UK TOUR DIARY!

THE UNKNOWN + SCARPER! UK TOUR 2000 PAGE 2

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Day 4: July 9th, 2000 Winchester, @ RAILWAY INN
"Rain rain go away, come back when we leave the UK."

We got down to Winchester a lot faster than we thought we would. Went through Biggleswade, how very English. We arrived in the rain as usual and started to unload into the day's pub. We noticed in the day's papers that the kidnappers were still at large. We were getting a little tired of the rainy weather and the cold UK country. But we knew it was going to be a little cold.... Its a little different in England as far as shows go because there's one band's gear set up for all the other bands to use for the whole night. On nights when there's only 3 or 4 bands its not that big of deal. Plus usually the bands use their own instruments, cymbals and drum stands. But today there was going to be 8 bands using Scarper's amps and drums for all day long (this would be a problem later).

So we got loaded in and it was about 2 in the afternoon. We weren't slated to play until 9:30 as the headliners and Scarper was slated to play at about 6:30.

Throughout the day we either watched the bands, ate at the pub (got some amazing veggie burgers) or walked along the streets of Winchester. (BOD: Smithwicks.) We saw a huge cathedral, a bum for the first time (all we said was "sorry, all we have is American money!"), a bunch of shops and the usual ton of people just walking about. Winchester was a quaint little city similar to Hull and Beverly and such. We saw most of the bands play throughout the day. The bands were Aside, Scuttle, Anal Beard, Scarper, Skin of Tears, Capdown, and The Unknown (duh). Scarper put in another awesome performance. Aside was a local metal band, Anal Beard was funny Dead Milkmen kinda band, Capdown was a very tight ska/hardcore band. The fifth band of the day was Skin of Tears form Germany. We saw them in the parking lot before load-in and the drummer had the same ALL jacket as Ken had on. We had thought to make sure and check them out later. Good thing we did. They were simply excellent. They played a mix of pop-punk, reggae and new school punk. They were all really amazing musicians as well.

When we got on stage to play, the Railway was pretty full. All in all 80-110 people probably went through throughout the day. There was about 60 people there when we played. The band before us was Capdown and they rally had the crowd rocking and jumping about. We were ready and so were they! The day's bands took their toll on the equipment though. Matt lost a high-hat clamp and Micha's bass amp got screwed up. We managed to get a Marshall amp from Skin of Tears for Chris to play for the night but Brian had to use the now broken Scarper bass amp. So we had the crunch for the guitar but a failing amp for the bass.

The Winchester set was: NEVER BE THE SAME-LISTEN TO ME-DISAPPEAR-LET'S GO-PUZZLES-WHETHER-STARE-NEED TO KNOW-ANOTHER VOICE-SWITCH-ANNIE MAE-BIFF THE CAT-BLINK-BEST FRIENDS-SELF CONTROL-LEAVE ME NOW-HERE COMES THE SUMMER The Scarper clan was really going crazy and getting the crowd riled up. Matt decided to show us his ass while we played as well. We had a blast and we felt really well about how we did. Ken's voice was a bit shot early in the day and Wayne was weak, but both got a shot of adrenaline at some point that really launched them both that night. We found out that Here Comes the Summer was probably going to be in the set much of the tour, as was an encore every night. We also finally broke out and sold some CDs and signed a few of them too!

We walked through the city to spend the night with Mike and Dawn, the promoters of the show. It was a common thing to leave the gear at the pub and walk to the home of the promoter for the night during the tour. We had a great pasta meal before bed. We squished onto the floor (cept Wayne on the couch and Matt and Mac in the van at the club) and it was here that we learned of "Joey." It seems that in the 80s there was a TV show on in the UK that featured a boy with multiple sclerosis and his name was Joey. Well all the kids of the day eventually used his name to mean a derogatory term for what i guess what we'd say "retard" or something for. So we got the inside scoop about what most of the Scarper clan grew up with and we also got them to speak more American (Monk was best at it) and we found out that the Dukes of Hazard is just huge with them .... Roscoe!!!

Day 5: July 10th, 2000 Nottingham, @ HOCKLEY HILLS INN
"Play one you know!!"

Got up and walked back to the van to get ready for the trip up to Nottingham. We really needed to repack the van to let the passengers, Wayne, Chris and Ken, have some sort of comfort and safety especially after Wayne was nearly killed when Ken fell off a guitar amp on top of him. We reorganized it so we had more room but we were still worried about it all tipping over. A quick stop at the local hardware and we got some rope and we secured the gear in the back using a spider web technique. Surprisingly it worked very well and the gear and our lives were safe. We stopped at a Burger King for our first taste of UK fast food and we had the usual stuff except Ken had a "Royale with cheese," which was their chicken sandwich. The ride up was quick. We did however drive around and around Nottigham looking for the pub. Scarper got detained by an accident, so we got up to the Hockley Inn first and unloaded. Aston had a bit of trouble backing up the van and...well, we didnt need that tail light anyways...

