Alex Band UK

BRAZIL TOUR 2008 Part 2:

June 22nd.

It was hard to get out of bed….very hard. I wasn’t feeling so great. I packed up and went down to the hotel restaurant to get some food before we left. Literally the first bite of food swallowed and my stomach g src=”was like “noooo, I hate you”. GOD DAMN SALAD last night! I had some sort of stomach flu, that was for sure. And for crazy childhood/brain reasons unknown, that’s my trigger for anxiety and panic attacks which I’ve dealt with all my life unfortunately. Anyone know what I’m talking about? Sucks balls, I’ll tell you that. Anyway, I was fucked up. I downed some pills and got on the bus and tried to zone out. Luckily today was an off day and luckily this was a short drive to Sao Paulo, cause the bus just happened to be very ripe smelling this fine morning, VERY ripe smelling indeed. I wonder if the driver spends some quality time peeing on each seat just to get the correct aroma wafting around the cabin? Sure seemed like it, though I was extra sensitive at the moment. We checked in to our Sao Paulo hotel and rested a bit. Poker was in session later that night and I sat in for a while, drinking tea and hoping to feel better tomorrow. I actually won for a change, which was nice…maybe cause I was so screwed up no one could tell what cards I had? Or maybe cause I had wrapped my scarf around my head so you couldn’t see my poker face? Hmmmmm….

After poker, I got in bed and ended up watching Ashley Judd’s “Double Jeopardy” in Portuguese while I drifted off to sleep…she’s hot when she’s angry. Tomorrow was an important press day…

June 23rd.

We woke up and left for radio and MTV. The radio station had us do multiple interviews in different studios…I walked around aimlessly, not quite sure what was going on, but I was doing it. We headed over to MTV where we did a bunch of small TV shows which all were taped in the same office space. I noticed a Brazilian singer in the room with us for a moment that I had seen on TV one of the nights before. An artist named “Pitty” who I guess is really popular in Brazil. I did like her music, I think. After the strange office space multi-show experience, we made our way into a real studio with two VJ’s, one of which was a stunningly beautiful woman. Arms and I did a little interview with them and then we premiered the “Only One” video. It was cool to see a video that I funded and Jethro filmed in MY own house, being played so far from home. I have spent 10 years being signed to different labels and NOTHING happens this easily or fluently, especially a video shoot. There were always mass amounts of money, time and arguments spent on something like a video…sometimes the end product never even seeing the light of day. Now it’s like, “Hey let’s make this EP…Hey, let’s shoot a video for one of the songs…Hey, let’s go on tour in Brazil and release that song and video there”. And then poof, here I am watching the video on a television inside MTV Brazil while on tour here. I know it all seems logical and this is how it should work, but let me tell you, NOTHING worked like that until now. Now I’m free.

We left MTV studios and headed back to the hotel. We needed to get some serious rest since tomorrow started the 6-shows-in-a-row leg of the tour. I’ve only played 6 shows in a row once or twice before and I don’t remember being too fond of it. And now I was ill and already exhausted, and that stressed me out even more. But the excitement of being here, and of the upcoming shows and what they would bring was strong enough to outweigh pretty much any negative feeling…even if it’s a creature deep inside your gut. Goodnight.

June 24th.

“Up and at em’.” That’s what my Mom used to say when I was a kid and it was time to wake up. “Up and at em’!” Really a truly horrible saying…the last possible thing I want to hear when I first open my eyes. But somehow I still hear it in the back of my mind…and it gets me up. Today was the most important day of the tour, and Jethro’s busiest. We hired a local production company to professionally film the show tonight for our live DVD. Although Jethro had been and continued to film this whole tour, we needed one show to be a multiple camera event; cranes and dollies and the whole nine yards. We thought Sao Paulo was the right city to do this in.

I had to do morning radio before going to the venue. We did this same crazy radio show we did years ago with a bunch of loud nutty people all yapping on air at once. This one guy I remembered in particular cause he was kissing my head or something last time I was there. And sure enough, this time he went over and tried to kiss Arms! It was awesome. Arms wasn’t having it though and hid under the studio desk. I was kind of in a fog and not feeling that great still and was concerned about the major event tonight…it was occupying most of my brainpower, yet this was some funny shit.

