Our senior flash designer, Jayden Worts, recently toured the east coast with his triple WAMI winning band, Eleventh He Reaches London. Have a read of his tour diary below…
Jeremy (guitarist) having a snooze mid flight.
“The proposition was simple – three shows, in three cities, over three consecutive nights. Unfortunately the reality reads something more like this – three shows, four flights, hundreds of dollars for excess baggage fees, thousands of dollars for flights, accommodation and gear hire, three days of very little sleep, and all for the perpetuation of an artistic dream five friends began nearly ten years ago.
We have done these ‘whirlwind tours’ a few times now and have become quite practiced at it. Consequently, we have figured out ways to minimise the sting of excess baggage fees by utilising hand luggage in ways so ingenious that Thomas Edison would give us leaping high fives if he were still around. No amount of planning, and no matter how practiced at it you might think you are, surprises are going to be plentiful and the running is never going to be smooth. Here is how this east coast jaunt went.
We left Perth at 11.10pm and arrived in Brisbane at the pleasant hour of 5.30am. We got a shuttle from the airport to where our van was waiting. The Shuttle was bright purple, the colour Fremantle Dockers supporters bleed. We couldn’t check in to our hotel until the hotel actually opened so we took a chance and left our gear hanging in the van and went for an excellent breakfast at Campos Coffee. The rest of the day was filled with such adventures as napping and an excursion to the city for lunch and a bottle of whisky (because we were on tour after all). We arrived at the venue in the late afternoon for sound check and saw no posters for the show, these were annoyingly put up during our sound check and stated proudly that we were from Melbourne… I guess that’s cool. The show was excellent and there was a sizeable crowd, especially for a Thursday night. We saw old friends and made many new ones. I love playing in Brisbane.
Ian (vocals, guitarist) and Jayden (back up vocals, guitarist, legend) shredding. Jayden's in the background.
We flew to Sydney at 10.00am the next morning. Sydney has always been a harsh mistress to us and the shows are usually very lean on numbers and have ample technical difficulties. This kept the trend going.
We left for Melbourne at 11.15am the following morning. The tour was organised specifically to be on the weekend after the AFL grand final, so as to avoid a clash. The Grand final was replayed. The Grand Final was replayed between Collingwood, who have frighteningly fanatical supporters, and St. Kilda. Our show was at the Tote, an iconic pub in Collingwood, on the night of the replay. Collingwood won and our night was affected severely. At first we thought that the local team winning would bring many people to the show, what with everyone being out and wanting to celebrate. It didn’t quite turn out that way. Sure the streets were filled with happy, black and white clad humans but our show wasn’t. In addition, all our Melbourne dwelling friends let us know that there was no way they would be venturing into Collingwood, now that the ‘Pies had won the flag.
Regardless of numbers being affected, the crowd was still healthy and the show was simply a ripper. We played like heroes and so did all the excellent supports. I love playing in Melbourne. After the show we went to Yah Yah’s at about 3am and had a rock ’n roll moment when we were let in, passed a long line, by the venue manager and a huge bouncer – “these guys are in Eleventh, let them in”. Inside we literally bumped straight into Mick Molloy to which Mark, our drumster, said “oh mate ‘eat your peas’” (an old Mick Molloy and Tony Martin record) to which he replied “one of the classics”. We flew home the next day.
Touring for a band like us is great and worthwhile from the point of view of friendship, memories, good times and personal accomplishment. I simply ignore the negatives, most being financial.”
Click here to read a review of the Melbourne show.
