s to go. Once we got it we couldn’t really decide where to eat it so we just decided to eat at the place, but the people working there wouldn’t let us. They said the takeaway menu is totally different and it costs more to dine in. I guess the second part makes sense what with having to clean dishes and all, but they were total assholes about it. It really pissed us off. We ate a picnic table near the beach. Luckily the food was good. We told malika about it and she told us how tons of people have complained about the people at that restaurant being dicks. After that I had some drink from Australia’s equivalent of jamba juice, called boost. It was good but reading the menu I saw that they assigned boosts for each drink, as opposed to jamba juice’s where you can get any boost with any drink. Still, mine was good. After everyone was done with their tattoos we went back to the hotel. I took a nap. I woke up around 9:45 and we walked around trying to find some place to eat but just about everywhere was closed. Even though Adelaide is nice it’s a quiet, family friendly city so everything dies really early. A few of us ended up going to a total bro bar for a bit. Then weber took us downtown. A few went to the casino again while matt weber and I got food. I got a 12” margherita pizza for 4.50 that was actually really good. I scarfed it all down, it was delicious. After that matt and I walked to the casino. I just watched mikey and junior play some blackjack. They were doing well against a trainee dealer but then the casino got wise and sent in a real dealer who ended up taking back a lot of their money. He was a pretty funny dude too. After that we made the half hour walk back to the hotel. My feet felt like they were going to fall off. Got back to the hotel and crashed out.
In retrospect, Adelaide seems the most like northern California out of all the Australian cities we visited. The little parks near downtown gave it a really family-friendly vibe, like marin county. Even the surrounding hills really reminded me of west marin or out east like contra costa county. I guess the only thing not like nor cal was the beach but that’s at least similar to so cal.
Day 12 -
Matt flaunts his obsession with dicks before we go to the airport in Adelaide.
We met up at the van around 11 and took off for the airport. After a bit of a clusterfuck we managed to get everything on the plane and get to our boarding call in time. I think on the flight we managed to piss everyone else around us off by being loud, laughing and just saying really bizarre things. At this point it was quite evident we were losing our minds. They gave us this really weird bean and ham salad to eat. I had mikey’s because he wouldn’t touch it. In Sydney we collected our bags with no problems and caught a really expensive taxi ride to the hostel we were staying in. the hostel was pretty cool, we all just shared one room with a bunch of bunk beds.
Set Your Goals at Billabong Gardens.
After just kicking it in the room for a bit we all went to the street that Bronwyn had taken us to a few days before.
King St. in Newtown, Sydney.
I found thaitanic again so joe and I ate there. It was even better this time. I had a coconut milk soup with beef and veggies in it that was so good. Joe’s dish was good too. After that we just walked up the street a bit but there wasn’t much to check out so we found a beer store, grabbed a couple bottles of VB and went back to the hostel. Everyone else eventually found their way back and we just kicked it doing not much at all until everyone passed out.
Matt in the hostel in Sydney.
Day 13 -
I can’t remember what time I woke up at but it was probably around 10 when the housekeeping guy came into to exchange our towels. Eventually a few hours later everyone else was up and we went up to king st. and went to burgerlicious, a pretty decent burger place. I made a couple phone calls then went back to the room. I wanted to go to Sydney harbor and check out the opera house and whatever else just to be a tourist and some other people were down to but we pretty much just never got around to it. Instead we stayed inside the hostel room which was way too hot and we’re just lazy. People did a bit of recording but that was about all that happened. Later on joe, matt, mikey and I went to thai tanic again.
Thaitanic!
Craig, Jordan and junior weren’t in the room when we got back; it turns out they went to the Sydney aquarium. I was a bit bummed I missed out but I figured tomorrow in the morning I’d just get up early and go by myself to the harbor.
No one is safe from the SYG sleeping pictures…not even me.
Day 1 -
We all met up at sfo and checked in our huge amount of luggage without any problems.
Waiting in the airport.
While we were waiting for our plane at the gate some Australian girl asked why there were so many of us flying together and I told her we were in a band. We asked her stuff about Australia. It seemed kind of weird that she just started talking to us but I guess it was a good sign of how nice aussies can be. The plane we flew in was a huge 747 and it ruled. They hooked us up with so many things: free wine and beer, two good meals, snacks, a little to go pouch thingy with a sleeping mask and socks and tons of free movies. Seriously there were probably 50 movies to choose from. I ended up watching shrek 3 and part of fear and loathing in las vegas.
