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1993 EUROPEAN TOUR REPORT
- 15.2
JBC gets on the bus at 5am Pete is roaring drunk. Tony
Foster considers bashing him. Drive and float to Paris.
French tour promoter is young and practically monolingual.
Tony considers belting him. JBC play four live songs
and executes
lengthy interview
all live on Bernard Lenoir, national radio.
Dooj falls asleep. JBC buy beers and
rehearse in a garage until two or three in the morning,
with friends who skin up. Tony considers marrying them.
A long day.
- 16.2
Paris - Theatre L'European
Seated; 300 people, some drunks.
- 17.2
Bordeaux - Le Jimmy 650km. drive to Bordeaux.
Wake up at the back, you're on tour. Joe Foster gets
in massive ruck with everyone in the restaurant at dinner.
Tony considers judging him. Le Jimmy (yes!)
is a punky club with about 200 souls. We rock. Many
drunks.
- 18.2
Nates - Floride Tiny club, fragile heads.
Lead singer buys cakes for all. What a swell guy. Pete
makes the first of many doomed sexual overtures, later
asks promoter for girl's address. Pat, Kathie, Joe
and Dooj stay at the Holiday Inn. Tony, Nick and Pete
stay in small concentration camp above the club, which
was severely overloaded at 150 people.
- 19.2
Rennes - Ubu Short drive today, which is
fortunate as Tony succeeds in running out of petrol
today. Tony considers bashing everybody. T.V. Smith
of the Adverts opens, solo and acoustic. He is great.
Some 150 customers, the show a little dull, but a great
party afterwards.
- 20.2
Lorient - Le Manege Enchante (that's the
"Magic Roundabout", you Brits). Beer for breakfast.
Beer for lunch. This is more like it. Joe fails to
get delays moving at soundcheck. Pat considers having
him sent to Siberia. Pretentious Mexican dinner. Everyone
considers dropping everybody else. Dooj terrorised
in dressing room by enormous dog called "The Head".
Pat and Tony shamelessly collaborate with the beast,
which Joe insists is a bear. Staggeringly pretentious
support group. JBC deliver first really hot show of
the tour. Only partially morose. 250 in the house.
Some drunks, chief among them Tony and Pat.
- 21.2
Morlaix - Le Coatelan Onstage at 8:00 pm
on a sunday in an ART SHED near a village in French
Wales. 50 punters. Brilliant. Dinner of the tour follows.
- 22.2 Drive back to Paris. See Pascal. Get
paid.
- 23.2 Drive out of France very fast, as well
have all had enough. Got to Breda in Holland. Tony
wants us all to feel the same. It's carnival night
in Breda.
Photo, taken by Kathie, who was smart enough to figure this out,
attached.
- 24.2
Breda - Zanetti Nick has a snare drum and
some brushes. The other three have guitars. Everyone
sings as we play in a small stone bar with psychadelic
lights for about 25 people. We're supposed to be in
Rotterdam, but someone fucked up. This is great fun
anyway. We play King Of Joy and Bad Moon
Rising, but Kathie prevents us from rendering the
classic Red River Dave song the California Hippy Murders.
- 25.2
Amsterdam - Kremlin A hipster hangout in
a scary and squalid part of town. Small and full (100?150?)
and quite cheerful. French drunks. Drive back to Breda
cursing the gas stations that only work on credit cards.
Tony gets breath tested by The Man and comes up negative.
We all applaud as we drive away from the bewildered cops.
- 26.2
Breda - Para and
Breda - Zanetti A double header. We were
booked for Para (100 people. Loud and vicious) but
we went on to Zanetti again to play in the basement,
a fabulous drugs cavern where we played not-really-acoustic
at-all for extra money and laffs. Many drunks. Deep joy.
- 27.2
Hamburg - Logo The first of four German dates
supporting
Belly.
Nobody in Hamburg seems to know who they are. 350 people
in a smallish club. We and they are great. Quite forget
about Old Belly, who come on later and are not very
interested in a typically 4AD way.
Many drunks. Some narcotics abuse.
- 28.2
Berlin - Loft Great journey to Berlin, wherein
Tony Pat and Kathie form The New Government Of Russia
(policies on application - $5,799.99). Shoddy show
from the JBC but
Belly are more interesting tonight. We like Gail
the bass player. If anyone's worried about the two
singers they're being very adult about it. 400 people
in the house. East German drunks.
- 1.3
Munich - Charterhalle Bus refuses to start.
Pete and Pat abandon rest of party in Berlin, get in
German tour manager's car and play Munich Charterhalle
as a duo. The "club" is the hall of Munich's only-just-disused
airport. Intimate it isn't especially with only 200
people in this huge barn. We all have fun, though,
and loot Belly's booze n stuff ruthlessly.
Meanwhile, in Berlin, Joe fails to find the way to Cologne
for four hours. Everyone, I'm told, considers stabbing him.
- 2.3
Cologne - Luxor We arrive to find that Belly's
van has broken down. We laugh and send Tony in The Love
Bus to rescue them. 400 people, a really good show.
Many drunks, some violent.
- 3.3
We drive to Freiburg. On the way, entirely by chance,
we pull in at what must be the only vegetarian motorway
restaurant in Europe. Deep joy, snow, vodka, Freiburg,
pizza, bliss.
