Sitting in the lobby of Hilton hotel in Scotsdale, AZ now after an overnight drive from Das Bunker. The Bunker party is still with us like a clenched fist around our guts and brains, but a swim in the outdoor pool at the hotel will probably wake us up. I am now going to try to recall the events of the last couple of days, which I think is going to be quite hard since alcohol has a lot in common with erasers - it erases stuff.
Los Angeles
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| BBQ, Hollywood Hills |
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| Board gaming at Jason's house |
The drive from San Francisco to LA was really hard. We got into Hollywood around 8 pm and headed up the ridiculous maze they call Hollywood Hills in order to go to a barbeque Jason and Lori was having. We are used to stumbling out of the van and in to a dark and empty venue every day, so it was quite a shock to arrive and meet all these people in a nice and bright house with cooking and chatting and greeting and music. It was awesome, though. So many nice people, excellent food, lots of beer and the hosts' sweet and lovely little four year old daughter who was acting like it was ten birthdays all in one. So although the entire day was spent in the car and life sucked monkey ass, there was a good ending. Thanks again to Jason and Lori for hosting a great bbq and for their hospitality.
Slept at Rev John's place (thnks agAn 2 ju tu) and got up at ten to call my buddy Andreas from
Fredrikstad in Norway (IOC's hometown), who recently moved to LA. I was going to spend the day at his and his girlfriend's place out in Marina del Rey, something I had been looking forward to for several months. On my way over I of course caught the shuttle as it flew right above the roof of the house. Fun shit!
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| Space shuttle over LA |
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| Christian at the Venice Pier, LA |
After days of brutal partying, performing and driving, meeting Andreas by the beach was a damn renaissance. Their flat was so nice, right by the water, and Andreas and I took out the cruisers and cruised over to Venice beach. Damnit, that was so nice. Went for a swim in the ocean, checked out the skaters, had some food and beer and had a swim in the pool and a bubble bath at Andreas' residence later. Thnx Andreas and Merete for having me over and help me charge my batteries! You are the loveliest people :-)
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| Andreas, Venice Pier |
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| Christian and Andreas, Marina del Rey, LA |
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| Hell yeah! Marina del Ga |
And I guess I needed that, cause it was Friday night and
Das Bunker next. As always, though, there are some issues in one way or the other over there. It has nothing to do with John, though. This time around the fucker of whom Das Bunker rented the lights, said he didn't want our lighting engineer touch his lights or his board. Snap! What the fuck? So you run a rental business and you will never agree to rent out to venues that have bands with their own lighting engineer, which is like most bands. Shit!? What a fucking cunt! I wish he burns in hell, but there is little you can do right there and then. I mean, if you tell him to fuck off, then he will fuck off - with all the lights. So what we told him was just to fuck it, that we'd do our own lights with a strobe, a fog machine and two led parcans. Old school, rock 'n' roll, bad ass. Then he could play with his colors and moving lights for
[:S.I.T.D.:]
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| "Dude, why is Christian naked?" |
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| Bryon and Christian, Das Bunker, LA |
If you let things like these get to you, you will have big problems doing a tour. Alright, we were pissed off right there and then, and I can talk shit about it now, but basically we just decided to go with it that way in order to not create any more fuss, and then just laugh and start thinking about something else. And so we did. The Bunker show was pretty awesome. Good turn up, excited crowd and extremely hot on stage. Never before on this tour have I been sweating that much, and never on this tour have we put so much energy into it on stage. Not that we didn't give it all on other shows or that we gave more on this show, it was just so hot and sweaty and that sometimes gives you the little extra adrenaline push.
After the show was fun too, only too bad I don't remember any details... cause again we had some of those Jäger shots coming from the side of the stage during the show. We are so happy you love us that much!
...
Scottsdale
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| Casi by the pool, AZ |
I woke up that morning in the van just an hour outside Phoenix. Slept like only a passed out drunk person can sleep, but slept far too short and I were not able to open my eyes as I woke up. I hadn't been that fucked up tired since as long as I can remember. That really hurt! And on top of that it was already 95 degrees outside! About an hour later we rolled in to scenic and clean Scottsdale, as the locals put it, and got in to the Hilton. The time was 11 am, and I was so out of my mind ready for an early check-in to get some more sleep since my body practically screamed for it, but did we get an early check-in? No, of course not. We were bound to actually hanging out in the lobby for about two hours which of course at this point was a huge letdown (at the moment of writing I know that worse things were coming...). Casi, Tom and I knew exactly what to do to pass time and get something out of it at the same time - jump in the pool!
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| Me and Andy from Icon of Coil |
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| Andy @ the punching machine in Scottsdale |
Got a couple of hours of sleep at the hotel before getting a cab to the venue - The Martini Ranch. Had a great time with the VIPs that night as we could hang out in some outside bar area, which is so much nicer than standing in front of house screaming while other bands are soundchecking or DJ's are trying to wreck the system before doors. And for some reason someone challenged somone at a punching machine. We inserted a 20 dollar bill and everyone went for it. I am not posting any results, but I will admit that neither Andy, Chris nor I won. My excuse was a fractured finger after the earlier mentioned incident after the Denver show. I dunno what Andy's or Chris' excuse was, though :-P
One of the guys told us he had never heard of Icon of Coil two months ago, and now the only thing he listens to was Icon of Coil, and after the show he said this was one of his best concerts ever. Cool!
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| Awesomeness - before the show @ Martini Ranch, Scottsdale, AZ |
After a really fun show in front of an enthusiastic Arizona crowd, some of us hung out for the after party, or should I say the main event!? We had 10 minutes to clear the stage after our show in order to make place for
Rock Lobster, an 80's cover band, and suddenly the place was packed with a completely different crowd. Many of the people from the IOC concert hung out, though, so we had a blast. And a little later we were going to some other bar a few blocks down, but when we tried to get in I was asked for ID, which of course was in my bag, in the van, at the hotel. We tried to make him understand that his bar needed a super smash hit rock star from Norway, but he was not impressed. I jumped into a cab, got back to the hotel and fetched my passport, and by the time I came back all the guys had gone back to The Martini Ranch. Snap!
Back at the outside bar a guy with a lot of body ink was lifting his shirt apparently showing off his tattoos to a group of people. All of a sudden, whithout any notice what so ever he dropped his shirt and fucking punched this one guys face full power - BAM - just like that. Before we knew, three security guards dragged him out of the bar (and hopefully into the street in front of a big ass truck). The offended guy was just shaking his head. He did not know what hit him, and as soon as he came to his senses again, Ape bought him a drink. I think he got a kick out if it, cause he started screaming "Hell yeah, I just took a punch. Still standing! I took a punch like a man, and now I got a free drink!!" Why was he all excited about that? I do not get punched in the face, but still i get free drinks!
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