Royalty on board.
The flight was super long and there was tons of turbulence but I ended sleeping probably half the flight so that was good. Oh and our flight attendant was this totally awesome Australian guy. You could tell on his off days he was probably some total rager or scumbag, or both; he just didn’t seem like a flight attendant at all, it was awesome. He gave us a list of all the beaches we should check out in the big cities, and I couldn’t read his handwriting at all. Plus all the beaches had weird names so it made it even harder.
We went through some time warp on the way to Sydney because it was two days later or something when we got there. Customs and all that was fairly hassle free. We went to another part of the airport and waited another 8 hours for our next flight to take us to perth. Some of us dined on some hungry jack’s, which is the Australian equivalent to burger king. Same logo and all. I guess there already was a burger king in Australia when they came over so they had to change the name. pretty awesome.
Not to be confused with Jack In The Box.
A few of us got calling cards and it was kind of weird getting them to finally work. I slept some more on the 4 hour flight to perth. When we got to perth we were greeted by the head of the promotional company who booked the whole tour, Nigel and his man weber who was the stage manager more or less. They both looked like your ordinary hardcore kids, with tons of tattoos and band shirts and whatnot but seemed way professional and on top of their shit. Plus they were super nice. After getting our bags we piled into a couple of cars they had rented and went to the hotel they had reserved for us. This place was so baller. We had 2 rooms for just our band and there were 4 beds in each room and 2 bathrooms. Totally nice. At this point we felt like we were treated like royalty.
Saville Park Baller Suites
That night we went to some really good vegetarian Chinese place called Utopia.
Utopia…literally.
After that weber and another guy in their crew took us to this huge club where the owner comped us 100 bucks in drinks. He gave us a little card that had the money on it and it seriously seemed to never end. I swear we ended up getting 50 drinks on that thing. For such a huge and nice club it was really empty. Especially for a Friday. But just about all the girls in there were really good looking. Weber was telling us how perth is known for having really hot girls and you could tell he was right. The club was really huge though, and the surprising lack of people made it seem even bigger. The place seemed like it could be really popular too, but according to weber it was fairly new. There was a huge outside area with a stage with go go dancer cages. But then at 12 they turned the lights on and closed the whole place. Kind of lame, but we were all really tired at that point so we didn’t care. We went back to the hotel and crashed out.
Day 2-
I woke up around 5 and could not get back to sleep until 6:30. It sucked. I tried getting online via wifi in the hotel but you have to pay for it. Extremely gay. Joe matt mikey and I went to get food and find some internet café or something. This is pretty much when it dawned on us how expensive Australia is. Even though the american dollar is worth a bit more than the aussie dollar, to compensate for it they just jack up the price on everything. I bought a little key chain thingy for my tour pass and it was 3 Australian dollars, which is about 2.50 american. Beers here are way more, everything is.
We found a food court in some mall downtown and ate there. Joe and matt had some dishes with shrimp that were way good. All the seafood we were told here is great. I had some curry dish that was decent. We walked around and bit more, found a target and got some sunblock and met up with craig and junior. At this point we were all fairly dying from the heat. It wasn’t too bad but still coming from america where it’s cold now it was a bit weird. We found a little internet place that wasn’t too expensive, only 1 dollar for 15 minutes. We met up in the lobby an hour later and went to the show. This was about 2 o clock and our show started at 8 so we had too much time to kill.
The Capitol, where we played our first show.
After getting our gear in order and some free vans we took off to get more food which of course was all expensive. We stopped at some Belgian beer pub and a few of us had some hoe gardens which of course were great.
Best order number ever at the Belgian beer pub.
After that I had a steak kebab pita that was excellent. Then we just hung around the venue and waited. And waited. And probably did a little more waiting. Finally we played our first show in Australia and it was fucking awesome. Tons of kids were going off, it was a really good time. I fucked up a couple parts but nothing too bad. Amon amarth was playing a show right next door to ours so I went in there for a minute after we played to check them out but it was way too hot in there so I left.
Amon Amarth
I went back into the dressing room and started drinking beers with joe. By the time we left I was definitely drunk it ruled.
DRUNK.