We survived the mad hatter’s tea party and headed over to the venue. It was already looking great with our stage setup all good to go and cameras everywhere. Jethro was running around like a chicken with its head cut off…I can only imagine everything he was trying to coordinate. He had each of the band guys and I do separate interviews with him on camera, which will be part of the DVD. I caught a couple moments of the other guys’ interviews, there should be some funny stuff there…especially with Arms…Arms is always funny, even when he isn’t talking…just looking at him is funny. Should I show the picture of his Brazilian twin again? OK, OK, I won’t. Anyway, we did our sound check and made sure everything was perfect at the venue and then went back to the hotel for food and relaxation. I took a nap and tried to zone out, drank lots of tea. Tonight’s show was actually at 10PM for a nice change, so I wouldn’t be seeing the sun come up. We left and drove back to the venue an hour before show time. Our bodyguard kept showing us porno’s on his tiny little cell phone while we were in the car. He seemed really proud of this. It was actually a little creepy. It was almost as if he was waiting for approval or for us to high five him or something. Then he showed us video of ourselves he had shot earlier on his phone…making sounds and words in Portuguese that we couldn’t understand. OK, so porno…and US…what was he trying to say? And was that the full extent of his video collection on his phone? Cause that’s just bizarre. Anyway, it was pretty damn funny.

The gig was packed and ready for us to perform. Camera crew ready, fans ready, band ready, just had to do a meet and greet and we were back onstage flying around again. Even though I felt like crap and my anxiety/panic was in full effect, once on stage I was home and alive. The audience kicked ass and so did we. The signing afterwards was a blast and it was good to see some fans that had already been to some of the other shows. This one guy kept coming through the line with new CD’s and each time he would ask us to sign one for his “girlfriend”. He had like 5 different girlfriends! I literally signed 5 different girls names on 5 different CD’s throughout the hour that we were signing. Dude, that guy must be busy! One girl is PLENTY! After the signing I went back to the hotel and fell apart, I was really running on fumes at this point and tomorrow was another early flight and just the beginning of this 6-show whirlwind.

June 25th.

It was an early call time to get to the airport for our flight to Rio. Even though last night’s show was earlier than the rest; ample sleep was not in the cards. We rushed to the airport just to find our flight was delayed. Then the departing gate got changed four times…so we kept walking around the airport terminal aimlessly, wondering where the plane would actually take off from. I guess this is normal here in Brazil. We did finally take off with all our gear and baggage in the belly of the beast and made our way to beautiful Rio. Today we wouldn’t really see much of Rio since we had lots to do, a show to play, and a flight to the next city early tomorrow morning…but we will be back for fun later in the tour. The venue was like 45 minutes from the hotel, so there wasn’t really much time to do anything once we checked in but leave for sound check. I chose to miss sound check and just rest a bit more, let my body fight off this damn sickness. Honestly the rest of the day is a blur for me and everyone in the band. I just talked to them and none of us can remember anything! The only thing we all recall is that this was the worst show we had played so far. The fans were great and all, but we performed like shit. Probably cause everyone was so destroyed. Wish I could give more details about this day, but we’re all drawing blanks! I do know we went on earlier again at 10:30PM and signed afterwards of course, but other than that I got nothing….

June 26th.

Another morning flight, eek! We were all completely destroyed already by now and only 2 shows in to our 6-show stretch! This morning it was off to Campinas, a city I had never been to. I was finally feeling better in the brain, which was a great thing, but the rest of me was hurting. Everyone else was getting sick now too. Most of the band was on antibiotics to fight a nasty cough/cold and two of the Brazilian crew guys had the stomach flu and were yakking their guts out…..nice. I heard tonight’s show was sold out so I was excited on the plane flight, but that didn’t stop me from falling asleep. I was in between two giant random Brazilians, my hoodie up and over my head, sunglasses on, barely able to move in GOL airline’s tiny upright firm crappy ass seats, listening to music on my iphone, and somehow, sleeping. I woke up with what felt like an alien giving birth in my neck.

Unfortunately we didn’t get to see much of Campinas cause it was straight to the venue and the hotel. That’s pretty much what we get to see in every city on these whirlwind kinds of tours…the hotel, and the venue…it’s sad. Tonight’s show was by far the best one yet. We made up for last night’s. It was a big crowd and a good venue. Fans from Sao Paulo came up to see us again which was cool. You Brazilian fans are diehard! We love it! The thing I liked best about this show was that there was no barricade separating the audience and the stage, so they were all right up against me…so I could actually reach them all for a change. I took advantage of the situation and actually pulled a girl on stage myself during “Could It Be Any Harder” and sang to her. It was a magical moment. And great footage for Jethro! The signing after this show was one of my favorites so far, I was feeling a little better and absorbing the mass amounts of positive energy and love I was getting from the fans. It’s hard to describe the feeling. It was getting very late once we were finally done, maybe around 3:30AM, so we went back to the hotel to sleep a bit. Tomorrow morning was yet another flight and our 4th show in a row….yikes.

