OR: ROD STEWART’S OCTOBER 2008 TOUR DIARY
Last month, Glasgow-based electro-rocking foursome Errors went on a tour.
Seeing as Clash has a substantial soft spot for the band, we asked them to keep a record of their travels; we’re calling it an Errors tour diary.
The band, however, would prefer to call it ‘Rod Stewart’s October 2008 Tour Diary’, for reasons revealed below.
Read on, do, holding tight to your sides where relevant…
(Words by James Hamilton)
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WEDNESDAY 1ST OCTOBER: GLASGOW-MANCHESTER TRAVEL
It’s an un-seasonally clear and sunny autumn afternoon in Glasgow, and the last remnants of the unquenched sun worshippers still stinging from almost three months straight of rain parade my street in skimpy outfits, mingling with the multitudinous football-visiting Europeans around the hostels which make up a large part of my neighbourhood when Hines, our illustrious tour manager and driver, arrives to pick me up. I’ve packed in a way I can only describe as like a woman, almost every item of clothing and possession I own crammed into a small maroon hold-all, burst at the zip with the effort, since my usual spacious travel bag is currently moonlighting as my hardware bag. I get into the van, which we’ve long since affectionately dubbed The Blue Mutant, and drive over to Steev’s new flat in Maryhill to collect him. Maryhill is no longer the rough ’n’ tumble scheme it once was. Businessmen in expensive suits hurry past the long-haired bohemian student types, and there’s a Jaguar showroom full of cars I’ll never be able to afford. The west end, it would appear, is the new west end. Picking up Simin from his flat in the ‘classic’ west end, we then drive across the city to the industrial estate where our new studio, which we share with Vars of Litchi and Findo Gask, resides. It’s still in a semi-finished state, timber, soundproofing and rolls of red material litter the area which will soon be the sound room, and the entire building smells strongly of turpentine. We load our gear up and drive to meet and pick up Greg and Wardo, our soundman who’s slumming it with us for the next two weeks on account of being Simin’s brother. Interesting side note: Wardo’s worked in both Sleazy’s and Stereo, and has been on occasion recognised in the street by random bands who proclaim him “the best soundguy in Glasgow!”, and to be fair they’re usually right.
Incidentally, who’s the nicest person in the hospital? The Ultra-Sound guy.
The weather has remembered that we’re in Glasgow in October, and the heavens have opened. Driving conditions are akin to driving underwater, at night. In a sea full of articulated lorries no less. Morale remains high though, as Steev has discovered pictures of various members of Errors displaying their balls out of their pants. Tour banter, oh how we laughed. We mock whoever happens to be on regional talk radio as we travel south, because The Blue Mutant doesn’t have a CD player, and the iPod radio transmitter only works sporadically and we have to make our own entertainment. We arrive at a Travelodge on the outskirts of Manchester; Greg and I draw the short straws and share a room with Hines and his ear-bleeding snoring ability, and after a couple of drinks we retire, ready for the early start off to London tomorrow and the beginning of our tour proper.
THURSDAY 2ND OCTOBER: LONDON, SHOREDITCH, THE OLD BLUE LAST
Holy Credit Crunch, Batman! Awake to the BBC news telling everyone that the stock market crashed massively at around 8am when the US pumped about 40 squillion dollars or something into their economy. I wonder briefly how many traders hung themselves in the hour or so before it righted itself. Probably not enough. I’m a little tired still because I spent the night listening to Apparat and Jaguar Love on my mp3 player to block out Hines’ snoring, but am cheered and refreshed by the fact that we’re going to SHOREDITCH, baby! Hang your sandals from your ears and mount your tiny trikes, here we come!
The drive itself is fairly uneventful, London traffic is unusually forgiving and as we drive through Dalston I’m thankful that we don’t have to try and park outside Bardens Boudoir. I sometimes feel that we as a band single-handedly pay for London’s roads through parking fines.
“Hey are you sure we can park here while we load in?”
