Wednesday, May 1, 2009
There’s a Ramones’ song that says “touring, touring, is never boring” and I would have to say that there is deep insight behind those lyrics. The highs are extreme highs, and the lows can get pretty low, but there’s not much in between. There’s really no “boring” … well … except for, maybe, 17-hour plane rides.
I’m at home, now, in my comfortable bed, typing my recent adventures into my laptop, with my beautiful wife reading a health-food magazine next to me, and my daughter soundly sleeping in the next room. About 10 days ago, I flew in from a five-week European tour. I can remember most of the tour vividly, but at the same time it feels like it was another life, which, in a way, it was.
The tour was appropriately named; “There Goes the Neighborhood,” since it consisted of a mostly Latino Band (Ill Niño), a mostly Black band (God Forbid), and an Italian band (Exilia), and we were playing a mostly White continent (Europe). This sort of light-hearted, race-driven humor was interwoven into everyday life on the tour, but mostly instigated by our drummer, Dave. ....
Most of the shows went very well, and some were great, like the one in Pamplona, Basque, and those last two in Moscow, Russia, and Minsk, Belarus. Moscow, in my mind, was one of the best shows Ill Niño has ever played. I even felt my eyes well up with tears during the show. It was a very emotional and deeply moving experience, although the events leading up to that grand finale were challenging, to say the least.
To start off, I actually missed the first four shows of the tour. My passport had expired without my knowledge, and my manager/drummer, Dave, had hired a less-than-competent passport courier service to do a rush renewal. I would have missed more shows if I hadn’t taken matters into my own hands and gone down to the New York City passport office to get my passport myself. It was the first time in my 10-year professional career that I had ever missed any shows. It was a new and uncomfortable feeling.
We had a band meeting before the tour. We had first considered moving the first few shows to the end of the tour so I wouldn’t miss them. Then we realized that we would be putting our support and opening acts in a bad position. They would have lost money, and they were barely covering their expenses as it was. Also, God Forbid was doing the Lamb of God U.S. tour a few days after our tour ended. That was a really big tour for them. I didn’t want to be the cause of any problems for the other bands, so I told them to go ahead and play the shows without me.
Laz let me stay at his Hoboken apartment until I was able to sort out my passport dilemma. I knew exactly what time my band was going on stage without me every night, and that was the worst part. To make matters worse, I walked out one morning to find that the parking enforcer had put a boot on the rental car that I let Dave persuade me into taking off of his hands, against my better judgment. It ended up costing me like 200 bucks, and a trip to Hoboken City Hall to get it off.
So with my newly acquired passport, I flew in to meet up with the rest of the caravan in Hamburg, Germany. Unfortunately, my luggage, including all my clothes and my new custom flying V guitar that I had waited over year to have built, somehow didn’t make it. I arrived to the venue by taxi. I said hello to everyone that I knew on the tour and introduced myself to the new faces, including the member of Exilia and their crew. Later in the tour, members of Exilia would teach me the fine art of making perfect Italian espresso on the road.
My bandmates expressed how glad they were to see me and how uncomfortable it was for them to play the four shows without me. I was like, “YOU felt uncomfortable, imagine how I felt.” I was secretly a little glad to hear that things didn’t go so smoothly.
The first show of any tour is always a little hard for me since I’m transitioning from trips to Wal-Mart, loading the dishwasher, and Dora the Explorer, to blazing guitars, head banging and circle pits. There are certain muscles that I only seem to be use when I play shows, so the first few times that I use them on a tour, it’s painful. This first show was even a little more difficult, because of what I had to go through to get there. After the show was over, all I wanted to do was sleep. I had been flying all night from the U.S., had a layover in London, lost my luggage, lost my prized new guitar, played a show in the clothes that I flew in, and then had to continue wearing them – and I was beat.
Most European tour buses are double-deckers with the bunks, and a small lounge upstairs and then a big lounge downstairs. Ill Niño had first choice of bunks on this tour since we were the headliner. Before the tour, I had told Diego, Ill Niño’s second guitarist, to reserve the bunk that I usually take on European tour buses. Diego failed to reserve any bunk for me and then failed to tell me, and for some reason, there were 17 people on our bus and only 16 bunks. It ended up that the lowest guy on the totem pole, our new drum tech, was sleeping in my usual bunk. So, I had to pull rank and evict him. I felt bad that he had to sleep in the upstairs lounge along with everyone’s luggage, but not bad enough for me to sleep in the upstairs lounge along with everyone’s luggage, especially after what I had to go through to get there.
