Fearless Vampire Killers – 3rd ROAD BLOG from the “Revel Without A Cause Tour”

The death pop band, Fearless Vampire Killers, are currently on the “Revel Without A Cause Tour” with William Control and Davey Suicide. While they’re on this tour, they will be writing an exclusive blog for us. You can check out the band’s third entry, after the break.

DAY 13 – Kierseph and His Technicolour Goth Club

There comes a time in any tour that lasts more than a few days when the scent of sweat and sin begins to reach breaking point. When you’ve worn every T-shirt, waistcoat, pair of socks and underpants past the point of common decency and something needs to be done. We’d reached that point in Orlando, Florida and we decided it was time: Time to go launderette hunting boys!

We sourced a cheap laundr-o-matical not far from our hotel and gleefully unloaded our salty slacks into a couple of high powdered wash-a-trons and let the detergent do its thang. One Parisian iced coffee later and we had a bundle of clothes that smelt, not exactly like roses – more like an abrasive, sterile school hand-wash, but it was nonetheless a vast improvement. Next up on our SUPER EXCITING MEGA ROCK N ROLL ADVENTURES we hit a music store and a Best Buy to stock up on necessary rock-utensils. I had fun jamming my way through an elaborate and ridiculous effects loop whilst inadvertently previewing a couple of second album riffs to an unsuspecting (and disinterested) audience. Laurence, the lovely little chappy that he is, surprised Shane and me with some late birthday gifts: The latest Devil Wears Prada and Protest the Hero albums. They now sit alongside Eminem’s ‘Marshal Mathers LP2’ as our in-case-of-mp3-failure van CD collection.

So we rolled up to The Social (network) and things went by in a smooth, rose-tinted blur as we set-up, sound-checked, made-up, pigged out, warmed up, rocked out and chatted to a bunch of lovely new friendly faces. The liquor flowed like wine and as the gig wrapped up just shy of 22:30, we decided to paint this sunshine-state city red. Swaying down the Floridian sidewalk, our motley crew of eye shadowed drunkards settled upon a neat little goth club just round the corner where the whiskey flew off the bar to the sweet sound $2.50 a glass. We danced up an ironic storm as true goths looked down upon us as the smiley pretenders to the thrown and Kier got dodgy looks after requesting some One Direction (and that’s not just from us).

Needless to say the rest of the night remains something of a blur and the finer details should remain locked up in our memories as opposed to being immortalised in prose, sorry folks!

DAY 14 – Hangover Sunrise

The second backup alarm finally roused me from my spirits flooded slumber and I rubbed my sweaty brow struggling to keep my brain from spilling out of my temples. We were in hangover territory people, no doubt about that. The only one safe from this agony was Shane who had been driving the previous night, but his night had probably been disturbed by the return of the loud drunkard louts so he was probably feeling fairly worse for wear. All aboard the Hangover Express:  Choo-choo mother fucker.

I drew the short straw of First Officer of the van, sitting up front with Shane to keep him in company while everyone else caught some much needed Zzz’s. I was Ryker to Shane’s Picard, but I was struggling to hold my post as it took all of my concentration and skill to keep my eyes half open and head vaguely upright. The first two hours of the journey went by in haze of In Rainbows, Opposites Part I and Arc before a newly revitalised Laurence Beveridge (clearly the Data in this scenario) relieved me of my duties and I caught some much appreciated shut eye.

We were excited to be in Georgia (particularly Atlanta) because of its association with the excellent The Walking Dead and we would periodically burst into acapella renditions of the theme tune with our own “special” lyrics just cos we’re, y’know, a bunch of losers and that.

The Three Cafétiers (as I shall now refer to me, Laurence and Shane when we venture out on a pre-show adventure) went in a search for an iced cup of java and found a suitable establishment outside the Ponce (cue childish chuckling) Living Centre. You could cut the pretention in the air with a knife made of Carol Ann Duffy poetry, but with a cheery café maestro and corking brew it was experience worthy of note. Back at the venue we had a fridge full of beers and water and a whole heap of catering waiting for us and it was like Christmas had come early! The night was off to a great start, could it deliver on the promise of our highest hopes and dreams…

..well yeah. It was pretty good actually. Again we were humbled and honoured to meet people who said they had been waited with baited breath for us to come and play in America which is always nice to hear. Though of course they could have just been lying to make us feel better and they really thought we sucked Petey’s gigantic balls.

Hopefully the truth lies somewhere in-between that broad spectrum of emoticons.

DAY 15 – “Concise Concert Blog Boulevard”

Rising like a smellier less coherent version of the walking dead,me and Shane treated ourselves to a slap up feed after last night’s successful evening. There may not have been any free continental breakfast waiting for us in loquacious lobby of the hotel but there was a waffle house attached to the side like some sort of delicious conjoined twin. Our bellies full of caffeine, butter and sweet, sweet denial we were ready to hit the trail. Along the way we passed signs for some of the most imaginatively named roads you could ever conceive, classics including “Scenic Highway” and “Flowery Branch Road”. Seriously America, come up with some better names!

*I just want to give a shout out to the excellent The Fighter which I watched when my eyes wandered from the beauty of “Functional Tarmac Highway”, if you haven’t seen it check it out for Christian Bale’s performance alone – it is fantastic.*

We rolled up early dumped our stuff and grabbed some (relatively) nutritious nosh from Quizno’s (finally some food that isn’t soaked in grease and preservatives!!!!!!!!). Then we chillaxed in the backstage area, which for some reason reminded me of a bar from Scorsese’s Mean Streets if it was lit by the carbonite freezing technicians of Bespin. Another delicious platter of food was kindly supplied to us by the staff of the venue and with rotund tumblies we jumped onstage and knocked some rock out of the park.

