WE'RE back home in Brisbane, still alive and grateful for it ... For a variety of reasons (exhaustion, illness, constant driving mainly) this blog has been neglected for the last 10 days of the tour. When I get over the worst jetlag I've ever experienced, as well as this cough that just won't leave me alone, I'll make a few more entries on the tour to round things off.
For those of you wanting more, a book documenting the tour has been commissioned by the good folk at University of Queensland Press. This I aim to complete by the end of the year, for publication in early 2013 - hopefully around the time HITS are ready to release their second album, and in anticipation of the band's second European tour. Yes, they've been invited back!
I'll also be resuming blogging on more day-to-day matters soon.
Thanks for following our adventures, and to any of you who may be reading, special thanks to all the wonderful new friends we met in France: for their generosity, hospitality, and for keeping the spirit of rock & roll alive, we love you all.
On a personal note, I'd also like to publicly thank Tamara, Richie, Gregor, Stacey and Andy for letting me be part of the whole grand adventure. I love you all, too.
Tuesday, 29 May 2012
Wednesday, 16 May 2012
Day 12 Deliverance: Lorient
LIKE Brest, Lorient was smashed to pieces during World War II. It's a seaport on the south coast of Brittany in north-west France, and a former German U-Boat base. All the allies' bombs combined couldn't penetrate the three giant reinforced concrete structures that sheltered the boats, so they reverted to plan B, destroying the city in order to cut supply lines to the base.
On Rue Florian Laport, which runs down to the docks, you'd be forgiven for thinking some parts of Lorient had never actually been rebuilt. If you're a dirty, filthy rock and roll band and you wanted to grime up your image by picturing yourself in a setting of authentic urban decay, here you will find an overload of photo opportunities: abandoned buildings, huge slag-heaps of dirt and smashed windows abound.
They have great graffiti here, though. The band photos didn't materialise, but I did get this shot of Stackers in one of those bombed-out buildings:
Appropriately, it's on this street, amid all this detritus, that you'll find the dirtiest, filthiest and best rock & roll club in France, if not all of Europe. Le Galion was once a sailor's bar and, from all accounts, a violent place; if you look hard enough you'll probably still find the odd tooth that's been knocked out of some poor seafarer's head. About six years ago it was taken over by owner Jean-Baptiste, a swarthy fellow with a taste for music as tough as the local surroundings.
The place was apparently christened with a performance by Brisbane's 6FtHick, which would have set the tone of the place from the outset. The love was reciprocal, too: large parts of a documentary about the band, Notes From The Underground, were filmed here, and my understanding is that the band's 2008 album On The Rocks was at least partially inspired by their shows at the venue.
There's a painting of a crocodile over the bar and another of the docks over the stage, augmented by images of a female rock goddess and a demon drummer. Perfect. Capacity is roughly 250. It's obvious it's going to be a big night.
Fred, who does sound at the venue, tries to explain Le Galion's history. "It's a great town. Simple people, kind people," he says. "We are near the fishing port - the industrial part of town. We are far from home. That's why we can make such big sounds. It's cool. Twenty years ago it was really dangerous; a jungle. Bad guys, drunk people. Now it's, how would you say, arty? Something changed here about five years ago - when Le Galion started putting on shows."
Hopefully, this tilt towards the arts won't infect the docks of Lorient with the virus of urban gentrification that invariably end up being the death of places like Le Galion.
WHEN HITS are in enemy territory - like, say, La Louviere, where they found themselves on a bill surrounded mostly by Ameripunk bands - they like to take the show to the audience. Stacey and Richard especially have spent almost as much time on the dance floor as on stage on this tour. At La Louviere, Richard pulled out every trick in the book - hurling himself at the mike stand, singing while collapsed in a heap on the floor, planting kisses on the ladies.
That's not going to happen here at Le Galion. The place is packed to the gills and, for the first time on tour, the audience takes the show to HITS. In other words, they go completely bonkers. It seems a large proportion of them know the band's material - we actually don't sell as much as merch as I expected, probably because the band are preaching to the choir. There's a real mosh pit, slam dancing and an almost scary level of energy.
So the band stay on stage - except for a small round podium planted just in front. It allows Rich and Tamara to put on their Bon and Angus routine to full effect: mostly, Rich stands on the podium, until it's Tam's turn to take a solo. Then he stands over near her amp. "That is something I picked up from them [AC/DC]," he admits. "You don't want to grandstand at those times. You want people to hear the solo, because it's fucking great."
