I can see why sleep deprivation is used as a torture technique. This is the fourth time we have made the 30+ hour flight from Adelaide, Australia to Europe. You would think that we would be used to it by now but nothing can really prepare you for the assault of microwaved plane food, free booze and uncomfortable seats that international flying provides. Seriously, if you aren’t made out of marshmallow, there is no way to get comfortable in a seat that was obviously designed to inflict as much pain and suffering to its occupant as possible…..however
Tracer have landed for our 4th Euro tour! And we’ve come back in summer! With a new single! And a new team member! And more exclamation marks than you can poke a wallaby at!!!!!
So welcome again to Mike’s blog. I will be writing about the exploits of Tracer throughout this tour (our biggest to date) and giving you all a little “behind-the-scenes” tour of the tour. We’ve got some super exciting shows coming up: our first headline shows in the UK, support slots with some of our favourite bands including Gojira, Triggerfinger and some other shwenken bands that will be announced soon. We’re also opening Graspop festival! This festival is headlined by some band called Black Sabbath and Motorhead, don’t know if you’ve heard of them but apparently they’re a big deal….Fuck yeah!!!!
Our photographer Benon Koebsch is joining us again and has been “promoted” to Tour Manager for the tour. It’s great to have him back with us. His photo’s will be on Facebook as we tour around…plus we can hear his poo stories again!
Let me also introduce our newest member to the touring party, Sound Enginner Lachie Sheehan! If you see a guy with longer hair than the whole band put together, that’s Lachie. He’s a great dude and this is his first Euro trip. It’s funny to see him discovering and seeing things for the first time. It reminds us of the wide-eyed enthusiasm we had on our first tour and it’s becoming contagious. we can’t wait to get him in front of a board at our first show in London.
So far we have picked up our massive tour van (a black VW van that you could probably fit a whale into if you wanted) and have driven from the airport to Cologne for a well deserved rest before meeting up with the dudes at the label. It was great to see Wouter and Ed again. We have a cool relationship with the guys at the label and it always feels like we have a good family of people working for the success of the band when we see the guys again. Ed’s a top guy and after showing us his car collection (A Ferrari and a couple of Corvettes!!!!!) and his crazy amp collection, I decided to show off a bit and show him my new custom made amp by Neale Amplification in Australia. Suitably impressed I decided to show him my guitar collection only to find that one of my guitars hadn’t made it in one piece. The Hutchins (which has already broke twice and been fixed twice) had once again lost it’s headstock. Devastated is an understatement! I had visions of throwing it off the Eiffel Tower or dragging it behind the van at highway speeds. I think it’s time that I sent this guitar to big gig in the sky…London you might see me smash my first guitar. The exciting news is I get to go guitar shopping!
We have a couple of days at The Farm in Switzerland with Dre’s family to settle in and then we’re off to the UK. Until then stay up to date with us on facebook and don’t be afraid to say g’day at the shows.
Cheers, beers and gypsy tears,
Mike