“Yeah, sure, go ahead, everyone does it.”
“But don’t these red lines mean…”
“Nah, no problem, park it here…”
BOOM, £150 PLEASE.
Not to get political but Ken Livingstone is a money-grabbing c*nt and I’m glad he got usurped, even if it was by that weird offensive Tory who reminds me of Gary Busey. Back on course we drive out to the offices of SRD, Rock Action’s distributors, and pick up stock of our new single ‘Pump’ which is released in a few days’ time and features school photos of myself and Greg on the vinyl label, complementing the photos of Simin and Steev from the ‘Toes’ 7”. The avid record-collecting or paedophile Errors fan will be in hog heaven, but hey, long as they’re selling. Moments before we arrive at the Old Blue Last we hear that both supports for the evening have cancelled. Nothing to do with us, honest guv’nor. The upside is that we get a longer soundcheck, which we need to try out Steev’s brand new fancy keyboard. After soundcheck we’re interviewed outside for a Channel 4 television programme called ‘Rock Feedback’, and the interviewer asks many probing questions which we don’t really know the answers to. The interview is set against the backdrop of some kind of freakish fancy-dress street garden party: it seems only right that we use the word “organic” a lot when answering the questions.
The new supports are a band from Liverpool who are on tour and happened to have a day off in London and so can fill in, and a young singer-guitarist who lives in London. Shamefully I can’t remember either of their names, but I know for a fact that Greg does, however nobody else is contributing to this tour diatribe so I’ll keep it vague. They’re both very good and get a good reaction from the audience. A photographer from ‘Vice’ is taking peoples pictures including our friend Katy, who’s come from Cardiff to see us and who’s bought me a Lego ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ toy, which as anyone who knows me will tell you is an ideal way to make me squeal like a big girl (pause typing to drink coffee from Buffy mug). Hines tries in vain to get his photo taken for ‘Vice’: he’s wearing a teeshirt Greg got made for him which simply says “SHOREDITCH YEAH?” on it. Mischa Barton is at the show. I couldn’t tell you what she looks like, so I don’t think it’s particularly exciting; I never watched ‘The O.C.’. The small upstairs room of the Old Blue Last is rammed out when we go onstage. We’re later told people were literally fighting to get into the show, and someone who couldn’t get in called the promoter a c*nt, which is far from the truth as she was frankly lovely. The audience are very receptive to banter, the show is hot and sweaty and fun, and we go back to the hotel happy and tired.
FRIDAY 3RD OCTOBER: SHEFFIELD, THE SHAKESPEARE
Eamonn Holmes is interviewing Mexican bombshell Salma Hayek on ‘This Morning’. Upon hearing that she’s half Lebanese, the swollen orange-skinned Irishman gasps, “You’re a lesbian?” This piece of morning television tripe comedy sets us up for the day since there was no hot water in the Travelodge. NME.com reports from the previous evening: “JACK PENATE (was) TURNED AWAY FROM SOLD-OUT ERRORS SHOW”. It remains unclear whether or not it was him who called Sarah the promoter a c*nt. Steev adds him on MySpace later and apologises anyway. Driving into Sheffield isn’t what it used to be since they blew up those towers. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy wanton destruction and explosions as much as the next red-blooded male, but all that sky just seems imposing now.
