The Decline Tour Diary: Part Six

It's 10pm, and we've been cramped up in this Paris-bound van for 12 hours. There's still another four hours to kill so I might as well recap the last leg of our European tour. We're all sick, tired, and sore, but the past month has been nothing short of unreal. None of us are looking forward to jumping on a plane when we get to Paris, though.

It's a good thing we can see an end in sight because the van is starting to smell like rotten fruit, the floor is sticky, there's vomit stains down the side of it, and we've wrecked the interior from violently throwing our backline in and out every night.

Slovenian Punk Rock beach party.

Since my last update we've played four shows - all of which revolved around little to no sleep - and they've easily been some of the best on the tour.

The first of four was in Rome. Seeing as we actually had some time off in Italy, we crammed in as much sightseeing, food, and drinks as possible. We were too cheap to pay entry to the Colosseum, but gladly stood out the front of it for a band photo.

The roads in Rome were even more hectic than those in Paris. It was like Mario Kart on overdrive. On our way to our hotel we witnessed numerous car wrecks, a lady driving around using her iPad, and someone rolling a cigarette behind the wheel. With no lanes there were more dirty mergers than Wall Street (I stole that one from Harry).

Good morning Italy!

That night at the venue, Alvarado Street, we met our new favourite band, Bedtime For Charlie. They packed out the room (which was a small studio-like venue below a pub) with their epic three-part harmonies, and had everyone singing along. We had to play after them… "I'm going to jump off the Colosseum now,” Harry said.

Kye complimented a sunny Italy morning the next day by thrusting his head into a plastic bag and emptying his guts. So it wasn't surprising when he slept in the car as we exploded the Vatican. Pat came to the conclusion that, for priests, going to the Vatican would be like attending to Soundwave.

Then it was to Croatia from Italy via Slovenia – all in the space of five hours. No wonder we kept losing track of when or where we were. We were dreading crossing the Slovenia-Croatian border because we'd heard it can be a nightmare. We even had a two-page letter from the promoter explaining we weren't going to be selling the gear. A quick look at our passports and we were sent on our way. I think people were having us on.

"Look at my hands!!!"

We knew from the moment we stepped out of the van at the venue we were in for a good night. We were greeted with beers and a bottle of homemade alcohol called Rakija, which was 40% alcohol. You could get drunk off its fumes. Someone even had a Chemistry exam in the morning, to which they planned on rocking up drunk.

We weren't quite sure what to expect from the final three shows, but the room packed out and we had people crowd surfing, getting onstage and singing into our mics. I handed over bass duties to Kye for one song and found myself crowd surfing with my microphone, which was definitely a tour highlight.

You know you've had a good night when you get to your accommodation as the sun's coming up. I said Paris was the best show of the tour, but Croatia undoubtedly takes the cake.

We pulled up our chicken-scratch tour route and headed back to Slovenia – where a show almost as good was waiting. When we rocked up, the support band, The Morons, were making their setlist/banner out of 20 years worth of porn magazines. They hung it proudly behind them all set.

The last music video we released was for a song called Excuse Me, in which Pat puts on a rabbit suit and we beat the shit out of him. A fan was wearing a full-body bunny suit most of the night.

Inspired by our Excuse Me music video. What a cool bunny...

The punter reversed the roll and took it upon himself to wrestle other people and wreck the place – at one people he playfully tackled a security guard. He smelt like vomit. Apparently the rest of the audience was just as intoxicated.

I also learnt what “stage camping” is. The term refers to a punter – usually intoxicated – that out-stays their welcome onstage. Said campers also have an annoying habit of spilling drinks all over guitar pedals and knocking microphone stands into the singer's face. But we couldn't really get mad when most of the room was dancing around and going crazy because they actually knew the songs.

Drying out pedals and making sure all our teeth were in tact, we headed further inland. The further we went, the more alcoholic the locals became. The final show of the tour was last night at a castle in Bystrice Pod Hostynem, Czech Republic. As we drove through its narrow arc driveways in the dark a courtyard full of legless punters welcomed us. Loading the gear in was like weaving through a cluster of zombies.

With a 14-hour drive to Paris the next day, we couldn't really afford to drink. So it was typical that the promoter supplied us with enough alcohol to kill asmall army. The homemade Czech moonshine we were given was 52% and put the Croatian Rakija to shame.

The only thing that Czechs love more than drinking is smoking, and a poorly ventilated castle isn't the ideal place for a non-smoker. During our set, the combination of cigarette smoke and fog from the venue's smoke machine left me feeling like there was Nicorette flavoured fairy floss in my mouth. I couldn't even see Harry for most of the set, who was within arms reach. What was worse, there wasn't any water in the place.

Performing in a castle.

An hour onstage and some minor lung damage later, we found ourselves packing the van for the last time. It was 2am and we had to be up at 6am for this ridiculously long drive. Much to our delight, the promoter (who was beyond drunk) told us that our accommodation had been cancelled, per our request. Sounds like the logical thing for us to say, right?

He was convinced one of us had approached him earlier in the night and said we didn't need a place to stay - which none of did. His English wasn't great, and compounded with the fact he was wasted the whole situation was beyond frustrating. We ended up staying at his brother's house up the road. We rocked up at 3am and they grabbed out a bottle of whiskey and shot glasses. No thanks.

So now, after a hectic night and late departure this morning, we're running four-hours later. Usually it wouldn't be a problem, but we were supposed to meet Greg Legarand of Icons Down at our hotel at 10pm to return the backline (Greg, if you're reading this – sorry!).

Usually a drive this long is hell, but it's given me the much-needed chance to soak up and appreciate how awesome the past month has been. 20 shows in 26 days – it's been crazy. Like I said before, we're all tired, sick, sore and still have another 20 hours of travel ahead of us, but I've loved every sleepless minute, cramped car ride and argument along the way.

Loving life...

It's mind-blowing that our music has taken us to so many awesome places. Some shows were in the middle of nowhere and we probably should have focused more on capital cities, but the obscure country towns we visited were amazing places that I would probably have never seen if it hadn't been for this tour.

We didn't have huge crowds each night, but looking out and seeing people yelling our lyrics back at us proved that people out there actually care about what we're doing, At the end of the day I got to drive around Europe with some of my closest friends, play shows, party, meet new people and have heaps of fun - I couldn't ask for anything else. There's no doubt in my mind that we'll be doing this for a long time, and we'll hopefully be back in Europe sometime soon.

Written by Daniel Cribb.