The airline finally found my luggage and re-routed it to meet me in Vienna, Austria. It was great timing too, since Vienna is one of our best markets in Europe. I finally had my main guitar, along with clean clothes, my toiletries and a coat! The concert that night was the first one of the tour that I actually felt good about.
There was a really nasty bug going around the bus on this tour. God Forbid’s drummer, Cory, had it pretty bad. He had actually passed out while he was on stage during their performance in Berlin. I knew it was only a matter of time before I got the bug, too; it’s just a part of touring. To add to that, we had an overcrowded bus, I had worn damp clothes and tour buses aren’t exactly the most sanitary places to live. I think it was about three or four days before I started showing symptoms.
Being sick on tour is a horrible feeling; it just magnifies the already grueling living conditions. You feel as though you can never get comfortable, or get any good rest. This, I’m sure, lowers your immunity even more. You never fully recover ‘til you get home since the germs just keep getting spread around through the air ducts. It’s like being in an overcrowded, unsanitary, midlevel hospital. We were basically a giant petri dish on wheels, spreading sickness all over ..Europe.., disguised as musicians. Like a big germ-warfare experiment, our bus was the vessel and we were the contagion.
Sometimes the road just starts to eat at you and you start to feel a little insane. The lifestyle throws you out of balance and you have to try really, really hard to not let it spiral out of control. Everyone has their own demons to fend off and they just seem to become more powerful when you’re out there. That’s why there’s so much alcohol abuse, drug abuse and infidelity among people who share this lifestyle. I feel as though I have a pretty good anchor and moral compass, but when the road does get to me, from time to time, it usually manifests itself in procrastination, unhealthy eating habits, drinking a little more often than I should, and maybe a little Ambien abuse. For some, it’s a LOT worse.
With all that was going on I was trying to stay in good spirits, but it seemed as though there was a dark cloud that was following me since the passport ordeal at the start of the tour. I’m sure this feeling was perpetuated by my declining health. I could feel the infection spreading throughout my body. Not only that, but also during the prior tour in the U.S. with Otep and Walls of Jericho, I had a stomach problem that started in ....Texas.... and had never fully gone away. It seemed to be progressively getting worse on this tour, as well. Usually, talking to my wife and hearing my daughter’s voice can usually put me in a better mood, but I hadn’t been able to talk to them for days now due to computer problems and/or lack of Internet in some of the clubs we were playing.
We did have some great shows, though. We were also doing well in merch sales considering the economy, and we were having a great time hanging out with the God Forbid guys, even though we were all as sick as dogs but we were sick together. C’mon, nothing says male bonding like hacking up loogies together and garbage cans overflowing with everyone’s snot-filled Kleenexes. Hey, I knew that at that very moment, there were many, many people around the world that were suffering through atrocities far worse than I, and all that, but sometimes you just feel like shit. What can you do?.
After Vienna, we headed southwest to Milan, Italy, where we had a day off and then a show. Then we traveled north, through the breathtaking Italian and Swiss Alps to Winterthur, Switzerland, which is about a half-hour northeast of Zurich. We played the Salzhaus, which is one of our favorite stops in Europe. The crowd is always awesome, and so is the catering. The dressing room is spacious and very well lit with natural sunlight so it’s a nice break from the dark, depressing bus and most other dressing rooms on the touring circuit.
There was one more stop in Switzerland before heading further southwest into Spain. It was a city called Fribourg. The crowd was good, but the beer was great. They brew an AMAZING beer in that city called Cardinal. There was a keg of it backstage. But, by the time we left for Spain, at around 2:00 a.m., there wasn’t a drop of it left. Diego and I made sure of that.
Spain has been historically great for Ill Niño, but it’s one of the worst countries in ..Europe.. for vegetarians. I’ve been vegetarian for about 12 years, and recently, even have become vegan, which means that I don’t eat any animal products at all, no milk, no cheese, no eggs. In the past, I had always survived Spain on egg and potato tortas. These tortas are found in almost every eating establishment across the country. This time, I survived on bread and bananas, mostly. I didn’t have a real meal until we hit Madrid. Madrid is one of the major cities of the world so even though it’s Spain, you can still find some decent vegan food. Madrid was the third of five shows in Spain. Aside from technical difficulties and a horrible monitoring system, the show was spectacular and I finally was able to webcam with my wife and daughter!