The Shakespeare is a sweet little venue, which resembles the lounge of a retired artist. Two girls on work experience are roped into doing our merch, and a fine job they do of it too later, as they have a talent for guilt-tripping people into buying shirts. We should probably take them with us next time. The Shakespeare also boasts the most sound in-house engineer ever (‘cept our own Wardo of course) by the name of Sophie who lets me DJ once doors are open; however after only a few tunes including The Communards’ version of the Blue Notes’ ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’ (yeah, I didn’t realise it was a cover until recently either) and ‘Heartbeat’ by Annie the rest of the band begin to call both my musical taste and sexuality into question, and I’m replaced with a ‘50s rock ’n’ roll compilation CD. Paul from 65daysofstatic, who we toured with earlier in the year, comes along to see us, and it’s a damn pleasure to catch up again. We’ve heard rumours that Sheffield is a “funny one”, but the show is fairly busy and in a nice venue and is an all round good time except for when I break my bass pedal clean in half during ‘Toes’. Luckily there’s a drum kit stored in the venue and I get a replacement in order to finish the set with ‘Mr Milk’. While we’re packing up after the show Greg checks his e-mail and discovers we’ve been sent the video for ‘Pump’, which we filmed with the guys from Squarelips and a small group of our friends in the basement of a Glasgow bar on Monday. We watch it about four times in a row cackling like a coven of witches from a Brothers Grimm fairytale. I don’t know if you can really appreciate, by watching it, quite how gruelling the shoot was, but it was one hour-and-a-bit long take of dancing in slow motion which plays havoc with the out of shape among us. Continuing the recurring theme of long fire-escape stairwell load-outs, we pack the van and head out northwest.
SATURDAY 4TH OCTOBER: MANCHESTER, NIGHT AND DAY CAFÉ
Brunch in IKEA en route to Manchester, Wardo disappointingly has forgotten his girlfriend’s IKEA family card which means no discount and we have to pay for coffee. Out of the group of us Wardo and I both run almost exclusively on caffeine, although Simin accuses Wardo of being a Costa lifestylist, whereas my habit is acceptable because I’ll drink any old lighter fluid long as it’s strong. In the ill-ventilated back seats of The Blue Mutant the IKEA meatballs are playing havoc with Greg’s internal sewer and he’s regurgitating a foul wind on a regular basis turning the atmosphere a beef and lamb brown. Thus far our conversations have degraded to over-friendly rapid-fire exchanges of “How’s you?” “Not too shabz, you?” “Yeah pretty good, yourself?” As the tour progresses this will descend simply into putting the word “Yourself?” as a question after every single sentence. Tour banter is a strange thing, where a small number of people kept in each other’s company in limited surroundings for any length of time will develop their own slang and rhythm of talking, and jokes which nobody else in their right mind will possibly laugh at. For example, in a rare night we’re both in our flat on a well-timed day off, Calum, my flatmate and singer in Dananananaykroyd, and I exchange banter and realise neither of us think the other is that funny.
We arrive in Manchester, where we might as well move to considering how much time we find ourselves here in two weeks, and put our stuff in the venue before Hines and I walk halfway across the fucking city in cold drizzle to find somewhere I can buy a new bass pedal beater. By the time we get back Wardo is setting up my kit because it’s soundcheck time which leaves us a long time before we’re actually due on. We’ve been given a buy-out by the promoter to get dinner; I leave the rest and meet an old friend who’s in town, buy drinks instead of food and end up being pretty much smashed before we hit the stage. I sober up quickly though because the stage is so hot that I sweat not just the alcohol but about 90 per cent of my bodily fluids within three seconds of playing. Again it’s a good crowd. I have a lot of time for Manchester; it kind of reminds me of Glasgow in many ways. The drizzle from earlier has become a downpour and we pack the van in the howling pissing rain. Calum calls me and asks if I’m in the flat because Johnny Foreigner are staying at ours tonight. I think I say yes as long as Kelly gets my bed, or something along those lines, then after demanding to speak to the rest of Dananananaykroyd to shout how much I love them it becomes clear that the stage-sobriety has worn off and it’s time to haul ass to the same Travelodge we stayed in on the first night.
