Seriously, we're still very excited about the fact that north coast noise boys ASIWYFA went on tour with Them Crooked Vultures. It makes us giggle on public transport.
You may have already taken in part one of this tour diary, and now Tony has recovered sufficiently that with much psychiatric coaching, he can unlock these often bittersweet memories of his time on the road with some of rawk's most rawkingest legends, so we'll let him continue with the tale...
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So...where were we? Ah yes the first show with TCV in Vienna had just drawn to a close and our next date was Luxembourg in three days time so we had to contend with our biggest enemy...time spent not playing music. The plan was to drive to Frankfurt for two days, then hit Luxembourg and be nice and fresh for the next gig, not to mention how gagging to play we'd be. The plan pretty much went smoothly, then we got stopped by some very friendly Austrian Police who literally laughed in our faces when inspecting our passports, we couldn't blame them, we look hilarious in our respective photos.
That short, insignificant hold up led to us drifting a little off schedule but if it hadn't happened then we wouldn't have seen this...
ASIWYFA - THE DANGERS OF TOURING
WARNING: This video contains explosions and swearing - some of it in slow motion!
For a few short seconds we all felt like we lived in an action movie, pretty cool huh?! (NOTE: The driver was safe)
We arrived in Frankfurt pretty late, checked into our hotel and got a few beers in the lobby to unwind, then hit the hay. A sleepless night was had due to a mix of the heat and the knowing dread that we didn't have a gig the next day. As funny as it seems we're genuinely not used to having days off when we're on the road, it seems like a wasted day when we do, but since the invite for these shows came at such short notice we didn't have time to book our own shows in the free days. So a day of doing nothing followed. Damn.
Dermot and I went into the city centre to check it out, have a beer and put the world to rights, the rest of the lads did something similar, only with a lot more alcohol involved. Responsibly imbibed though, of course.
Next was another travel day, no explosions this time (gutted).
Onto the next show in Luxembourg, it turned out we had really impressed the band and the crew in Vienna so we were afforded another valuable 5 minutes stage time, which we were delighted about. In my opinion we went onto play our best set of the short jaunt (in my opinion I should stress, I think the rest of the guys thought Amsterdam was the best). Vultures went on a little later than they were supposed to as Josh Homme was a little late, when he did arrive, Johnny and Niall were chatting to Dave Grohl who apologised about cutting the conversation short with the immortal line, "Sorry guys gotta go, Axl's here!". By the time they went on, the crowd were at fever pitch and they responded by playing what was by far one of the best sets I've ever witnessed. They all flared that little bit more, but never for a second in a self indulgent manner. Every lick, beat, slide and pulsing bass note was to total perfection, but then again, you kinda expect it to be with maestros such as these guys. Having said that, musicians of this calibre take your expectations and smash them against the wall at 1000mph at every twist and turn and shift and drop. That's what makes them such maestros. In short, they rocked.
We even drunkenly challenged Josh to a drinking contest, the nine of us versus him, with a smile on his face his cooly delivered response was, "...I don't think you guys realise who you're dealing with". Cool ginger medical wonder that he is.
We said our goodbyes and John Paul Jones told us to take every last drop of alcohol and food with us, needless to say we obliged. Cue a gaggle of drunken Irishmen stumbling down the stairs with more free booze than its advisable to give aforementioned drunken Irishmen.
Another couple of days off (curses), the first of which was spent in Eindhoven then onto that haven of touring rock band cliches, Amsterdam.
The Amsterdam show was another triumph, our manager Alan and our agent Beckie flew into town, always a pleasure to see them.
Again, we were afforded an extra 5 mins of set time, it may not sound like alot but believe me it really is on a ship that's run as tightly and smoothly as Them Crooked Vultures. All of this gig (bar A Little Solidarity...) is available online, with sound coming direct from the desk, so hop on over to it and you can be the judge on how it went!
We stood side of stage for the final time, the guys came out and gave us a wave, Dave Grohl pretended to fly kick me, then put me in a half headlock, half embrace, I believe the technical term is a "noogie". Probably one of the strangest and coolest moments of my life. The teenage Nirvana obsessive that lives inside everyone of us was beaming from ear to ear, and genuinely still is.