But there was a ton of beer left in our room so we put a couple six packs in a water bottle case and joe carried it out to the car we were taking back to the hotel. On the way out some guy stopped joe and was super pissed, yelling at him that he couldn’t take beer out of the club. At first joe was like what the fuck why are you taking my beer but dude yelled back that he worked there and would get fired if he let him so he took it away from joe and we were assed out of beer. It didn’t really matter though at that point because I was nice and drunk and tired. Bronwyn, our tour manager took us back to the hotel and I had intended to just put my stuff upstairs and go out again, but I laid down on the couch in the room and just passed out. I somehow woke up later in my bed with just my shorts on, not quite sure how that happened. I could hear Jordan and matt talking to some girl that I can only assume they picked up after the show. But then I heard her leave so nothing must’ve happened there.
By this point I’ve come to the conclusion that Australians are super friendly people and I’d be totally into coming back here for vacation. As long as I could afford it.
Day 3 -
I woke up with a killer hangover at like 7 in the morning. Sleeping in is virtually impossible in Australia for me because of the time change. Plus whenever I’m hungover I’m terrible at sleeping; my body just doesn’t let me do it. Anyways, Mikey, Matt and I went to the restaurant in the hotel across the street from our’s to get food. Mikey and I had their continental buffet breakfast which was pretty good. We loaded up pretty well. Matt however declined the buffet and instead ordered the vegetable breakfast off the menu. What he got could really only be described as “swamp food.” It was a huge Portobello mushroom, steamed spinach, grilled onions, potatoes and a tomato half, but it all looked so incredibly unappetizing and dirty. Matt had a few bites and pretty much couldn’t put anymore down. It also didn’t help that he doused it with some gnarly smelling and tasting white pepper.
Matt and his awesome swamp food breakfast.
After mikey and I stuffed ourselves to the brim and matt was thoroughly disillusioned with his creature from the black lagoon meal we met everyone else in the lobby and took off for Freemantle, which was about twenty or thirty minutes south of perth. We loaded in at the venue and chilled out for awhile. The show was an 18 and under show. Under. That makes no sense to me. Basically we were playing a kids’ show. A wondershowzen. Whatever. I ventured off for a bit and made some phone calls. I didn’t really bother to explore freemantle but it seemed really touristy. I think it was a beach town, but I didn’t discover exactly where the water was.
Joe in Fremantle.
Apparently back at the club there was a wireless internet connection but of course again it didn’t work. The myth that Australia was the land of no interent is alive and well at this point.
Matt asleep back stage due to lack of internet.
Nigel gathered a few of us and took us to see bon scott’s grave though. It was surprisingly very unostentatious. It was just another little plaque in a row of plaques. There were of course beer cans and a whiskey bottle there though, amongst flowers. Junior joe and I left picks. His mom also made a gate out on the sidewalk that said bon scott memorial. It was pretty cool. Nigel told us how Australians still hate on brian Johnson because he’s not bon scott.
Joe and I ate Bon’s grave and the memorial gate his mom put up for him leading to the sidewalk.
The two roadies for silverstein took turns driving to and from the cemetery. They said it wasn’t too hard to get into the swing of it.
The Indian Ocean.
Our set that night was just kind of eh. The young crowd seemed kind of awkward. Matt would ask how they were doing and the response would just be silence. And it was really hot on stage too. Kind of sucked. After the show both bands went back to utopia, the vegetarian Chinese place. I had a great spicy chicken dish and a couple bubble teas. We all pretty much agreed that if utopia was in sf, we’d all go there all the time it was so good. I loved how you would just write your own order down on a slip of paper and give it to them at the cashier. Pretty simple. After that we were all pretty much dead but a few of us managed to watch some wondershowzen before nodding off.
Day 4 -
I didn’t wait for anyone this morning to get any food, I just took a shower and took off. I got some food at the supermarket across the street and it was really cheap. I got a meat pie and salad for six bucks. I kind of wished I had been doing that the whole time. Oh well. It was pretty good too. Alison called me while I was in the room so I got to talk to her. That was good. Even though I was talking with food in my mouth the whole time. Everyone met up in the lobby and we were off to the perth airport. Because of it being Monday and everyone going home from the big music festival over the weekend it was an absolute clusterfuck. The airport was about the size of the Oakland airport but it was packed to the brim. But we managed to get our stuff checked in with no real hassle. After getting past security mikey, craig, joe (whose birthday was today) and I had some beers at a little café. We all asked for crown lagers, one of the bigger beers in aus but the server recommended us the local beers. We all get it but then realized it was just some con because the local beer is a dollar more than everything else. Whatever. At least it was decent. But after that I had a pint of victoria bitter, which seems like the Budweiser of aus. We watched some great late 80’s early 90’s music videos on their tv.