After the nerves of the previous night, it feels like deliverance, a magnificent show. They look like stars and they're treated accordingly. But it's also the first time after a gig where I've seen Richard ready to retire straight away. As it is, we're up until 5am. "I was fucked," he says afterwards. "Nothing left. I usually feel that way after a show in Australia, in summer, in a heatwave.
"And it was weird. There were a lot of idiots in the crowd. You have to keep your eye on them ... If I was using a mike stand, then I'd just [mimes whacking an imaginary idiot]. But then you think, I can't worry about them."
In particular, both Tamara and Stacey are subject to a disproportionate amount of leering. One punk in the sort of spiky jacket that screams of a man who has never let go of 1977 stands dead in front of Stackers for the whole set - barely moving, just staring at her. He probably thinks he's giving her the eye, but it's crudely menacing. A few others try to lick Tamara's guitar - or maybe it's her strumming hand - when she steps forward.
Later, outside, they have to be rescued from the locals by Andy and Gregor. Marriage proposals were the least of it. "I like a bit of seduction, but these guys were touching my legs, telling me how they wanted to go down on me, like, right now," Stacey says later, shuddering. It wasn't a pleasant experience.
Truthfully, as one of two single members of the band - Andy being the other, and both have at times been, in Stacey's words, as toey as Roman sandals - I'd expected Stackers to go off and make her own fun at some point. It's not going to happen. "I'm loyal to my band," she says. "If I woke up, in a stranger's place, I wouldn't feel good about that. And if I did meet someone I like, I'd rather get in contact later and establish something that way."
Later, she exchanges details with Fred, the sound guy "with such a beautiful smile".
THERE'S a gig in a beautiful town called Lannion the next night - the day Sarkozy is defeated. Richie dedicates a rare performance of The End to him. Then we've got a day off. We drive seven hours to Clermont-Ferrand before making for Lyon, in the south. The final, brutal stage of the tour is approaching. There are 11 shows to go. In a row.
"I can't comprehend 11 in a row," Richie says over a subdued dinner near the Formula One hotel on the outskirts of town. "It makes me feel a bit ill."
"We're just gonna have to put ourselves to bed early," Tamara says hopefully. "It's not gonna be 11 parties in a row ... We've had such an awesome time. I suspect the awesome times are about to diminish."
On Rue Florian Laport, which runs down to the docks, you'd be forgiven for thinking some parts of Lorient had never actually been rebuilt. If you're a dirty, filthy rock and roll band and you wanted to grime up your image by picturing yourself in a setting of authentic urban decay, here you will find an overload of photo opportunities: abandoned buildings, huge slag-heaps of dirt and smashed windows abound.
They have great graffiti here, though. The band photos didn't materialise, but I did get this shot of Stackers in one of those bombed-out buildings:
Appropriately, it's on this street, amid all this detritus, that you'll find the dirtiest, filthiest and best rock & roll club in France, if not all of Europe. Le Galion was once a sailor's bar and, from all accounts, a violent place; if you look hard enough you'll probably still find the odd tooth that's been knocked out of some poor seafarer's head. About six years ago it was taken over by owner Jean-Baptiste, a swarthy fellow with a taste for music as tough as the local surroundings.
The place was apparently christened with a performance by Brisbane's 6FtHick, which would have set the tone of the place from the outset. The love was reciprocal, too: large parts of a documentary about the band, Notes From The Underground, were filmed here, and my understanding is that the band's 2008 album On The Rocks was at least partially inspired by their shows at the venue.
There's a painting of a crocodile over the bar and another of the docks over the stage, augmented by images of a female rock goddess and a demon drummer. Perfect. Capacity is roughly 250. It's obvious it's going to be a big night.
Fred, who does sound at the venue, tries to explain Le Galion's history. "It's a great town. Simple people, kind people," he says. "We are near the fishing port - the industrial part of town. We are far from home. That's why we can make such big sounds. It's cool. Twenty years ago it was really dangerous; a jungle. Bad guys, drunk people. Now it's, how would you say, arty? Something changed here about five years ago - when Le Galion started putting on shows."
Hopefully, this tilt towards the arts won't infect the docks of Lorient with the virus of urban gentrification that invariably end up being the death of places like Le Galion.
