Mother's Cake On Tour: Our 'Buzzkill' Lockout Laws, Bubble-O-Bills & Shocking Aussie Lingo

Austrian prog rockers Mother's Cake are in town for an Aussie run with their third studio album, No Rhyme No Reason, in hand. Having escaped their Austrian winter, we asked the trio to document their tour down under. 

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

Day 1 - Brisbane

We arrived in Brisbane 24 hours before the first show and it felt great to get out of Austria’s coldest winter in 35 years and put on our favourite pairs of Australian flip flops. Yves started smoking at the airport and got immediately in trouble.

We checked into Bunk Hostel in Brisbane which is called the best hostel in Australia and it had a swimming pool too. We met a guy called Tristan who is from a local band called Aerials and he took us out for dinner. We bought 1 kilogram of chicken wings for $15 and we already felt like we were in paradise. But things got more complicated after that. We went back to the hostel to refresh and drink some honey Jack Daniel's… this made our tour manager very happy. We ended up in a really posh bar that had Latin music and dancing. We ordered a jug of Sangria… but it wasn’t any Sangria, it looked like something from another planet. As the bartender made it for us we were amazed and shouting ‘wow… wow’ as there were so many ingredients in it. Yves and Benni lit up another cigarette in the bar and immediately got in trouble again for smoking. Luckily our tour manager was there and explained to the security guard that we didn’t know the rules. We were still asked to leave. After that things got blurry and we went to a bar that sold us three gin and tonics for $12, this made us all very happy.

Day 2 – Brisbane 

Our tour manager wakes us up early to go and see some koalas and kangaroos, which was a really good idea because last time in Australia the only kangaroos we saw were the dead ones on the road between Melbourne and Sydney. We arrived at Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary and they kindly gave us free entry which was really needed for Yves and Benni because cigarettes are really expensive in Australia. We met and cuddled some cute koalas and then went to feed the kangaroos. We also noticed the place had a wall of fame with photos of famous people and koalas… we hope they put our picture next to the one of the Pope with a koala.

"We received a flyer that said ‘you cannot buy drinks after 3am’. 3am passed and we were still thirsty."

After a nice day of being Austrian tourists, we got ready for our Brisbane show which was sold out. The venue was Black Bear Lodge which had a really authentic rock'n'roll vibe. The show started and the room started filling up straight away. We also noticed Australia has a really awesome local scene as the local supports just blew our minds. Crow Do Not Loiter Here were an instrumental band with very creative time signatures and compositions. The second band Kodiak Empire was really world class quality with the perfect combination of complex music and raw stage energy. We got on stage and the audience was squeezed up to the front and ready for a massive party. We were about to start the first song and Yves looked at the audience and simply said ‘YES’… followed by massive screaming from the audience, then it was out of control from there. Audience members constantly jumping on stage and dancing, stage diving, crowd-surfing and mosh-pit. We really loved this show not only because of the crazy party we had in the room, but because it brought back old memories for us as we’ve spent the last two years touring as a support band — it felt good to finally be the headline band again. Towards the end of the set we had a freestyle jam and asked people to get up on stage and jam with us. A guy called Jackson who is the singer of a Brisbane band called Aerials jumped on stage and did a killer freestyle.

After the show, we were ready to keep partying… but it wasn’t so simple in Brisbane because we learned about these weird laws called ‘lockouts’. We were drinking at a bar and we received a flyer that said ‘you cannot buy drinks after 3am’. 3am passed and we were still thirsty. Luckily for us, Australian people are super hospitable and we met a guy called Dave who is from another local band called Magenta Voyeur. He saved our evening by taking us back to his place and giving us whisky and coke. At 5am, we left his house to pickup our equipment from the hostel, go to the airport for our early morning flight to the airport… by this time, we were sleepless and smashed!

Day 3 – Sydney

We landed in Sydney and we were totally burned out… and it was only show day number two. We spent the afternoon passed out on our host’s couch. We went to the venue and again enjoyed some fantastic opening bands. The Mis-Made started the show… imagine a high energy all girl punk band with badass attitude. The second band Interim also played a fantastic set as well as brought a lot of Australia’s most beautiful girls into the audience. After the show we packed up in a big hurry because our tour manager was in a massive hurry to beat the ‘lockout’, because in Sydney it was super early at 1.30am. Yves and Benni went with the tour manager to Frankie’s but the clock was ticking. They told the taxi driver their problem and the taxi driver drove as quickly as possible to get them in time. Unfortunately, they arrived to Frankie’s at 1.31am and were denied entry. This was a real buzzkill for the guys. Luckily someone knew about a place called Waywards in Newtown where it was still possible to get in. However they couldn’t order shots at the bar because in Sydney you are not allowed to get shots after midnight. We hung out at that bar until they closed. After leaving the venue, we went to the host’s house where we were staying. Luckily Jeff from our touring support Alithia had a hidden vodka stash that got us through until 6am.

Day 4 – Newcastle

We woke up around 11am to massive warnings on the television about ‘catastrophic conditions’ of bush fires on the road from Sydney to Newcastle, which is where we were going to play that night. All the news reports were advising people to leave the area and go as far away as possible, which was the opposite of our schedule. We had a band meeting with our tour manager, our host who has local knowledge and our touring support Alithia, whom we were sharing the tour van with. There were a lot of serious concerns about our safety and we had to measure the information. Ultimately, the show must go on and it appeared there was still time to get there safely, so we hit the road straight away. While on the road we saw a massive sign that said ‘It’s gonna be a stinker, so mind your butts’, we were super shocked as it sounded like something really offensive. The drummer of Alithia then translated the Australian lingo for us and told us that it means ‘It’s going to be very hot today, so don’t throw your cigarette butts on the ground’. Wow, you Australians have a weird way of speaking, but we like it!

The Alithia guys also stopped us at a 7/11 and introduced us to something called ‘Australiana’. They got us some Tim Tams and also an ice-cream called Bubble-O-Bill, what a crazy country! But we were still hungry, so we bought our favourite food, the famous Wicked Wings from KFC, which is something really special for us because in Austria there is only one KFC in the whole country! On the way to Newcastle the weather cooled down and so did the warnings about the bush fires, so we stopped by a town called Avoca and went to the beach there. The water was such a beautiful temperature and it was the perfect way to enjoy a Sunday afternoon. After a short swim with the Alithia guys, we went back on the road and got ready for the show. Again we enjoyed some fantastic local supports bands and then a very wild and crazy local audience which gave us another fun night.