Alex Band UK

WARNING: Some days are extremely boring, others are very entertaining.
Such is life on the road…
Read at your own risk!

October 12th-I did it…I slept all frikkin day! Oh YAH! Other than getting up to eat lunch, I slept like almost 30 hours…how is that possible? I guess I had to make up for all that lost sleep in Brazil. My girl arrived tonight from LA. She was ready to bare the road life for a couple weeks… her and 15 guys in a stinky tour bus…Uh Oh. She was just as tired as I was from her flight over, so she didn’t mind that I had been sleeping since yesterday and was planning on continuing to do so:)

October 13th-Today was my girl’s birthday, and what did I do to celebrate it with her? I left her alone in our hotel room at 4am to get on a plane, fly to Germany, do press all day there, get back on a flight to London late at night, just in time to meet back up with her at our hotel by 11:50PM…missing the entire day, leaving only 10 minutes of birthday time together…I know, I suck…but I had to work. Her day totally blew because she was all alone in rainy cold London for her Birthday, stuck in the hotel, and my day blew not just because I couldn’t be with her, but because everything that could possibly go wrong, did. I hate to go back to that all too familiar airport subject…but today was by far the most f*cked up flying experience ever, period. It’s one of those damn double fly days! So, starting at the beginning: I got up at crappy 4am, met up with Sacha, Arms, and Chops, and we made our way to London’s Heathrow airport. We checked in, went through the typical airport shuffle and finally boarded our flight. The doors closed and the plane started to move. The captain came on and said, “Good day mates! There’s a bit of a backup here, so yah…we’re gonna have to wait on the runway for an hour and a half.” Come on! I hate being trapped in a plane for hours that hasn’t even taken off yet. OK, whatever, what can you do, right? So an hour and a half goes by and we finally take off, now on our way to Munich, Germany. An hour and a half into the flight, I notice out of my window another plane flying extremely close to us…a little lower, but I mean closer than I’ve ever seen before. And then, all of the sudden, our plane shakes and two other commercial jets go thundering by right above us…I could see into the f*cking windows, that’s how close they were! Our plane then started turning really hard, more, and more, and more, until we had done a complete 360, and we kept going…stuck in a holding pattern still 45 minutes away from Munich. So, needless to say, something was up, and I was freaking out! There was obviously some major air traffic congestion up here. The captain came on the intercom moments later, “Good day mates! Yah, well, the Munich airport is having some major problems of some kind and no flights are being allowed to land there now…so, yah, well, we’re out of gas too, which isn’t a good thing, So I’m going to go ahead and land here in Stuttgart.” Stuttgart!? Stuttgart!? What the f*ck is Stuttgart?! OK…so we made our way down and landed in some frikkin city called Stuttgart. After the plane came to a stop, the captain came on once again…I was gonna hit someone if he f*cking said “Good day mates!” one more time… “Good day mates! So, yah, we’re refueling now and the Munich airport says they’ll be allowing planes to land there 2 hours from now…so we’re going to have to sit here for another hour and a half…those of you who want to get off the plane to find your own way to Munich, well, there are no other flights going out of Stuttgart there today, so…yah…and those of you who want to just go back to London…well, there aren’t any flights what so ever that are going back to London either…so…yah…sorry about this.” By that point, we had been stuck on this frikkin plane for 4 hours! Our flight from London to Munich was supposed to be an hour and a half! After sitting there in f*cking Stuttgart for 2 more hours and then flying another hour to Munich, we’ll be arriving too late to make all the press and radio visits that we had planned for the day…yep, we’re gonna get there, have missed it all, spent the entire f*cking day on this plane…all while my girl is sitting alone in our hotel room on her birthday. I wanted to get off the plane at that point more than anything in the world, but there was no other option. So, two hours later, we took off and left good old Stuttgart and made our way to Munich. We landed in Munich safely, 6 and a half hours later… “Good day mates! Welcome to Munich!” BAD DAY MATE, BAD FU*KING DAY. We amazingly made it somehow to the last event planned for the day, a TV show called the “M Chart Show”…kind of like “Top of the Pops”. After doing that show, we raced back to the airport to catch our flight back to London. Once we finally made it to the security line, we had 45 minutes before our flight left…there was no one in the airport this late at night, so there were only like 6 people ahead of us in the security line. Well, the Munich airport strikes again! 