WHEN HITS are in enemy territory - like, say, La Louviere, where they found themselves on a bill surrounded mostly by Ameripunk bands - they like to take the show to the audience. Stacey and Richard especially have spent almost as much time on the dance floor as on stage on this tour. At La Louviere, Richard pulled out every trick in the book - hurling himself at the mike stand, singing while collapsed in a heap on the floor, planting kisses on the ladies.
That's not going to happen here at Le Galion. The place is packed to the gills and, for the first time on tour, the audience takes the show to HITS. In other words, they go completely bonkers. It seems a large proportion of them know the band's material - we actually don't sell as much as merch as I expected, probably because the band are preaching to the choir. There's a real mosh pit, slam dancing and an almost scary level of energy.
So the band stay on stage - except for a small round podium planted just in front. It allows Rich and Tamara to put on their Bon and Angus routine to full effect: mostly, Rich stands on the podium, until it's Tam's turn to take a solo. Then he stands over near her amp. "That is something I picked up from them [AC/DC]," he admits. "You don't want to grandstand at those times. You want people to hear the solo, because it's fucking great."
After the nerves of the previous night, it feels like deliverance, a magnificent show. They look like stars and they're treated accordingly. But it's also the first time after a gig where I've seen Richard ready to retire straight away. As it is, we're up until 5am. "I was fucked," he says afterwards. "Nothing left. I usually feel that way after a show in Australia, in summer, in a heatwave.
"And it was weird. There were a lot of idiots in the crowd. You have to keep your eye on them ... If I was using a mike stand, then I'd just [mimes whacking an imaginary idiot]. But then you think, I can't worry about them."
In particular, both Tamara and Stacey are subject to a disproportionate amount of leering. One punk in the sort of spiky jacket that screams of a man who has never let go of 1977 stands dead in front of Stackers for the whole set - barely moving, just staring at her. He probably thinks he's giving her the eye, but it's crudely menacing. A few others try to lick Tamara's guitar - or maybe it's her strumming hand - when she steps forward.
Later, outside, they have to be rescued from the locals by Andy and Gregor. Marriage proposals were the least of it. "I like a bit of seduction, but these guys were touching my legs, telling me how they wanted to go down on me, like, right now," Stacey says later, shuddering. It wasn't a pleasant experience.
Truthfully, as one of two single members of the band - Andy being the other, and both have at times been, in Stacey's words, as toey as Roman sandals - I'd expected Stackers to go off and make her own fun at some point. It's not going to happen. "I'm loyal to my band," she says. "If I woke up, in a stranger's place, I wouldn't feel good about that. And if I did meet someone I like, I'd rather get in contact later and establish something that way."
Later, she exchanges details with Fred, the sound guy "with such a beautiful smile".
THERE'S a gig in a beautiful town called Lannion the next night - the day Sarkozy is defeated. Richie dedicates a rare performance of The End to him. Then we've got a day off. We drive seven hours to Clermont-Ferrand before making for Lyon, in the south. The final, brutal stage of the tour is approaching. There are 11 shows to go. In a row.
"I can't comprehend 11 in a row," Richie says over a subdued dinner near the Formula One hotel on the outskirts of town. "It makes me feel a bit ill."
"We're just gonna have to put ourselves to bed early," Tamara says hopefully. "It's not gonna be 11 parties in a row ... We've had such an awesome time. I suspect the awesome times are about to diminish."
Thursday, 10 May 2012
Day 11 The Fear: Brest
BREST is a naval port on the
north-west coast of France which was largely rebuilt after being blown to bits by the
British in World War II. It’s cold and wet. Apparently it rains about 200 days
a year here. I’m tempted to use that for an explanation for the depressed-looking nature of the place, but that would have a lot more to do with
prevailing economic conditions.
It’s two days before the general
election, and times are tough. The population is waiting for Sarkozy like Australians
once famously waited for Paul Keating: with baseball bats. “Under Sarkozy, one
million out of work,” one sad-looking fellow tells me, baulking at the prices
on our merchandise. “When your tour over, we will have new president.”
The band’s just played another
crazed show in a beautiful room under a hotel called La Vauban. Pity there
weren’t many more than 30 or 40 there to see it, in a room that you could
comfortably fit 300 into, thanks to a band competition across town that sucked
away most of the town’s eligible punters for the night.
