Redcoats' Tour Diary: Part One

Thursday 8 November

This tour kicked off with a trip to Ballarat.

Ballarat is still relatively new to us, and she is currently playing hard to get. We have only played there the once before with Calling All Cars last September on their album tour. We were back at the Karova Lounge where it seems most bands play when they come through. The week before we made the trek to Ballarat on a Thursday night to do a radio show with Cat G on The Voice FM to help promote the show. So slowly but surely we are starting to get to know her a bit better.

Picking up the tour van.

We all met around 3:30pm in Melbourne after picking up the 12 seater tour van. It's always fun getting the van again and packing it full to the brim with our gear. It seems like every time we set off on a tour we have taken up more space with gear in the van leaving less for us, but I am pretty sure that our gear hasn't grown, not in the last few tours at least.

We got to the venue around 6pm only to find out we couldn't get in till 7. But over the last few years we have become experts in the field of killing time. As our spiritual guru and road legend Dr. Paul Martin would say, “Hurry up and wait!” and you very quickly understand that when you are on the road. Once we got in everything was smooth. In all honesty we weren't expecting much of a crowd for this show, the last time we came through was pretty slow, but in the end we had more through than we were expecting and due to the small-ish size of the room, it looked pretty good from the stage. In hindsight it was perfect, we had the chance to play introspectively and really ease our way into the tour and the songs. It was a good start to the tour. The first show often has a few cobwebs that need removing, but it felt like we were moving pretty well together as a band and there were some good responses. The most rewarding part was getting the songs across to some new faces, and simply having the pleasure of being able to speak with some fans after the gig. It can sometimes be a little bit of a mission.

The evening ended with some fat, juicy car park burgers and a good old fashioned seven-man spooning session in one of the local motels. 15 star, of course. With 15 stars, basically what you get is bunk beds, tinea, snoring and the odd roach. Incredibly harmless, and you always get to leave with something to remind you of the place.

Friday 9 November

This day started off in Ballarat. We dropped in to The Voice FM to do some IDs for them. That's when you say “Hey we are bla bla bla and you are listening to bla bla bla. You have a great day now.” After that we got some breakfast into us and headed over to Geelong.  On the way we drove through the town of Meredith and said our thank you's for holding one of the greatest festivals we have had the pleasure of attending and working at.

We got into the venue around 3pm this time. There are two rather large staircases at the Bended Elbow, which always means an excellent time loading in our gear. But you do what you gotta do, and with the help of our crew we were up in no time. It's actually a really great way to work on our guns, get some serious definition if you know what I'm saying.

During sound check we noticed a couple of the foldback speakers cut out and enquired into why that could be, it turned out that we managed to blow an amp which powered those speakers, meaning we were not really able to hear ourselves and each other as well as we would have liked. But being in sound check we were able to get it replaced in time for the night, once again our Guru came through with the goods. We do have these issues from time to time in some places but it really is just part of it, and it makes it all a little more interesting. If it all ran smoothly all the time we would all be asleep like little babies rocking in the sweet arms of life. We tend to be pretty loud and sometimes the PAs are not really built to have to deal with the volume.

We had many hours to kill between sound check and the gig so we got the music going in the band room and proceeded to kill time yet again. There are many theories as to the best way to kill time. We have always been fond of things like discussing the finer points of farting, throwing frisbees, kicking footballs, dancing to the sweet tunes flowing from the iPod dock, reading, writing, drawing, fighting and so on and so forth.  In each town you will inevitably have to kill time and each town presents a different set of circumstances and restrictions. Sometimes you have only yourselves and your vocabulary and it is each man for themselves in a gentlemen's bout of verbal warfare. Other times you may have the luxury of a beach for a swim. We sometimes track down cap guns and run through towns as vigilante guerrillas, forcing smiles upon people at cap gun point… perhaps a car park for a kick of the football. But you get the picture.

Playing a cracker of a show.

The gig was great. More people came through than expected again. Previously in Geelong we have played in some pretty small rooms, which isn't a problem, it is a necessary part of the journey. But it's great when you start to see the work you have put in through the tours and gigs start to pay off in numbers for our own show. We played as well as I can remember us playing for a while. The foldbacks held up and the crowd was really good. We would like at this point to make special mention to the band that opened up the night. They are called The Underhanded and they are an excellent young rock band who I have no doubt will be around for years to come and you will all hear about them sooner or later, but I would like you to remember where you heard of them first. Thank you for this.

The night ended after packing up and loading the van full to the brim again with a kick of the football in the car park across the road. There is nothing like a night game and we all really showed a lot of class out there.

Saturday 10 November

We all wake up in our own beds for this one, which is always nice. Sometimes on tour you might come across a bed that is as comfortable as your own, but it's rare and it's never the same and never does a tour bed exceed the comfort of your own, unless… That not being said we were all in excellent shape for our hometown gig of the tour.

It was also the hometown gig for our new chums Royston Vasie who are doing the tour with us. They have been great to tour with so far and play some excellent music themselves. We are all Melbournians and were all suitably pumped for the show. We met around three to get into the city and load up more intimidating stairs. We find stairs can be intimidating any time let alone while carrying speaker cabinets, bass drums etc. up them. In fact, did you know that cows can walk upstairs but not back down? 

We hadn't played Ding Dong in quite some time. Definitely not since they have renovated it. So it was good to get in there and sell the place out. Home town gigs are always a bit different. There are always plenty of people to catch up with and say hello to. You generally know a lot more people there on the night and you generally have a few more self imposed commitments in terms of making sure you get around to everyone.

After sound check we all went off on our own to go get some dinner, some had Chinese, there was some Pizza. Some of us ate handfuls of mushrooms, vegetarian delight! The night itself was huge. There was a crowd there from the first band who are called Willow Darling and are bloody good. They are two strapping young men with acoustic guitars harmonising you into the land of jelly legs. They will be getting around Melbourne all summer and you should get involved in their lives through the medium of song. Royston Vasie played a cracking show and the crowd was probably the loudest crowd we have played to. The crowd got into it and it felt like the songs were translating really well. It is a nice feeling to see people singing along to the album songs, which in the eyes of the world are still very young and fresh. Afterwards Ding Dong was in full party mode. We stayed there long into the night and the majority of us saw the sun come up whereever we ended up at that point in the evening/morning. A very successful hometown show.