40 minutes later I had moved 5 feet forward, the six people ahead of us were now 3. So how, how, how, how the hell does it take 40 minutes to screen 3 frikkin people? This was the slowest security line in the whole world…and the German guys working there were having a ball…taking their sweet time to search every last molecule of each passenger…laughing and poking fun at the angry passengers, who were all seconds away from missing their flights. And hey, so were we! Our gate was literally directly in front of us, maybe 10 feet past security. I could see the person at the gate waving her hand at us like, “Hurry up!”…she got on the intercom, “Flight 666 to London is now closing, bitches.” NOOOO!! I CAN NOT miss this flight…I CAN NOT miss my wife’s birthday entirely…I CAN NOT spend the night here in Munich. I pushed my way in front of the three angry people ahead of me. “I’m going to miss my flight! It’s leaving! Please let me through quickly!” “OK, shoes off. Jacket off. Belt off. Get the computer out of its bag. Hat off. Jewelry off.” Yah yah yah…I ran through the metal detector, it didn’t make a sound…but oh, what’s this, the smirky little sh*t head who knows I’m going to miss my flight wants to do a manual search on me? So he begins to wand me, pat me down, makes me turn my pockets inside out, open the buttons on my pants, hold out my arms, takes my socks off, WHAT THE $%^&*!?!!? He was making fun of me in German to the other security guys…I could understand a few of the words he was saying. I ran to the end of the security machine and grabbed my things…didn’t have time to put my jacket or belt or shoes or anything back on…I just started running to the gate….but wait, what’s this? The other laughing smirky dip sh*t at the end of the security machine wants to go through my two carry-ons by hand! What the hell is wrong with these people? By this point I had been in this security line for 50 minutes, with only 5 other people! My plane was scheduled to take off 5 minutes ago and the guy at the gate was gone…NO! So this fool is now going through my laptop bag, pulling all the wires out, opening up my DVD case, taking out each DVD, examining each movie, all while laughing. I said, “Look bitch, you f*cking listen to me, I don’t care if you can’t understand what I’m saying, I have to get on the f*cking airplane and you’re being a royal asshole. Let me go now or I’m going to f*cking freak out.” Luckily he didn’t speak English or I would have probably been arrested at that point…but he did understand that I was pissed and had to go…yah, he didn’t care. He then started pulling everything out of my “man” bag, very slowly…wallet, iPod, Gameboy, gum, sharpies, drugs (legal ones), everything. He finally handed me my bag and it was done! Sacha was with Arms and Chops behind me getting molested himself by security screeners…He screamed, “Go Alex! Get on that plane! Don’t worry about us!” So I ran, barefoot, with my shoes and socks and belt and jacket and computer and two bags and passport and tickets all slipping through my hands. There was no one at the gate, but the door was still open to the walkway, so I ran through the tunnel to the plane. They were shutting the door to the plane 30 feet in front of me….NOOOO!! I got there just in time and they let me in…never even asked to see my ticket or passport! After all that security screening and sh*t…I didn’t even need a ticket or identification to get on this plane! I pleaded with the stewardess to wait one more minute for the rest of my friends. They all got on just in the nick of time. We made it to the London airport, rushed through immigration, got our guitars from baggage claim, ran past customs, got into our cars, drove an hour back to the city, and finally made it back to our hotel at 11:50PM. I ran upstairs to my room with minutes to spare…just enough time to sing Happy Birthday and have her blow out the……..lighter:( It was a sh*tty day for me and a sh*tty birthday for Jen, but I made it.

