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Tour Diary: Future of the Left |
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Words: Andrew Falkous
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Illustration: Vincent Vanoli
London, 1 September
I’d been apprehensive about this show ever since
Kelson let slip to Jack that we were secretly utilising
drummer adjustment time (basically GMT plus one
hour) in order to ensure that we’re never late, but
Jack, in a typical contrary act, turns up early and
blows all that out the water. The fucker.
Anyway…the car is packed, directions copied
out (printers are for pussies), baguettes purchased
and calls put in to touring partners The Quiet Kill.
(“You guys aren’t dead, right? We can still use your
stuff?”) All is as well as can be expected and so
the first day of the rest my life begins, in a cramped
Rover 214si heavy with the putrid stench of tuna
mayonnaise and a (borrowed) bass balanced
carefully between my legs in the front seat.
We arrive after only the tiniest of direction-based
dramas and an appalling run for the boys on Trivial
Pursuit, soundcheck with the speed of the puma,
and then gaily race for the nearest Italian restaurant
for egg-based pizza and overpriced soft drinks with
my wonderful mother and brother who’ve come
down from Newcastle for the occasion of our first
official show. How lovely. In fact, with the exception
of Carling on the rider, the day is going perfectly.
I slink back to the venue for half seven or so and
spend the next couple of hours catching up with
friends who I haven’t encountered since the last
time mclusky played London, nearly two years ago.
I’m glad to report they’re all exactly the same, only
a little bit drunker. In fact, I’m so taken with the
revelry that I almost entirely miss the other bands.
“Good luck,” says a guy in the toilets, “If you’re
who I think you are.”
I appreciate the sentiment, whoever I am.
Shit, I hope I’m not in Suede.
Oh yes, the show thing.
The Monarch is a notoriously bass-less venue
but we chip away, pluckily, Kelson moves in the
way that only Kelson can, Jack grins beardily and
I sweat my right contact lens clean out of my eye.
The reaction is wonderful; I’d cry if I had a heart. We
wrap it up in 30, say the goodbyes of happy, tired
men and drive unsteadily to Brighton, where a floor
and a variety of appropriated bedding is waiting for
us in the den of our tourmates.
Brighton, 2 September
The Engine Rooms is a venue that smells of metallers
sweating piss onto a mat of decaying jackdaw shit,
but it sounds just fine so what the hell…We load in
through the eye of a steaming Brighton gale, and
then step back outside so we can run around like
infants and whoop accordingly. Sea air should be
compulsory. We take photos and wince at the pier
through the darkness.
The show itself, albeit to a mostly empty room,
is more fun than a double-cock-humbling. Jack and
Kelson eventually persuade me to play ‘Small Bones,
Small Bodies’ and it sounds great, even if I do say so
myself. We rush the gear back to TQK’s rehearsal
space, via a series of vehicle-changes which would
confuse MI6, then hit the local dub club, where
everyone else (even Egglestone, bless him) dances
and I sit on the floor, desperately attempting not to
spill my drink. It’s 4am, and Jack Daniels on a windswept
beach seems like the only suitable way to end
the night…
Weekend one is over, and not even a pan-pissing
incident or the revenge farts of drummers stirred
early from slumber can spoil it. We drive home
and it takes forever, but nobody cares. Back, with
crushing inevitability, to work.
Southampton, 8 September
I’d forgotten how blatantly motorway service
stations steal cash from their customers. A quick
overview – only buy products where the price is
clearly printed on the packaging so the bastards
can’t add their 80 per cent you’re-trapped markup.
Bum-snoggers. I buy The Guardian and claim my
small moral victory.
We get there late, hoist our shit onto the
ridiculously high stage in the Joiner’s Arms and do
the soundcheck, which is appalling. I suppose we’re
not the easiest band to do sound for, especially if
you don’t fully comprehend that the guitar really
is meant to sound like a broken saw.
The Quiet Kill play well but the crowd reaction is damn near non-existent,
so by the time we take the stage I’m braced for half an hour of shouting into
a vacuum. In fact, the opposite turns out to be true, our metaphorical bacon
being well and truly saved by an broken-bass-string and an ensuing chat with/
at the audience which doesn’t so much break the ice as fundamentally redefine
it on a molecular level.
My favourite show so far. I know, smile me a river…
Bath, 9 September
Thank God for friends. The story of Bath largely concerns Mitch (mclusky tour
manager) and Aidan (former Cubare bassist and spinner of verbal silk), the
times, the more times and the stories, most of which are unrepeatable in a
family publication such as this one. We watch those Old Trafford scum triumph
in a pub full of date-rapists, and then spend an inordinate amount of time
searching the finely mulleted streets of Bath for food inexpensive enough to eat
in good conscience, ending up settling for chips and pie from the most middleclass chip shop you ever did fucking see. Do I want my chips in a box? Do I look like I want my chips in a fucking box? Jesus.
The show tonight is cool for both bands, the crowd relatively happy and
communicative, and I get a kiss from a Mormon, which is a first. I hope she
wasn’t lying; now I just need a Scientologist to complete the set.
Cardiff, 10 September
You want glamour, you want the story of two young, dynamic bands on the
edge, you want excess, intrigue and pure twat-expanding SEX? My friend, what
you need is a selection of cheap filled pasta from Lidl. That, in a nutshell, was the
catering policy myself and Kelson put into place when we welcomed the lovely
people of The Quiet Kill to our humble Cardiff home, and since I didn’t enjoy
the actual show so much it shall be the focus of today’s diary entry. What do
you mean, you’ve never tried red pesto? That’s outrageous. I’m disgusted.
Afterwards we say goodbye to TQK, with the biggest thanks going out to
the glorious Ms Ruzicka, who pretty much organised the whole damn thing,
then Chinese food followed by four hours or so of projectile vomiting, sitting
next to the toilet, reading Hunter S and groaning.
Shit. I forgot to tape The Sopranos.
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