The Decline Tour Diary: Part Four

We've just hit the halfway point of our European tour, and after last night's show in Paris, we'll definitely be returning. So far we've played Austria, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, but France blew them all out of the water in just one show.

We supported The Story So Far (US) at a small club called Les Combustibles – the English translation is apparently a reference to burning something down. Ironically someone set fire to the venue a few weeks earlier. It was the last show the venue was putting on, so there was no doubt things were going to get messy.

The gig was past sold out, and I didn't realise how big The Story So Far were until I saw fans lining up two hours before doors opened. It seemed that most, if not all, punters were there for the headliner, so we were interested to see how the crowd took to our different style.

Hanging with the Story So Far

Our rider was insane, and almost sent us into a sugar coma. After dinner Harry tried to have a nap on a couch backstage, so did The Story So Far vocalist Parker Cannon.

A few songs into French openers Sail To North's set, someone ran into the backstage room in a mad panic to find a drumstick. Their drummer had only brought one pair and one stick had snapped. What kind of drummer brings one pair of drumsticks to a show?

With 250 or so crammed into the tiny sweatbox of a venue, it was definitely the biggest show of the tour. Excited, we swiftly set up after The American Scene (US) wrapped things up. Usually setting up on a strict time limit is stressful enough, without Pat's amp blowing a fuse. It took us five minutes to figure out it was screwed, and we had a sold out crowd waiting for us to start. The Story So Far guitarist William Levy jumped onstage and saved the day by lending us his amp.

Any worries the crowd mightn't warm to our music were quickly diffused when the first few rows erupted into a mad frenzy during our first song, spilling drinks all across the stage and screaming the lyrics to our songs back at us.

We also got to meet and hang out with some of the people who helped us get to Europe. Manux Feuzeul added us to the Story So Far show, and is one of Paris' biggest punk promoters. He put on a show for Pennywise and Strung Out a week earlier, and has Propagandhi and a few other awesome bands lined up for the future. We also got to meet Marc Muhlenbrink who works for the booking agency Rage Tour and organised this whole thing for us.

Manux Feuzeul and Marc Muhlenbrink

We stayed with Manux's friend's Get Cnfsn and Kabuki Kat, who gave us a free, clean place to stay. Usually it's one or the other. It seems most bands we like or are friends with have played or slept where we have before. Usually we can tell by graffiti and stickers on venue walls.

Post show interview in Paris

Back in Germany Pat emailed Big D & The Kids Table frontman Dave McWane letting him know we were staying at all the same places and playing the same venues as they have. He replied saying, "You guys must be doing a rough tour". With some of the places we've stayed, that's a fair statement. So it's good when you find people like Get and Kat supporting the scene.

After an awesome night, we've had a somewhat rocky morning. We're currently sitting on the French-Swiss border and police are looking through our van to make sure we don't have millions of dollars worth of merch, drugs or any other contraband. Nathan wants to go to the toilet, but we played with a UK band on Monday night that advised us against such activities at the border. 

When they toured Europe a couple of years ago, they rocked up at the Croatian border and police began searching their car. One of their members asked to go to the bathroom, and was immediately escorted to a room where he was given a cavity search.

We weren't supposed to play a show on Monday, but we got offered another Belgium show in Leuven and figured we might as well play. Also, someone in the country has our name tattooed on his leg.  

So on our first day off after 10 shows, we drove to Brussels (30 minutes from Leuven), got a shitload of pizza and ice-cream and slept for 12 hours. Walking the streets at night you feel like you're going to get mugged. There were warnings at the hotel not to park on the street and to beware of pickpockets. Nathan summed it up best by saying, "Brussels may not be a great city now, but one day it will sprout.”

On our way to the show the next day, some jerk beeped and overtook our car. Harry flipped the driver off as they went past. The car slowed down and as we drove past the driver was flipping us off and holding a police siren. Yep, Harry just gave the finger to an undercover cop. We slowed down, held our breath and let him drive ahead of us before letting our guard down.

The last-minute show in Leuven was at a venue called Room66 with UK bands TheKidIsFireworks and Stillbust and was one of the smallest venues I've ever seen. At this stage we were all sick and just wanted to pass out, but we powered through and the show ended up being surprising energetic and the second best show of the tour so far – after Paris.

The windows behind the stage slowly began fogging up when we started playing and Pat eventually ended up crowd surfing whilst playing guitar and singing. UK bands know how to rock out and party!

A shitload more driving, a lack of sleep and heaps of petrol station food brings us to the French-Swiss border patrol. Our friends in Smoke Or Fire (US) had their van searched, merch confiscated and were fined when they entered Switzerland a week or so ago. Luckily while I was typing this Harry sweet-talked his way into a mere 80 euros tax. They probably opened the back of the van and realised it would take them hours to pick through everything and gave up. Cops are lazy; this is good.

Drinking on the job

We've got a few of shows in Switzerland then it's off to Italy!