The Drive, 28/04/2011 Guineafowl
As there are six of us travelling around the country, flying is never really an option. We also tend to enjoy playing our own amps, instruments and equipment so hiring a big van is a must. We decided to drive up to Brisbane a day early, that way we would be able to take the drive slowly, and rest up to play an energised show in Toowoomba the next night. The problem with giving ourselves a day to drive to Brisbane is we took it a little too easy in the morning (Imi wanted a Mocha from her favourite coffee house) and did not end up getting out of Sydney till about 11.am.
This would not have been so bad if the upper half of New South Wales wasn’t being slammed with rain. So there we are, driving down one of the most dangerous parts of highway in the country (Between Byron and Brisbane which is not duel carriageway), driving in the dark, with near torrential rain hammering our van. So, what do we do to feel safer? Start listening to Live Blink 182, and sing the words to almost every song at the top of our lungs. And eventually as Blink 182 once said, “the dream was over, we’d survived”.
The Spotted Cow, 29/04/2011 – Ball Park Music
This weekend saw us back home in Queensland which due to recent events will one day be called Katemiddletonland. We drove out to Toowoomba which is approximately 126 km and a 1 hour 39 minute drive from Brisbane (According to Google Maps). After driving for 1 hour and exactly 39 minutes we arrived at our favourite pub in all of Australia (based on a comparison of around 47 pubs that we have collectively been to) The Spotted Cow. We love this place because every time we come here the Toowoomba-women and the Toowoomba-men show us a hell of a time, and by hell of a time I don’t mean the place regarded in various religions as a spiritual realm of evil and suffering. I mean Toowoombans are awesome.
The show was great with a young bunch of musicians called Ethelred opening the show and reminding us of the time when we couldn’t grow beards (mind you 3/4 of them are girls). They were great and kicked off the show really well with the support of some local punters. Up next Guineafowl jumped up on the stage and then did some more jumping up and down on the stage. Its a real shame they didn’t cover “Jump” by Van Halen. Once again they blew our minds. We then proceeded to take the stage, turned our amps up to about 17 and played probably the loudest set that we have ever played in our lives. It was so loud it made some of Paul’s shirts look tame. By the end of the set Sam was seen violently crowd surfing to the back of the room and we haven’t seen him since… that’s a lie, the Toowoomba-men and Toowoomba-women were very gentle with him and made sure he was safe.
After the gig we jumped in four different cars and raced back to Brisbane which prematurely finished when 2 of the 4 cars took a short cut through the Macdonald’s drive through. Our ears were ringing and our smiles were huge as we arrived back in Brisbane and had a nice sleep in preparation for the next night at The Beetle Bar in our home town which you can read about below…
The Spotted Cow, 29/04/2011 – Guineafowl
We stayed at a friends place is Brisbane and therefore had the day off before we were to head to Toowoomba to play with Ball Park Music at the Spotted Cow Hotel. I decided to go and get a haircut at a place that had been recommended to me by some locals whilst the rest of the band kicked it in the Valley. I usually don’t like being too detailed on what I want for a haircut and just let the hairdresser do what they think will look best. Risky, I know, but it usually works out for the best. In this case I ended up with a cut on the trendier side of things, but the band assure me it looks ok.
At about four we took off for Toowoomba. Lochie was a little worried my new haircut would draw unwanted attention from older, less liberal locals, so I wore red jeans to divert attention. We visited the Spotted Cow and saw that the stage was still being set up, so decided to go find our Hotel which was conveniently located a few hundred metres from where we were playing.
Now, we are no prima donnas. Everyone in the band has travelled overseas, stayed in dire cheap hostels in the Eastern European countries and accept that sometimes you just stay in a dodgy place. But I am not lying when I say that the hotel we stayed in, named the Metropole, could have doubled as a torture room in Saw 4. It made that dodgy European Hostel, where you were bunking with a bed wetting German named Hans who stole your Ipod, look like Club Med (Does that place still exist?). We had three rooms, with two of us staying in each. Two rooms were upstairs above the pub and one was downstairs in a basement like area with a window to the alley beside the pub. We met one of the residents of the pub (When Nick accidently slammed the door) who bore an uncanny resemblance to Gollum from Lord Of The Rings.
