| Friday, 16 October 2009 09:14 |
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A Bridge to Many & Unveil Fall 2009 Tour Report Aug. 14th @ Paris (FR) w. The Effort, Birds in Row. We’re leaving Toulouse early in the morning. We have to be in Paris at 2PM to pick up UNVEIL at the train station. On the way we stop in Limoges to pick up our friend Baptiste. We were supposed to have our tour 7inches delivered in Paris today but when I called the pressing plant they told me they didn’t send them; that leaves us with two options: we go straight to Paris and don’t have any record to sell for the tour; or we go pick up the records at the pressing plant and we’re late for the show. Out of respect for the promoters the choice isn’t obvious, but after a few phone calls we decide to go for the 7inches. It is a 5hours detour and by the time we arrive in Paris it’s 8:30PM. We missed our friends’ band BIRDS IN ROW that I really wanted to see. UNVEIL played and then the club owner said he changed his mind and that by 10PM the show has to be over. That means there’s only 40min left for us and THE EFFORT. Realizing that a lot of people came to see THE EFFORT we figured that we wouldn’t play. But the band came up to us and were like “are you the band who had been driving for 13hours and aren’t gonna play?” and they offered us to do a couple songs on their equipment. We only played “At least we tried” (which title is pretty ironic given the situation). After the show we hung out in Paris with the dudes from THE EFFORT and UNVEIL with whom we’re gonna spend the next two weeks with. I found out that the replacement drummer of THE EFFORT also plays in MAN OVERBOARD and FRONT PAGE, it’s funny because these two bands were pretty much my soundtrack for this summer. I also met Keevan from SEVEN GENERATIONS who was here with his girlfriend; we talked about underground screamo for a while, and then went to crash in a flat. Aug 15th @ Marquain (Be) w. Pushed Too Far When we woke up I couldn’t believe how many of us were in that flat, there were friends sleeping in the hallway and stuff… We had some tea and chocolate soy milk for breakfast then went to buy a few things in the street we were parked. After taking a picture together we part ways with our French friends. We’ve only had a few hours’ drive, and we arrived pretty early to the venue; it looked like a ghost town. Some of us were skateboarding to pass the time. We played a Beatdown show that night, everyone was wearing basketball shorts. It was very hot, during our set Kevin slipped on the wet floor and broke the neck of his newly purchased Les Paul guitar. Everyone laughed so hard! We went to sleep in Lille at Gregs’ from Fast Motion. Aug 16th @ Stoke-on-Trent (UK) The customs officers at the Ferry where total dicks to us for no reason. We felt insulted, all the more so we were still on the French side and we had to deal with cocky English officers. The ride was pretty cool; we played truth or dare with UNVEIL. These guys are crazy and seem to know no boundaries! We’ve only been around each other for a couple days but we’re all getting along very well. We walked around in Stoke-on-Trent, everything was closed but we found a kebab place that was serving vegan meals. The guy behind the counter thought it would be fun to yell the French words he knows to us, even if it meant “son of a bitch” and “motherfucker”. He was like “how you are French? I have a friend there, his name is … do you know him?” The show was pretty lame and we played with a Deathcore band or something. In the toilets there was a graffiti saying “SOUL CONTROL played here to 4 people”, and it was dated from a few days ago. Our friends from THE RIVER CARD came up to the show; we went back to that kebab place to eat after and went to sleep in Manchester at Chris’ flat. Aug 17th @ Nottingham (UK) w. Stand Clear As cliché as it sounds the first thing I wanted to do when we woke up in Manchester was to listening to Morrissey. We walked to the city centre to buy English plug adaptors and went to grab some food too. We found the craziest vegan snacks and fake meat products. They even have vegan spreads conditioned like toothpaste. Johann bought a plastic toy whistle, but hopefully it broke down. We left to Nottingham in the afternoon. Nico and I fell in love with the city and enjoyed getting lost for a bit. We found this show at the last minute so that was a donation show. We got £10 but there was food this time. Tom Smalley was putting on the show and his band STAND CLEAR was playing too; it was very good, actually one of the rare hardcore bands we played with on the tour. UNVEIL covered MORNING AGAIN. We slept at Tom’s place where loads of bands seem to crash. There was a poster where people can write on; we all left our mark. Tom was selling his record collection so most of us bought some stuff. Aug 18th @ London (UK) Tom told us there was a good vegan restaurant in Nottingham so we decided to go there. It was pretty dope. I ordered the cheapest burger and of course everyone else’s tasted better. Bastien and Johann were fucking around in the streets doing some silly stuff they saw in video on YouTube that morning. Driving through London took forever, but hopefully we had some good electronic music in the van and it quickly turned into a discomobile. The venue was called “the Grosvenor” and it was pretty good. The promoters were nice and we had good food. We met some nice people; I talked about early 2000’ hardcore with a guy from ABOLITION. That was enough reason to play a COUNT ME OUT cover that night. Kevin broke two strings on stage. Unveil played a really sick set and some people were singing along to their UNBROKEN cover. Some Swiss friends