Job done, Planet Earth.

DAY 16 – Springfield, Springfield it’s a hell of a town!

A new day a new destination: Springfield. And no, I’m not just talking about half of FVK’s obsession with The Simpson’s Tapped Out game – I’m talking Virginia state baby! Which was exciting for us as our journey took us close enough to the nation’s capital to spy the Lincoln Memorial and numerous parks and memorials bathed in an autumnal glow that stirred nostalgic memories of The West Wing. President Josiah Bartlett FTW y’all.

I must admit that I can’t remember much about this show.  Not, as you might imagine, because of some cocktail rock n roll clichés, it is simply that I have the memory of a senile goldfish. But before I end this slightly deflated blog entry I can say for sure that the crowd were great to us that night and I wanted to thank them. Also a big thanks to the girls who gave us our first US care package, you legends!

DAY 17 – New York City, just like I pictured it; skyscrapers and everything.”

From “Springfield, Springfield” to “New York, New York” there was a palpable buzz of excitement in the air. New York is one of those cities that I imagine most people have in their list of places to visit before they die. There’s something about this town. Growing up in England, saturated with American media – TV, music, films – New York has always held a sense of wonder and excitement. An urban metropolis whose tentacles of concrete and steel reach high into the sky as if they mean to pierce the face of God… Plus, y’know, Friends is set there and everyone wants to have a coffee at Central Perk , right? SCOFF.

Now, the thing about Neo Yorkus is that you can’t just enter idly – this is a city that makes you work for the privilege to drive down its narrow, congested streets. For a time I thought I might have dropped off into a hazy sleep in the passenger seat as excessive toll roads seemed to appear every five minutes demanded five, ten, twenty dollars at time! But we could just about stomach the pain as we would soon be driving down the avenues of Pre-New New York. I felt an instant connection to this city as in a strange way (a way I did not expect at all) it reminded me of home. It was a far cry from the bright sheen of LA, or the broad empty streets of Dallas – the smaller, winding roads, the schizophrenic  (sometimes gothic) architecture reminded me of good old London town, just on a much larger, taller scale. Happily won over by Marvel’s muse, I was ready to blow Webster Hall away. Or at least have a jolly good go, pip-pip.

Before we were due to slice up the big apple with our razor-sharp rock… peeler(?) we had Mikey (guitarist for Davey Suicide this tour) take us out to an old Irish pub called McSorley’s famous, I believe, for being the oldest pub in New York never to have closed down, not even during the prohibition because it’s where all the cop’s liked to go booze it up! You could feel the age of the place as you walked in – the creaky floorboards, newspaper clippings and memorabilia from a time gone by lining the walls, it all seemed to say “yeah we know, we’ve been here a long time – now sit down, buy a fuckin drink and have some laughs!” They had two drinks for sale – light beer and dark beer – served two glasses at a time! So we sank a few rounds, chatted to an affable Englishman (now living in New York) about Neil Gaiman and the Chelsea Hotel and left with our spirits high.

The show itself was amazing, it’s probably still my favourite show of the tour so far. The place was sold out and everyone had Friday night fever and just wanted to get drunk and get their groove on. We hung out for a few drinks, getting to know the lovely lads of The Relapse Symphony (as those young rapscallions had just joined the tour), and watching Davey and Wil keep the crowd pumped up with dirty beats. Alas we had to turn in early that night as our hotel was two hours away in Conneticut *insert droopy sad face here*. So we left that fine city, promising to one day return and experience more of its treasures.

DAY 18 – Seems like at some point everybody’s woken up at the crack of Dawn

Yes, New York had been great – a fabulous night of adrenaline and excitement that seemed to be cut all too short by travel arrangements – but that didn’t help us lift our heavy heads from our pillows that morning. Today there was more pressure to get up and out early than just conscientious punctuality. Today’s show at the Middle East in Cambridge, Boston had to finish by six which is the time that most of the other shows doors would open! So we rushed out, barely released from the grip of the Sandman’s evil clutches, and hit the ground running like The Flash on an off day.
Full of Dunkin’ Doughnuts coffee (and curiously enough, doughnuts) we got ourselves loaded in at about half 10, greeted by the rest of our touring party who seemed even worser for wair(er) than us. After hours of trying to find somewhere to actually park (what a goddam nightmare that bloody was, so fRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRrustrating!) and killing time in caffeinated-style we played our earliest non-festval show. Luckily we were greeted by a crowd that seemed blissfully unaware of how early in the day it was and were probably the loudest screamers of the tour so far! Add into the mix the fact that Kier’s family from Boston came down in their FVK regalia, and you can chalk that up as a rollicking good time.

With everything wrapped up nice and early, we had the luxury of a whole evening to ourselves to whatever we wanted with. Kier went off and bothered the bars of Boston late into the night with his family the rest of us went for something much less cool, but mighty fine in its own way. We went to Denny’s, BOOYAH! That’s right; we gorged ourselves that night and didn’t leave until the buttons on our sweaty shirts were practically pinging off due to the powerful podge of our bellies. Then we spent the rest of the night in the lap of luxury chilling in our pyjamas watching 8 Mile and Goldmember on TV.

Now call me old fashioned ruddy, bloody bastard – but that, to me, is how you party after a rock and roll show.

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