Bar in the Perth airport.
We boarded our plane, but I forgot my bag with the laptop back at the gate. Oops. Luckily they were cool about me going to get it and Jordan had it with him. The flight was pretty fun actually, a bunch of us took pics with a sleeping craig. a lot of beer was drank too.
We connected in Adelaide but it wasn’t really a connection; we pretty much just got off the plane and got right back on the same one. Not sure how that works. This flight was mellower, I watched an Australian movie called September. It was eh. And of course more beer was had. Spider web and Bronwyn were there to meet us in Brisbane, but a few of our bags didn’t make it past perth. But the airline had it handled to send them to the hotel the next day. We got to our hotel which, again was totally baller and nice. Separate rooms, a kitchen. Good times. There was even a tennis court.
Lobby at The Point Hotel.
The weather was super muggy in Brisbane. Bronwyn and web took a few of us to get food. Driving around the city it really remind me of seattle, but nicer. A few bridges over a centralized body of water and lots of hills. Kind of reminded of Vancouver too. More palm trees though. I had another awesome kebab. So good. Then we went back to the hotel and crashed out.
Brisbane.
Day 5 -
I woke up pretty early in the morning and wrote the preceding journal entry. At around 11 a bunch of us met in the lobby and Bronwyn took us to this koala sanctuary that was more like just a real zoo. Some guy who works there let us all in for free, some awesome Australian thing they do for bands just about anywhere. Way different than the u.s. where people couldn’t give two shits about bands. Anyways, we pretty much started with taking our pictures with koalas which was awesome. The koala we all took our pics with was named jagger, she was really mellow. I assume they just give her some sedative so she doesn’t freak out when people get their picture taken with her but I could be wrong. It only cost us 5 bucks each as opposed to the usual 20 or so because we were in bands. We got to pick up copies of our pics that the zoo photographer took us. Inside the little gift shop where we picked up the pics there was a ton of pictures of famous people and bands that took their pics with the koalas, like new found glory, marilyn manson, bonnie raitt, Mikhail gorbechav, as I lay dying and tons more. It was pretty cool. After we gathered our pictures we went and hung out with the kangaroos. That was awesome because there were seriously about fifty of them and they pretty much were all really calm and just chilling. We all got a ton of pics with all of them. One, who I assume was the alpha male had some seriously huge low hanging testicles. It was definitely a sight to be seen. I was pretty wary at first of the roos because I thought they might just go bezerk at any second but they were actually really chill. After the kangaroos we only had a limited amount of time so we went and checked out some dingos really quick, as well as some fruit bats and parrots that said goodbye as you left. Pretty neat.
Before we headed back to the hotel we stopped at some mall food court downtown where I had one of the greatest burgers of my life. It had cheese, onions, lettuce, tomatoes, pineapple, bacon and a fucking fried egg. So goddamn delicious. It probably took a few months off my life…no regrets though.
Epic burger is epic.
After that we went back to the hotel and then reconvened to head to the venue. It was pretty boring waiting for the show to begin but we walked for about a half hour before just to kill some time. And of course me joe and mikey dipped into the beer in the dressing room. We played a couple hours later and it was a lot of fun. Not a whole lot of people knew the songs but we still all had a good time. After our set we just drank beer with full force and didn’t stop. Us and pretty much everyone else on the tour who was drinking all were pretty smashed. I met a lot of the dudes in deez nuts, who were all really down to the earth guys. Pretty much just reinforced the fact that just about all Australians are super nice people. After the show we went back to the hotel and joe mikey and I tried to go to the bar down the street but when we got there it was closed. My feet were killing me with all the walking so I just walked back barefoot. Back in the room mikey and I ordered some fries and potato wedges that were super delicious. After finished those off it was bedtime.
Day 6 -
I woke up in the morning with a pretty decent hangover, but then again nothing I hadn’t handled before. We met up in the lobby and Bronwyn took us to this place called the alibi club. People were telling me they had some epic breakfast but I didn’t really know what to expect so I figured fuck it might as well get out of the hotel room for a bit. Upon showing up there it definitely reminded me a lot of rudy’s, at least with the full on hipster clientele and funky atmosphere. But that made it pretty comfortable and familiar at least to me. So back to the epic breakfast, I ordered something called the trucker’s breakfast, it sounded pretty good. It arrived fairly quickly and consisted of this: coffee, orange juice, toast, two fried eggs, hash browns, French fries, spinach, mushrooms, baked beans, a half tomato, sausage, bacon and steak and it was fucking AWESOME. Easily the best breakfast I’ve ever had. I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise. I was so unbelievably full after that I could barely walk. We went back to the hotel room and I tried to take a nap but it just didn’t really happen.
