latest tour excitement

[soundmanjim]

just come back from doing the leopalooza festival in bude, cornwall last week with baddies - i had my first encounter with the allen and heath i-live, and it was a winner; what a great desk!
very easy to work with and i had it nailed in 10 minutes.
even better, (and this is so unusual for such a small festival), they were using the wireless tablet system for running stage monitors - and it worked a treat.
the monitor guy just wandered about on stage asking the boys what they needed in the monitors, and while they checked, i simultaneously sorted the foh sound. brilliant.

hope we get to play there next year; foh sound was awesome, i cant remember what the system was but it was possibly the clearest and loudest ive heard this year. Thats a decently set up EAW rig for you.

its been a bit of a rollercoaster ride the past few months; omas teich fest, y not fest, nozstock, glasto (john peel tent), roskilde fest, hultsfred in sweden, gurten fest in Switzerland, melt fest in Germany, radio 1 big weekend, metropolis in Holland, and i can honestly say the riders abroad are getting better and better. you wouldn't know there was a credit crunch, such was the catering!

still, i finally got two good goes on a pm5d; the i live, a couple of ls9's, and the rest were lovely old midas desks. brilliant. i think im finally over my fear of digital.

the van is coping well and ive already put 11,000 miles on it (ive had it 8 weeks) and the conversion is almost complete; just the roof vents to go in and hopefully a night heater.

after all these gigs finish with reading, leeds and bestival in September, ive got a few weeks off then the band release their album and there's a tour attached to that, so off we go again to Germany, Scandinavia, Italy, Spain and a smattering of gigs round the uk in October, for 6 weeks. hopefully after that i can get some time with the missus, then there's a new tour in February.

just thought i'd share - been to some great venues, but my favourite really had to be roskilde - super friendly people and very nice ladies!

hope your all good out there!

[John Bell]

Hi Jim, it sounds like you are doing really well.
To think that it all started at the Fat Surfer, then selling your rig and just going for broke. That's some mileage you are doing.
Cheers, John.

[soundmanjim]

hi john, nice to hear from you. yes; seems like you need to run a venue for a few years then do a few small tours and the rest seems to sort itself. im quite tired most of the time though and red bull makes a pretty nasty mess of your lower intestine after a while!
im going back to the old school for September as im running a stage at Offset festival in Hainault again, quite a good line up this year, have a look
offsetfestival.co.uk/

[John Bell]

Offset looks pretty wild.
I have been invited to New Mill in Yorkshire for a week, by Tom who was the main organizer for the Cliffe Music Fests in Kent, until he moved back home.

Tom has brought 2 pubs in the New Mill area and is getting another soon and wants me to do the sound and stage lighting for his charity gig, after having a weeks holiday stay at one of his pubs.
It's "Last Of The Summer Wine" country, but he has lots of live music in his main pub, so I am up for it.

As for the Red Bull thing, I had too may Red Roosters, while playing the drums at one of my bands rehearsals a week ago. I had to shorten the rehearsal when I couldn't hold it together any longer. I was really wired-up. I now stick to Lucazade.
Cheers, John.

[soundmanjim]