October 14th-We woke up and met up with our new home for the next 3 weeks…that’s right, a stinky double decker tour bus! Yay! The same one as the last Europe tour! We all claimed our bunks and stuffed all our millions of bags into every crack and crevice we could find. A European tour bus can sleep a max of 16 passengers, and because this tour we actually had our own lightening and sound guys, that meant this was going to be one full bus…with no empty bunks to put bags in. “Everyone aboard!?” We then began our short 2-hour drive from London to Southampton for our first show, tonight. I was excited! All these UK shows on this Europe tour are at pretty big venues and the fans here are awesome…sure to make for great shows. We pulled up to the Guild Hall, a really cool looking venue with huge roman columns in the front…it looked like some fancy governmental building in Washington DC. Some fans were already waiting outside for the show tonight, so I signed for them and said hello on my way into the gig. It was indeed a huge hall inside, with massive chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, really pretty. We did the usual routine; sound check, interviews, ate a catered dinner, had a meet and greet with fans, and then it was show time. Our first show of this Europe tour went great…we played for about 1,500 people. Our set for this whole tour is a whole lot longer than what we usually do, about 16-17 songs, so I was definitely getting a work out, physically and vocally…well vocally is physically, anyway. I was still getting over being sick and I was still on crappy antibiotics, so I did a little signing after the show outside by the bus and then went to sleep. Man it was frikking cold in England!!! Our bus’s heater only worked when the bus was running, so all day when it was parked and the driver was sleeping, there wasn’t any heat at all…brrrrrr! Sacha got a little space heater to put by my bunk in the front of the bus upstairs, so I wouldn’t freeze to death…the rest of the band didn’t really care about the cold…they used the power of beer to keep them warm! I don’t drink anymore unfortunately…love the taste of beer though. Anyway, after I was deep in sleep, the bus took off for its drive to tomorrow’s stop, Manchester.

October 15th-I woke up in Manchester early and went to our day room at some random hotel to shower and sleep some more. It was good to be back in Manchester. We were just here a few months back and played a super fun gig, so I was looking forward to tonight’s show, which was at a much bigger venue than last time. Later in the day, I got picked up at the hotel and headed over to the venue for sound check and press. I arrived at The Apollo and was greeted by a whole bunch of fans once again waiting outside. After signing, I went in to check out the theater…it was huge! And the dressing rooms were super pimpy…they even had a fireplace! Before the show, Jen and I snuck out and took a cab into the shopping area of the city…I only had like 10 minutes there, and I found so many cool clothes! It was a bummer…but come on; do I need any more clothes? That area of Manchester was really nice, a lot of good stores too…I wish I could have had more time to spend walking around there. Anyway, we played for 3,000 people this night…it was awesome! I signed for another huge crowd of fans after the show, on my way back to the bus. I was totally beat, so I went right to bed. We drove out of there at 3AM and headed towards Glasgow, Scotland. I’ve always wanted to go to Scotland and I hear it’s beautiful…hopefully we’re not going to just be stuck in a crappy part of the city, only able to see the gig and the hotel…hmmmm, I wonder???

October 16th-We arrived in cold, wet, and rainy Glasgow, Scotland very early in the morning. It was the same drill as yesterday, go into the day room at some random hotel, shower, sleep, eat, and then head over to the gig for sound check and press. The show and sleep part all worked out fine…but this hotel didn’t have room service or food of any kind! We were in the middle of nowhere, and we were starving for breakfast, or lunch, or whatever…can’t be too picky on the road. So, we headed out into the rainy, freezing weather and walked a few miles until we finally found a pub that served food. I know people like to drink in the UK, especially in Scotland and Ireland….but I had no idea. We walked into this pub, mind you it’s 10:30 in the morning, and there were hundreds of people packed in, all drinking huge pitcher’s full of thick black Guinness beer! They were all watching some important football (soccer) game on the big screen TV’s. I immediately knew then that whatever food they did serve here was going to be…odd. All I wanted was some coffee, and luckily next to Guinness, that was the only other option. We ate beans, black pudding (Pig’s blood), sausage, and back bacon…it was a sad day for my stomach. I wanted to get into the spirit and drink some of that black beer, but I needed to perform tonight and that’s hard to do when you can’t leave the bathroom. Anyway, after that meal, we headed over to the Carling Academy where our show was taking place tonight. The backstage to this theater was really tiny and you had to go through like 13 different doors and down 10 flights of stairs to get to the mini dressing room we all were sharing. It was cool to have our very own caterer for the first time, traveling with us to each city, making dinner each night…the only problem was that the food they were making was horrifying! AAAAH! I won’t even go into what kind of things we ate, but let’s just say that it made my breakfast this morning sound awfully good. Between the mini claustrophobic dressing room, the scary breakfast, and the menu for tonight’s catered dinner, Jen was ready to get out and eat somewhere nice…and I was with her on that. We snuck away out the back and grabbed a taxi to the city. We had no clue where we were going, but we ended up finding a great restaurant. There was a moment there while we were driving through the city that I actually got to see Glasgow for a second and it was really beautiful. The show tonight was the best so far, for me at least…I know Arms and Chops had some guitar problems, but whatever, I had fun! The audience in Glasgow really made this show special for me. There were about 2,000 people there! I signed outside after the gig as usual and made my way to the bus for sleepy time. The band went out on the town and partied with friends and fans after the show…I don’t know where they get their never ending energy…I’m like an old man compared to them! The drive tonight wasn’t too bad…about 6 hours to our next stop, Birmingham. We’ve got a day off tomorrow there, yay!

