Qld tour day 1 - From Sydney To Coffs
Tuesday 28th August 2003
(By Chris Gardiner - guitar/vocals 4 Scrum)
The tour began on Tuesday morning when Russell, Gaz, Frags and I dragged ourselves up to Thrifty Car Rentals to pick up the two Taragos that would be our trusty steeds for the journey. One silver, one white, the tour was immediately split in half and a strange rivalry was born. Frags took the boring white back home in preparation to man the late starters to the tour while Russ, Gaz and I took the gleaming silver beast straight to pick up our gear and get Andrew and Ben from Switchblade. After squeezing all the gear into one trailer and the back seat we head off bound for Coffs Harbour around 2:00pm.
After a 6 hr drive, us in the number 1 silver Tarago arrived in Coffs just after 8pm. After unloading ALL the gear into the hotel rooms, we walked straight to the nearest pub which happened to be "The Howie Mowie". The first thing I noticed was the old Street fighter II machine! After losing to chun-li (I know, it's been a while. I was trying to do Guile invisible throws, honest!), I sat with the rest of the lads from the leader of the pack silver lightning bolt and enjoyed a few brews while we discussed how far behind the white slug must be.
We walked and caught taxis from local to local as they closed one by one and it wasn't until we'd eaten a local kebab and reached the last establishment to close that the boys from the whorehouse on wheels finally rolled into town around midnight.
Qld tour day 2 - From Coffs To Brisbane
Wednesday 29th August 2003
(By Chris Gardiner - guitar/vocals 4 Scrum)
Late to bed, early to rise. Bodies began moving around 7am, table top soccer was played and the first of many reeking mornings to come was greeted with a hotel-style, sachet portioned coffee. The Tarago crews were slightly changed but the heart remained the same as we ventured to Maccas for a "healthy & balanced" tour breakfast. It was around an hour or two out of Coffs that the first defining moment of the tour took place. We stopped at an outback servo and bought a Kevin Bloody Wilson tape. Unless you were there, the impact this cassette had on the tour just can't be fully appreciated. Everything changed from that moment. We went from being tired and bored, playing highway games like "highway sign cock", (don't ask, u don't wanna know), to being upbeat, loud and enjoying filthy sing-alongs lasting hours at a time. It also set the silver dream further apart from the rolling white turd.
We entered the city of Brisbane greeted by gridlock traffic, one way streets, overpasses that made absolutely no sense and sketchy directions from the tour promoter. (Sorry Kent, but they were sketchy bro). Finally reaching the parking station that would be our stable for the night was an absolute relief. The silver crew hoped merrily out of the car singing in unison, "super duper dildo!", while the white crew stared blankly. Those poor buggars had no idea.
After finally checking into our hotel, Ben, Trav, Gaz and I went for a stroll thru Queen St Mall in search of a good feed. We found one just outside the venue we would be playing at later that night. The $30 price tag on the steak we ordered was steep, but worth it for the $3.50 pints and the blissful case of whiplash we developed. I wanna take this opportunity to thank Anton for looking after us that afternoon! After this downtime it was back to the hotel rooms to get ready for the show that night at Her Majesty's Bar.