SUNDAY 5TH OCTOBER: LIVERPOOL, KOROVA
By now I’d hoped to have mailed some of this trash off to Mike – it’s been scrawled and scribbled up til now in a makeshift notebook – but given a sore lack of decent wireless access it’s looking more and more likely to be getting re-typed in one long sitting (check time on PC – quarter past midnight – turn up music louder because ‘Go With The Flow’ has just come on and make another coffee) into one massive text block which will no doubt result in serious RSI for me and spell an end to my career as a drummer. A little hungover but not as much as I’d have assumed we would be, we arrive at Liverpool several hours before our scheduled load-in time. We kill a little time wandering around the Albert Dock and humming the ‘This Morning’ theme tune; sadly the floating weather map has long since departed. We find a surprising amount of amusement in a nautical supplies shop but stop short of purchasing a hat for Hines which says “Dogsbody” on it, and attempt to re-create a Copy Haho (who Hines, having known them for years and being from the same area as them, also drives for now and again) tour video in the same place on the dock, but even though Simin bears kind of a resemblance to Joe we don’t really pull it off. Instead we marvel at a submarine before going to Korova.
I’ve played in Korova several times and really like it as a venue. My pal Darren meets us there – he’s helping out Ellis the promoter tonight because due to a cancellation in Manchester Maps and Atlases have been added to the bill. This is a good thing for several reasons: they are completely awesome and I’ve wanted to see them for some time, they are as it transpires really nice people, and they draw more of a crowd which we can then play to. Bonus. Several trips outside for cigarettes yield multiple offers to buy some ‘Charlie’ because, according to the wild-eyed chap punting the shit, “the birds in Liverpool love a bit of Charlie, real shagging gear”. I decline as politely as possible because he seems like a maniac, but also allow some Glaswegian growl to slip through my voice as a subtle hint to not fuck with me. This is a trick I learned a long time ago – people not from the west of Scotland tend to assume you’re a hard bastard if you sound more Glaswegian. It’s simply playing up to a social and regional stereotype, but really when it comes down to it I probably could just about punch my way out of a wet paper bag if I was angry enough. Luckily, desperate Charlie leaves me alone and no other shady characters hassle me on my cigarette trips. Maps and Atlases are awesome, a real pleasure to watch; Simin buys a pretty nifty teeshirt from them. We play well again, and it’s a big audience for a fairly late Sunday night show. I’m infinitely more sober tonight and enjoy the gig more seeing as how it doesn’t feel like playing in a sumo wrestler’s armpit. Having hotels booked in advance is a pain in the arse on occasion though, as Ellis invites us to a party and offers to put us up afterwards, but we’re forced to choose the old Travelodge and settle for late night sit-coms and a pot noodle. Yourself?
MONDAY 6th OCTOBER: LEEDS, BRUDENELL SOCIAL CLUB
Rod Stewart, for reasons unknown, has become tour banter. Whenever anybody acts even remotely above their station, they’re accused of acting like Rod Stewart. Rod Stewart has his monitor on whatever side he wants. I, on the other hand, always seem to have mine on the left rather than my preferred right. While setting up at the Brudenell, I realise this is because our tech-spec which has been sent out to everyone has the drum monitor on the left hand side. Rod Stewart probably gets consulted about tech sheets.
The Brudenell Social club, for anyone who has never been there, is a proper, bona-fide working men’s club, only instead of posters advertising Bee Gees tributes and bingo, it has posters advertising The Melvins and Holy Fuck. We set up, sound check, then go get pizzas; I get a calzone which is at least twice the size of my stomach, looks like a baby dinosaur and which becomes impossible to eat without dripping marinara sauce all over my lap. The first band on are a young band by the name of Solus Locus who remind me of early Errors (i.e. before I joined and ruined the band) who are really good but are dogged by technical problems but are endearing with it. Vessels are on next, another band who I’ve wanted to see for a while and they don’t disappoint, though it becomes confusing after a while because there seems to be at one point about 40 people on stage. They slay their hometown audience with quite some panache, and I look forward to seeing them again.