October 17th- A nice long day off in Birmingham…yes, there was rain, and grey skies, and cold wind, but I was starting to get use to that…and like it…well, no, not really. Nonetheless, we had a really great day off, just walking around the main shopping area of Birmingham (which was really cute), saw a bad movie (Resident Evil), and had a great dinner at a fancy restaurant…we even got to go on this huge ferris wheel that was like 15 stories high! I only peed my pants a little bit;)

October 18th- We woke up early, packed up all our sh*t, checked out of the hotel, and got back on the bus for the fofillionth time. Is fofillion a number? If not, then I am declaring now that it is!
FOR ALL EXAGERATORS AROUND THE WORLD:
“Fofillion” does not have a denomination, it is simply the biggest number there is…one bigger than any number anyone else can come up with…yes, yes…FOFILLION! HA HA HA!
Anyway, we headed out of Birmingham and arrived 30 minutes later to a cute little college town called Wolver Hampton. I got spotted by fans and signed for them as they followed me to the venue. I can’t tell you how exciting it is to show up to all these new cities we’ve never been to and there’s people already waiting in line for our show…our fans are so dedicated…I LOVE IT! Anyway, after the usual schedule of press, sound check, meet and greets, catered dinner, warming up the voice and stretching, we were ready to take the stage. Civic Hall was filled with 2,000 screaming fans as I walked up to my mic. The show went great and I actually played the song I wrote for my wife to the crowd…I sung it to her on our wedding day and I felt like it was another good way to make up for that sh*tty birthday she had! I luckily had the time once again to sign for everyone after the show by the bus. Tonight’s drive was going to be one of the longest on the tour…14 hours to Düsseldorf, Germany! We had to do the whole ferry thing in the middle of the night and float across the English channel like that last European tour a few months ago. Everyone legally was suppose to get off the bus for the boat ride…but I know someone who didn’t…

October 19th-Today was another day off, in Düsseldorf, Germany. We didn’t even arrive until 3PM. TOO MUCH STINKY BUS! The town my Mom has lived in for the last 14 years happen to only be an hour car ride from Düsseldorf, so we went over there for a home cooked meal. I hadn’t been there since I was ten years old…and it had been about that long since she had made me my dinner, so it was very weird! But nice. Very nice.

October 20th-Today was filled with a bunch of radio visits and press, still all in Düsseldorf. Our show tonight was in a little dirty club called “Tor 3”. There was only one little dressing room at this club, so we had to share with our opener, Katy Rose and her band. We had all been working together so much in the last few months that everyone had become friends with everyone else…all the dudes in her band are really cool, and crazy! Maybe even crazier than my band? I don’t know…I’ve seen Chops try to belly dance on a table the size of my hand and fall half naked and wasted in a pool of beer…I’ve seen Arms, well, never mind. Anyway, although this club in Düsseldorf was crappy and small and the stage was too high, and some of the gear we needed just didn’t exist, it was still great cause of our super German fans. Even though we’re not very popular in Germany, we still have a good amount of devoted fans that will follow us wherever we play in Germany…and well, even to all the other countries as well! Thanks to the German fans, your support means so much to me. We played for about 1,000 people and the show was pretty fun for such a little odd shaped crappy club. Tonight we had another long ass drive, 12 hours, but it was to one of my favorite places in the world…Italy! Milan, Italy to be exact. Tomorrow was going to be a blast.

