Enjoy it, He’s Honest!

So I am back from 3 weeks in Australia.
Its… an interesting country to say the least but I had a good time and looking forward to another tour there in the near future.
The best thing about that tour was meeting several great people who I will probably be friends with for the rest of my life.

If you want a super in-depth blog.. do check out Ben’s @ – http://hooftas.blogspot.com/ Enjoy it, he’s honest!

———

Japan is once again on the cards. I depart on Thursday. Flying with Virgin Atlantic, which is a first for me. I will be tour managing BLESSED (Formerly Blessed By A Broken Heart) who are to open the huge Loud Park festival at the Makuhari Messe Hall (much like the UK’s NEC in Birmingham).. where the band will be sharing the stage with the likes of Judas Priest, Steel Panther, Slayer and Megadeth to name a few.

I am always excited to go to Japan more than any other place. The reason for this is that its so dramatically different to life in the UK..and touring anywhere else for that matter. I love the vending machines, I love the super-fast Internet and best of all the people are some of the most hard-working, respectable and polite I have ever come in contact with.

Who knows what the back end of the year holds out. I really do want to hit New York City before Christmas.. so I’m going to make that happen.

Sionara
- Charles.

PS – Do purchase ‘The Resistance’ by MUSE.. It is phenomenal.

Filed under: Muse, On Tour, Travel

Sparks The Rescue.

I’m pretty much finished with all the end-of-tour duties I usually have.

Money, accounts, payments, equipment, press..all of that stuff has to be wrapped up to make it officially done.

The tour I just came off was the All American Rejects tour throughout the major markets of Europe – England, France, Germany, Austria…it was a very fun tour. I was Tour Managing and Driving their only support act ‘Sparks The Rescue’ – a great bunch of guys from Maine, USA. It was the band’s first time away from the USA so everything was new to them…so I also had to act as tour guide…which is always nice.

Anyhoo, the tour went very well for both acts and hopefully the guys will be back later in the year…
A tour video is currently being made by STR about the Euro tour.

I can’t wait to see that.

Filed under: Bands, On Tour

I was greeted with two huge dressing rooms

I have just realised that I haven’t updated this in quite a long time and I really should not neglect it.
There’s some things twitter can’t do – it can’t really provide depth (unless there’s a link – which would be shortened of course) and I feel that is where the role of the blog comes back into force!

—–

As you may or may not know I now work with another Chicago-based band (The last one being Madina Lake) called “The Audition”, they are really good guys and perform brilliantly live, they really should be bigger than they are but what with the music industry being so saturated nowadays its hard to piece the veil of originality.
They do this though, quite often…it is only a matter of time before these guys are on super huge tours and playing in new markets like Japan and South America, places they have never been before.

Hopefully, I will be along for the ride.
Anyway, the band recently flew in for two shows; one was in Leeds at the ‘Slam Dunk’ Festival. The show went really well and the band shared the stage with some of the biggest pop-rock-punk outfits of today. It was basically a big hang-out session for the bands as everyone knew EVERYBODY, which is great at a festival, makes it much more relaxed.

I then drove the guys down to the infamous Camden Barfly expecting the usual 2m x 3m dressing room which we all dread and love at the same time. However, I was greeted with two huge dressing rooms, wifi and leather sofas! It was like seeing the second coming of Christ, honestly.

This show was just about us, no supports, no openers, just the Audition. The band played their entire new album front-to-back and some requests..oh and they even threw in a few BLINK-182 hits which really set off the crowd.

The “tour” (two shows isn’t a tour) really seemed like a much longer string of shows, I think it was due to their super busy nature and the incredible heat the UK was experiencing that weekend. Either way, they were very fun.

——

This weekend (June 5th) I embark on a 8-show run with ‘Sparks The Rescue’…we’re direct support for the famous ‘All American Rejects’ . ‘Sparks’ have been around since 1999 (according to Wikipedia) but it’s their first time overseas. Every American is always amazed by Europe and the United Kingdom just as every British person is amazed by the USA… I expect a barrage of “Wow, whats this?” and “Woahhhh look at the size of that!” statements and questions….

It’s ok, this is when my ‘random’ knowledge of the UK/EU really comes into play.

- Charlie.

Dates:

Day Date Country City Venue Sat 06/06/2009 GERMANY BOCHUM ZECHE Sun 07/06/2009 OFF Mon 08/06/2009 ENGLAND LONDON BARFLY Tue 09/06/2009 ENGLAND LONDON ROUNDHOUSE Wed 10/06/2009 OFF Thu 11/06/2009 FRANCE PARIS LE TRABENDO Fri 12/06/2009 GERMANY MUNICH 59to1 Sat 13/06/2009 OFF Sun 14/06/2009 AUSTRIA VIENNA ARENA Mon 15/06/2009 SWITZERLAND GENEVA TIKI’S CLUB Tue 16/06/2009 GERMANY FRANKFURT BATSCHKAPP

Seeyou there!!

Filed under: Bands, On Tour