Now Leeds, like Sheffield but more-so, has a whisper-it-in-low-tones reputation for ‘difficult’ audiences; being a city with a fiercely proud DIY and hardcore scene, I’ve heard bands say that they’re afraid to a degree of playing there because it’s supposedly harder to get a reaction from a ‘serious’ audience. So, bumbling onstage to the theme music from ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ might not have seemed like the best idea ever, especially since Wardo, I presume deliberately and maliciously, lets it run longer than necessary so we stand around awkwardly waiting to start ‘Still Game’. However, the crowd are frankly fantastic and warm (both metaphorically and physically, since the Brudenell Social Club is cooking) and easily one of the best we’ve played to. In particular one girl whose haphazard and carefree dancing reminds me of my friend Iain, and who earns herself the admittedly unimaginative nickname of ‘Dancing Girl’ for the gig. Afterwards we hang out with Emilia from Grammatics, who we toured with supporting iForward Russia! around the same time as we toured with 65daysofstatic, and who promises us she’ll play our album at a New Years Eve party in Stockholm. We catch up some, talk about their debut album which is in production and should be a beezer, and then we pack up and begin the long night-drive back to Glasgow, to spend our day off at home.
TUESDAY 7TH OCTOBER: GLASGOW, DAY OFF
Not particularly worth writing about unless you’re interested in Steev’s recipe for shepherd’s pie (incidentally if you are, send us a message to our MySpace) or my “Christ this was a terrible idea” full day at work after three hours sleep, cleaning up a flat full of other bands’ leftover rider empties or the unusual phenomena of two people who are spending their day off tour by playing ‘Rock Band’ on the Xbox. Kind of like a chartered accountant playing ‘Virtual Chartered Accountant’ on their weekend I’d imagine. I wonder if there’s a market for that title… I discover my broadband connection is back on at home after much fuss, but I’m too tired to update/e-mail the tour diary.
WEDNESDAY 8TH OCTOBER: MANCHESTER, THE DEAF INSTITUTE
Return to Manchester! Third time in just over a week, this time however we have the pleasure of supporting Holy Fuck at a relatively new venue called The Deaf Institute. We saw Holy Fuck at Loop Festival in Brighton when we played it last month, so I’m looking forward to seeing them again. They’re also supporting Foals at the Academy tonight and aren’t going to make it to the venue until just before their allocated stage time, so we get to set up, soundcheck and leave all of our gear onstage without having to move anything since there’s going to be a total changeover between our bands. This is a rare joy, as usually soundchecks are spent extensively setting gear up perfectly, then taking it back down, then having about five minutes to rush-job it all back up before the actual performance. Rod Stewart here takes umbrage with the in-house engineer telling me to stop playing while tuning the bass drum, so once we’re properly about to soundcheck I make quite a show of tuning it for a long time. Marvel at the immaturity.
We do two radio interviews – the first is just a one on one with me, which I’m pretty much terrible at being something of a social retard, I find myself counting the number of times I say “ummm…” but stop after about 30. Second interview goes much better since it’s me, Steev and Greg doing it. The three of us work quite well as an interview unit; Simin generally doesn’t enjoy interviews so it’s up to us to talk utter bollocks for 20 minutes and drop in as many in-jokes into the interview as possible. Steev manages to mention Rod Stewart twice I believe.
The venue is rammed out with a good, responsive and up-for-it (not to mention remarkably pretty) crowd when we take to the stage, sadly without the ‘Curb…’ theme music this time around. We play our set which goes down very well from where I’m sitting, and drag our gear back down the (you guessed it) several flights of stairs to the van so that Holy Fuck can set up. This is their third show of the day which is incredible to me, in their shoes I’d be a quivering wreck by now, but rather than that they play a blinder. They’re absolutely amazing, and really sound guys. We’re generally lucky as a band that we always seem to wind up playing with good people; in fact we’re probably ourselves the c*nts of any bill. We even came up with a song about ourselves called ‘Anti-Social Band’ in conjunction with a fellow at a gig which, being anti-social I can’t remember his name or what show but it should be sung in an uptempo rock style and the lyrics are as follows…
ANTI-SOCIAL BAND
NOT HANGING ABOUT WITH ANY OTHER BAND
ANTI-SOCIAL BAND
ALL PRESS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS HAVE BEEN BANNED
ANTI-SOCIAL BAND
NOT HANGING AROUND TO MEET ANY OF THE FANS
ANTI-SOCIAL BAND
NO AFTERSHOW PARTY HAS BEEN PLANNED
Sure-fire hit right there. Anyways allow me to stress again just how nice the guys in Holy Fuck are, and I hope sincerely we get to share a bill with them again in future. At this point I’d like to give special mention to a guy called Barry who gives us tobacco because we’re miles away from any shops and between us we don’t realise there’s a cigarette machine in the venue until about two minutes before we leave.