We went to the venue, I changed my strings and we just did more chilling. Went to the convenient store next door but that was about it. A bit later we played one of the worst sets ever. The stage basically had three levels, so when I was down on the lowest level I couldn’t hear anything but myself but the cabinets were blasting right into my ears. Everyone agreed the set was just terrible. I messed up essentially every song. It was just embarrassing, for me at least.
Worst set ever.
After the show we went back to the alibi and I got another great Australian burger, with the fried eggs etc. I ate half of that and brought back the rest to the hotel room, where I passed out accordingly upon returning there.
Day 7 -
We woke up pretty early, 7 o clock for lobby call. I finished the remaining half of my burger from the last night really quick. From there we went straight to the airport and got everything checked in with really no hassle or problems. Huge surprise there. The flight was fairly short and uneventful. We got into Sydney and Bronwyn took us to an area in Sydney that reminded me a bit of haight street and a lot like capitol hill in seattle. Bronners took junior and me to a thai place called thai tanic that was awesome. I had a great panang curry with tofu and veggie dish that filled me the rest of the day. After that we went to the hotel which was really really nice. The rooms we stayed in were huge, there was a Jacuzzi tub in each bathroom, and an HDTV.
Meriton Hotel in Sydney, the view from it and Mikey.
We didn’t get to settle in too much though because we all wanted to check out the beach. So we took off for the venue which was at the new south wales university. From there scott the driver took us to bondi beach which was one of the nicest beaches I’ve ever been to. The water was super warm and we all went body surfing. Lots of fun.
Bondi Beach.
An hour later weber picked us up and we went back to the venue. Our show that night was easily the best so far. The sound was decent and the crowd was really going off. After our set we goofed around, of course, writing dirty notes on little fliers for the after show party that we threw into the crowd. At first I thought that I wasn’t going to get to the after show party because we had a 6 o clock lobby call but eventually I figured fuck it and I decided I would pull an all nighter. Before we left I met some girl who had a California tattoo on her back so I started talking to her and found out she lived in marin county. Pretty weird. So we went back to the hotel and I took a quick shower. Mikey started banging on the bathroom door as I was drying off yelling at me to hurry things up so I just ran out and around the hotel room completely naked with Jordan mikey and matt in the room. Good times. And then mikey came into the bathroom with a video camera after I went back in there and I flashed the camera. More good times.
On our way to the club.
From there we went to the after party which was really just some dorky club with a bunch of sceney boppers and kids from the show. In one room was just a normal club vibe but the other room was a dude spinning pop punk stuff. Kind of lame but whatever. When we got there we got a bunch of drink tickets from a dude who runs things but one of the bartenders refused to take the tickets because the tickets were two days old. So weber ended up cussing her out, calling her a stupid fucking bitch and he would get her fired. It was fucking great. I paced myself fairly well enough to stay awake all night, I only had a few beers. Eventually we left the club around 4 or 430. I went to hungry jack’s before going back up to the room. I wrote more stuff in the journal. By the time I ended up passing out it was about 530 but I only slept until about 6 because we had lobby call. By that time I was absolutely dead. I could barely stay awake and I was hating life. We were off to the airport to catch our plane to melbourne.
Completely dead after an all-night rage-athon.
Day 8 -
So for some bizarre reason I couldn’t manage to fall asleep on the plane. By the time we boarded everyone was dead but I was officially awake for 24 hours, not counting the half hour power nap I took. I was miserable. And to make things even better a few of us had to go to the club to help load in because it was some serious pain in the ass. Of course no one wanted to actually do it so we picked numbers and mine was one of the lucky ones to get chosen. Yay. The alley of the place was so gross and urine soaked. And the stairs from the alley down to the club were even worse. The load in wasn’t actually too bad though. By this time my body was pretty much just on auto pilot. I went back to the hotel room to find everybody passed out and a bunch of food wrappers and stuff everywhere. I was mad with jealousy. I went downstairs and just went to the café next door and had some decent chicken sandwich. Then I called alison and went upstairs and passed out. That nap was probably the best one I’ve ever taken. It was so much-needed.
The address to the hotel in Melbourne…we were in good hands.
Train depot in Melbourne.