October 21st-We were suppose to arrive in Milan at 11AM and I was suppose to go directly to MTV’s TRL, along with a lot of other places for press…but when I awoke on the still moving bus and looked at the time on my little Ferrari alarm clock (thank you for that), I totally freaked…12:30PM! Oh sh*t! I immediately found Sacha downstairs and he told me what was going on. I guess in the middle of the night, the bus driver for Katey Rose’s bus, who was driving right in front of us, was stopped at the Swiss border for some reason. It turned out he paid the border-crossing fee with counterfeit money! He didn’t know it was counterfeit, but that didn’t matter. The Swiss Guards arrested him and searched his bus and ours for more counterfeit money, delaying our drive by at least 2 hours! So, needless to say, we were tight on time, and it was going to be a crazy rush to try to make TRL…now without a sound check for our acoustic performance:( We finally made it into Milan, and immediately jumped from the bus into vans and drove like maniacs to TRL. We got there just in time to plug in our guitars, get some powder, and start yapping on live TV. I couldn’t believe how many fans were down in the square for us! Way more than last time…all with huge signs, and of course the biggest one was being held up by The Italian Street Team…thank you, thank you, thank you to all the Italian fans! Chops and Arms and I played “Anything” acoustic and it went pretty well even though we couldn’t hear each other at all. We ran right from TRL to perform on another TV show that I’ve done a few times before. The little crowd of maybe 40 people for that show was awesome! All our fans! They sang every word of “Anything” with me…it was a great moment. After that, we had only 5 minutes to eat lunch, so McDonalds it was. I haven’t seen that “Super-size-me” movie yet, but that’s probably a good thing. Anyway, we went to a few radio stations, and got dropped off at the venue for sound check. Tonight’s show was at a really small club called “Magillini”, even smaller than Düsseldorf, only 800 people…but it was oversold, so there was going to be over 1,000 people cramming in for the show. I was really excited to play, cause other than that horrible Heineken festival we did a while back, we’ve never really played a show in Italy, and we have so many great fans there. We had an awesome dinner at the restaurant connected to the club before we went on stage. The show really had a great energy to it…the fans were perfect. I only wish that the end of the stage wasn’t so far away from the audience at every show…but that’s the safety rules. I signed for tons of people outside in a mad frenzy after the gig. We all jumped back on the tour bus and drove an hour to our hotel next to the Milan airport. Everyone but me and my girl was flying tomorrow morning from Milan to Portugal…I had other plans:) :)

October 22nd-Jen and I woke up mad early at our hotel in Milan and drove 3 hours to Marenello, where the Ferrari Factory is! That’s right! Truly a dream come true for me…a private tour of the entire Ferrari Factory! Only like super special people or big stars can get in there, so I have no clue how the hell they let me in, but thank you BMG for setting that up! And thank you Ferrari for giving me the time! We even got to eat at the Ferrari restaurant and go through the Ferrari merchandise store…I got Aaron some cool stuff. The factory was crazy, 3,000 Italians in perfectly white suits hand making each part of the cars…they only make 15 cars a day! After we were done there, we drove 3 hours back to Milan and got on our flight to Lisbon, Portugal. We arrived in Lisbon late at night, got to our hotel and fell asleep…with little Ferrari’s dancing in my head;)

October 23rd-Today was press all day in Lisbon. I got to see the city a little, really gorgeous. I took Jen to a fancy dinner on the ocean to make up for that sh*tty Birthday.

