Tour Set list: (It was pretty consistent with possibly a song change at 2 or 3 dates)
Kennedy
It's for you
Gone
Don't take me home until I'm drunk
You should always keep in touch with your friends
Lovenest
Blue Eyes
Palisades
Sports Car
Spiderman on Hollywood
Crawl
You turn me on
Granadaland
Interstate 5
My Favourite Dress
Nowhere Fast
Model, actress, whatever
The thing I like most about him is his girlfriend
Dalliance
Dare
Flying Saucer
Boo Boo
So on day 4 of the tour we had a day off, which gave me time to show the barmy army around and give them a Wedding Present type tour of Los Angeles/Hollywood.
Obviously we drove down Interstate 5, I took them onto Sunset and Hollywood Blvd, took Fountain and after a couple of pints treated them to some Santa Ana winds of my own. We also drove to the hotel featured on the cover of El Rey and the locals must have thought we were mental as we all stood there snapping photos of some shitty motel. As a treat we visited Amoeba Music where Harry spent about $500 (just kidding Anne) and then posed for a photo outside the Cinerama dome. The it was a drive by of all the venues TWP/Cinerama had played in L.A. and despite driving to Sweetzer and the Cat and Fiddle there were no Morrissey sightings for Ian and Steph.
We also tried to tour the Hollywood Forever Cemetery but it was closed as they were showing movies, only in Hollywood eh?
SAN FRANCISCO, CA.
The drive up to San Francisco was pretty uneventful, although we did finally suss out how to work the DVD player in the van.
The sensible amongst us checked into the Grant Hotel while the others were in a nicer hotel nearer to the venue. Unfortunately for them Peter had booked them in for wrong year, After much confusion and extra cost they eventually sorted it out.
The Great American Music Hall is a beautiful venue situated downtown in a complete dump, it made Brixton and Moss Side look posh, it was well dodgy.
Fortunately no one of us were really arsed and found some run down bar that even Charles Bukowski would have avoided. But the locals were friendly and very welcoming and insisted that we returned after the show, which we did.
The show was excellent, David jokingly remarked that the venue was a dump and I had probably the best night on the merchandise table. The San Fran locals sure like to buy stuff, must have been the ruggedly handsome sales person.
This was the gig that we first met our "enthusiastic follower" Green Beetle, she certainly kept us entertained on the road and took a real shine to Cait and especially the bass player from the Container Drivers.
We had another day off so we took in the sights of San Francisco, we took the cable car down to the wharf and paid for the Alcatraz tour. Obviously we all felt at home on a prison island (some more than others though, eh Cait?)
Afterwards we found the holy grail of all bars, an Irish pub/Indian curry house with a satellite jukebox that carried tons of WP and Cinerama and the place was called Kennedy's. We pretty much spent the rest of the day in there, thrilling the locals with our jukebox picks. The lads got pretty drunk and even tried there hand at chatting up some 18 year old beauty who was in there promoting St Pauli beer. Obviously none of them were successful, silly drunken old farts....
EUGENE, OR.
We set off early for Eugene as everyone wanted to see the Golden Gate Bridge and I had a brainwave that we should also take in the Redwoods.
Unfortunately this was where little scouse Phil and the group went their separate ways. Hugs, kisses and no bodily fluids were exchanged as dropped him off at SF Airport and dashed to the GG Bridge.
We stood around like tourists do, taking pictures and buying touristy shite like Golden Gate snow globes, Golden Gate ties, Golden Gate postcards, Golden Gate shirts and Golden Gate thimbles, they clearly saw us coming.
After a few hours we found ourselves at the Redwoods and ventured through the drive-thru tree, unfortunately the van was too big and wouldn't fit so we had to walk-thru.
This tourist attraction was run by the worlds meanest old woman, strangely enough though, they neglected to put that on the brochure.
Driving up to Eugene seemed to be taking forever and after calling ahead we found out we were three hours away with the show due to start in two hours. Of course this was estimated for a person driving at the legal speed limit. Well I didn't want to disappoint my guests so I basically drove the van like Sterling Moss on crack averaging a speed of 85 mph in the pitch black. We eventually got to the venue just before the starting time, parked up and walked through the doors just as Earlimart took the stage. I felt quite proud of myself until Kellie told me that we had forgot to bring our passports with us and wouldn't be able to get into Canada, oh bugger.
Anyway a quick call home fixed that and arrangements were made to have them sent via UPS to Jessica's mums house in Washington. So that was sorted, or so I thought, but more about that later.
The John Henry was a tiny dive bar and not even half full, maybe 60 people in there for the show. But I'll give them credit, once the barmy army got going they all rolled their sleeves up and joined in making for a really enjoyable gig.
A couple of our group thought they had copped off with some attractive young ladies, but met up with them later on only to find the chicks were looking for suckers to buy them drinks, as if we couldn't have guessed.
SEATTLE, WA.
We set off for Seattle the next morning stopping off first at Wanker's Corner for lunch (No really), we used this as a photo op, but we were a bit upset that they didn't sell t-shirts of the landmark.
Seattle was wonderful, we lucked out and ended up in a great hotel. Prior to the gig Harry, Kirk, Kellie and me went to see Irvine Welsh at a book signing, it was very entertaining but because it was getting late I blagged our way to the front of the line to meet him and get our books signed, the natives were restless.
At Nuemo's we met fellow forumite the charming Fergal, he gave us a few pointers for tourists and I even had the night off from merchandising as Jessica's mate took over for me.
It was a nice change and I actually got to enjoy the entire show from the foot of the stage, a cracking one it was too.
It must be mentioned at this point that Earlimart had really grown on us, they were a great band, lovely people and Aaron had taken to mentioning us each night onstage while using a fake British accent that seemed to get worse with each show.
PORTLAND, OR.
Due to a mix up in the tour schedule Portland and Seattle had to be switched which was a bit of a pain in the arse and cost us valuable gas money and less time to spend in Seattle.
But we still found time to have a little walk around and and visit the Space Needle before having to bid the BBC name dropper Marc goodbye. It was sad to see him go, but the bonus was with him and Phil gone we certainly had a lot more room in the van. We also the Cinerama movie theatre in downtown Seattle and all bought t-shirts, vowing to all wear them for the show that night in Portland.
The pecking order now in the van was that everyone got a chance to sit next to me in the passenger seat, although I preferred Ian because he was the best at giving directions. Directly behind was what became referred to as the "Ladies Lounge" where Steph, Kellie and Cait could sit closer to the screen and have a better view (ie: the back of my head). The lads in the back could now stretch out and have more room to avoid each others farts.
After a further mix up at the hotel which was fucking miles away from the venue, we had a little bit of tension before setting off for the gig. Once found parking was sparse so I gave some fat bloke on duty $20 to let us park in front of his motel.
The Doug Fir was easily the nicest venue on the tour, it was like a posh log cabin, the food was the best we ate the whole time there and the show was tip top as ever. Keg went missing for a while and we all worried that he had been chopped up and was in the trunk of a Volkswagen. We found him in one piece though and thankfully alive.
Portland was also the last time we saw forumite Nall and his lovely girlfriend, he had pretty much showed up at most dates along the way, the ladies in our group loved him because he is a hottie and the lads loved him coming along because his girlfriend was equal in the eye candy stakes.
To be continued...
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