On The Road With Pond And Doctopus Part Three

27 October 2014 | 3:15 pm | Matthew Tomich

It's time for the Perth fellas to say goodbye to the touring BS.

The night after Philadelphia, we make our first obligatory American cuisine stop for a Philly cheese steak, which is essentially a meatier, greasier, cheesier-than-average sub sandwich. It’s heavy as fuck. There’s a line stretching out the door of the rectangular restaurant, awkwardly situated under a bridge in a semi-industrial part of south Philadelphia. I get about a third of the way through my sandwich; Steve demolishes his swiftly, and the rest of the guys follow suite.

Cody, our merch man, takes over the drive to Washington, and we make the journey crash-free with Parliament-Funkadelic on the stereo. We pass by Baltimore, under its famous harbor, past its towering salt mounds (hence earning it the temporary nickname of Saltimore). At our prestigious hotel, the Comfort Inn in Capitol Heights, Maryland, I luck out and score room 420, but unbelievably it’s non-smoking. The numbered sheath for my room key makes sits in the front of the car for the rest of the trip.

Kobe Bryant, eat ya heart out. Pic by Mathew Tomich.

We bought a football and a basketball at Walmart on the way back from Boston, but never got a chance to properly use them, so with a couple of hours to kill we found our first court and shoot some hoops. Five minutes later a group of kids – one of them maybe 14, the rest a lot younger – challenge us to a game. We’re not at all prepared, but how many times do you get to play pick-up basketball with a bunch of kids from Maryland? They’re amazing, too, faking us out at almost every turn, cutting through our defenses with ease. One of the kids is maybe 3 feet tall but drives like lightning. I’m out of shape and sucking air within a couple of minutes; everyone else is in way better shape. After 10 minutes, John Lekias flips a switch and begins dominating, cutting through their defenses and scoring layup after layup. I guess it’s not that hard – I mean, they’re five feet tall, but still more formidable than any opponents we were expecting to face. I swat-block a shot from an eight-year old and feel pretty good about myself, and later we go decide to go for last point wins. We’re on the defense and they cut through the middle but miss; we get the rebound, nurse the ball and John goes for another signature layup for the win. Everyone’s pooped and my shoes feel like they’re welling up with blood, but these short detours are what makes this whole ridiculous adventure worthwhile.

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We’re stupid late to the venue, loading in just before doors open, and D.C. is a bitch of a city to navigate, especially sight unseen. We park three blocks away and walk, but on the way we’re stopped by a guy in his '30s sitting on his porch with some friends. He asks Doctopus if they’re musicians and they say yes, and he goes on to recite a poem about non-violence and the power of music.

So no spliffs then? Pic by Matthew Tomich.

The Rock ‘N’ Roll Hotel is split into three levels, none of which make sense. The ground floor is the band room, a large rectangular space that feels (and at times, sounds) like a small warehouse. On the second level, where merch is located, is like a club, except the only people dancing are middle-aged and easily drunk. The third is a rooftop bar, a happy medium, but more on that later. Pre-show in the bandroom, Pond are cycling through ideas for their Halloween show in LA. They cycle through condiments, Seinfeld characters (Joe has to be Kramer), members of the band Air, the element air (“we just won’t show up,”) but fail to reach a consensus.

Steve’s donning a Washington Wizards jersey for this Doctopus’ set, part of what he previously coined his “basketball tour of America.” He opens with “how you cunts doing?” which is always a risk, but it’s a Friday night and these people can handle it. He tells the story of our basketball game, leaving out the vital detail – our opponents being half our size – until last. “One nil, America. Fucking one nil.” Jeremy breaks a string and brings out his backup guitar for the first time this tour. His strap won’t connect and he sits on stage, strumming out of sight for the rest of the set. Pond are crushing as usual, but the room makes everything sound a little underwater. Afterwards in the band room with Doctopus and Jay from Pond, Jay talks about the strange peaks and valleys of touring. “You go from the thrill of playing in front of an audience to suddenly… nothing.” Later, Steve goes to smoke a spliff upstairs, and the bar manager, who was previously all rosey and smiling, flips out. “You guys played a great set,” he scolds him, “and now you’ve ruined it all.” Steve gets kicked out, and one of the bouncers, an ex-Marine, tells him not to worry, that nobody else gives a shit. Understandable: with mid-terms coming up, the streets of D.C. are signposted by two kinds of ads: Mayoral candidacy and marijuana legalization. We find Steve later, demolishing a pie, and return to Maryland with Good Boys on the stereo.

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The next morning, the International House of Pancakes becomes our second American cuisine stop. Steve tells our waitress it’s our first time there and she picks up on the accent.

“Are y’all famous or something? Should I know you?” she asks.

“Hell no.”

As has been the trend, our poor Australian stomachs can barely handle the tremendous, greasy portions. It sustains us for the four-plus hour drive back to New York and then some.

Driving through SoHo, the insanely expensive and fashionable Manhattan neighbourhood south of Greenwich Village and north of Wall Street, is the equivalent of driving through a human mine field. It’s a wonder we don’t break anyone or anything this time on the way through to Brooklyn for the fifth show in a row, and the last of the east coast leg, at bar/record store in Williamsburg called Rough Trade, the perfect space for this kind of music with an upper deck across three walls. It’s close to a sell-out – probably 250 bodies, and everyone’s 100% into everything.

No need to stand up and play... Pic by Ben Hayes.

Shit just got real comfortable. #SocksRock. Pic by Ben Hayes

Doctopus play their best set so far, and Stephen dedicates Man I Think You’re Cool to Cody and I because it’s our last night on tour. Pond are totally electric, and I’m surprised at how much I enjoy seeing the same sets every night for five nights in a row. It helps when both bands are absolutely killer at what they do, even more so when what they do is so incredibly different. There are maybe two dozen people hanging around afterwards, most of them Australians, including Jeremy’s and Ben’s cousins – how many fucking Australians are there in Brooklyn? – and by the time load-out is finished just before 2am, we opt to go late night bowling at a place called The Gutter around the corner. I don’t know if you’ve ever been late night bowling, but it’s one of the most fun experiences you can have post-2am. John bowls a ridiculously sweet spare and proceeds to do the Homer Simpson woop-woop-woop spin-on-the-shoulder for 20 seconds, which inspires painful, gut-wrenching laughter.

We’re kicked out at 4am and huddle on the street, about a little over a dozen of us left, figuring out what to do next. Everyone’s rolling spliffs. Tomorrow, Pond make the seven hour drive to Montreal. Doctopus are in New York for one more night and will watch their first NBA game, and the next day, Jeremy will celebrate his 29th birthday by hiking up a hill somewhere between New York and Chicago.

It’s approaching 5am I’m talking to Jamie Terry. “This is so much of what touring is,” he says. “80% of it is just hanging out, travelling, waiting, and bullshit.” He’s right – it’s tedium and boredom and minutiae, but I understand why people do it, because even when you’re not on stage – even when you’re just an observer along for the ride like me, the thrill of getting on that stage every night and rocking the fuck out with a rabid crowd of enthusiastic fans is utterly infectious. There’s nothing else in the world like it.