October 24th-There was this huge aquarium right across the street form our hotel in Lisbon, right on the water. So we went to check it out in the morning. It was the coolest aquarium I’ve ever been to! They even had penguins and cute little otters and seals too. The otters were sleeping and holding hands…lying on their backs just floating in the water! After our tour there we jumped in vans and drove 2 hours from Lisbon to Coimbra, for our show tonight at a festival. I was a little confused about what this gig was all about at first…I guess we were the headliner for this three-day event at a college where a whole bunch of bands were playing. We went on at like 1AM! Portugal is a lot like Spain in the way that both countries do things late…dinner at 11pm, clubs start filling up at 2AM, bands go on at 1AM, etc. There were about 7,000 people there in the crowd, not all Calling fans, but a lot of them seemed to dig us as the show went on. What do you get when you: Don’t go on stage until 1AM, leave Coimbra at 2:30AM, get back to the hotel at 5AM, then leave the hotel for airport at 5:30AM?… NO SLEEP! AND A CRAAANKY BAND!

October 25th-So without any sleep we went to the airport ass early and flew to Munich…NOOO! Not the Munich airport! I joked to Sacha on the plane that something has to get f*cked up, since we’re going back to the stupid Munich airport…like maybe all our luggage and gear won’t be there at baggage claim or something. And…low and behold, once we got off the plane we waited at baggage claim for the carrousel to start moving…10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes…Are you f*cking joking me?! An airport worker finally gets on the intercom and says, “There was an accident while taking the baggage out of the plane, so it might be a while longer.” AAAAH! Remember all that press we missed in Munich a few days back when our flight was 6 hours late? Yah, well, this was the day we were suppose to make it all up!…and we’re already late again! MUNICH AIRPORT! WHY!?!?!?! We were all so tired, cause we hadn’t slept at all, so this situation was actually funny to us…you know when you’re just so tired that everything is funny? Arms and Flarb started riding the baggage carts and crashing them into everything while getting angry stares from airport security…and Chops laid out completely flat to sleep on top of the baggage carrousel…I was just waiting for that thing to start and send him flying! Anyway, after over 90 minutes of waiting, the luggage finally started to come out. Chops, Arms, Sacha and I grabbed the acoustic guitars, and left the rest of the band and luggage behind. We got into a car and raced to the first radio station we were making up from the other day…if the driver went like 140MPH we could make it on time. Well, he did go that fast, literally, on the Autobahn (no speed limit, cool)…and we made it only 5 minutes late! After press, we met back up with the band at a dirty, dirty hotel in the middle of nowhere to shower, then headed off in the tour bus for an 8-hour drive to Berlin for our show there tomorrow. Sleep finally…yay.

October 26th-I woke up in the bus and stepped out to find myself at the place we’re playing tonight called the “Columbia Club” in Berlin…Where are we? Where is breakfast? That is a question I always have to ask when I wake up everyday in some strange location. I’m the kind of person who needs some coffee and some foodage in the morning to have the brainpower to work…and a lot of the time food is not an option. These European buses have like teeny tiny kitchens with not much room to keep food or drinks, so all we had was some old stale cornflakes and water, which just doesn’t do it for me. So, some of the guys and I set out in the freezing German cold to go walk around the area and find food. We walked everywhere for miles with no luck…the only thing we found was a bus stop where some old fat dirty lady was cooking up huge tainted sausages on a rusty grill…yuck! Corey embraced the nasty sausages and actually ate two for breakfast! I chose to go back to the bus with an empty stomach:( I had to go do radio visits all day with Arms and Chops so we hit up a McDonalds once again. Was that street meat healthier than McDonalds? Probably. That’s sad. Anyway, we did our radio stuff, went back to the club to sound check and played a small show for around 700 people. Berlin was the one show on this tour that just wasn’t selling well at all…I hear that most shows in Berlin aren’t selling very well these days, Germany’s in financial trouble right now, much like most of the world…slowing record and ticket sales for us musicians… what else is new? The show still went well, thanks to those awesome German fans and a whole bunch of Polish fans that came to see us! I signed after the show and then we started to drive to Hamburg. Oh yah, and during our meet and greet earlier, the German street teamers gave me the coolest gift ever! They new I never have the time to get to see the sights of the city I’m in, so they made me this book that was a tour of Berlin…and there I was, leaning against the Berlin Wall! And Chops and Arms hanging out at Check Point Charley! The German fans had put pictures of the band and I in all these locations with a whole story of how we got there and everything! It looked like they used a computer, cause it was really well done. Thanks guys! That was a very creative gift!

