when craig puts this sticker on our tour manager’s back without him knowing, and our tour manager has it there from the airport, on the bus ride to the hotel, into the hotel, all through the check in process, until he gets to his room.

good times.

two shows in and the soundwave festival is already a lot of fun.  the show in brisbane was great.  the day was hot and sunny and there were a lot of sunburned faces.  it had been a couple of weeks since the last show we played in southampton uk, so we rehearsed on acoustic guitars and gil’s practice pad in the dressing room.

it being the first show of the tour, there were some inevitable technical difficulties.  not the least of which was craig’s guitar not working at all for the entire first song.  we walked out and started playing lycanthrope, and his guitar just wasn’t there.  but hey, that’s the beauty of playing live music.  anything can and will happen.  it was fixed in short order, and after that it was all good.  it was a really fun show.

yesterday we flew to sydney.

we landed and got to the hotel in just enough time to drop off our bags and head over to the festival.  the venue was in a huge grass field, and sydney had been raining all day, so it was a big, muddy, dirty, awesome rock show.  the dressing rooms were in lines of trailers, so all of the bands were hanging out together.  it is great seeing old friends again.  the deftones guys are always amazing, and it is good to catch up with mxpx and unwritten law, who i have been friends with forever.  we’re also stoked to be touring with suicidal tendencies again.  we’ve all toured with them many times before, and they are legends.  steve, their bassist, came into our dressing room the first day and casually shredded his way across my bass in a way that left me truly shamed.  in the last couple of days we’ve also met a bunch of new friends from thrice (who put on an awesome show), juliette and the licks (with our friend todd who played in h2o), houston calls (who still insist they did no wrong by refusing to share their snack food at the airport), flyleaf, hit the lights, and a bunch more.  the vibe on the tour is really positive, and it seems like everyone is having a good time.

so anyway, we get up to play, and since it has been raining all day, the stage is covered in water.  gil counts us in to start the first song, and craig slips, falls on his ass, nails his guitar headstock on the ground, knocks it totally out of tune, and has to take it off and go get a new guitar.  again, we start another set without craig’s guitar for the first song.  maybe we will have this all worked out by the time we get to the show in melbourne.  i REALLY hope that someone caught craig’s fall on camera.  there is something so rad about rocking out and slipping and falling onstage.  believe me, you never feel like a bigger jackass.  it’s awesome.  like in brisbane, once craig got his guitar back, the show was rad.  thanks to everyone who braved the rain and came out to the festival. you rule.

stevegreg, our monitor tech, liked the show in sydney so much he just let it all go and danced like no one was watching.  unfortunately our tour manager fred was both watching and filming.  here are a few seconds of stevegreg getting his groove on. 

later on, the deftones served it up.

there was no show today, but we had a lot of press, so we all met downstairs in the morning.  the oscars were today, and there was a big event in our hotel, where the a-list of australia were invited to watch the ceremony live.  there was a huge red carpet in the lobby, with press cameras and news outlets, and everyone was dressed to the nine’s.  suits, tuxedos, and evening dresses.  the only thing was, because of the time difference between sydney and los angeles, this was all happening at 11 o’clock in the morning.  i snuck onto the red carpet long enough to take a picture with two of the penguins from happy feet.

then we went to universal, our label in australia, and did a bunch of interviews with rage (where we are hosting an entire night of videos), mtv, vodafone live, ninemsn, and channel v.  after that we went and did visited the hot 30 coutndown show, and the nova 19’s show.  all the interviews had good questions, and it was a busy and productive day.

by the way, on the trip between the two radio stations, at a stoplight, craig asked the dude driving the car next to us if he could have a bite of the eskimo pie the guy was eating.  get this.  the guy said yes and handed him his half-eaten ice cream.  craig took a bite and handed it back to the guy who continued eating it and drove off.  it was totally random and totally unsanitary and entirely upsetting to me.

we have tonight off, so we are going to eat at wagamama again for the second time in two days.  bye bye.

the votes for round one of the photo contest are in, and we have a clear winner.  photo number three, the one of the plants, has a victory with 65% of all the votes.  this was chris holmes’s contribution.  congratulations, chris (you jerk).  photo two of the boats was mine with 25%, and photo one was fred’s with 10% of the votes.  thanks to everyone who voted.  round two will be announced soon.  revenge will be mine…

this is our lighting director, john conway.  here is a photo of him sitting in the dressing room backstage at the show in brisbane today, cooling down from the unbearable heat and enjoying a red bull.  just look at him.  this picture is exactly the reason the “currently creeping me out” category was created.  thank you, john.  thank you very much.

to further illustrate my point, here is another photo of john enjoying the soothing tones of houston calls.  seriously, what’s going on here?

so yesterday, while craig was typing furiously into his sidekick, and shane was probably somewhere on his third hour of talking to someone about johnny thunders and the heartbreakers, i went walking around brisbane with chris holmes and our tour manager fred.  we walked over to the park where the show today is being held.  it is right along the river, with a bunch of trees and gardens and flowers.  we all had our cameras out like a bunch of noobs, looking very touristy, and taking pictures of everything.  we started arguing over who was going to take the most self-important artsy-farsty photo.  the arguments got hot.  people were angry, and some things were said in anger that you just can’t take back.  fred and chris almost got into a fistfight over who thought i was more awesome.  anyway, in the first of what i am sure is going to be an ongoing thing, we are going to let you decide for us.  who took the most self-important artsy-fartsy photo?

ROUND ONE-A WALK IN THE PARK

photo 1

photo 2

photo 3