DZ Deathrays US Tour Blog Part Two

June 14 – Today's show was in Montreal, Canada and everyone was nervous. The last time Bass Drum of Death attempted to cross into Canada they were denied… twice, and considering we were using all of their gear if they didn't get in then everyone was boned. After a nerve-wrecking wait at customs we had the all clear and made it into Canada. In case you didn't know Montreal is predominately a French speaking city and Flo is French. Also everyone has been taking the piss out of Flo's accent the entire tour so today Flo was in his element and loving it. Once we arrived we grabbed some Poutine for dinner, played the show, did some work on the bar and then hit the highway that night to get a head start on the drive to Toronto.

Bass Drum de Décès à Montréal

June 15 – We got up near the crack of noon (11:30am-ish?) because this was probably the busiest day of the tour so far. We got into town, threw some of our crap in the hotel room and got straight to work by selling out and doing a live performance video for a shoe company (we did actually need new shoes... I swear!).

 A behind the scenes video of how to sell out:

Then we walked our gear down and played a show at Wrong bar as part of the NXNE festival with BDOD and our mates The Death Set. The show was awesome!  We played this venue about three months ago to 20 people (one of which was an inflatable sex doll) and this time to see the place full of actual people makes all the bad shows seem worthwhile. Straight after the show we nailed some shots and headed down the street to play an illegal pop up rave/street party our friend from HugsnotDrugs set up. It was crazy, there was about 2/300 kids all in this park and although it may have been called HugsnotDrugs let's just say they were all out of Hugs… So we hit the stage at about 1am and played our set expecting to be pelted with bottles by ravers but instead everyone actually really dug it and we were rewarded with free drinks. Finally at about 2 or 3 am the police came and shut the party down and the ambulance took away a guy on acid in a stretcher and we called it a night.

Early morning street parties in Toronto

June 16 - It was probably like 10am and our room was a sauna. So we fought the heat and decided to hit the road again. After a suspiciously easy entry back into the USA we arrived in Pittsburgh to do a show at this cool little bar. The show was pretty good despite BDOD arriving late due to being held up at the US border. It was a pretty early show because there was a rap battle concert on straight after our show so we packed up and went to get some diner at about 10pm. We ended up at this super dimly lit diner called Kelly's that just played Salem and made some awesome burgers.

June 17 – This was the second day off on the tour. Not much happened really, we all went and saw Prometheus together, then my girlfriend and I went to eat at a Primanti Bro's restaurant that was featured in an episode of Man vs Food. Good times.

June 18 – Today was Detroit rock city day!! We were a little bummed because Death Grips was supposed to be headlining this show before they canned all of their tour dates… Anyway the venue was badarse, it was on top of a bowling alley and they gave us free pool and bowling. The show that night was also just as awesome. The crowd packed out during the first band and by the end of BDOD's set all of these girls had invaded the stage and started dancing and making out with each other… it was magical.  So after killing the gig and all the beers on the rider we went downstairs to slay some pins at the bowling alley. By 2am it was just us and the DJ spinning some dark electro tunes until they closed the lanes which meant it was time we hit the highway to our hotel which was 2 hours away in Toledo.

June 19 – It was about 4am when we arrived at the hotel in Toledo. Motel 6's are usually pretty shady in the US, but at 4am it's a whole different story. As we rolled into the car park we discovered we had inadvertently parked right next to a topless guy getting a hand job in his car by what looked like a hooker. Needless to say they were as surprised to see us as we were of them and after that truth bomb we crashed out for a few hours and then headed off to Cleveland. Despite not being heavily attended, the thing with crowds in the US is they still come to the front and gather around the stage which always makes the shows a lot more fun to play. After the show we loaded out and Flo bought us all a round of some of the biggest whisky shots I've seen in my life and then after unsuccessfully trying to find a burger joint open at 3am we retired to the hotel for the night.

Editor's note: Not only have the band being attracting the attentions of the Canadian kids this week, but Pitchfork also reviewed their album. They gave it 7.4, which we assume means that it's good, but not quite as good as an Arcade Fire album.