October 27th-Let’s see, what did we do today in Hamburg?…some interviews, a few photo shoots, a meet and greet with the same fans as yesterday, and then of course we played a show. The club was cool, a place called “Grosse Farenheit”. There was a better size crowd than last night here, but still small compared to our UK gigs. After the show, we began our drive to Amsterdam.

October 28th-A day off in Amsterdam! I had a huge crepe for breakfast at this American cafe! After that, the guys and I went walking around shopping with major stomachaches! I found some really cool clothes that actually fit me. We pretty much spent the rest of the day just chilling. I crashed after dinner, but the rest of the guys went out late at night to see the red light district and some of the other strange festivities in Amsterdam.

October 29th-I have no idea what we did today in Amsterdam…I can’t remember for some reason…I asked the rest of the band and they have no idea either! I do however remember the show we played at night at the “Melkweg”. We played the same club we played as an opening act years ago. So it was cool to walk out on stage and see that it was packed with people there just to see us. The audience rocked, but we definitely did not. This was our worst show of the whole European tour for a number of reasons…that will remain untold. After the show, I did the normal signing routine and we set out on our 8-hour drive to lovely Paris.

October 30th-I woke up on the bus, parked in front of the “Elysee Montmarte”, the venue we were playing tonight in Paris. There were tons of fans waiting for us outside already when I made a dash into the club. Once inside the club, I was pretty much trapped there for the rest of the day. Sacha went out and found me a giant crepe! Yay, more crepes! 5 minutes after eating it, I bribed Arms into going outside and braving the fans to find me a second giant crepe! He came back and another crepe was eaten in seconds. Oh! The stomachache! Aaaaaah! Too much…oh no!….COD! CREPE OVERDOSE! After a little work, we did a meet and greet with a bunch of fans, including our number one French Fan and Street Team leader, Karima. I met this one girl named Anaelle, who flew 12 hours from Reunion Island to come see us! I remembered getting lots of E-mails from her over the last few years and how bad she wanted to see us live one day…I was happy she finally made it! The venue was really pretty inside and our show went great…definitely one of the best so far! Those French fans kick ass! After the show, I schmoozed with peeps as usual, and then walked from the gig to the tour bus…it was craziness! I got attacked! There were hundreds of fans still waiting outside. It was totally like a Brazil moment; Sacha and 5 security guys creating a circle around me and pushing me through the fans as they grabbed my clothes and hair trying to get a piece. Unfortunately, there were way too many fans to sign for safely…but I still wanted to. So Sacha and Dan stood outside of the bus door and held back the fans while I tried to sign as many things as possible. Dan and Sacha were getting destroyed and crushed, as were a lot of fans, so I had to stop. We had to start our drive to London anyway, so I didn’t have time to sign for everyone…I’m sorry if I missed any of you! We’ll be back soon! I went to sleep and was hoping to once again miss the ferry ride over the English channel back to London, but no such luck this time…I had to get up in the middle of the night, get dressed, go out in the cold and make my way through the passport control line at the border. They gave us a hard time and it took forever…we were all tired and cranky…except for Corey…he’s always “cool”.

October 31st-We arrived at our hotel in London at 11AM. I checked in and…showered! Yay! Today was Halloween and a day off! My very large “secret” package that I had rushed delivered form Los Angeles had arrived right on time and was waiting for me at the hotel. See, Arms and I had this crazy idea a few days back to order 20 Flarbs and throw them out to the audience at tomorrow night’s huge London show…So, I did it cause I’m nuts! Arms and I unpacked all the Flabs in my hotel room and set them up on the bed for a photo shoot. It was so weird! So many Flarbs staring at us! There was this one that was too funny looking to give away, so I kept it for myself. He had crossed eyes and a little tongue that was sticking out sideways. I went shopping later on during the day with my friend Azim and then he took the band and I out later that night to some crazy bar. The band and I thought we had to find costumes for the night since it was Halloween, but Azim told us that they don’t really celebrate Halloween quite the same as we do in the US…not as many trick-or-treaters, not as many people dressing up, and Halloween parties at clubs were just like any other night at a club. Everyone got smashed and had a ball. I swear I drank like 5 waters!