Most of the audience were fellow
musicians: the guys from Head On, fronted by Beast Records’ inimitable Seb, and
Ultra Bullitt, whose singer/bass player extraordinaire Erwen La Roux has put on
tonight’s show. He’s printed 5000 flyers, 500 posters, and lost money, but he
doesn’t care. “Je ne regrette rien,” he says. (The videos added below were filmed, I think for French television.)
Ben Salter – who’s been in our van since Paris – opened, mostly thanks to the generosity of everyone else who slotted him in to play at the last minute, after Andy B’s promise that “his voice will bring them in off the street”.
“Yeah, to complain,” quips Ben.
Of course, Ben has the sort of
voice that will stop a room, and that once routinely stopped passing traffic
during his busking days on the Queen Street Mall in Brisbane. There’s barely a
paying punter in the room but everyone else watches, transfixed. He does a set
of his own songs – mostly from his last solo release The Cat – before finishing with covers of the Stooges’ Gimme Danger
and the Velvet Underground’s I’m Set Free, adding a diehard rock and roller’s
edge to his own songs.
It feels like a very good
audition for his overseas sojourn, which he’s doing out of a small suitcase.
Have guitar; will travel. Ben’s dad is a Vietnam veteran, and once, marching in
an Anzac Day parade with him, he found himself explaining to some his dad’s
fellow diggers that he was a musician. He saw them screwing up their faces,
trying to understand his choice of vocation; to comprehend the different ways
you can measure success.
“Why don’t you go on Australian Idol?” one eventually
offered, genuinely trying to be helpful.
Ben tried in vain to explain,
politely, how such a move would fly in the face of everything he was about as
an artist. Andy nods. “It’s like wanting to be a Formula One driver and someone
telling you that you should settle for driving taxis.”
Some things can’t be rationally
explained. Most of the creative people I know – writers, musicians, visual
artists – do what they do because they love it and because, more crucially,
they have to; something inside them is fighting to be released. And sometimes
you need to feel the love of a new audience to know what you’re doing connects
with people other than your friends in your own little corner of the world.
Ben’s made some fine albums, but
I have a feeling this trip will be the real making of him.
THE cold, the rain and the
constant balm of alcohol are catching up with me. I haven’t been able to wash
any clothes – it feels like it’d be easier to find crack than a Laundromat –
and all I want in the world are dry shoes and socks.
Ben had already noted my decline
the previous day. “You look like you’ve got The Fear, Staffo,” he’d said. Well,
it wasn’t quite that bad, but I was starting to sail close to the edge, even if
I didn’t understand quite what he meant at the time. “It’s just generalised
anxiety, existential dread,” he explained when I asked him later. “Everyone on
tour gets it at some point. It’s the drinking that does it.”
Gregor appeared at that point,
having slipped off on his own to find a kip, eventually settling for a park
bench, or it might have been someone’s front yard. Ben quickly makes an
exception.
“See, the fear bounces off the
Maori,” Ben says. “It just ricochets, like ping-pong balls off a
Centurion tank.”
I try to deal with The Fear in
Brest by having an alcohol-free day, something that usually wouldn’t be a
problem for someone who can happily not drink for a couple of weeks, but isn't so easy when you spend all day surrounded by pissheads and the grog,
including beautiful French wine, is free.
“Are we making it harder for you
by drinking?” Stacey asks, as she catches me gazing longingly at her glass of
red before grabbing another bottle of water. Richie, at this point, is
clutching a cigarette in one set of fingers, a joint in the other and clasping
a beer in between.
“No,” I say desperately. “I’m
making it harder for myself by continuing to drink and I need a night off. It’s
just the hanging around in bars that kills me.”
My old friend Simon McKenzie –
who gave me my start in music writing nearly 20 years ago when he was editing
Brisbane’s free street weekly Time Off
– has also joined us from Oslo, where he now edits an oil and gas industry
bible. He remembers a journalist who, around the mid-1990s, had asked Charlie
Watts how it felt to have been in the Rolling Stones for 30 years.
Watts’ reply was as laconic as
his approach to playing drums. “It doesn’t feel like 30 years,” he replied.
“More like five years of actually being in a band. The other 25 years was spent
waiting. Just fucking around.”
AFTER all that fucking around,
the show was a blinder. HITS are leaping from peak to peak, scaling heights I
didn’t know they were capable of. The band threw every shape in the book –
Richie hurling himself bodily at the mike stand, Iggy Pop style, before tossing
it away – and that was before the gig even begun.
