Learning Australia's 'Slip, Slop, Slap' The Hard Way: On Tour With Mother's Cake Part Two

Austrian trio Mother's Cake Australian tour has been a huge success so far and as the lads tour the country, it turns out they are also learning a lot about our culture.

Things like our love of Vegemite, wine and the need for sunscreen at all times — check out part two of band's tour diary below.

read part one here

The Music are proud to present Mother's Cake's tour. Head to theGuide for their remaining tour dates.

day 5/6/7 — off

After returning to Sydney at 4am after the Newcastle show we slept. We slept from Sunday 'til Tuesday. We ate some crazy Australian baked beans and Yves tasted Vegemite for the first time in his life. We’ve never seen him look so sick in his life. Vegemite, bucket list – tick! On the last day of our day off, our friends from Sydney band The Mis-Made took us for a beautiful drive down the coast to a nice town called Thiroull for some Australian beach. The girls from The Mis-Made said Yves and Benni looked thirsty so they gave them a drink called 'Plonk'… we are pretty sure it was cheap red wine… nice! We started to relax on the beach and after seven hours of enjoying the Aussie sun, Benni learned about an Australian tradition called 'Slip, Slop, Slap' the hard way. His back had turned into the McDonald's crispy bacon you get on a cheeseburger. Luckily, Australian hospitality provided him with enough 'Plonk' to numb the pain.

day 8 — adelaide

We landed in Adelaide and were collected by our good friend Jonty who also plays in the Adelaide band, Cobra. Another great thing about this land Down Under is the strong community between the local bands. In every city we find so many musicians who are always helping us along the way. It's really something special Australia has. We were on the way to meet the Alithia guys at Adelaide's cheapest hostel also named ‘Murder Hostel’ as it looks like the kind of place where Swedish backpackers get killed. On the way, we were catching up with Jonty about the good old times from the last Australian tour and out of nowhere a Mercedes Benz turns into our lane and our vehicles collide. Luckily nobody was hurt… but the Mercedes was now written off.

We arrived at the venue for sound-check and we were happy because this time the venue air-conditioner was working as last time we played there it was 47 degrees and the air conditioner was busted! Adelaide like last time had a wild crowd. Again we were impressed as hell with the local talent. Opening band Overview Effect played a beautiful set of atmospheric landscapes, layered guitar textures and emotions. Tony Font Show are this crazy funk rock band with energy to the wall, they had this raw Australian fire about them, awesome! After the show we were invited by locals to an exclusive after-party. We were treated to free drinks and great people and time flew so quickly that when we checked the time it was 4am and we had to go straight from the club to the airport for our 6.05 am flight to Melbourne.

day 9 — melbourne

This time we were not greeted at the airport by a musician but by a music super producer. This guy was so slick, the kind of slick you get from a Tarantino film. He had leather shoes, expensive sun glasses and a $1000 rare Guns N’ Roses jacket… we were impressed as hell as we now knew we were being taken care by one of the big shots! He drove us straight to Collingwood's best hipster café and we enjoyed Mocaccinos made with coconut sugar. Yves tried to order a can of Coke but instead got a bottle of organic cola and it just wasn't the same, which meant he needed to visit a 7/11 later for the real deal. The super producer then got an important call from Sony Music head office in Los Angeles about cutting some record deal, so we ended up taking an Uber to our accommodation for some much needed rest.

We arrived for sound check at The Evelyn and there were so many problems. Yves's guitar amp blew up on stage and started making transmission noises, the lighting desk stopped working and the monitors on stage also stopped working. The production crew worked for two hours trying to fix it but there was no luck and only thirty minutes left to open doors, everybody was stressed and freaking out, especially as the show was nearly sold out! Out of nowhere, the super producer guy walked through the door, he saw the problems, made a few phone calls and in 15 minutes everything was solved. Wow, what a guy! Doors opened and Melbourne psychedelic rockers Greenthief started and delivered a killer set. The next band was Qlaye Face who played melancholic complex atmospheric music, it was something really special! Our tour friends Alithia then played an epic show in their hometown, warming up the crowd for us! Then we played our longest set on this tour with a sweaty and loud crowd, it was really a night to remember! Also Alithia's percussionist the Samoan Jeff joined us for a jam on one song! It ended up with a big after party at Yah Yah's and blurry endings!

day 10 — Melbourne's white night

We met at The Evelyn Hotel at midday to pick up our equipment from backstage. We were invited to a rooftop party at the venue and to our delight we were greeted with coconut juice cocktails. One after the other, after the other, they flowed onto us. Wow, what an afternoon that was. Our evening then continued to the famous White Night in Melbourne which started for us at Cherry Bar, then around this amazing city which showed us incredible films, exhibitions and performances with a crazy street vibe, incredible! Then 7am hit and we realised something… our bass player Benni has disappeared… this was not good news. To be continued…