November 1st Today was our final show at the Hammersmith Apollo, 5,000 people, almost sold out! Crazzzzy! I did some work during the day and then made my way over to the gig for sound check. This place was massive and beautiful! I was really excited. After we ate dinner, we were all getting ready in our dressing room when a rat ran across the floor and into the fridge! Needless to say, I didn’t drink or eat anything out of there for the rest of the night! The second I walked out onto the giant stage and stared out into the mass of people, I knew this was going to be the best show of the whole tour. All my friends and label peeps were out there in the audience along with thousands of screaming fans. The band played the sh*t out of our set…Chops was running around with his shirt off, shredding on the guitar like a freak…it was awesome! The crowd was soooo loud! I could have had THEM sing the whole night! Sacha had a surprise for us that he hinted about earlier in the day, but we had no idea what it was…so all the sudden during Wherever You Will Go, huge confetti canons exploded on stage, raining silver confetti all over us and the crowd…so beautiful! Oh yah, and between each song we played, Dan and Sacha kept running on stage and putting Flarbs all over the place…on the drum riser, on amps, on guitar stands….everywhere! Until by the final song of the night, all 19 of the Flarbs were out, staring into the audience. I then told the Flarb story to the crowd, and the band and I started throwing all the Flarbs into the audience! After the show, we were all high on music! The amazing vibes that filled that theater were incredible. There were a lot of people there to schmooze with afterwards… but as soon as I was done, I went outside to the street to sign as I always do. I said goodbye to all the diehard fans who had been to like every show on this Europe tour! Thank you guys sooooo much for all of your support! It’s amazing that so many people came out to see our shows in Europe, because we haven’t had that much radio or TV support on this record so far…so I guess we just have the best fans! I had given it my all for this last show, so I was totally destroyed by this point and had to go to bed…my back was killing me. I’ve had stupid scoliosis all my life really bad in my lower back, almost bad enough to need back surgery, so it throws everything out of whack…I saw x-rays of my lower back the other day for the first time when I went to a specialist doctor, and man, I am f*cked up! Anyway, enough about me, let’s talk about me;) Tomorrow was a full day of press here in London still, so I went to sleep with the amazing feeling of the show still rushing through my body.

November 2nd-The final day of the tour! I actually get to go home tomorrow! I’ve been home a total of like two days in the last 3 months…I almost forgot what my family and house and cats look like! Anyway, Chops, Arms, and I got up on this final day and met downstairs for breakfast. Before we left, Arms needed to go back up to the room him and Chops shared to grab something, so I followed them instead of sitting in the lobby. When I walked into their rock and roll destroyed party room, the first thing I noticed was that there was only one small bed! Apparently they had not been given the right room with two twin beds like usual. I was like, “What the f*ck? We’ve been here for two nights already…and you guys have been sleeping together in this little bed every night?!?!” They told me they were too lazy to switch to the right room! Ha! You guys are frikkin weird. Anyway, after I teased them a lot, we all went to the BMG office to do a whole bunch of interviews. After we were done there, I said goodbye to the guys and went by myself over to MTV to make an appearance on TRL. I have to admit, my visit to TRL was strange. I appreciate that they had me one there, but they only played like 5 second of the “Anything” video and mostly talked to me about politics! Tomorrow IS the big day and all…we’ll be finding out who our president will be for the next 4 years. I voted for Kerry while we were on this tour by absentee ballot…I’m not a huge fan of Bush, but may the best man win. After TRL, I did a whole bunch of other interviews for MTV news and other MTV programs. Later that night we all went out for a farewell dinner to celebrate an awesome tour together.

November 3rd-Everyone woke up at 8AM and left our London hotel for the airport…it was finally time to go home! For 6 whole days off! I’m excited to get back to the US and start really working “Anything” at radio…so far it’s been moving up very, very well, but there is still much work to be done. All of November and December is going to be devoted to radio visits across the country, mostly acoustic sets with only me, Arms, and Chops playing…not much room in radio stations for a drummer and bass player:( Well, one more long flight ahead of us…it’s always that flight home that feels the longest…especially when it’s a 12 hour one!:) Until next time guys…All the love…