Sooo, a little bit of tour didn’t stay on tour…Martin Ruffin from The James Cleaver Quintet gave us a sneak peek into their European tour supporting Enter Shikari…
‘‘As at least optimistically 1 % of you will now, in the throes of Spring this year we embarked on a weeklong tour of Europe with our friends in Young Guns and the mighty, laser wielding Enter Shikari. Collectively, we saw many things we never expected to have the chance to, and many others we definitely never wanted to, but more (or less, depending how cruel I’m feeling) on that later.
The show hit the road in Amsterdam, whereby as well as seeing the most ridiculously trivial stage dives/crowd surfs of my life (imagine teambuilding exercises for sufferers of M.E), we got our first taste of how literally mental this tour was going to be, from crowd size to the eccentricity of strangers. Our merch guy Charlie was given one of the top 5 loudest shirts to feature in the history of planet Earth from some dude (did he go topless after?!), i had a feeling the concept of merchandise was sales rather than acquisition, but hey, that’s Amsterdam! As far as the gig itself, we had a blast, and from seeing the amount of injuries backstage, it’s fair to say the Dutch did too.
Following a healthy 26 plates of ribs (no joke), and considering that obviously a contractual stipulation was that there’d be a compulsory day off after the show, we spent the rest of the evening sampling some of Amsterdam’s delights, as is custom. For our bassist Jimmy this got as far as walking headfirst into a lamppost mid-ogle, while the rest of us took a more relaxed approach. Back at the hotel we found a self-proclaimed ‘”falcon, ruler of the skies”, who in between telling us how he’d been asleep for 2 weeks and that we were collectively Satanists, hyenas, piranhas and lions, promised us a tour of Amsterdam which involved finding us the ‘Satan Women’. Needless to say we all copulated, and now face a hell of an alimony bill. With this we made our escape.
Hamburg! Following a pit stop at our friend Ross’s guest house on the outskirts, a few fisherman’s friends, and a meal of which i remember literally nothing, we got to Hamburg for show # 2. By this point, due to a concoction of alien substances and less than satisfactory sleeping hours, my head felt like a full-blown warzone, which i suppose is fairly appropriate. If one considers the rate at which our Earth rotates upon it’s axis, then imagine that momentum actually being a sensation we’re capable of experiencing, i’d say i got pretty close. Excuses aside, the show went fantastically, and we got a chance to get acquainted with various members of the European audience in attendance, which is always entertaining.
One thing i should mention is that Enter Shikari’s light rig for this tour was fully incredible, and slightly intimidating if I’m honest. At times it felt like we were playing in front of a benevolent equivalent of the cast of The Tripods, and without fail, each night it blew my mind, the fact that it was doubled in size for the UK even more so. Lasers are proper rad.
Next up we made our way to Koln for more of the same, wonderful catering (a very high point to all of the European dates, mad respect) and some questionable shopping options.
Look at this. This is literally a purchasable beard for women, sold in total seriousness and not as a hilarious costume. I do not understand. Couple this with the fact that your average family video store had over HALF of its shelves dedicated to horrifically titled/covered adult ‘films’ and that was it, I stuck to the venue for the rest of the day, out of fear if not anything else. The show itself was a cracker, and filled me with great joy in seeing strangers in a foreign land actually knowing our songs and singing along. Clichéd statement, but we all felt very lucky
By this point the previously mentioned tour flu had luckily subsided, and with that we decided now was as good a time as any to orchestrate an introduction to the joy and total chaos that is flip cup. For any of you who are not aware, here’s a taster of the monster that our friend Dangerous! Brought over on tour with us last September - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEajmpFNT44 - needless to say, Shikari Guns were into it! As an obviously greatly thought out decision, I decided to celebrate with a bottle of Germany’s finest (cheapest) Ouzo. Apparently we all tried going out, but considering I woke up fully clothed with half my hat in my mouth with a pillowcase as a blanket, I don’t think I made it that far.
No tour is complete without a trip to Church, and Frankfurt filled any celestial longings we may have had nicely. The venue itself is an amalgam of Germany’s finest stained glass, steel and showers. In fact, this was the best of the tour so far. It’s also home to fans with an affinity for making cakes featuring painstakingly crafted caricatures of each member of the 3 bands on this said tour and presenting it to us all. Simultaneously one of the most terrifying and amazing things to ever witness being pulled out of a box. You have to give them credit; they captured our drummer Paul’s likeness to Justin Bieber to a tee.
After the show, and a specialised MTV Cribs tour of the Shikari-wagon, we hit the town with a couple of the guys. Hitting the town is probably as accurate a description as any, considering the lack of balance that gradually extended itself between us as the night wore on. This ended up resulting in us stumbling our way into a bar featuring Rihanna videos at full volume, and our merch guy Charlie deciding that now was as good a time as any to dance like his life depended on it, semi shirtless, to the astonishment/admiration of all men present. I think doing the worm was the icing on the cake.. Not the cake from earlier. With that, a 5 mile walk hotel-ward began, which was surprisingly refreshing. Clear night and clean air. Good cities.
Antwerp was the final destination on our brief sojourn abroad, and a wonderful sendoff. Totally unaware of where we were in context to themselves, Paul, Maud and Jimmy managed to get stuck at the hotel following a brief stop to drop their things off, arriving literally 3 minutes before our stage time. We are true professionals! Even so, the show was easily my favourite of the shows performance wise, sound wise and vibe wise. As with any self-respecting purveyors of rock music, the last night is the perfect time to dive head first into the crowd at every opportunity, as demonstrated by almost everyone on stage at some point, guitar in hand or otherwise. Jimmy, deciding against weighing himself down with such instruments, chose the alternative route: take off all clothes before leaping. Aerodynamics are important in these times. As such, the blur below is what I was able to capture of this joyous occasion. And with that, my camera ran out.
What followed is possibly better left undocumented, but let’s just say it involved flip cup, drumsticks, beer, electronic cigarettes, questionable clothing choices, limes, nudity and an insatiable appetite for chaos. Europe, you were a blast. Until next time!”
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Tags: Enter Skikari, Martin Ruffin, monkee genes, the james cleaver quintet, The JCQ