Later he’s climbing up the lighting scaffolding at the side of the stage while Stackers kneels before her amplifier as if it were an altar during Bitter And Twisted, drawing wails of anguish from its electronic entrails. She repeats the trick during Lost In The Somme, which finally came out the night before in Rennes. It worked, big time, and now it’s here to stay.
The band can’t refuse encores by now and the show stopper, again, is Shadowplay, the Joy Division classic that draws cries of recognition from the audience from its opening rumble of bass.
But it’s just a warm-up for the
next night, in Lorient. After the show, Richie is unusually subdued, but
focused. “Tomorrow night is probably the most important night of the tour,” he
says, adding meaningfully, “So if you could just bear that in mind as you could
go through your day…”
“No,” Stacey replies nervously. “I don’t want to
bear that in mind at all.”
Sunday, 6 May 2012
Day 9 Big Black Car: Paris
LA MECANIQUE Ondulatoire feels a bit like a railway tunnel: a curved brick room under a funky little bar, tucked away in the narrowest of side streets off Rue de la Roquette, in the Bastille. And the light at the end of the tunnel, ready to crush anyone stupid enough to get in the way, is HITS. It's their fifth show in six days - a lot, for a band that's never done more than three on the trot - and the band is cooking.
It's a Wednesday night, but we're in Paris, and so relieved and astounded just to be here that it might as well be New Year's Eve as far as we're concerned. Upon pulling up at the venue, we're met by fellow Brisbane emigre Ben Salter, who's over here for at least the next five months, living off a songwriter's grant and building a new fan base in Europe. He greets us like lost friends, which I guess we are, in a way. All of our eyes feel like saucers.
We'd left La Louviere in Belgium in the morning, crossed the French border to the east and made something like a five-hour drive to Caen, the extraordinarily beautiful capital of Lower Normandy, much of it built in the 11th century during the reign of William the Conquerer (also known as William the Bastard, due to his lineage as the illegitimate son of the unmarried son of Robert the Magnificent and Herleva. Names were more stylish among the nobility in medieval times.)
We'd been packed into a seven-seater Peugeot that was far too small for a travelling band. Andy B, my navigator for our journey, was buried with my overweight pack on his lap and Gregor's snare drum on top of that, with his own backpack wedged between his legs. Tamara's prized Mosrite was perched on the three fold-out trays that opened out from the back of the front seats. Stackers, as the smallest member of the band, was packed away in the back seat so tightly that she had to lever herself over the middle seats occupied by Tamara, Richie and Gregor.
Somehow they'd put up with this absurd state of affairs for the previous three days without getting deep vein thrombosis. Being the driver, I had the best seat in the house. Then again, I couldn't see the side mirror on my right hand side or anything else through the main rear view, and here I was driving on the other side of the road in Europe for the first time. This was not a situation without peril. At one point, after taking a wrong turnoff, I took a turn to get us back onto the highway - and looked the wrong way. We were nearly cleaned up by an oncoming truck. Our suddenly even smellier van proceeded on, and I learned an important lesson.
I was fatigued, to be truthful. We'd driven from Lille to Venlo in the Netherlands for an afternoon show at the Queensday Festival two days before, then proceeded south to La Louviere through a thunderstorm for the following night's show - a unhinged affair with an Ameripunk/Celtic edge to most of the acts. The headliners, Crazy Arm, were like Fugazi (their last song was a cover of Waiting Room) crossed with Dropkick Murphys. Everything about them, right down to their merch desk, was professional and tight and mistake-free. They watched HITS' set with their jaws hanging open, and might or might not have liked it; I'm not really sure.
There's a lot more to tell about La Louviere, which I'll have to leave for now, except to say there's an old legend of a mother wolf nursing a child here, and the town was originally called Menaulu, which translates roughly as "Wolf's Lair". It seemed appropriate, given a stylised big bad wolf now appears on the band's T-shirts. The band's moved from dogs to wolves. The Gods of Rock seem to be smiling on us.
We also crossed the Somme River, where Richie lost his great-grandfather in the infamous World War One battle, a meat-grinder with nearly 60,000 British casualties on the first day. It's the subject of one of HITS' greatest, albeit as yet unreleased songs, but as yet they haven't played it on tour. Richie seems uncertain how it will go down here.