THURSDAY 9TH OCTOBER: WOLVERHAMPTON LITTLE CIVIC
On the brief drive from Manchester to Wolverhampton Greg has headphones on and is giggling like a maniac while he constructs something on Garageband on his laptop. He lets us hear it and it turns out to be a pitifully out-of-time instrumental version of Black Lace’s ‘80s party hit ‘Agadoo’ played using terrible pomp-synth trumpet sounds, and it’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in about a month. We decide there and then that it’s going to be our new intro music, though we never actually get round to using it. We arrive in Wolverhampton under the belief that the Littler Civic is the same venue we supported 65dos in, but that turns out to be the Civic 2, and the Little Civic isn’t even part of the same building. It’s a real shame because our dressing room on that occasion had a Jacuzzi in it. That honour this time around however goes to Dirty Pretty Things who are playing the main Civic Hall. This casts a shadow of immense foreboding on us, as being in a small venue next to a big crowd-pulling show like that smacks of us playing to nobody that night.
Simin and Wardo go for a walk since we’re early for load in again; the rest of us sit in the van listening to an impromptu laptop DJ set by Steev which involves mixing the drum intro from ‘Eastenders’ and the end refrain from the original theme tune from ‘Grange Hill’ into as many songs as possible. This literally never stops being funny and I’m wondering if we’re starting to develop proper tour insanity. Simin comes back and tells us he was talking to Carl Barat and none of us believe him, which results in a deluge of text messages from varying band members saying things like “Hey Simin, Carl here, hope you have a good show tonight” and wind up with Johnny Borrell and Pete Doherty sending similar messages of support. Ironically Rod Stewart doesn’t send his love. There’s a missed opportunity, but then Rod Stewart probably has somebody to send his texts for him. You can’t see it here for want of a scanner, but at this point in the tour diary there’s an amateurish yet fairly graphic sketch by Hines entitled ‘Inner Mind of a Young Beautiful Tour Manager’, which has an ‘Outside’ self portrait of himself smiling pleasantly, and an ‘Inside’ of him shooting himself on the head while screaming. I worry that we don’t appreciate him enough sometimes…
The gig itself is unsurprisingly quiet in terms of audience numbers, and there are three local emo bands supporting, none of whom we watch because we’re the anti-social band and besides, despite Simin’s fringe we’re not really fans of the genre as a whole. Not the best gig ever, but the few people in Wolverhampton who’d rather see us than Dirty Pretty Things do get into it and make us feel welcome. Afterwards we drive five hours back to Glasgow, during which time Steev, Hines and I find ourselves apparently going completely monkey shit mental in an attempt to stay awake. I’m too tired to even play ‘Rock Band’ when I get in, so I clamber into bed and realise for the first time as I’m reaching to switch the light out that Jo-Fo have spilled an ashtray on my carpet.
FRIDAY 10TH OCTOBER: GLASGOW, ORAN MOR
Glasgow is in the grip of a tropical storm, minus the tropical temperatures, but we manage to load our gear into Oran Mor without too much hassle. Oran Mor is a beautiful big converted church which sits on the corner of Great Western Road and Byres Road, and is basically the most West End venue in the whole city. Hines is physically and emotionally drained after his epic drive the previous night and sleeping on Wardo’s couch (Hines is from Stonehaven which is a small town near Aberdeen, which means on our brief excursions home he doesn’t get to sleep in his own bed), however he still agrees to nip out to a music shop in order to buy us guitar strings and much-needed new drumsticks for me, a decision he’ll regret after ten minutes when the heavens open and Glasgow gets dressed up early for Halloween as the sunken city of Atlantis.