June 27.

We woke up and flew to Florianopolis. There was once again similar issues at the airport. Where was our flight taking off from? How delayed is it? Did all our bags and gear make it on the flight? We didn’t know…we didn’t care…we were all half dead. Literally. Everyone was like comatose, or I like to spell it “Comatoast”…lying around sprawled out on the airport chairs, using whatever they could as blankets to hide their red little dried out eyes. Here’s a pic I snapped of Daniel James at this very moment to give you an idea:

We finally got to Florianopolis, but it wasn’t in that city we were to stay today. We then got on the Stink Bus (yay) and headed 4 hours to Tubarão…or as we all liked to call it “Tubesteak”. Tomorrow’s show was back in Florianopolis, but today’s was in good old Tubesteak…is anyone starting to get what I was saying about how freaking whack this scheduling and planning is?! Who coordinated this tour? Monkeys? During the Stank Bus ride I actually had to pee, bad, and there was a bathroom of course…the place where the “stank” emulates from. Crazy Bones Jones was at the wheel again and this bus was tossing and turning this way and that. I couldn’t hold it any longer and went back to the little room of stench. I held on to some dirty handle and tried to aim my best. But as the bus swerved and tilted, the stink bowl was sloshing around days of liquid that had obviously never been drained. Really adding anymore was going to make her spill overboard. I had no choice…can’t stop mid stream! I ran out of there and vowed never to return when I was done. Awful, just awful. We arrived to “Tubesteak” with just enough time to sound check, eat dinner and perform. This by far was the weirdest venue yet and the smallest crowd…only like 500 people, very strange. The place was like a tin house and the dressing room had no roof…I swear if there were a gust of wind it would have all toppled over. They had loud DJ music pumping before we went on and our whole dressing room was heaving and rattling and shaking violently. I was hearing not good things about the local promoter of this show and tomorrow night’s in Florianopolis, some arguments between my people and him over his lack of getting us what we needed, but I try not to get involved in that stuff. There, of course, was another power problem and the rental backline gear was a joke, not at all what was on our rider. We still played and signed and did our thing and the fans that were there were great, of course, but I had this eerie feeling something bad was brewing amongst the people working the tour. We checked in to some dump hotel and slept a bit after the late laaaaate show. Tomorrow morning it was back in the Magical Stink Bus for the 4-hour ride BACK to Florianopolis for our 5th show of the 6 show stretch. 2 more to go. Almost there….

June 28th.

We were hearing great things about the city of Florianopolis…that they had over 40 beaches, beautiful women, and unreal weather. But today none of this existed. Today we drove in the shit bus through the rain. I didn’t see A beach or A beautiful woman. It was pitch dark by the time we rolled up to the gig and there was really nothing around. The venue was like a collection of rave warehouses; one of them seemed to have an actual rave happening then and there. Our dressing room was in the back of this one dirty building and about 200 feet away was the odd venue we were playing. In the middle of the two buildings was like an outdoor motor court where all our buses and vans and gear were hanging out. The whole place had a main gate to enter and exit through, which was guarded so it was secure. The walk from the dressing room outside to the venue was through mud and metal barbs sticking out of the ground…oh and did I mention it was pitch black? This venue was ridiculous inside and my people were throwing a fit over our safety with the local promoter. The stage was made out of bathroom tile and had a 2-foot high step up right in the middle of it behind where I would normally stand. Pretty much just an accident waiting to happen. Then the crowd would be standing on giant revolving platforms painted with black and white stripes, each having a drop off of maybe a foot or so to another level below them. It was the oddest thing I had ever seen! The place was called “New Time” but I’d like to call it “Dumb Time”. Sound check kept getting pushed back farther and farther cause the power generator they supplied us was shit and was shooting out unsafe levels of power that would have electrocuted us on stage. Joey actually got shocked pretty bad and we delayed sound check further until they figured out the issue. I overheard the local promoter yelling at my people and threatening to throw one of them out, which would be uh…dumb. Dumb Time! Things were getting pretty hot and heavy and I didn’t like it. We finally got on the slick tile stage (WTF?) and began sound checking. Now I don’t know if this was out of spite or cause the guy was just a dick, but the local promoter opened the house doors right then and let all the fans in as we were sound checking. I had had it by this point and we all left the stage pissed.