We finally made it in one piece to Caen. It was here that we dropped the remarkably unscratched Peugeot ("Everything is perfect," said the young lady at Europcar, to my amazement) and met Stephane Lamaziere, from Turborock records. He arrived in a big black car, the beast that would be our chariot for the rest of our odyssey. Appropriate, too, for Turborock will soon be releasing the HITS song Big Black Car on Turborock.
And truly, it is enormous - I promise I will try to post some pics soon. A nine-seater monster with an extra cabin at the back for gear and luggage. A real tour bus. But not so good for driving through the alleyways of Paris, especially when you don't have a GPS.
Again, it was Stackers who got us out of trouble - at least, it was her iPhone that got us to our destination, at the cost of a mofo of a global roaming bill. Mind you, it didn't save us from nearly taking our 2.85 metre tall vehicle through a tunnel with a clearance of 2.7 metres. That brought to mind memories of Scott "Rock Action" Asheton, who nearly scalped the Stooges when he drove their bus under a low-clearance bridge.
That was close, let me tell you. Half the band was screaming at me to proceed; I was screaming back that it wasn't going to happen if they valued their melons, and somehow I managed to scrape into a narrow gap in traffic at the last minute that got me out of a lane that would have trapped us on our meeting with oblivion. Yikes.
By then we'd already been stuck in Parisian traffic for an hour, which is sort of like Sydney on steroids. Oohs and aahs at the Eiffel Tower and the Pont Alexandre III bridge along the Champs-Elysees. ("No fucking way," said Richie quietly as we passed that one.) Finally we made it to the Bastille, to La Mecanique, and faced the final challenge: parking our monster truck. Thankfully Eric Pouille, from French band The Holy Curse, was also waiting outside the venue and came to our rescue. Two parking tickets on the vehicle the next day was a small price to pay.
A triumph. I'm exhausted. I suck down one of Richie's Marlboros, and I've barely had a cigarette in my life. My throat's felt like broken glass ever since.
There's about 40 people in the venue and they're primed. We're among friends here. Dimi Dero Inc., who toured with HITS through Australia in 2010, are all here. The band play Sometimes, which the Holy Curse cover in their live sets, and Eric and Vinz get up on stage to sing the band's most anthemic song. The audience is singing along. It feels like the band's really arrived, and not just in Paris. Richie has a look on his face I'm not sure I've ever seen before. It's exultant, ecstatic. He's finally where he belongs.
Later, when I'm selling merch upstairs, someone tips a beer keg onto my left foot. I howl in pain. Ice is summonsed. "It was all flashing through my mind right then," Richie said later. "Like, OK, we've got to take Andrew to hospital. He's gonna have a cast on his foot. Who's gonna drive?" But it's OK. I've got a nice purple bruise coming up across the side of my instep and the bridge of my big toe. But it still wiggles, I can still dance, still hit the clutch, and the Big Black Car rolls on.
It's a Wednesday night, but we're in Paris, and so relieved and astounded just to be here that it might as well be New Year's Eve as far as we're concerned. Upon pulling up at the venue, we're met by fellow Brisbane emigre Ben Salter, who's over here for at least the next five months, living off a songwriter's grant and building a new fan base in Europe. He greets us like lost friends, which I guess we are, in a way. All of our eyes feel like saucers.
We'd left La Louviere in Belgium in the morning, crossed the French border to the east and made something like a five-hour drive to Caen, the extraordinarily beautiful capital of Lower Normandy, much of it built in the 11th century during the reign of William the Conquerer (also known as William the Bastard, due to his lineage as the illegitimate son of the unmarried son of Robert the Magnificent and Herleva. Names were more stylish among the nobility in medieval times.)
We'd been packed into a seven-seater Peugeot that was far too small for a travelling band. Andy B, my navigator for our journey, was buried with my overweight pack on his lap and Gregor's snare drum on top of that, with his own backpack wedged between his legs. Tamara's prized Mosrite was perched on the three fold-out trays that opened out from the back of the front seats. Stackers, as the smallest member of the band, was packed away in the back seat so tightly that she had to lever herself over the middle seats occupied by Tamara, Richie and Gregor.
Somehow they'd put up with this absurd state of affairs for the previous three days without getting deep vein thrombosis. Being the driver, I had the best seat in the house. Then again, I couldn't see the side mirror on my right hand side or anything else through the main rear view, and here I was driving on the other side of the road in Europe for the first time. This was not a situation without peril. At one point, after taking a wrong turnoff, I took a turn to get us back onto the highway - and looked the wrong way. We were nearly cleaned up by an oncoming truck. Our suddenly even smellier van proceeded on, and I learned an important lesson.