I feel a little awkward calling the last two shows in Spain dates, out of respect for the many residents who live there who consider themselves their own autonomous communities. The first was in the city of Vigo, in the Galicia community. Vigo is a warm, coastal city that shares many of the same traits of other warm, coastal cities around the world, with bright colors, seafood restaurants, beach people, bars with tropical themes and so on. In fact, the club we played at was dressed up like a huge beach bungalow with beach umbrellas, palm trees and a straw roof over the bar. It was a great show, one of the best of the tour and the beer! They have a beer called Estrella Galicia, which translates to Star of Galicia, and a star it is. I could honestly say that it was one of the best beers that I’ve ever had EVER. It was very clean with no overpowering grain or alcohol taste, but at the same time it felt dense and creamy. It went down really smooth maybe even a little too smooth. The funny thing is that they don’t import it. As I was drinking it, I was thinking, someone could become rich if they imported this.
Diego and I argue about which beer was better, Estrella Galicia or Cardinal in Switzerland, but he’s wrong and I’m right. The great thing about all these European beers is that Europe has strict purity laws that don’t allow the makers to put preservatives in the beer. So if you have a few pints of beer, you wake up the next day feeling fine. American beer has around 14 different chemical preservatives in it and THAT’S what causes the bad hangovers.
The last “Spain” show was in the autonomous community of Basque. The Basque region has always been dear to me. I’ve had the pleasure and privilege to play for the Metal fans of Basque for a decade, since my early days in Machine Head. They are truly some of the best music fans in all of Europe. The people of Basque are very hard working, proud and honest. I usually will spend time with our Basque fans long before the show and long after, as do some of the other band members. In fact, my daughter’s name, Amara, comes from the Basque region. And, they know of her! A few of the fans commented on how beautiful my daughter is and asked how she is doing. The last time we had played Basque, my wife Xylia was on tour with us, and she was actually pregnant with Amara then.
A lot of people came out to the show that night. The club even had to extend the movable walls in the back of the establishment to accommodate more people. By the time we were ready to go on stage, I was feeling pretty run down. My stomach had been getting worse every day. The infection that I acquired in the beginning of the tour had moved into my lungs, my sinuses and my ears. I think my lowered immunity also cause me to get a tooth infection. There was a dull pain in my right upper molar, which became a sharp pain whenever I stepped on the ground too hard.
It was show time. Diego, Laz, Danny and I were all waiting at the door that leads to the stage. The crew had just finished line check, which is where they make sure that all the equipment is working properly before we walk out on stage. This meant that within about 10 minutes, we would be hitting the stage, as long as Dave or Christian weren’t late, which is not too uncommon. I found myself being very anxious since we hadn’t played Basque in a few years. Also, memories of all the other Basque shows that I’ve played in my career were going through my mind, so I was feeling a little nostalgic as well. Casey, our guitar tech and stage manager asked me; “Do you want your guitar now?”
“Yeah,” I replied, but with my mind more on the events to come. So he handed me my guitar in the special way that guitar techs hand guitars to guitar players so that they don’t get entangled in the strap or cord. I usually like to take my guitar a little earlier than the other guys and Casey knows that. He knows all of our quirks. Dave and Christian arrive to the backstage door, a little late, but not too much. We were all accounted for. Casey then asked each of us individually, “Are you ready?” After getting confirmation from each of us, he walks through the stage door to the front of the dark stage, pulls out his flashlight and signals Steve, our sound engineer, to roll the intro. Our prerecorded intro consists of dark hypnotic, tribal drum patterns with barely distinguishable voices that sound like they’re coming out of a transistor radio. The voices are clips from the movie, “Natural Born Killers.” The start of the intro meant that there was about two more minutes. At that point, we usually touch fists with each other individually, followed by a little head nod, which reinforces our unity, and says, “Ok, let’s do this.” The feeling of being sick started to fade away as the adrenalin and endorphins started to kick in. I starting hearing the crowd getting louder and louder, and felt my heart beating stronger and faster.
It was time. The stage was a dim but deep crimson as we walked out, walking slowly, moving ominously to the places that we needed to be standing when the bright lights go on. The noise of the audience was growing louder and louder in anticipation, and we, as well, were strongly feeling the anticipation. The chant, ILL-NEEN-YO, ILL.-NEEN-YO was echoing through the room while the intro was coming to its climactic ending. At any second there was going to be the four stick hits on the hi-hat that precedes the explosion of lights and sound that will thrust the whole room into a chaotic frenzy! And then we heard it! The hi-hat counts off! 1 … 2 … 3 … 4 …
To be continued...
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