Despite the conditions we all found it pretty funny and went back to the Spotted Cow where the Mum of the bar owner had made us and Ball Park Music spaghetti Bolognese for dinner!! Immediately the night got better. The show was great, Ball Park’s lead singer Sam crowd surfed and Pete, the manager of the bar supplied us with a generous rider and kept the alcohol flowing all night. Imi hit the bourbons, Lochie hit whatever he could get his hands on and Nick our drummer was given a lot of attention by two middle aged divorcees, one of whose husbands, we found out was in prison.
After the bar had closed the staff stuck around and we were treated to an impromptu staffies, where it was revealed to the Spotted Cow staff where we were staying. To describe their reactions as shock, would be an understatement. Even the massive, tattooed bouncer who could easily bench press the entire band said, and I quote “I would never ever EVER go into that place”. The staff took pity on us and supplied us with more booze so we would all be able to sleep through the night.
We all left Toowoomba the next day, feeling very sorry for ourselves, especially for Lochie, who we’re pretty sure that had slept next to someone’s discarded bodily fluids.
Beetle Bar, 30/04/2011 – Ball Park Music
So its Saturday night and we rolled into The Beetle Bar and dropped off our equipment that, in its entirety could fill a semi trailer. Jen went off to a party and the rest of DA BOIZ went down to Caxton street and enjoyed a nice thai meal. The food was cooked really nicely with all sorts of fruits and vegetables mixed in with meats and sauces with a tiny bit of noodles and some peanuts, amongst other things. We then walked back to the venue where a nice man with plenty of tattoos, who was also wearing a hat in the middle of the night shook my hand and told me that I had a nice comb over. I really wanted to reply and tell him that his tough stickers looked great and that it was really nice to see him protecting his face from moon burn, but the only thing that crossed my mind at that moment was… “Dude you’re a dick head”.
So we arrived back at the venue and watched Mosman Alder perform and they were awesome. These guys are flying the flag for the next wave of epic Brisbane music. Guineafowl were on next and gave away a stupidly big can of Monster energy drink as a prize for the best audience dancer. I wanted to stop them and inform them that the street value of that can could almost buy them dinner for a week but alas, I was too late and the crowd took the can and shared it around. Im pretty sure the last person to drink from that can got the sloppy 37th’s.
At around 10:30 it was our turn to play some songs to the audience, we made our way down stairs and plugged in our instruments. Dan has heaps of trouble plugging in his drum kit and then realised he didn’t have to!! Silly Dan. By this time we were ready to go and the crowd were getting antsy, so we smashed out a bunch of our songs and they couldn’t get enough. The crowd danced like there was no tomorrow and they all had face like this.. 😀 Every time we play in Brisbane the crowds get better and better and this was no exception so thanks Brisbane! We F.L.Y.
After the set I went outside and there was egg splattered all over my car, I thought to myself, “that poor bird… must have dropped her egg and it landed on my car. How inconvenient?” What a bloody ripper weekend.
Beetle Bar, 30/04/2011 – Guineafowl
Our Brisbane show came very quickly after we spent the day trying to rid ourselves of our roaring hangovers (Just on a side note, we are not normally a rowdy band so having the majority of us feeling sorry for ourselves is a rare experience). We were playing at a venue that most Brisbanians wouldn’t have been to. The Beetle Bar is attached to a Back Packer’s hostel on the outskirts of Brisbane’s CBD. But the venue was excellent and all of our throbbing heads perked up when a bucket of alcohol was delivered to us, including two redonkculously big Monster energy drink cans. When we started to perform, I decided to give the sheepish crowd an incentive to dance by handing out one of the redonkculously big Monster cans. It worked and the gig went off. The highlights of the evening were the empty can being handed back to me at the end of the show and the loud NWA we played when we were driving back to our accommodation in the Valley.
The final leg of the Super Commuter tour is up next- watch out Melbourne, Ballarat and Adelaide- the ‘fowl is coming!!!
In the meantime enjoy the photos, especially the ones from our Toowoomba accommodation….
Thursday May 5, The Toff, Melbourne VIC
Friday May 6, Karova Lounge, Ballarat VIC
Saturday May 7, Plus One, Ed Castle, Adelaide SA
Ball Park Music and Guineafowl Super Commuter Tour Diary part one
