UK Tour Diary 1999

by Martin McCarrick

This Is Your Alarm Call (Oct 12th, 1999)

It’s our first show in a while and while we’re not rehearsed to the point of being perfect, we can at least play the songs. Or we could in rehearsal! Now, standing on stage, I don’t even recognise the infernal din that the rest of the band is making.

Andy is grinning at me like a man who should have been committed to a ‘home for the bewildered’ years ago and is pointing at the coloured stickers that adorn my keyboard (keyboard?) and at the same time yelling at me to start the song. In a state of utter confusion, I shout to our tour manager for help. He runs over and starts singing a song I’ve never heard before into my ear. I consider stage diving but am stopped by Andy who is dancing wildly to our unearthly noise.

On the verge of tears, I try to play the keyboard and am relieved to discover that rather than making sound it actually controls the stage lights. Why the fuck did nobody tell me? If people are going to make changes, they should at least let me know! Suddenly I wake up. The phone is ringing. In a panic I jump out of bed and answer it. A woman’s voice: “This is your alarm call… this is your alarm call”.

Fiddlers - Bristol, England (Oct 12th, 1999)

10am and I’m standing outside our North London rehearsal studios watching flight cases being loaded into a truck. It’s a cold autumn morning and I clutch a cup of tea for warmth. As soon as everything is loaded up we’ll climb aboard our tour bus and head off to Bristol.

Everything about me is buzzing with excitement. I sip my tea. It’s the best I’ve ever tasted. The journey to Bristol passes painlessly enough and we arrive to find we’ve got four hours to kill while the crew set up our equipment, which means ‘band shopping trip’. Michael, Graham and myself opt for a few clothing stores while Andy buys enough CD’s to fill a truck. Somehow I know that these CD’s will end up scattered about the tour bus in the days to follow.

Back at the show things are not going so well. The tour bus has an electrical problem and needs to be repaired and talking of electricity, there is none in the venue and nobody can find the electrician anywhere. Diamond Dave has a permanent look of a rabbit caught in the headlights because the new T-shirts haven’t arrived and Caroline (tour manager) is beginning to wish she’d stayed in Ireland, or in bed, or in the pub, or anywhere away from the harsh realities of being ‘ON TOUR’!

I open my first (but not last) beer of the day and do some interviews for various fanzines, during which the electrician arrives and fixes the power, the new T-shirts arrive and the look of panic on Caroline’s face softens into a slight grimace.

Rico are our opening band for this tour and they go down really well. The house is packed and we’re all looking forward to getting on stage and debuting our new ‘as yet unheard’ material. Then the power goes again. I open another beer. Then the power comes back on. The Gods are on our side tonight.

Waterfront - Norwich, England (Oct 13th, 1999)

When I wake up it’s dark and quiet on the bus. I walk into the back lounge to open the curtains. My bare feet tread on something nasty and as the light floods in I see that a bag of peanuts has exploded all over the floor many of which are now stuck to the bottom of my feet. Aah… the glamour.

Outside it’s bright and sunny and I come across Alex and Diamond Dave lurking about tonight’s venue—the Waterfront. We go to the café opposite for breakfast and talk about tour bus disasters, of which Alex has had more than his fair share. By the way, the café opposite the Waterfront does a mean egg, chips and beans. Mmmmmm!

Norwich is an old market town and today it’s in full swing. Me, Andy and Michael wander about drinking coffee and poking about second hand record shops. Do I really want Schools Out signed by Alice Cooper? Nah… not really.

Back at the venue Graham has his head buried in the music press. Soundcheck comes and goes and then there are more interviews to get on with, over the phone this time. After this I feel bored so a bunch of us decide to go the pub (purely for a change of scene you understand)! it’s a bad idea for me to drink too much before a show. More than one beer and my hands start to feel like big fat sausages. I buy a pint of Norwich Ale and sip it like a fine wine making it last as long as possible.

A few fans walk over and ask for autographs. A local guy (not a fan) asks me why Caroline keeps putting on an Irish accent. “That’s because she’s Irish”, I tell him. He’s drinking the same beer as me. Maybe I should try something else!

