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.....