of them and even Wilo’s parents came up to the show. Some local kids offered us to sleep in an Anarchist Social Center. I stayed in the van. Aug 19th Day off @ London (UK) Wilo and Nico woke me up and walked me to the accommodation place. The center smelled political action and was filled with documentations on various issues, I read a poster relating the history of the place, it was very inspirational. Christian and Johann cut their hair in order to have the worst haircuts possible. We’re talking mullets and fringe here, what’s wrong with Swiss people? The show in Glasgow got cancelled, there’s worst than a day off in London I guess. We went to Tower Bridge then headed to Camden Town to get veggie burgers and Chinese buffet. We hung out there. THE GET UP KIDS were playing The Electric Ballroom in Camden but the show was sold out. I walked around the venue, found their van and looked for their tour manager to convince him to get us in for money but it couldn’t work out. We hung out in this cool vegan café that had the internet. We drove to Leeds and stopped to sleep at a gas station. Aug 20th @ Leeds. (UK) We got to Leeds pretty early and walked around looking for a music shop to fix Thomas’s bass. We had veggie burgers and onion rings in some regular restaurant and Bastien saw a guy doing heroin in the toilets. Some locals tried to convince us that smoking weed is awesome. We went to TKmax where Raphael and Johann bought like 5 pairs of MacBeth vegan shoes for dirt cheap. We waited forever in the venue, the shitty promoter didn’t even bothered to say hi; like most people/bands we met in England actually. I was happy that my friend Judith came to the show. We played to maybe 20 people, but everybody left after our set, so UNVEIL played to 0 people! The 5 of us were moshing and going crazy. UNVEIL changed the last part of the song “alone” into a Beatdown part. Unfortunately the bass broke down during the cover of “Ecocide” from EARTH CRISIS. Since we didn’t have a place to sleep either, Judith offered us to sleep at her flat in Liverpool. We drove there and I was really stoked about going back to the city where I lived for a while. Aug 21st Day off @ Duisburg (De) We woke up in the cold Liverpool morning and drove all the way down to Dover to take the Ferry. We hung out there and felt relieved to leave this Island. The show in Duisburg got cancelled; but we still went there to hang out with Sven, Larissa and Alex from SINK OR SWIM. We took Alex in the van with us and drove to Dortmund where we had some good vegan food. We went to sleep at Alex’s flat. In the bathroom Christian and Johann managed to make their haircuts look even worse. Johan’s poo wouldn’t flush so he had to destroy it with a stick… It was really time to go. Aug 22nd @ Chemnitz (De) I liked driving through Germany, it was bumming that we couldn’t go sightseeing. Once we got to the venue we couldn’t get Thomas’ bass to work. Hopefully there was an extra bass in the van. Since it was Nico’s bass it’s left-handed; Thomas and Nico had to change all the strings to make it work for a right handed. The lady at the venue was pretty cold at the beginning but she cooked us great food; I had never eaten fried mushrooms in my life prior to this day. There was no local band but still some people showed up and it was a good night. We also found out that there was a replacement show for the show that got cancelled a few days before in Slovakia. Wilo got drunk and we had a lot of fun. We slept in an awesome dorm room with loads of beds and a shower. Aug 23rd Day off. The next morning Thomas and I went to find something for the breakfast but everything was closed. We ended up going to subway. I sent a postcard to my mom and off we went. We had to be in Hungary the next day. We drove the whole day but we had some good times in the van. When we stopped in a gas station in Czech Republic I thought everything would be cheap so I bought a bunch of stuff and ended up paying the same price as in French gas stations (i.e. very expensive), Fuck that. I told Johann from Unveil to check out UNDERTOW in my MP3 player and he loved it. I love this band and so now I love Johann. We decided we would go hunting for a spot to camp. We ended up camping by a lake in Czech Republic, under the most amazing sky I have ever seen, there were so many shooting stars and the Milky Way was outstanding! It was incredible. I didn’t want to close my eyes…and we also couldn’t because Johann and Bastien were having loud silly high school conversations until late. Aug 24th @ Szeged (Hu) w. Kingdom, Rhinoceros. We drove around the city to find the location. We stopped in a park and started kidding around in a big fountain. When we arrived to the venue the guys from RHINOCEROS were already there. Some went to a place where they could get the internet and the rest of us hung out in the area. We played silly games in front of Tesco and Johann lost; he had to walk back to the venue in his underwear. We unloaded the van then Johann, Rafael and I thought it would be cool to get tattooed in Hungary so we went fishing for a tattoo studio, but with no success. Back to the venue Dave from KINGDOM gave me the copies of THE HEAT fanzine that my friend Tobi gave to him in Germany. We were all stoked to read this zine. A lot of people came to the show, I had probably never seen as many girls at a show; they were moshing, stage diving and having a lot of fun. The promoter’s band played and we were second. The stage was great, and after the first chord the place was going nuts, we couldn’t believe our eyes! People were going crazy! We played an AMERICAN NIGHTMARE cover and a few kids were singing along. UNVEIL played next and were really