A few hours later I was ready to go. We all went back to the club where we were greeted in our dressing room (which was huge and looked down on the club via big windows, pretty awesome) with tons of food, beer and water. It was heaven. And for probably the first time on the tour there was actually working wireless internet! We all just nerded out and drank and ate. It ruled. Our set that night was awesome. Junior and I agreed to turn the volume down on our heads that night and it totally worked out to our advantage because everyone agreed the sound that night was perfect. Obviously a lot of that had to do with the sound system being good but still it was great to finally have a really good sound. Things seemed like they couldn’t get any better until in the middle of silverstein’s set they played a lifetime cover and we were all into for about 30 seconds until joe crowd surfed over the barricade and security flipped out. Joe tried showing them his pass but they were for some reason just losing their minds. Silverstein stopped the song and all of syg ran into help which in turn made the security even more maniacal. They seriously looked like they were going to kill everyone. Imagine your quintessential british or Australian huge rugby player or soccer hooligan looking absolutely mean and terrifying and that’s what these guys looked like. They were like something straight out of a cartoon or movie. Weber had to jump and keep us separated from the guards because he knew if we actually threw down with them, which we obviously didn’t they would kill us. But then they even shoved weber into the wall for some reason. These dudes were serious dicks. The whole night they were just being too rough with kids. These guys were about 6’ 3” and 300 pounds and they were yanking kids like they were rag dolls. Totally retarded. But the fun didn’t stop there. After the show was over a few girls Jordan somehow knew were hanging around the merch table just talking and deciding on some last minute purchases when security just started almost pushing them out the door. So Jordan told them they needed to chill out and then the beast in them almost started to come out again. They threatened Jordan and said “shut your fucking mouth you stupid american wanker!” ridiculous. And then a bit later craig tried to just make peace with them and came up to one with his hand out to shake on it and a bunch just swarmed around him acting like they were going to beat him up. So stupid. Luckily though nothing serious happened. It was just a lot of tension.
Player and Richard, Silverstein’s merch guy, in Melbourne.
After the show we went to this incredible place called lord of the fries where they serve meatless burgers and great fries that you can get all these good sauces on, like thai peanut sauce, this sort of ranch stuff, bbq sauce and you can even get poutine! They were out of gravy though so I just got a mix and match of thai, ranch and some ketchup and it was so delicious. After that we adjourned to the hotel room with the rest of the beer we took from the our dressing room and called it a night.
Lord of the Fries Guys.
Day 9 -
I was barely able to make it up in the morning. It was 11 o clock and I just barely had it in me to get out of bed. We had lobby call at 12 because the show was a matinee on account of it being an under 18 show. But since the club was a five minute walk from the hotel I skipped on lobby call to take a much needed shower. While I was taking the shower the hose just popped out of the shower head out of nowhere. Lame. But I was just about done anyways. We played again at the same club. We got there and the owner informed us that one of the security guards got fired because after roughly escorting a drunk girl out of the club the night before he proceeded to spit on her. Plus I guess some of them got shit for the debacle with us. So we were pretty much confident that this time they would behave because no more of them wanted to lose their jobs. Before the show mikey junior and I went and found some really good Chinese place. I got this great noodle soup to go. It was so big I just had half of it before our set. I pretty much think that asian food in Australia is better than the US. Maybe it’s on account of it being closer to asia but I just know that I like everything I tried there more. During deez nuts’ set a few of us went on stage and sang the sing along part to their closer song “rep your hood”. it was pretty fun. Our set went really well again.
Boys of Summer Tour photo.
