Lower Forty-Eight and The Mass Tour Journal Europe 2004 by Andrew Lund

Lower Forty-Eight - Phil Becker: Drums; Grady Mutzel: Bass; Andrew Lund: Guitar, Vocals

The Mass - Tyler Cox: Drums; Matt Waters: Vocals, Sax; Tom O'Donnell: Guitar; Matthew Solberg: Bass

Driver: Edin

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September 4-5 Saturday and Sunday – morning in San Francisco

Phil came over this morning and we packed the “body bag” with t-shirts and sleeping bags. Final packing preparations commenced. Pam then drove us to the airport. We checked our luggage in and things went without a hitch.

Flight was choppy most of the first half so I couldn’t really sleep. Tried to watch movies but was a bit stressed with the flying. Half a xanax is not enough! Flight landed and we met Kim of Monotreme Records (the UK label that released our album) after picking up our luggage. I saw Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne! They were quickly escorted out of Heathrow by a very large bodyguard. Ozzy looked just like he does on TV: old.

Train and tube ride to Kim’s house was absolutely hellish. The body bag was completely unwieldy. 65 lbs of crap, plus backpack and my guitar. What a nightmare. Kim’s husband Don came and helped us get it back to their place.  Thanks Don! London was hot and muggy, which is rare, so we were pretty miserable from the time we got off the plane until we made it to our hotel.  Thankful to have a bed to sleep in after a long haul.  Thanks to Kim!  (We'd be thanking her a lot throughout the tour.)

Hotel windows barely opened and I entered the room to see Phil sitting in his underwear dying. I ran back down to the front desk to get a room with windows that actually open. We got a room right next door where the window had come off the jamb. It was wide enough that we could just jump out if we felt like it.

We hit O’Neill’s pub with the Mass guys for drinks and mayhem later that night. Bars close at 11 PM so we parted ways and Phil and I went back to our hotel in King’s Cross to get sleep.

September 6, Monday

Went and retrieved Grady from the airport. I was late because I didn’t realize how long it was going to take to get there. He was ready to go when I found him at Heathrow.

Phil and I hit the sights while Grady slept. London is beautiful but a little too manic for me at times. But I think it’s a great town and getting around on the tube is very easy.

Went to see our labelmates 65 Days of Static at a club in London.  Good show. We all drank too much, as would often be the case on the coming tour. Something so hilarious happened with Matt Waters and Tyler Cox that it defies explanation and will have to be relegated to the dubious comedic cliché of “you had to be there”.

September 7, Tuesday - Brixton, London

Tonight we played The Windmill in Brixton, London. We rehearsed earlier in the day at the space The Mass had been rehearsing at. Phil and I were in our underwear it was so hot. This was not the weather I was anticipating! Rehearsal went really well though so when the minicabs showed up to take us to the club we were ready to go.

The show went pretty well. Not a large turnout but an enthusiastic crowd nonetheless. The Mass rocked the house down and we went back to Kim’s to sleep on the floor for a few hours before hellride to Holland took place the next morning…

September 8, Wednesday - England to Holland - Eindhoven, Holland

I think we woke up around 6 AM . We got about 3 hours sleep on what would prove to be the toughest day of traveling on the whole tour.

The minicabs came to pick us up but the second cab was late. Very late. When we finally got to the train station, the guys in The Mass had been waiting for some time. We made our way to the train platform and threw down our massive piles of gear and personal belongings. It was already a slog at 7:30 AM. I turned to Matt Waters and said, “If we make it to Amsterdam the rest of the tour will be a snap.”

Our train finally arrived and it’s a 30 minute ride to Luton Airport. Meanwhile we were all looking at our watches… Finally we reached the station and had to get on a shuttle bus with all of our gear. What a pain in the ass.

At the airport we had so much gear to check in but we were so late that they just checked it in without really weighing it. Perfect! In the security line I got stopped though. My delay effect pedals looked a bit funny so they searched my stuff.

How close was it? Phil and I were the last two of four passengers to board the plane!! But we made it.

In Amsterdam we had to wait for our driver to show up. We didn’t know his name or what he looked like. We had almost no information to go on. After hours of waiting, Edin (pronounced Ed-EE) showed up.

When we saw the van he brought we almost died laughing (or crying). It was so small. And it was already packed with our backline! We had to strap a bunch of luggage to the roof rack.

Off we went to Eindhoven for our first European show. When we got there we unloaded and everyone let out a sigh of relief for making it.

The club is called AOR in Eindhoven.  Really a non-profit student cafe.  I met a kid named Remko who showed me around the area.  Being a vegetarian in Holland is damn near impossible but I managed to find some things to eat.  Remko explained that Eindhoven isn't a town so much as a collection of villages connected together.  So each area has it's own flavor.

They got us Chinese food which had this "Dutch" thing going on: ham on top of ramen... very weird.  Phil and I had to eat some egg dish that made us both a bit ill.

The show didn't go so well.  The soundman had never used his gear before and never had really done sound!  He was tweaking with the onstage mix thru the whole set.  Drove me insane.  We cut our set short as I was about to lose it and throw my guitar at him.  Afterwards he was very apologetic but really he had no business doing sound for us.

This was my first show playing barefoot.  Actually, I had torn a tendon in my foot before we left so shoes, any shoes, hurt like hell.

The accommodations were VERY interesting.  We stayed at a hostel-type place that was actually a gay sex club with a dungeon!!!  The rooms also had themes to them.  One was all camouflage, one was outdoor scenery on the walls with bad taxidermy jobs on the wall...  Very odd.  Somehow Matt Waters and I ended up in a room that had no theme, thankfully.  But it had a shower and the rooms were clean with beds.  The "sex hotel" was actually only in the basement and the upstairs was actually pretty nice.  Harry, who runs the joint, was very cool and seemed ok with our presence.  Some of the lads ventured into the basement to take photos.  I passed on that part of the tour.