We hiked back through the mud and metal spikes of death to our dressing room “hole”. They didn’t have the food or drinks we requested and no hot tea for me, which would have been nice at this point. We decided to just play cards and take our mind off the situation. Joey grabbed an office chair that was around and took a seat. The thing split in half sending him down to the ground! It was funny for a second but we were all were just angry at the level of crap we were dealing with tonight, and I did not like this promoter guy one bit. Some nasty looking fruit was thrown around the dressing room in retaliation, a banana here, a watermelon there…I had really never done that ever in my whole career, but of all places that deserved it, it was here. We are all professional though, so I cleaned some of it up and we hit the stage for our concert. We put aside the issues of the day and played our best for the thousand or so fans that spent their hard earned money to see us. Other than all of us slipping around on the tile stage and me almost tripping numerous times on the giant stage step, the show was fine. We did an odd signing directly from the high stage afterwards and I did my best to get to everyone without falling off. We left the venue and walked back to the dressing room.

Now this is where things got interesting. The dressing room was looking a little more worse for wear than we had left it and before I could even register this as odd, about 8 huge body guards came in and locked the door behind us. It was me, the band, Jonathan, and our Brazilian tour producer Gabriel in the room….and we were trapped. The huge men started rambling something off in Portuguese and Gabriel translated it to us. They were saying they were holding us hostage until we paid them $3,000 US dollars to “repair the room”. I laughed at this at first, but then the severity of the situation hit me. We were outnumbered here, with no safety or security, no one to call for help, in a strange venue in a small city we didn’t know with no rules what so ever. I immediately played it off as trite and small and said this is silly, announced I was leaving, grabbed my laptop bag and headed for the door being guarded by the men. One of the larger guys pushed me back, hard. I could feel the gun he was carrying against my side as he shoved his body weight against me. These guys were not messing around and it really sunk in fast…this was completely insane! We were all scared. The first thought in my mind was to call the American Embassy, but I had no clue how to do so from my phone, so my next thought was to escape somehow and get help for the others. So I went to the bathroom quietly, found a spiral staircase that lead to the roof…and with laptop bag still in hand (don’t know why), I jumped about 20 feet down back to the motor court where help could be found. Luckily Jethro just walked over and he helped me down a bit, but it was still a long fall. I told him what was going on as I ran to hide behind one of our big trucks. There were guys all over the place I could run to for help, but they all worked for the venue or promoter so I figured that was not the best option.

A nice gentleman and his twin daughters were in close range and I had recognized them from earlier, so I ushered them over to behind the truck where Jethro and I were hiding. I explained to them in simple English the best I could of what was happening back in the dressing room and that I needed help, ASAP. They said they had a car that they could only fit maybe two people in to escape, but I wasn’t going to leave everyone behind. As I started to ask them whom I could call for help, the man actually pulled out his phone. I was excited for a second like he was going to make a call or do something helpful, but instead he pointed to his twin daughters and said “picture?” PICTURE? FUCKING PICTURE!!? Are you nutz?! My band and crew are being held captive against their will, do you not understand!? Just as I was about to really lose it, palms sweating, head racing…I saw Arms come around the corner and then a few of the others, trailed by the 8 giant men. If I understand correctly, my people convinced them to let us go and hold our gear hostage for the money instead. So we all immediately jumped in a van and raced out through the gate and back to safety, leaving behind our crew to deal with the situation. Supposedly they were there until the sun came up, dealing with the police and actually PAID the $3,000! I guess “someone” went back in to the dressing room before the cops got there and REALLY made it look bad….ripped the air conditioner out of the wall, peed on the floor, you name it. UNREAL! What the hell is wrong with these people?! Obviously this promoter had it out for us from day one and was waiting for any excuse to snake some money. Evil. I found out later that they released a report saying, “The Calling destroys dressing room, pees on floor, etc etc.” These guys are damn lucky they got away with this and should be counting their blessings that I don’t file a lawsuit against them or shut down the “New Time” club altogether…Or hey, maybe I’ll buy it, fire them all, then shut it down? I learned one very important lesson in all of this, and that is to have MY OWN bodyguards. See, each local promoter is in charge of supplying us with them and those very same 8 guys that held us hostage were OUR GUARDS. Thanks guys!

When we got back to the hotel at around 5AM, we were just happy to be alive and not hurt. Everyone was truly creeped out and not to mention insanely tired. Luckily tomorrow was the 6th and final show of this crazy run. I was just pissed and angry and there was a lot that needed to change for this tour to continue safely or else I was going home after experiencing something like that. I do believe the truth of what really happened, or close to it, saw the light of day…cause I got emails from some of you Florianopolis fans saying you were sorry for what we were put through and that you hope we will come back some day. I honestly couldn’t say if we’d ever come back to that city, but who knows. It was no one’s fault but the people we directly dealt with at that venue. I’m sure Florianopolis is a beautiful city full of beautiful people, and I hope I can experience that side of it one day. For now I was completely exhausted and had a plane flight to Rio in just a few hours. Sleep didn’t happen….