It was early after we were done, so mikey craig and I went to subway. Melbourne pretty much to me is like the san Francisco of Australia. Lots of culture and cool architecture and the weather seemed pretty similar, hot in the rest of the country but cool there. Definitely my favorite aussie city I had been to at that point. After subway we went back to the hotel where mikey and I tried doing laundry in the washer/dryer combo in our room. It was a fucking pain in the ass. The room came with a couple packets of detergent that were 2.50 each so I was like fuck that so I bought some detergent at the IGA store downstairs. I put some in and starred the machine (which was way too difficult to figure out how to use) and read the directions. However the directions said to use front load detergent only, the machine being front load and all. The detergent I put in was definitely normal detergent. Oops. It didn’t fuck the machine up though, but I don’t know if it could have done anymore damage because the machine was such a piece of shit. I set the machine to “rapid wash” but that didn’t stop the cycle from taking about an hour and a half. Ridiculous. Then the machine took in the end about 3 hours to dry our clothes. Four and a half hours to do one really small load of laundry…I hated that machine. Anyways, weber came by the room and a few of us went back to lord of the fries. This time I got poutine and it was delicious. By now I was totally full. Then everyone as well as a couple silvestein guys went to this club called bang where we partied the rest of the night. It was fucking awesome. Because weber of course knew the chick running the place, coupled with the fact we were scheduled to play there in a week we all got comped tons of drink tickets. It ruled so much. There were multiple rooms, one was a big club room, one a little dance room, a metal room that was playing tons of lame nu metal and then just a quieter bar room where I started the night out. A bunch of the amity affliction guys were there. Those dudes are just complete drunks. Hilarious. Matt junior and I did a bunch of dancing in the little room it was so much fun. I probably danced for an hour straight. Total work out. I was never out of drink tickets that night. They just kept coming. I got them from all sorts of people. It ruled. We all agreed it was the most the fun night of the tour. After bang matt junior and I walked back to the hotel. Junior and I grabs some slices of pizza on the way because we built up a good appetite from dancing. By the time we got back to the hotel though my feet were killing me. Blame vans. The slip ons I got free for being on the tour destroyed my feet. Even after switching back to my nb’s my feet still hurt a ton. Oh well.
Day 10 -
I woke up with a fairly decent hangover. Fortunately lobby call was at 11 so I was able to sleep a bit. I took a few ibuprofen to take the edge off my hangover. We piled in the van and made our way to the airport. We were all super hungry but the food selection at the airport was horrible. There was hungry jack’s and a few other really bad places. Joe and I abstained but mikey got hungry jack’s that looked horrible and matt got this fluorescent green fettucini with this really runny marina sauce that was so unbelievably bad. It was disgraceful. Only junior came out on top with a decent looking English breakfast. We arrived in Adelaide after a short and uneventful flight. We were all pretty much starving after having either not eaten or eaten only garbage so Bronwyn took us to the asian area. Mikey and I had this beef noodle soup at some noodle place that was totally delicious. One of the best soups I’ve ever had. Only six and a half bucks too. Like I said before asian food in Australia is so kick ass. After food we went to our hotel. It was a nice little place with multiple buildings all surrounding a nice little courtyard.
Hotel in Adelaide.
the room matt mikey Jordan and I were in wasn’t quite ready to we kicked in the other guys’ room for a bit, then went and napped a bit when it finally was done. I also able to clean the rest of my dirty clothes in a washer and dryer that both worked just fine, thank god. Shortly after we adjourned to the show. We only stayed for about 5 minutes before weber took us to a vegetarian Chinese place. Despite the fact that like I said asian food in Australia is really good I was starting to get a bit tired of it. I probably should have stuck with my intuition because this place was kind of lame. I got some chicken satay that was really good but my salt and pepper tofu was super lackluster. I tried some of matt, junior and mikey’s dishes and their’s were decent enough. I just happened to choose the wrong dish. It also didn’t help that our dishes took about an hour to come out. I had to get mine to go because we had to get back to the club. During Deez Nuts’ set tons of people got on the stage to sing rep your hood. It was fun. Our set went well again. Billy from silverstein got on stage again to sing to be continued with us and ended up jumping on Jordan during a sing along, sending both of them and a few kids tumbling to the floor. It was pretty hilarious. Silverstein played some weird set this time, doing more different songs. They played lifetime this time and it was great. But of course joe almost got in trouble again with security for coming onto the stage after the song. Security didn’t know he was in a band so they got in his face for a second.
Reppin our hood with Deez Nuts and me aka Rocky Balboa aka Towely.
The rest of the night before we left the club we just drank a lot, shot the shit. Good times. The girl who was friends with weber and Bronwyn who was going to tattoo us showed up for a minute and we all talked with her quickly about what we wanted. After we left the club a bunch of us went to the casino. A few of the dn guys were there. Shane from silverstein ended up coming out on top with a few hundred. Mikey made some money. I played 20 bucks and lost it in a second at blackjack so I was like fuck that and didn’t bother losing anymore of my money. Junior was saying ridiculous shit. We were out until about 4 in the morning. When I got back to the hotel I passed out immediately.
