Deaf Havana – 1st ROAD BLOG from U.S. Tour with Ash

The UK-based rock band, Deaf Havana, is currently on their first U.S. tour ever supporting the Northern Irish alternative rock band, Ash. While they are on this tour, the band’s lead vocalist/rhythm guitarist, James Veck-Gilodi, will be writing a blog to tell you about the experiences he is having with his band while on this tour. You can check out the first entry, after the break.

January 25, 2014 – Vancouver
We landed yesterday in Seattle, despite our collective efforts to try and stay up as long as possible to beat jetlag, I think we all passed out at around 7:30pm. The next morning (far earlier than it should have been) we all woke up and prepared to leave for Vancouver as we were playing a headline show there which would be interesting as we had never even set foot in the US let alone Canada before. The highlight of the day I think was forgetting to get our Carney stamped on the way out of the US so we had to drive back into America, park up at the border, get the thing stamped, drive BACK through to Canada then wait for about 3 hours to get that stamped on the Canadian side. As a result we were late for the show but surprisingly it actually turned out to be pretty good and there were a few people there who knew the words to our songs and seemed to really enjoy themselves which made all the border bullshit worthwhile. Vancouver looked beautiful but unfortunately we were only there for a matter of hours due to the border.

January 27, 2014 – Seattle
After the Vancouver show we drove back to Seattle to start the tour we actually came here for, supporting Ash. We were all a bit dubious to start off with because we had previously been told that my brother Matthew, being under 21, would only be allowed into the venue for the 30 minutes we were performing and before and after that, would have to wait in the van. I thought this was ridiculous but I guess laws are laws. The show itself was actually pretty good, no one really knew us but I think they found my accent amusing and probably thought our music wasn’t too bad either! Needless to say I got pretty drunk that night and kept feeling amazed that we were finally in America. Ash were lovely too which always helps, touring with not so nice people always makes it that much harder.

January 28, 2014 – Portland
The main thing about driving into Portland is the rain. Made me feel at home actually, how very English of it! Turns out that we didn’t even leave the venue so the rain didn’t matter. The bar above the venue was lovely and had such friendly bar staff (the main thing I have noticed about america is that the people are extremely friendly). It was a late show so we sat around and drank a lovely beer called “Fat Tire” for a while, not the most eventful of days but we enjoyed it. The show was a little less busy than Seattle but still good never the less. The crowd weren’t as up for a laugh so I had to work a little harder but I don’t mind that, gives me more reason to attempt some stand up comedy. Over all though we are all having a lot of fun here (maybe a little too much). As the night faded into tequila and laughter we still felt so lucky to be travelling around the US.

January 30, 2014 – San Francisco
Finally in California! Having been to San Fran before, I was pretty excited as last time I had a blast. Ashamedly, we did the cliche tourist stuff, Pier 39, the sea lions and Hard Rock Cafe. It was a little warmer last time I’d visited but it was still great to be back, I love California. We went to the venue early thinking there would be some cool bars to go to but found out that it was next to The Tenderloin district which is apparently a rough area and the promoter had warned us about some potentially “shady characters” so Max and I drank beer in the venue for a good few hours and talked about bullshit. Our friend Jayde from Australia was travelling through San Fran at the time so we met up with her also. The show was actually amazing, sold out and a good portion of the audience had come just for us. I met a great guy called Chad who had some of our lyrics tattooed on him and we hung out for a bit. It blew all our expectations out of the water really, we had so many people singing our lyrics and it was a pretty surreal experience. We left San Francisco feeling pretty pleased that our music had reached so many people.

January 31, 2014 – Los Angeles
LA! This one was the one we were all looking forward to because I mean LA is where everyone wants to be right? Wrong. It turned out we were nowhere near the “LA” that you all see in Californication which initially we were a bit disappointed about. But the venue was great and the people there were lovely so we took a walk and found a great little Mexican bar where you could get a beer and a shot of tequila for $4!! We had a few friends coming because we are close with a band called The Dangerous Summer and a few of them live in LA. We met up with them and had a few beers at the show. Playing was great too, similarly to the previous night, a few people had come to see us and this really does make everything worthwhile and make us put on a better show. Afterwards, being slightly drunk and as previously mentioned, a little pissed off that we didn’t get to see “LA”; we met a guy called David who drove us to the street where all the famous people have stars with their names on them. By this point I was so tired, drunk and caught up with the fact that I was in California, I have little to no memory of this but woke up the next day with about 20 photos of Max, Lee, Tom and I lying on the floor next to Michael Jackson’s star and a few others. This confirmed my theory that we did indeed have a good time and did somewhat experience the cliche Los Angeles (bloody tourists).

February 2, 2014 – San Diego
The drive to San Diego was possibly one the of the best things we have ever experienced,. We started the day off (still in LA) by driving to venice beach and having a stroll, so beautiful. We then set off for San Diego, along the coast, it was stunning. The weather was lovely in San Diego and the venue was cool. The majority of us stayed at the venue but Max and Lee went to Mission Beach and said it was and I quote, “the best day of their lives” so needless to say we were slightly jealous of them. As the day went on I started to feel really homesick and miss a few people, one in particular, but this didn’t ruin our day and we played and had a good time. The turnout wasn’t as good as the last 2 nights but still was fun nevertheless. When we got back to the hotel, Lee got in the hot tub even though it said we weren’t allowed and Max and I drank the rest of his Coffee Patron, Ouch. All in all, California was beautiful and some of the best days I’ve had in a long time.

Keep up with Deaf Havana on Facebook and Twitter. If you’re interested in going out to a date of this tour, check out the remaining dates here.