Tour Diaries
The Stranglers in Australia 2004
weds 6th oct
 after
53 hours awake and 30 travelling we arrive at our Brisbane hotel...it
is hot(23 degrees,nice) and breakfast is being served by the
pool!!It is 7.30 am....at 1 oclock I'll do a radio show where
I've been invited to talk about my 5 favourite tracks....in
no particular order they are NUTBUSH CITY LIMITS-IKE AND TINA
TURNER...FAVOURITE
 THINGS-JOHN
COLTRANE...VOODOO CHILE-JIMI HENDRIX...LIGHT MY FIRE-THE DOORS
and HELP-THE BEATLES........after this I am free and an old
mate comes to take me to his house about 100 miles north on
the SUNSHINE COAST-awesome beach action-he has two acres of
sub-tropical rainforest on the edge of a KOALA reserve...drive
back that night and sleep for the first time!!!!
thurs 7th
 9
solid hours sleep mmmmm....me BAZ and JJ fly down to SYDNEY
to do RAGE,a video show where we pick 40 vids we like and tell
a little story about each one...good fun and recorded right
opposite the legendary but very small and disappointing BONDI
BEACH.....however the flight down was wonderful as we go over
the GREAT DIVIDING RANGE of mountains...fabbo ond some fantastic
coastline until the anticipation of the bay and the opera house
etc....more of that later though....we also meet an ice-cream
man from NOTTINGHAM!!.....we eat with our record company man
and fly back up only to stay awake half the night......lovin'
that lag not!
fri 8th
 meet
my friends again and go around the city of BRISSY as it is known...lunch
with BAZZA and down to sound check avec keyboard problems!!!!THE
TIVOLI is the venue,an old theatre in the ex-run down part of
town...our amazing crew fix all our problems and it is relax
time except that everywhere we go there is a smell of burning
pine.....we soon discover that in fact BRISBANE is on fire from
all sides and a state of emergency is declared....and the stranglers
are in town hahahaha....anyway the show must go on and it sure
did....sold out too... a great start and no problems.....never
knew what to expect but the crowd were brilliant....much drinking
and flesh pressing later and it is bed time again...but sleep???
who knows.......
sat 9th
 mmmmm
a few hours kip but nothing to write home about........up and
out for the flight back down to
 SYDNEY
and a gig at THE METRO another sell-out.....but first to the
tattooist for me and BAZ as agreed...........oh and a hair-cut......can
i find a barbers- no just 10 bloody 'HAIRDRESSERS'...still I
just have to get it done....fancy a tour of SYDNEY hairdressers??
soundcheck at 6 and all is well......getting doc in cause everyone
is suffering from air conditioning throat!!!typical.......doc
gives me steroids as a precaution but things look cool.....also
we have to find a soccer bar as ENGLAND are playing WALES and
it is on at midnight our time....erm but the show doesnt finish
until then......great show and exploding mic stand for my intro
...I was not happy but the punters loved it...one very sad heckler
and poor BAZ has some guitar probs but all in all it is another
stormer so lets get to that pub............
sun 10th
 me
and BAZ meet up with friends CHERYL DAVIS and JULIAN for a fabulous
trip over to the suburb of MANLEY....a much better beach than
BONDI......via an awesome boat trip past the legendary SYDNEY
HARBOUR BRIDGE and the gorgeous OPERA HOUSE.......but first
we drag JULIAN with us back to the tattooist for our work...boys
eh??.......once in MANLEY we take in the site and street performers....like
the guy balancing a stool on his head whilst strumming a non
tune!!and several others but my favourite has to be an old fella
on a cloth stool dressed in candy-striped shirt and flat pork-pie
hat doing very slow 'slight of
 hand'
accompanied by a ghetto blaster pumping out loud circus music,
performing almost to himself...not looking up at any time but
looking totally pissed off ...u had to be there.......we shopped
til we dropped and then had a beautiful meal of BARRAMUNDI fish
mmmmm...CHERYL and jULES ordered the biggest sea-food platter
I have ever seen........then we went back to the city and had
drinks beneath the OPERA HOUSE before JULES drove us over the
bridge(which u can climb for $A180 but time was against us)...a
truly wonderful day plus 7 hours sleep....thank you both...