This was the nicest looking place we had been to as of yet. We couldn't believe this place did punk rock shows. We unloaded the gear up the steps (yuck) and settled in with some pints. (BOD:Pale Rider Beer.) Unfortunately this promoter wasn't too organized, and we didn't see much advertising for the show. It turned out that Aston even had to go out and get the PA with the guy cause he had no way of getting it to the club. Plus we had no mics. It wasn't looking good at 8:30. There was no PA, no mics and no people. By 9ish the first band of the night, Luna:Suit, went on and played to us and Scarper and 2 other people. They were a cool Discount/X kinda band with a girl lead singer, and a guy backup singer. We could see this wasn't going to be the best show of the night crowd wise. We were getting worried about a place to stay since this guy didn't have his shit together at all. Monk called a friend of his, Tracey, and she said she'd put us up for the night. Plus she did a local zine and she didn't even know there was a show. Lame, this guy sucked. Tracey said she is usually really up on things and for her not to know about a show was a bad deal.

So Scarper went up and jammed and we told them what songs to play. This was also the night that Chris got up and played the solo for their Iron Maiden cover song, Run to the Hills. It was really funny to see a British band pop punk band playing an Iron Maiden cover with an American playing lead guitar. It was great fun. We got up and did the same thing as Scarper told us what to play. Ken got to use a cool looking 50s mic. And they heckled us just as we heckled them -- "Play one you know!!!!!".........We also noticed that they always seem to pick on the "Ginger haired one"...hmmm.

The Nottingham set was: BIFF THE CAT-PUZZLES-WHETHER-SHE'S MY EX-DISAPPEAR-MY FRIENDS-BLINK-ANNIE MAE-STARE-SELF CONTROL-BEST FRIENDS-LISTEN TO ME-SWITCH And as it had been for the whole trip, something went wrong while we played. Wayne smashed right through the bass drum during the second song. We were having such a blast though, he played with out it the rest of the way. It was OK though because Matt had an extra bass drum head to fix it up for the next day.

We packed up and headed off to Tracey's house and we crashed on the floor and couches. She had a great house with lots of cool records and books and movies. She was into a lot of things that we were into. Unfortunately we couldn't sit and talk to her all night cause she had to work early in the morning. Ken, Wayne, Chris and Micha stayed up talking as Russell typed away on his laptop, being the computer nerd he is for like 3 hours or something. The rest of the clan hit the hay quickly and we all slept in. We left Tracey a few cds and a shirt as a gift and headed for Manchester in the morning.

Day 6: July 11th, 2000 Manchester, @ STAR AND GARTER
"No Entry....sound check in progress."

Got into Manchester fairly quickly and we headed into town for some food at Pizza Hut. Funny thing happened at the Hut too. A little ole British woman started talking to Brian and their conversation got to us being in town and what not and at one point she asks brian "Is that your wife?" And she was pointing at Wayne!!!! hahahah....waht a crazy lady. But she alos had some words to the wise as well: "Live everyday like its your last, cause one day it will be." Manchester was the biggest city we had been to so far. We didn't get the chance to see much but we had a good 30 minute or so walk into and out of town through the station and saw a ton of stuff. Scarper was going to be on their way a bit after us as they got stuck in traffic again.

The Star and Garter was located in a crummy part of town near the Picadilly train station. It was a great old looking place that had a really high stage not unlike the new stage at the Euclid Tavern in Cleveland. They had a full PA and it looked like we would have a good sound for the night.(BOD:Boddington's; "the Cream of Manchester") We found out that the Propagumbis had cancelled but another local band, Dugong, would be filling in. We did a sound check and good thing cause Chris broke a string and Ken found out how shot his voice was.

The pub/venue was a neat one because the stage was upstairs and this was an actual club where bigger bands had played in the past. The crowd didn't show up til right about 9pm. Up until the doors opened it was funny because there was a rope blocking the stairs with the words "No Entry....sound check in progress." These places really treated bands right, it was very cool. We think the doors to the upstairs where the venue was weren't opened until 9pm because when it hit there was a nice full room with about 60 or so people. All in all maybe 75-100 people turned out. Dugong and Scarper played good sets. Scarper didn't do the Iron Maiden song and it was going to come back to haunt them too. We played well too. Each night it seemed like we got that super boost of adrenaline and we rocked out as hard as we could.

The Manchester set was: NEVER BE THE SAME-LISTEN TO ME-DISAPPEAR-BLINK-BEST FRIENDS-FEELINGS-WHETHER-STARE-SEEMS SO REAL-NEED TO KNOW-SWITCH-BIFF THE CAT-PUZZLES-HERE COMES THE SUMMER-SELF CONTROL We got another great response from the crowd in attendance and we finally sold more than a few things. We even flubbed through the first few measures of Iron Maiden because they were calling for it in the crowd, amazing how popular metal is over there right now. We announced on stage how it was Scarper that did the song and they should be ridiculed for not playing it.. We crashed at Adz house and the absolute best meal so far, a pasta veggie mix. And they had two awesome dogs, Scribble and Pepe.

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