Day 11 -
Last night was the last night of the boys of summer tour, so today was just an off day. We stopped and got some food around 1 before going to malika ‘s tattoo shop. It was in a total touristy beach area with expensive shops and food. But it was a nice area. The weather was perfect. Malika had a couple drawings for our tattoos and they were perfect. The one I got was a little koala head with a thought bubble, and in the thought bubble was a lime because we had such a hard time getting limes here. A few other people got an op ivy skankin koala. And mikey’s was a fat koala with a total beer belly. Even matt got one! His first tattoo! We were all in there watching him for that. He made the best faces while getting it, it hurt him so bad he said. Malika was really fast. She did mine in almost half an hour. It ruled.
Set Your Goals gets tattooed.
I pretty much just walked around while everybody got their’s. mikey junior craig and I stopped at some fish and chips place across the street for food. It was really expensive and we ordered our’s to go. Once we got it we couldn’t really decide where to eat it so we just decided to eat at the place, but the people working there wouldn’t let us. They said the takeaway menu is totally different and it costs more to dine in. I guess the second part makes sense what with having to clean dishes and all, but they were total assholes about it. It really pissed us off. We ate a picnic table near the beach. Luckily the food was good. We told malika about it and she told us how tons of people have complained about the people at that restaurant being dicks. After that I had some drink from Australia’s equivalent of jamba juice, called boost. It was good but reading the menu I saw that they assigned boosts for each drink, as opposed to jamba juice’s where you can get any boost with any drink. Still, mine was good. After everyone was done with their tattoos we went back to the hotel. I took a nap. I woke up around 9:45 and we walked around trying to find some place to eat but just about everywhere was closed. Even though Adelaide is nice it’s a quiet, family friendly city so everything dies really early. A few of us ended up going to a total bro bar for a bit. Then weber took us downtown. A few went to the casino again while matt weber and I got food. I got a 12” margherita pizza for 4.50 that was actually really good. I scarfed it all down, it was delicious. After that matt and I walked to the casino. I just watched mikey and junior play some blackjack. They were doing well against a trainee dealer but then the casino got wise and sent in a real dealer who ended up taking back a lot of their money. He was a pretty funny dude too. After that we made the half hour walk back to the hotel. My feet felt like they were going to fall off. Got back to the hotel and crashed out.
In retrospect, Adelaide seems the most like northern California out of all the Australian cities we visited. The little parks near downtown gave it a really family-friendly vibe, like marin county. Even the surrounding hills really reminded me of west marin or out east like contra costa county. I guess the only thing not like nor cal was the beach but that’s at least similar to so cal.
Day 12 -
Matt flaunts his obsession with dicks before we go to the airport in Adelaide.
We met up at the van around 11 and took off for the airport. After a bit of a clusterfuck we managed to get everything on the plane and get to our boarding call in time. I think on the flight we managed to piss everyone else around us off by being loud, laughing and just saying really bizarre things. At this point it was quite evident we were losing our minds. They gave us this really weird bean and ham salad to eat. I had mikey’s because he wouldn’t touch it. In Sydney we collected our bags with no problems and caught a really expensive taxi ride to the hostel we were staying in. the hostel was pretty cool, we all just shared one room with a bunch of bunk beds.
Set Your Goals at Billabong Gardens.
After just kicking it in the room for a bit we all went to the street that Bronwyn had taken us to a few days before.
King St. in Newtown, Sydney.
I found thaitanic again so joe and I ate there. It was even better this time. I had a coconut milk soup with beef and veggies in it that was so good. Joe’s dish was good too. After that we just walked up the street a bit but there wasn’t much to check out so we found a beer store, grabbed a couple bottles of VB and went back to the hostel. Everyone else eventually found their way back and we just kicked it doing not much at all until everyone passed out.
Matt in the hostel in Sydney.
Day 13 -
I can’t remember what time I woke up at but it was probably around 10 when the housekeeping guy came into to exchange our towels. Eventually a few hours later everyone else was up and we went up to king st. and went to burgerlicious, a pretty decent burger place. I made a couple phone calls then went back to the room. I wanted to go to Sydney harbor and check out the opera house and whatever else just to be a tourist and some other people were down to but we pretty much just never got around to it. Instead we stayed inside the hostel room which was way too hot and we’re just lazy. People did a bit of recording but that was about all that happened. Later on joe, matt, mikey and I went to thai tanic again.
Thaitanic!
Craig, Jordan and junior weren’t in the room when we got back; it turns out they went to the Sydney aquarium. I was a bit bummed I missed out but I figured tomorrow in the morning I’d just get up early and go by myself to the harbor.
No one is safe from the SYG sleeping pictures…not even me.