European Headliner Part Three

You know the saying better late than never? This post very well might be an exception to that rule for the following reasons:

1)    I lost my camera and all the photos on it. So I have to use whatever is on my phone and John and David’s photos.
2)    Since being home I have had more beer poured on my face than a corpse at an Irish wake and remember little to nothing about the last couple weeks in Europe.
3)    Compared to the road where all there is a van full of dudes that I don’t really want to talk to after a couple weeks, at home there is a couch and cable to distract me.
4)    I took no notes about said last couple weeks because:
5)    I am really lazy

Wiesbaden, Germany 4/27/12

I remember this place! It was an old slaughterhouse turned venue. Those rods on the ceiling are where they would hang the carcasses.  This is going to be easy.

Winterhur, Switzerland 4/28/12

I got nothing.
No! Wait!
This was one of the most scenic drives of the tour as you can tell by these amazing photos—that are still on my camera.
Balls.

Salzburg, Austria 4/29/12

 You know in America when you pull off at a truck stop and you look around and see one-legged women with a eye patch and a tattoo that says “Pussy Ain’t Cheap” crawling into the cab of a overweight man’s rig who’s got a clear plastic bag full of over the counter speed and a 132 ounce soda? Truck stops in Austria are exactly the same, except for all that instead you see this:

Same diff.

Bozen, Italy 4/30/12

Oh great, as if there wasn’t enough going against me getting this blog done, now there is a episode of Law and Order on that I’ve never seen before. One of the classic ones with Jerry Orbach. Maybe I can finish this during commercials.

Vienna, Austria 5/1/12

 Alright, where were we? Okay, so what do can I put in here? I have this picture of Bryan eating breakfast…

You can tell it’s breakfast because there is a banana in the mix.

Munich, Germany 5/2/12

This is where shit got a little hectic. In order to make it to the next show which was suppose to be in Poland we had to leave directly after this show and point it over night. Only when we came out the battery was completely fried due to someone who will remained unnamed but who is in a band that rhymes with Flack Musk leaving his phone charged into this thing the entire night:

In his defense he wasn’t the first person to do it, being the main reason the battery was torched. Those of you who know us know that we don’t take missing shows lightly. We are really sorry to all the people that traveled to see that show and we will do what we can to make it up to you down the road.

We woke up and still had a thirteen hour drive ahead of us to make it to Kiel so we put the hammer down for a while and stopped in Kassel where we were completely lucked out and stayed at the most bitchin hotel ever.

Look at this lady:

After showing us what was on the menu for the night:

 She cranked (her favorite band) Led Zeppelin for us and danced the night away. (This is where this kick-ass video of Bryan and her dancing to The Immigrant Song would go if I hadn’t lost my stupid camera)

Kiel, Germany 5/4/12

Are you kidding me, every season of The Wire is On Demand? This thing is never going to get finished.
Stare at this picture of Bryan doing the reverse Lemmy for a bit while I drop in and see how Omar and the boys are doing.

Essen, Germany, 5/5/12

(Note: I am picking this back up almost a week later due to The Wire episodes. Not Joking, That show will tear the hours straight out of a day.)

This was our last show with the Black Tusk boys and it was a rager. The show concluded with the Tuskers and all of us shotgunning beers on stage which led to John running off stage for a “bathroom break” and Athon getting so drunk that he rang out Aaron’s show shirt into a shot glass and drank it. It goes without saying that getting up at 7:00 the next morning to catch a flight was about as fun as drinking Liquid Plumber and, I’m guessing, felt about the same.

Kiev, Ukraine 5/6/12

First thing you should know about flying into/ out of Kiev is this: They do not allow battleaxes or maces on the plane. (Look middle right)

And they’ll be damned if you try to ‘Merica up the place by smuggling in a baseball. (bottom left)

Another thing you should know: If you have anymore then one bag per person you should arrive at the airport sixteen hours ahead of time. It seems that as soon as you tell the agents you have extra luggage one of those pictures that you have to unfocus your eyes and stare at forever appears on their computer screens. …Other people would show up, all of them leering at the monitor and pointing with confused looks on their faces… Then after about thirty minutes they tell you to go to the second floor of the next building over and pay someone else who, when told what you are trying to do, gets the same stereogram and the process starts over. 

Next: When you arrive in Kiev, do not expect any of those bags to be there.

We didn’t have much time in Kiev to suck in the sights, which was a bummer because from what we saw driving in, it was beautiful. John and I did go out in front of the venue and meet some people who were coming to the show. Everything was going great, we met a ton of awesome kids and some of them even brought us beers, then out of nowhere this super hammered guy walks up to us, whips out his junk and starts flapping it around. Not like he was doing it and we just happened to be standing there, but as if he was proudly doing us a favor. Smiling ear-to-ear. He then did an about-face and spread his cheeks while look over his shoulder with the same Cheshire Cat grin. His buddies came running over, tackled him and apologized over and over again. It was a relief to know that was not a normal Kiev hello.

Moscow, Russia 5/7/12

After showing up to a new custom guitar case at the airport:

It was off to the club. Luckily there was a military museum a block from the club so we got to suck in some sights before the show:

We had returned to the club to check out the gear that had been rented for the boys and do a quick soundcheck. David lucked out and got the sexiest amp.

I can tell you this about the show: It was terrifying. The fans in Moscow are the most Rabid fans on the planet. Not only were people going absolutely batshit on the floor, but they were making their way on to the stage, where they were spraying blood all over, getting their hair caught in Bryan’s tuning pegs, knocking over everything, stealing John’s sticks and Bryan’s tuning pedal, trying to hug David mid-song and taking the boys waters and beers, then chugging them on stage. It was mayhem. Totally awesome mayhem.

St. Petersburg 5/8/12

We loaded out directly onto a overnight train bound for St. Petersburg. We all had romantic ideas of watching the Russian countryside roll by as we drank vodka and were told tales of Soviet-era Russia by husky men in over-sized fur hats… But what ended up happening was we fell asleep. Almost immediately. We did wake up with enough time for John to get this instant coffee severed in Conan’s goblet.

And take a wiz in this tetanus based art project:

I guess this is where I should tell you about my mission to go retrieve the lost boxes of merch from the airlines and my ride to the airport with a driver who had a conversation with me for an hour even though he spoke no English and I spoke no Russian and how the customs agents wanted to arrest me because we had no paperwork on the boxes even though they were suppose to go to Kiev and not St. Petersburg and how they wanted my passport and I wouldn’t give it to them because the box was in John’s name and they made me sign a bunch of paperwork and without thinking I signed my own name which made them freak out even more… But I’m too lazy.

And I rather tell you about the day after the show when we got to wander around the city for a couple hours looking at amazing shit like this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

Does that count as telling you about it? Because I’m kinda going through The Wire withdrawals right now.

—Coyle

Tour To Live!

P.S.
Thanks to everyone who came to the shows, you made this tour more than we ever thought it could be.

Thanks to Black Tusk for being totally badass road-dogs and making the van share real classy.

Thanks to Adam and Yosti for driving our asses all over and not bitching about it once.

Thanks to all the clubs for all your hard work.

Thanks to all of our ladies for putting up with our non-stop touring.

And a extra special thanks to whoever invented those soup machines in all the gas stations over there. You are a god.