phew. offset done and it all went swimmingly. currently im on a ferry to Dublin on the first leg of baddies 'do the job' tour - covering most of UK and Europe.
i'll keep you all posted as to venues, setups and experiences on this 'latest tour excitement' section, save bunging up the place with new threads.
quite looking forward to this one.
heres a copy of the dates of this tour - if you see any venue you know about, feel free to let me know what the parking's like - ive got the splitter, 6 people and a trailer this time round!##
1 Oct 2009 20:00
ACADEMY 2 (ALBUM TOUR) DUBLIN, IRELAND
2 Oct 2009 20:00
AUNTIE ANNIES (ALBUM TOUR) BELFAST, N.IRELAND
4 Oct 2009 20:00
CAPTAINS REST (ALBUM TOUR) GLASGOW
5 Oct 2009 20:00
THE CLUNY (ALBUM TOUR) NEWCASTLE
7 Oct 2009 20:00
thingyPIT (ALBUM TOUR) LEEDS
8 Oct 2009 20:00
MOHO (ALBUM TOUR) MANCHESTER
9 Oct 2009 20:00
ROCK CITY (ALBUM TOUR) NOTTINGHAM
10 Oct 2009 20:00
ACADEMY 2 (ALBUM TOUR) BIRMINGHAM
12 Oct 2009 20:00
BORDERLINE (w/ DUTCH UNCLES) (ALBUM TOUR) LONDON
14 Oct 2009 20:15
POINT EPHEMERE (ALBUM TOUR) PARIS, FRANCE
15 Oct 2009 20:00
BOTANIQUE (ALBUM TOUR) BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
16 Oct 2009 20:00
TRIX (ALBUM TOUR) ANTWERP, BELGIUM
18 Oct 2009 20:00
ROTOWN (ALBUM TOUR) ROTTERDAM, HOLLAND
19 Oct 2009 20:00
PARADISO (ALBUM TOUR) AMSTERDAM, HOLLAND
20 Oct 2009 20:00
LOPPEN (ALBUM TOUR) COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
21 Oct 2009 20:00
NOSTURI (ALBUM TOUR) HELSINKI, FINLAND
22 Oct 2009 20:00
JOHN DEE (ALBUM TOUR) OSLO, NORWAY
23 Oct 2009 20:00
STICKY FINGERS (ALBUM TOUR) GOTHENBURG, SWEDEN
24 Oct 2009 20:00
DEBASER (ALBUM TOUR) STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN
26 Oct 2009 20:00
MOLOTOW (ALBUM TOUR) HAMBURG, GERMANY
27 Oct 2009 20:00
BANG BANG CLUB (ALBUM TOUR) BERLIN, GERMANY
28 Oct 2009 20:00
BLUE NOTE (ALBUM TOUR) POZNAN, POLAND
30 Oct 2009 20:00
BEATPOL (ALBUM TOUR) DRESDEN, GERMANY
31 Oct 2009 20:00
SWEAT (ALBUM TOUR) LEIPZIG, GERMANY
2 Nov 2009 20:00
LUCERNA MUSIC B (ALBUM TOUR) PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
5 Nov 2009 20:00
B72 (ALBUM TOUR) VIENNA, AUSTRIA
6 Nov 2009 20:00
59 TO 1 (ALBUM TOUR) MUNICH, GERMANY
7 Nov 2009 20:00
YOURBAN MUSIC LAB (ALBUM TOUR) VICENZA, ITALY
8 Nov 2009 20:00
LA CENTRALE (ALBUM TOUR) PISA, ITALY
11 Nov 2009 20:00
HAFENKNEIPE (ALBUM TOUR) ZURICH, SWITZERLAND
12 Nov 2009 20:00
SCHOCKEN (ALBUM TOUR) STUTTGART, GERMANY
13 Nov 2009 20:00
KARLSTORBAHNHOF (ALBUM TOUR) HEIDELBERG, GERMANY
14 Nov 2009 20:00
NACHTLENBEN (ALBUM TOUR) FRANKFURT, GERMANY
15 Nov 2009 20:00
WERKSTATT (ALBUM TOUR) COLOGNE, GERMANY
19 Nov 2009 20:00
BE COOL BARCELONA
20 Nov 2009 20:00
MOBY thingy MADRID
30 Dec 2009 20:00
PYRAMID ROCK FESTIVAL MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
31 Dec 2009 21:00
PURPLE SNEAKERS NEW YEAR HOUSE PARTY SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

[John Bell]

Baddies- Do The Job
drownedinsound.com/releases/14679/reviews/4137975?ticker

[ian hasell]

Wow that should keep you off the streets, some good venues and a trip downunder.


Good luck and have fun

Ian

[John Bell]

I notice that the tour starts in Ireland, for some first class Guinness and then swiftly moves on to the drinking capitals over here.
Was that on your rider Jim? lol
Cheers, John.

[soundmanjim]

Hi guys
phew. I'm back.
It was a great tour with somehighsnd low points.
I'll try and condense.
The eireland tour was great and have to say that Belfast was by far the best place to go; mainly because of the hospitality, the friendliness of the locals and thevisiting kf the band managers parents house which had bar in the garage!
On the way to Scotland on the Belfast to stranraer ferry, we met frank black whowas on his way to a concert in Glasgow. A nice guy and the lead singer gave him a cd!
The rest of the uk tour was much of a muchness, i.e. Rubbish rider and generally nowhere to park.
After a week off we were off to France. Bad points for Europe was the van getting broken into in Rotterdam and my laptop and gps were stolen. This ended upwith me having to change all my passwords and cancelling credit cards; not much fun. Apparently thieves target foreign numberplates in holland; so lesson learned, don't leave anythingof value in your van whilstin Europe.
With the lack of laptop it means I'm typing this ony iPhone!
Also the trailer we were meant to bring with us on the tour snapped an axle and had to be left behind, with the other one that dId exactly the same thing. That's what you get if you buy trailers from eBay!
Anyhoo, we spent a few days in Scandinavia and although the views were amazing and the crowds enthusiastic, the lack of sunlight in Oslo became quite depressing quite quickly.
Germany and Austria were great, Poland was awful; although the people were friendly the towns were scruffy and nor nice. Beer was cheap though.
Italy we got to see the tower of Pisa but the gigs were a bit of a chore as for a few of them I ended up doing the entire gig as the Pisa engineer was ill.
Managed to get our feet wet on the way to Switzerland, temps around 21 degrees and the water was warm in a town called varraz, not far from French border.
By now I was getting heartily sick of sleeping in the van, coupled to the fact that several of the band members contracted severe colds meaning Finland gig had to be cancelled-the bass player actually had swine flu!
Anyway it was a great experience but I don't think we will be doing any mega long stints like that on the future unless were in a big bus! Murder trying to keep clothes clean!
So all in all, a great time, 7,200 miles coveredin the iveco which now has two front tyres worn out, the heater fan packed up and I had to bodge it to make it work, the central locking failed and it got broken into; good things were finding an rta program that runs on my iPhone (and it works) and I met a lot of great engineers. Germany is still my favourite place to tour though . More when I get new laptop!