Whilst Rico are doing their set, I keep Diamond company at the merchandise stand. It’s great watching him do the hard sell. In fact, I’m sure he used to be an east-end market trader in a past life. The Waterfront is heaving. Back in the dressing room Fu Manchu’s new album is blasting out of the stereo. Andy is pacing up and down whilst Michael alternates between swigging beer and playing air-guitar. Graham checks his black shirt in the mirror for the hundredth time.

We walk on stage to the footballesque chants of “You fat bastard” but they are quickly drowned out by sheer volume as we start Big Cave In. The new songs go down really well again and tonight when we come to play Nowhere, Andy invites not only a guest singer from the audience but a guitarist as well. Andy hands over his guitar and the guy is damn good. Really good. So good in fact that Andy gives him the black Gibson SG as a present. Shit! And I’d had my eye on that guitar for ages! Tonight, me and Andy turn our mikes towards the audience so they can sing Screamager. They howl like Werewolves. You can’t argue with that!

Our press officer Gillian has brought some Kerrang! people with her tonight and along with a few of the audience we have ourselves a nice little soiree in the now destroyed dressing room. Diamond Dave treats us to some of his finest impressions to a soundtrack of Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden and then it’s time to go! Where? London town.

Electric Ballroom - London, England (Oct 14th, 1999)

We arrive about 11am. I live in London, so I decide to go home for a couple of hours. It actually turns out that I’m home for about ten minutes before remembering I have to do things in town before soundcheck and have to leave. I dash into Soho. It’s packed.

I decide there should be two pavements: one for people like me with long legs who walk fast, and one for the people who shuffle and zigzag their way along, getting beneath my feet and tripping me up! In fact, the same goes for airports. There should be one for people who know what to do and where to go, and another for those that panic and stand in the way with twenty pieces of luggage all over the floor. But that’s an entirely different diary… one for the future!

At the Camden Electric Ballroom, everything is hunky-dory. I have a guest list that grows every time the phone rings so I switch it off. Soundcheck is easy and it’s over almost as soon as it begins. We’ve got a great crew and they make sure everything is perfect before we start.

The Electric Ballroom isn’t exactly the most salubrious place to hang about before a show (the subterranean dressing room is one of the worst I’ve encountered), so I move out of the dark confines of backstage and out onto the dusty streets of Camden to drink coffee with a friend. Then we move on to a bar where a few more friends appear, then onto another bar with more friends including Hugo (roving reporter for the Internet) and Eunice (singer in Portuguese band Carbon H). They’ve jetted in from Portugal for the show bearing a large bottle of Port that they insist we drink after the show. Can’t argue with that.

Rico are brilliant tonight. They look really odd bunched together in the middle of the stage but the noise is immense. Backstage, people are packed like sardines into the tiny dressing room, sitting amongst the tins of beer and pre-packed sandwiches. The crew drift off to their various tasks which means that showtime is getting closer and closer.

The show goes like a dream tonight. I can see friends dotted about the audience which is always a bit odd and I try not to catch their eye. I’ll never get used to performing in front of my friends, I can’t explain it—they just know me too well. I always enjoy the show but afterwards they’re a bit of a blur. Sometimes, sitting backstage immediately after the show I feel like we’ve only played for five minutes. It’s like time slows down. There’s an aftershow party tonight. It’s great, but always difficult to be presented with about 200 people all at once.

I spend most of the night having two minute conversations with people before someone else appears to talk about something else. I’m the only one without a drink because I never manage to get as far as the bar and it takes me about half an hour to get to the toilet.

A guy comes up to me and called me a ‘Fret-wanker’, then asks me to sign his t-shirt. I don’t know whether it’s an insult or a compliment. It’s all too confusing. Let’s just say I wrote something on the back of his shirt that he won’t be showing his grandmother!

I’m just starting to relax when our manager Gerry starts rounding up the herd and telling us to get on the bus. We’ve got an overnight drive to Glasgow ahead of us so we have to leave. I never did get to drink that Port that Hugo and Eunice brought with them. Maybe next time…

That same night on the bus we dimmed the lights and watched The Blair Witch Project. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, go and see it, I’ll say no more.

The Garage - Glasgow, Scotland (Oct 15th, 1999)

Needless to say, none of us wake up too bright or too early the next day. I walk into the Glasgow Garage to the sound of a bass drum being hammered repeatedly. It’s the soundtrack to my hangover and I retire to the dressing room where Caroline makes me tea and I feel recovery beginning. Then I have a relapse.