mon - tues 11th 12th
 up
bright and breezy to fly down to MELBOURNE...home of NEIGHBOURS..aaaaarrrrgggghhhhh...what
scenery ...the coastline just goes on forever and the colours
of the sea and sand are just beautiful ...we are playing/staying
in a really colonial looking town called ST KILDA,very pretty
with trams and two storey frontier type architecture oh and
very pretty girls....me and CHRIS BROWNE our tour manager go
out for sea-food and beer and then later it's over to ABC radio
for an acoustic session with me JJ and BAZ...excellent interviewer
and a really good show...myself and BAZ go out for a quick pasta
and beer and then to bed early -ish for a 6 o'clock T.V. show
called GOOD MORNING AUSTRALIA where
 we
do BIG THING...with live vocals.......we go on air at ten forty
five....nice...wouldnt mind being an instrumentalist at this
point in the tour haha....there is also a student NEIGHBOURS
NIGHT tonight at the ELEPHANT AND WHEELBARROW...$A35 a ticket
and you get three cast members show up.......great- I cannot
wait!!.... the venue for tonights show is THE PRINCE OF WALES
all of ten metres from our hotel.....but another tattoo beckons
and this is my first by a lady....show is a sell-out and the
punters go ape shit tonight easily the best show for me but
again
 BAZ
seemed to have some gear problems...bad news...also he is not
at all well and stays in his room poor bloke......after the
show I meet up with one of my oldest buddies and we laugh the
night away.......it was 100 degrees today too....oh earlier
I met a lady from the out back ..a place called BROKEN HILL
where mad max was made...she is a redhead with white skin!!!
can u dig it ....she reckons on christmas day the temp has been
49 degrees.......f*** me........
wed 13th
 back
to our alternative home...the airport....for the mega internal
flight to PERTH in WESTERN AUSTRALIA..it is a 4-5 hour journey
over some truly stupendous scenery.........really dont know
what to expect as where we stay we play....a holiday resort
on the beach up the coast from FREEMANTLE in a place called
SCARBOROUGH.......beautiful turquoise sea and surf as far as
the eye can see...on the plane I sat next to a woman who is
involved with a local swimming club of which a member was recently
taken by a shark in 1 metre of water....scary.....this is a
very beautiful place and we organise a trip across the sea which
on this coast is the INDIAN OCEAN to an island where convicts
were kept- called ROTTNEST......me and CHRIS go on a tour of
FREEMANTLE the nearest big town...again very colonial looking
and very clean which is how I have found most of AUS...we all
go out for a lovely french meal tonight and have a fantastic
night out all paid for by our record company..........not to
mention our cabbie from hell who was called JIM yeah right an
indian called JIM....well he took us on a f*****ing magical
mystery tour for 40 minutes before we got to the restaurant...it
was only 10 minutes away coming back....cabbies I s**t em.......back
to the resort...hahah and 9 hours sleep oh yesssss.....up early
for surf etc and more sightseeing then back for sound check...........this
is not sold out but doing well.....what will happen........well
what a suprise the punters went wild all night ...what a lovely
way to end the playing part of the tour...........we all get
to our beds for the following mornings early start and trip
over the sea .....we have hired a huge SUNSEEKER type vessel
and have all the things we need wine,food,mates and a very cool
skipper ....the water here is truly stunning.....I get straight
in and within minutes a huge STINGRAY 4ft swims by ...wow scary
but they are only looking.....then we stop up the coast to get
more food before sailing round to a very secluded bay for a
spot of skinny dipping......what followed was nothing less than
BAZ deserved for all his illness's and gear problems.....we
were messing about around
 the
boat
 diving
in etc and we had two masks........I was on the back of the
boat and BAZ was in the water with a mask on when suddenly this
massive-like 6 foot - stingray goes past...wow I scream and
it goes straight under BAZ while he is looking down.....truly
awesome...what a day....we sail back drinking and laughing and
sharing a few more drinks while preparing ourselves for the
long haul back to ENGLAND that night..........we all agree that
it has been another truly wonderful time.......cannot wait to
return...........now to the other side of the world!!!.....2
B continued.....
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