Everyone in Holland is on a bike.  I mean everyone!  And they ride these jalopies that you can buy for €5 on the streets.  Bikes are constantly stolen.  It's great.  And girls on bikes... everywhere.  Beautiful Dutch girls! Whoa.

And the language... forget it.  Cannot figure it out at all.  Weird letters in weird places with weird pronunciations.

September 9, Thursday - Den Haag  (The Hague), Holland

Next morning we made the short drive to Den Haag to play a squat called Lokal Pirata.  It is right on the ocean in a building near the main harbor in a little town called Sherningen.  Absolutely beautiful.  We all split up and wandered about.  I took off on my own thru the little town, walked to the post office to mail a postcard, ate bread and cheese on some steps facing out into the harbor.  Just sat there and watched ships roll in and out.  Totally relaxing.  It was great to be alone.

The squat is also a vegan restaurant where for €5 you get a 3 course vegan meal!  One dinner every night, no menu.  Just brilliant.  People from all over the area would roll in on their bikes to eat.  It was excellent food.  Chili, leek and potato soup, salad, corn on the cob, cabbage and dessert.

Show was ok.  Not much of a turnout but we sort of expected that.  We partied with the locals.  They were all so nice to us.  That night we slept in a giant warehouse on metal bed frames with no mattresses.  Pretty odd.

September 10, Friday - Utrecht, Holland

Another short drive and we were in Utrecht.  Lovely city.  I will definitely go there again someday.  Beautiful architecture and so clean and quiet because everyone is on a bike!  Very few cars.  We got to spend some time there wandering about the day of the show and day after.  (Short drives in Holland gave us time to see the sites a bit.)

The club is called Acu (pronounced Ah-Koo) and they put us up in a really nice hostel right next to the club.  We had our own room.  (Well, with 8 of us!)  The promoter gave us tons of beer, all night, all the beer we could drink was just given to us.  The vegan food was excellent, again.  I can't believe how good the food was on tour so far.

The show went really well for both bands.  The sound on stage was excellent, and after that awful Eindhoven show it was good to have a really good set and feel like we deserved to be there.

September 11, Saturday - Hattem, Holland

The last show of five in a row.  This town is just south of Zwolle out in the middle of NOWHERE.  When we rolled up they had an American flag wrapped around a stand and podium thingy with a poster.  It said: "Life Concert with The Mess and Lower 40/8"  Ha ha!  Awesome.  Inside they had a big American flag up behind the stage.  They asked if it offended us because it was September 11, so we flipped it upside down which made them very happy.  Club is called Olde Skoele.  It's in an old schoolhouse, duh.

People in Europe don't like our country.  They found it so interesting that we did not agree with US policies abroad.  I had several conversations thruout the tour regarding American foreign policy.  I just tell them I did not vote for Bush, he is not my president; I want him to lose in November, etc.

They fed us vegan pasta.  Really good.  And then the place was invaded by teenagers from all over the area.  Drunk teenagers.  The smoke content in the room was unbearable.  I thought i would die during our set.  We played ok I guess. I think we were just too cerebral or something.  The Mass had a great show and played their most menacing tunes.  Shirtless mania, kids in the pit, Matt in the pit, they just tore the place down.

That night some of us slept at the house of one of the kids who put it on out in a barn (no shit) and some (like myself) stayed at the promoter's house in Zwolle.  The next morning i was as sick as a dog.  The cigarettes at the club and cat hair at the guy's place was just too much for one night.  Misery.

September 12, Sunday - Hamburg, Germany

I think all of us were sad to leave Holland behind.  What an incredibly friendly country and a great place to start a tour.  The drive to Hamburg wasn't terribly long, but being in that van can really bum you out because there is so little space.  You just sit, hopefully sleep, i rarely did.

When we got into Germany, the whole mood changed.  Edin literally put on German Techno the minute we crossed the border.  It was pretty funny.  At a rest stop we got out and rows of Germans just stared at us like we were insane.  Could not figure it out.  Ok, i guess we were all in black with tattoos and such but really... haven't they already seen this kind of shit??  We stopped at a grocery store so Matthew could go see if his friends were home.  The store was closed so we jumped out and started throwing the Frisbee around.  All of sudden the alarm started going off at the grocery store.  We just stopped and went to the van.  Shortly thereafter three cop cars pull up.  Great!  They held us for some time until they checked out the store.  Meanwhile there were two kids beating on the side of the building with large sticks!  But oh no, it couldn't have been them that set off the alarm. Cops are the same no matter where you go: assholes.

Some of us kicked down for a hostel in Hamburg.  Got to do some laundry and book a room for myself in Ljubljana, Slovenia for the following week.  It was nice to have a night off because i felt like absolute shit from my cold.  I slept great that night.  But still woke up as sick.  Kim had told me to get some Xicam cold remedy and it was helping for sure.

September, 13 Monday - Hamburg, Germany

Show was at Hafenklang in Hamburg.  Rather popular punk club.  The Subhumans played the week before we did!  That was pretty cool since i used to listen to them in high school.

Show was tough.  Crowd was hard to win over but the food and sleeping quarters were great.  They kicked us out after we played so everyone pretty much went to bed straight away.

The hi-hat stand broke during The Mass' set and i think Tyler lost his shit.  Piece of crap hardware was not road worthy.  They had to buy another in Berlin.  I also bought a power supply for my delay pedal.  It was sucking down batteries like a Hoover.

Directly from tour journal:  "Fatigue and madness are setting in as the road ahead presents itself.  I'm trying to remain calm and keep my own head together.  There are plenty of us to keep it going.  Tonight we play Chemnitz.  I have no expectations for this show."

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