Everyone is extremely quiet today. It feels more like a lazy Sunday afternoon. In fact my memory of Glasgow is coated with a haze as if I never quite woke up. Wrapped in my coat (it’s cold and raining) I wander out into the street and buy thick soup made of lentils. It’s about all I can handle.

I do three very strange interviews over the phone. The questions are odd and I find myself rambling on about all kinds of nonsense. Interrogation over, I slouch about the dressing room till showtime. Surprisingly, the gig is extremely energetic from four guys who are suffering. The front row is all girls and they beat the hell out of the guys who crowd surf too close. Those feisty Glasgow girls sure know how to fight!

We get a guy out of the audience to sing Nowhere. He flaps his arms about a lot and seems to be singing a totally different song to the one we’re playing. I think he may have been under the influence of mind-bending drugs and needless to say, the song fell to pieces and he fell back into the audience.

I shower, feel better. I could go straight to bed… or I could go across the road to a bar called Nice and Sleazy. Ten minutes later I’m propping up the bar of Nice and Sleazy talking with two of Michael’s sisters and Gerry. Michael’s sister, Anne-Marie is at Veterinary College so there are various mutterings of arms disappearing inside farm yard animals, etc, etc.

We head back to The Garage but it’s turned into a ‘casual clothes’ club. Not my scene, so I go back to the bus and eat pizza. By 2am I’m safe in the land of dreams.

Leadmill - Sheffield, England (Oct 16th, 1999)

During the night, I develop a cold and it greets me as I wake up. We’re outside the Leadmill in Sheffield. It’s raining and the streets are empty. Andy convinces me I’ll feel better if I eat a Pot Noodle and I believe him. Actually, he was right… I did feel better.

I go into the venue but it’s ‘bang a drum’ time so I walk into Sheffield town centre to buy some cold remedies and some vitamin C. I wander about with all the other Saturday shoppers and for some reason, feel really out of place like I have a big sign on my head that says ALIEN! I stand in the book section of Virgin and read for a bit but don’t buy anything. I find my cold cure and go back to the Leadmill getting lost on the way back of course.

Bang… Bang… Bang… Bang! I’m back at the venue. We soundcheck by playing covers of AC/DC and The Stooges, then it’s interview time. Today is the most surreal of all. I’m asked “what kind of food Therapy? are”! Never let anyone tell you that Sheffield is a dull place! Before the show, I hang out at the T-shirt stand with Dave again. It’s becoming a nightly ritual. Please ask me for free T-shirts and are disappointed when I say NO! What do they expect?

Atari Teenage Riot (German techno noise mayhem) is blasting out of the dressing room. My stage clothes that have been hanging up to dry all day are damp. What the hell, they’ll be drenched in sweat half way through the show anyway. They cling coldly to me as I pull them on.

Tonight Die Laughing is the high point, closely followed by Andy’s impression of The Blair Witch Project which entails him donning a woollen hat, shining a torch in his eyes and saying “Oh my God” repeatedly.

My cold is making my voice croak when I sing (what’s new? I hear you say) but it’s the last show for a wile and there’s plenty of time to recover. We finish the show with Potato Junkie and end it with a cacophony caused by switching every effect pedal on to maximum. It sounds like lights crashing as we leave the stage.

There’s no party tonight, even though it’s the last night of this very short tour. Everyone’s exhausted and in need of a quiet night. Graham appears on the bus with an Indian take-away and is the envy of many a hungry crew member. Me? A sociable beer and I’m off to bed.

And That Name Shall Be DADDY. Yes! (Oct 17th, 1999)

Next thing I know, Gerry is waking me up. It’s 9.30am and we’re back outside our North London rehearsal studios. The crew are unloading big silver flight cases from the truck and putting them into a secure lock-up until our next tour.

I stand on the street with a cup of tea (and a sense of déjà vu) and slowly wake up. It’s been great. Short! But still great and I can’t wait to get out to Europe and play again. But that’s a month away. Who knows what will happen in that time.

One thing’s for certain… Andrew James Cairns, our much loved, singing, guitar-welding mentalist will have a new name! And that name shall be DADDY. Yes! A new member of the Cairns clan is to be unleashed upon us sometime toward the end of this month!

BE AFRAID! BE VERY AFRAID!

Crew