good. I didn’t expect much from RHINOCEROS as they are a band on Seventh Dagger records (a silly hardline straight edge label) but they were really amazing, and they turned out to be really nice people too! KINGDOM was good; we all went crazy for the PROJECT X cover. The show finished not too late but the after party was still going strong at 4AM; while everybody was trying to sleep on couch. Wilo was pretty drunk and dancing around. I slept in the van with Thomas and Christian. Aug 25th @ Bistrita (Ro) w. Charly Fiasco When I went inside the venue to get a shower, there were people sleeping literally everywhere. Wilo had a hangover and obviously lost his shoes. We got stopped 3 times by the Romanian border patrols. I didn’t like the ride through Romania; it was very hot and everything around us looked so poor. We got to the venue and met our friends from Toulouse CHARLY FIASCO. We played a show in Romania with a band from our hometown, can you believe this? UNVEIL played first and there were some kids singing along. When we played people were doing circle pits. Kids in Eastern Europe really go off. CHARLY FIASCO were amazing, it was their second time here and people love them. The only annoying thing was that we had to be careful at the merch because there were a couple of thieving kids trying to steal from us. We went to sleep in a cheap hotel (really cheap); again I slept in the van with Johann and Christian. Aug 26th Day off I woke up burning from the sun. Nico came down and I asked him if he thought I could use a shower in someone’s room, he said he didn’t know, and then went upstairs. 20min later everyone comes down with their bags. No shower today, which pissed me off. We went to Tesco to buy some food food for the ride. Then spend the whole day in the van driving among crazy Romanian drivers. It was really hot in the van. In the night we stopped in a huge 24/7 supermarket where we could access the internet and let go of some energy. We camped in a field in the countryside of Slovakia. Aug 27th @ Banska Bystrica (Slo) I didn’t know what to expect from Slovakia; and it was actually impressive. Beautiful landscapes, big forests. It actually looked a bit like Germany and Switzerland on some parts. Whe we got to the spot the navigator system was indicating it was a big place with a huge outdoor stage set up. We were hoping it would be where we were gonna play. Obviously it wasn’t. But we ended up in a great pub with a huge terrace made of bamboos, perfect place to chill. We walked around, the weather went from bright sunny to pouring hailstones, that was crazy! The food we got was awesome; very tasty cooked tofu in sauce with boiled vegetables. The show was good with a lot of people, mostly some metal kids slamdancing. Kevin broke a string during our set so we got to jam the Cro-Mags on stage. UNVEIL’s set was furious, everybody was into it. We hung out for a while then drove straight from Slovakia to Switzerland. Aug 28th @ Schaffhausen (Ch) w. The Effort, No Guts No Glory Sleeping on the road was hard. Hopefully we got to stop at the lake Constance in Germany to swim. The water was dirty and we were swimming among swans and ducks. We had to hide all the merch at the Swiss border, but luckily they didn’t search the back of the van. The venue in Schaffhausen was amazing; perfect stage, great backstage with a fridge, food, internet… Mike from FALL APART was setting up the show and everything was perfect. They were even playing some JAWBREAKER and SAMIAM in between bands. Perfect. We met up with our friends NO GUTS NO GLORY from France; and THE EFFORT arrived late. We also finally met Tobias from The Light Between who put out our demo tape. UNVEIL had a lot of friends that came to support them. Our set was weird, I wasn’t used to play with monitors and I couldn’t hear anything but myself. NO GUTS NO GLORY was AMAZING! They play some kind of melodic Hardcore/Punk that could be described as a mix between GRADE and REACH THE SKY. Their set was incredible. They covered KID DYNAMITE and BLINK 182, everybody went crazy. THE EFFORT was really good again; the singer said some really inspiring things on stage. We parted ways to go to sleep in grabs, at UNVEIL’s place. Aug 29th @ Dijon (Fr) We had a great breakfast at Thomas’place with everybody. Luca, Rafael’s brother joined us. We went to UNVEIL’s practice room to drop some merch and equipment. Then they took a car and followed us to Dijon. We drove through Switzerland and it was so beautiful; great lakes and mountains. We stopped to take a picture in front of a lake; ANCHOR had a picture taken there too. On the French highway we saw a guy carrying the dead body of a stag in his trailer. Driving past him we tried to throw shit at this motherfucker. Our friend Olivier and his girlfriend put on the show for us in Dijon. It was in a famous squat called “les tanneries”. Thomas was fucking around in French about mustard and found himself sitting in front of two homemade mustard pots. There was a nice distro there; I finally picked up one of my favorites albums on vinyl: FOUR WALLS FALLING’s “Culture shock”. Thomas and Nico got some stuff too. We didn’t get along with the first band, plus they were really bad. We were so tired it was very hard to play. Rafael from UNVEIL started to feel sick at the beginning of the night; and he ended up being in a really bad state; so UNVEIL only got to play 4 songs. We were very sad to leave our new friends that night. They went back to Switzerland and we drove straight to Toulouse. |
I had the chance to see them play in Schaffhausen, CH, and I was truly amazed by how good these bands are. ABTM is so full of energy and Unveil is always just incredibly "tight" :) 