- 4.3
Valenza Po - Circolo Palomar Long scary drive
over the Alps to Italy. 50 people watch us play for
over two hours at a wonderful club. The chap on stage
doing the handstands and shit is the promoter. The
hotel has llamas.
- 5.3
Florence - Auditorium Flog (No, honest!).
800 in a huge discotheque and a rider that would embarrass
the support group at the Rock Garden. No wonder the
singer punched out the toilet doors in the dressing
room. This offers the cue for the release of general
mayhem, not helped by the Hotel Putana where we have
been put. Great concert, insulting promoters, bloody night.
- 6.3
Forli - Ex Macchina Small, communist-run
club, the opposite of last night, and all the more pleasing.
150 people, many drunks, and a support group something
like Bauhaus. More drunks.
- 7.3
Salzburg - Nonntal Pete, acting on an internal
agenda that has led him to drink solidly for 72 hours,
disappears in the middle of the night to devote his
time to serving drinks on British Airways. "A little
twist with that?" JBC are expected in Salzburg, so we
drive. It also appears that the Love Bus is ready to
expire at any moment, so will fill the tank with the
engine running. Somewhere on the way I am seized of
a powerful idea and make a phone call. Salzburg -
Nonntal. We arrive after hours of anxious bus
stuff and full scale Alpine blizzard. There isn't much
time for a soundcheck. I just turn up the Telecaster
and hope for the best. 200 people, a nervy beginning.
It ended up well. "You don't need another guitarist"
says the promoter. Smiling, I make another phone call.
Promoter buys us all an elaborate dinner. Tony considers
sloshing him.
- 8.3
We have a day off in Salzburg, which is all it takes.
I stay in bed till five, have a meal in the Styrian
bar, pick up our secret weapon and go back to the Styrian
bar, where I meet the group and introduce them to Alex Lee.
Jagermeister. Drunks.
- 9.3
Lienz - Glocklturm This is where it gets
Really Weird. The Love Bus finally clocks out at lunchtime,
and we travel the last 80km to the show on the back
of a tow-truck. In the dark. Through Alps. The show
is somebody's 40th birthday surprise. He has one leg.
Whoooa. Lix makes his live JBC debut. Very loud. Very
exciting. All drunk. The whole town.
- 10.3
Innsbruck - Utopia 200 people. Back in the
hotel where we were previously narrowly prevented from
stealing the ducks. No sign of any ducks this time.
Dinner in the rudest restaurant in the world. All think
about biffing the propriator, but don't because he's
Turkish and it wouldn't do to be misunderstood.
- 11.3
Vienna - Szene Wien 300 people (more?) Opening
act is one "Jac", a lone 19 year old Austrian who is
brilliant. JBC follow him on and open with
![[listen to Girls Say Yes]](/images/iconMP3.gif) Girls Say Yes, which
Lix has just remembered a few minutes ago. It, and
all that follows it, walks a charmed route through chaos,
and by the end of the night I am fairly sure that this
was the best JBC show ever. Many drunks, nightclubs.
Kathie, Lix and I end up in the hotel manager's apartment.
- 12.3
Ebensee - Kino Ebensee is reached down a
lakeside road with bizarre gothic tunnels cut through
forbidding rock faces, all decorated with ancient coats
of arms. "Castle? There is no castle HERE..." Dooj
cracks two ribs cannoning into a p.a. stack. We seize
Gerard Langley's silly mic-stand, which he left here.
We still have it and taunt him with it at regular intervals.
Thousands of drunks.
- 13.3
Dornbirn - Spielboden We close the tour in
one of our favourite venues. Two guitars and one amplifier
loaded on the Love Bus in urgent need of some professional
maintenance. Notable for acapella rendition of Winter
Wonderland enlivened by guitar roadie's fetching
alto harmony. She is not, however, yet expected to
appear onstage with a lot of keyboards. Drunks.
- 14.3 GREAT ROAD JOURNEYS OF HISTORY: We leave
Dornbirn, on the Austro/Swiss border after a lengthly
lunchtime beer session, during which it is agreed the
We Still Love The Old World. We arrive in Breda on
the Dutch/Belgian border at midnight and go to Zanetti's
to get irredeemably twisted. We even stop for a proper
dinner on the way. This is not possible, but we did
it anyway.
- 15.3 Go to Belgium, but a lot of cheap beer,
miss two boats, go to the pub, get on the boat, get
drunk, get paid (I got £27!), go home.
VERDICT: Best European tour since 1988.
Not as violent
or drunk, but more mental and musical. I felt that
we really did a lot to remind people how good this thing
can be, and the dates with Lix were Something Else.
Funny how things turn out.
Tony Foster: First Driver, Justice and Security
Kathie McGinty: Relief driver, guitars and
backline tech
Joe Foster: Sound tech
Nick Burson: Drums, voice
Dooj Wilkinson: Bass, guitar, voice
Pat Fish: Guitars, voice
Peter Crouch: Guitars (FranceHollandGermany Italy)
Alex Lee: Guitars (Austria)
I agree
harlan777...
Tony Foster
27Dec2007 7:17 PM
(4 years 44 days ago)
i agree it was the best tour (winter wonderland !)
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I agree
harlan777...
Tony Foster
27Dec2007 7:17 PM
(4 years 44 days ago)
i agree it was the best tour (winter wonderland !)
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