June 29th.

Back to the lovely airport for our flight back to Rio, although tonight’s show was in a city called Campo Grande, which was two hours away. Makes sense right? I guess since we have a press day and 2 days in Rio starting tomorrow it made some sense to just check in to the hotel there today even though our show was in a different city. Mmmmkay? We were all starved once we got in to Rio and ate at a great restaurant. Other than being bone tired, I was back to feeling like my normal self which was a relief. After last night’s show, we were to have our own security at all times and so far so good. Jethro drank too much espresso at dinner and once we finally checked in to our hotel he was bouncing off the walls. He decided it was a great idea to open this secret door built into the wall next to the check-in desk of the hotel and go inside, closing the door behind him shut! He was totally locked in! No one at the hotel had a key to the room, so it took them like 20 minutes to get him out somehow! It was high comedy. I got some video of it with his fancy camera…maybe that will make the DVD?! I know he got some great interviews with a lot of you fans while we were down in Brazil, we’re definitely going to be using some of those. Anyway, after that fiasco, we played poker for a bit and then started on the 2-hour car ride to the venue. This venue was truly in the middle of nowhere…it looked like a dodgy dangerous neighborhood, and according to our driver, it was. This was on outdoor show and we were headlining it with a bunch of other bands playing before us. It was going to be another late laaaate night performance and I wondered if the thousands of people that were already there would wait around till 1AM to see us play? The stage was bizarre and about 20 feet off the ground, which didn’t make for a very good show and the sound was hooooooorible. It took my people forever to get our stuff working and the venue’s gear working in harmony. There were power problems too of course! The backstage was a mess and full of people and fans, so it was hard to really chill there in peace. When we finally went on at the crack of dawn (nice rhyme huh), at least half the people had already left:( PROBABLY CAUSE THEY WERE TIRED SINCE IT’S ONE IN THE MORNING!!! Anyway, I was not a fan of this show…I couldn’t see the audience barely, and there was no way humanly possible to get to them…the stage was like a cliff of death. But the band and I did our thing and put on the show as best we could. One of the sound guys fucked up and plugged the sustain pedal of my keyboard in the wrong input so it wasn’t working when I went to play “Only One”. With no sustain pedal, the notes of a piano don’t ring out, they just abruptly stop…so I was trying to play this pretty piano part and it was all choppy and crap. During the song Arms and I kept looking at each other like, “Come On!!” At the end of the song I ripped out the pedal from the keyboard and threw it across the stage. Hey, I was tired and cranky and not in the mood! The signing at the end of this show was the worst one yet when it came to organization. They kept changing the location of where it was going to take place and I think that lost some of the people who had bought CD’s and wanted them signed. We finally ended up in this weird bar area to the back of the field across from where the stage was and kind of sat down on beer covered plastic chairs. People were just coming up with or without CD’s, trying to take pictures, trying to kiss us, it was madness. For those of you who bought CD’s this night and didn’t get them signed, I’m sorry! It wasn’t my fault…I’ll get you next time, promise. After the CD mess, we pushed our way back through the mass of people huddling around the backstage to our van to escape. One guy was getting too grabby with me and ended up getting knocked out by our security. Oops! We signed as best we could, took some frantic pictures, hopped in our van and started the drive back to our hotel in Rio. Once on the highway our driver was going ludicrous speed…I’m talking like 140MPH…weaving through traffic, narrowly missing the center divider…it was scaring the poop out of everyone. We all started yelling at him to slow down, but he wasn’t listening. About 5 minutes late he finally did and explained through our interpreter that we were driving past one of the most dangerous gang areas in all of Brazil…nice! And he said one gang was on the right of the highway and the other was on the left and they are bitter enemies! Nice! And he said they were in the middle of fighting! Nice! With guns! Nice!!!! For the record, we didn’t hear any guns going off, but maybe that’s because we were fearing for our lives driving 140MPH IN A SHITTY VAN!! Well, everyone was once again happy to be alive, and most importantly, happy to be past the crazy 6 shows in a row stretch. We finally rolled in to our hotel at around 5:30AM. It would have been nice if we could sleep in, but alas, tomorrow (today) is a press day and we have to go to Globo TV to do a wacky TV show! Either way, once I made it up to my room, I cherished every minute of my 4 hours of sleep!

To be continued……