america: summer of 1999
It all started back in LA for me, flying two weeks before the band were arriving to visit my sister who was doing a course there and to re-aquaint myself with my lost friends there. I had a great 14 days there, exploring the old places once again, seeing how much i remembered and how much had changed, me and my friend wayne had the engine of our car burn out in a mexican gang area outside venice and we waited three hours in an alley for the pick up truck to come and haul us out while there were two guys sitting in a car staring at us for one hour making gun shapes with their hands and aiming them at us. That was one time i prayed hard.
Apart from that it was back to all the familiar places, seeing people and talking about the 3 years that had passed. I then caught a flight to Chicago where our tour would begin, met the guys again and the next day was the first concert in Chicago. It went really well, and we were all excited about the month ahead of us.
We drove from Chicago to Minneapolis, leaving early in the morning and arriving there in the afternoon. we drove through Wisconsin which had alot of nice nature to keep us occupied in the tour van. We found the club in Minneapolis and unloaded the equipment and met the guys from the other band we were going to tour with for the next month. They turned out to be awesome people and the amount of fun we had can never be recorded in a diary.
Anyway, the show went alright, and we quickly packed up our stuff and decided to drive straight to Naperville that night instead of waking up early the next morning. We followed the other band and drove first to a restaurant to eat. We then put on our long lights and settled in for a night of driving, something we were going to get used to.
We arrived in Naperville early afternoon and all of us slept for a good couple of hours on the floor of the concert hall. We then set up, went backstage to find an amazing buffet awaiting us, ate like animals, and then played a fantastic show, sold lots of merchandise and met and talked to alot of friends from chicago.
After all was packed and ready we headed out again, this time driving through Ohio and staying with a friend there after we had crossed Indiana. We then played an outdoor festival in Ohio somewhere which went well, and drove all night to connecticut where the last show would be on this tour. We were then going to have three days off before the next leg of the tour started. We drove all the way to bridgeport and played a great show in an auditorium. Then we decided to leave that night and head off down to NYC.
We arrived in New Jersey and decided to sleep in North Bergen for the night since a bus went from there into manhatten for only a dollar. We checked into a hotel and headed straight for the city. It was already afternoon but we went to Times Square, sat and had coffee there........then walked around in the park, then we caught a subway to Grenwich Village. The village was an amazing area, artistic and bohemian, though i could have seen how it was way past its glory days. We had an excellent time there, walking around, eating great pizza and exploring stores and cd shops. The night in the hotel was good sleep. We needed it since the whole next day was spent walking around the big apple, exhausting ourselves, but having alot of fun also.
That night we drove north, through New York state, until we reached Buffalo and checked into another hotel there, went out to eat, and slept once again. The next morning we drove to the Niagara Falls, which were spectacular, obviously clearer and better from the Canadian side, which we payed a quarter to enter. We then ate subway in Canada and headed back to Buffalo.
Our next stop was Nashville, a surprisingly okay place despite the images that came to mind when the name was mentioned. We stayed with the band we toured with, at their place, in a camper home in the backyard. We had a couple of days to kill here, so we went to bars with friends from other bands we had met along the way, and just hung out at houses talking and having fun.
We played one show in nashville in the End, a small bar which was pretty okay. After that we drove with the other band to start our small tour in Texas !
All i remember was alot of driving......being extremely tired and sleeping in the back of the van, and then we reached Texas. We played 5 shows there.....some which were great and ended with swimming in the hotel pools, others which ended in shouting at bookers for forgetting to get us hotel rooms etc etc.
It was altogether a great tour, one filled with alot of fun and cool memories, like finding a graveyard in an Amish community in Ohio and sitting there until the sun set, sitting and reading Camus by Lake Erie as the wind threw sand all over me.....new york.....new york........ah.
Well, the tour ended...and we drove back to chicago, only jan and I able to drive.....so we pulled 7 hours each, stopped for 4 hours to rest and then hit another 7 hours each to reach chicago in a little over a day......all the way from Houston.........what a ride....and after alot of sleepless nights. We were happy to be back in chicago for a few days, sleeping and eating and walking downtown to Clark and Belmont, Navy Pier, all those tourist traps which were fun and boring at the same time. By the time the band flew home we had driven 14, 000 km in 3 weeks...with shows and tourist stops also......we were wasted......and needed a break. As they flew back to Denmark I took another flight back to LA to spend another week relaxing down there before flying to London for a week of visiting friends and walking in Camden Town, Soho, all my favourite places.......London is an excellent city.....so full of things to see......culture and clubs......pubs and bars......everything a traveller or holiday maker could want...except perhaps peace and quiet..........(although there is a church on high street kensington tucked behind the shops, which has a great garden to sit in......and you almost can't hear the traffic..........bliss)
.
.
|
![]()
![]() |