I was fatigued, to be truthful. We'd driven from Lille to Venlo in the Netherlands for an afternoon show at the Queensday Festival two days before, then proceeded south to La Louviere through a thunderstorm for the following night's show - a unhinged affair with an Ameripunk/Celtic edge to most of the acts. The headliners, Crazy Arm, were like Fugazi (their last song was a cover of Waiting Room) crossed with Dropkick Murphys. Everything about them, right down to their merch desk, was professional and tight and mistake-free. They watched HITS' set with their jaws hanging open, and might or might not have liked it; I'm not really sure.
There's a lot more to tell about La Louviere, which I'll have to leave for now, except to say there's an old legend of a mother wolf nursing a child here, and the town was originally called Menaulu, which translates roughly as "Wolf's Lair". It seemed appropriate, given a stylised big bad wolf now appears on the band's T-shirts. The band's moved from dogs to wolves. The Gods of Rock seem to be smiling on us.
We also crossed the Somme River, where Richie lost his great-grandfather in the infamous World War One battle, a meat-grinder with nearly 60,000 British casualties on the first day. It's the subject of one of HITS' greatest, albeit as yet unreleased songs, but as yet they haven't played it on tour. Richie seems uncertain how it will go down here.
We finally made it in one piece to Caen. It was here that we dropped the remarkably unscratched Peugeot ("Everything is perfect," said the young lady at Europcar, to my amazement) and met Stephane Lamaziere, from Turborock records. He arrived in a big black car, the beast that would be our chariot for the rest of our odyssey. Appropriate, too, for Turborock will soon be releasing the HITS song Big Black Car on Turborock.
And truly, it is enormous - I promise I will try to post some pics soon. A nine-seater monster with an extra cabin at the back for gear and luggage. A real tour bus. But not so good for driving through the alleyways of Paris, especially when you don't have a GPS.
Again, it was Stackers who got us out of trouble - at least, it was her iPhone that got us to our destination, at the cost of a mofo of a global roaming bill. Mind you, it didn't save us from nearly taking our 2.85 metre tall vehicle through a tunnel with a clearance of 2.7 metres. That brought to mind memories of Scott "Rock Action" Asheton, who nearly scalped the Stooges when he drove their bus under a low-clearance bridge.
That was close, let me tell you. Half the band was screaming at me to proceed; I was screaming back that it wasn't going to happen if they valued their melons, and somehow I managed to scrape into a narrow gap in traffic at the last minute that got me out of a lane that would have trapped us on our meeting with oblivion. Yikes.
By then we'd already been stuck in Parisian traffic for an hour, which is sort of like Sydney on steroids. Oohs and aahs at the Eiffel Tower and the Pont Alexandre III bridge along the Champs-Elysees. ("No fucking way," said Richie quietly as we passed that one.) Finally we made it to the Bastille, to La Mecanique, and faced the final challenge: parking our monster truck. Thankfully Eric Pouille, from French band The Holy Curse, was also waiting outside the venue and came to our rescue. Two parking tickets on the vehicle the next day was a small price to pay.
A triumph. I'm exhausted. I suck down one of Richie's Marlboros, and I've barely had a cigarette in my life. My throat's felt like broken glass ever since.
There's about 40 people in the venue and they're primed. We're among friends here. Dimi Dero Inc., who toured with HITS through Australia in 2010, are all here. The band play Sometimes, which the Holy Curse cover in their live sets, and Eric and Vinz get up on stage to sing the band's most anthemic song. The audience is singing along. It feels like the band's really arrived, and not just in Paris. Richie has a look on his face I'm not sure I've ever seen before. It's exultant, ecstatic. He's finally where he belongs.
Later, when I'm selling merch upstairs, someone tips a beer keg onto my left foot. I howl in pain. Ice is summonsed. "It was all flashing through my mind right then," Richie said later. "Like, OK, we've got to take Andrew to hospital. He's gonna have a cast on his foot. Who's gonna drive?" But it's OK. I've got a nice purple bruise coming up across the side of my instep and the bridge of my big toe. But it still wiggles, I can still dance, still hit the clutch, and the Big Black Car rolls on.
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