We have the longest soundcheck in history: Oran Mor is the biggest venue we’ve ever played as a headlining act and what with it being our ‘homecoming’ show we’re determined to make it very special. We have a pretty incredible light show too courtesy of an acquaintance of ours called Graham who’s a freelance lighting engineer and sets us up inside an octagon of LED screens. He’s setting up when we arrive, which is cool considering Simin had mentioned the idea of him doing it once a long time ago and he remembered. After soundcheck Mogwai’s Stuart (Braithwaite) and his wife Grainne, who’s promoting the show, take us out for dinner to an awesome south Indian restaurant where topics of pre-dinner conversation include necrophilia and cannibalism. Yummy. Stuart hushes the table and tells us he’s got some pretty important news regarding the new single: “It was on display in the window of Monorail… (indie record shop in Glasgow),” he says, “…and a pigeon shat right on it.” We come to the conclusion that it was probably aiming for the eagle on the cover of the new Mogwai album displayed next to our single anyway.
We get back to Oran Mor just in time to catch the end of The Ballad of Mabel Wong’s set which sounds really good, then the rest of the band do an interview for Sub City Radio, Glasgow University’s campus radio station on which, quick aside, I used to co-host a show called ‘Mystery Train’ with my flatmate Cara. We were on between 1 and 3 am on a Monday morning and the only people who listened were the staff of the student magazine who’d be working late, and would send ludicrous requests for Spandau Ballet songs when we were playing leftfield electronica and dirty ‘60s garage rock. Anyway, while the rest of the band do the interview I get dressed, I’m wearing an ill fitting black shirt belonging to Calum and a Paisley pattern tie I bought for the ‘Pump’ shoot but never wore since we decided on a flannel shirt look, then I hurry on stage to play drums for the last two songs with Remember Remember. Considering we had one rehearsal two weeks’ previously, it goes very well. We take to the stage hurriedly given the 10pm curfew (which we end up over-running anyway) and proceed to have a whale of a time, lights flashing and us acting pretty much like four Rod Stewarts. You can’t beat the feel of a sold-out homecoming gig.
The early finish enables us to make it to Nice’n’Sleazy in time for our monthly club night we run called ‘Black Tent’. Simin and Steev DJ in the venue downstairs while Greg and I take care of the tunes in the bar area, we all get fairly wasted, I find myself drinking a pint of champagne while shouting the lyrics to ‘Work’ by Kelly Rowland at inappropriate volumes. A friend of ours will later comment on the evening as a whole by saying, “Amazing gig, dull disco”, but we were having too much fun to care. At the end of the night I realise I’ve made the ultimate drunken fuck-up and lost my mobile phone. Bummer, but on the plus side it gives me another Facebook group to join.
SATURDAY 11TH OCTOBER: ABERDEEN, MOSHULU
Everyone in the van is hungover all to hell, and the tour and abuse has caught up because at least half of us have caught colds. I haven’t done any laundry, and the only clothes I have which haven’t been worn are a garish shirt which is too small for me, a pair of ludicrously baggy boxer shorts specially hand-made by blind slave-children for Primark and a Titus Gein teeshirt I got at one of their shows and still owe them money for from about a year ago. We stop off in Stonehaven at Hines’ house to drop our stuff because we’re staying there tonight; the original plan was to ditch the van back here after we’ve set up, have a party night at Moshulu and just get a 4am bus back since we can leave our gear there overnight, but after the previous night’s Glasgow blow-out not a one of us is capable of much so we’re staying with the van. We set up, I’m absolutely knackered with the cold and playing drums like a newborn kitten, Wardo takes the opportunity to try a few different things with the bass drum which means I have to soundcheck it for about an hour. Tonight is a club show and we’re not onstage until 1am, so we retire to the dressing room and decide that rather than spending the effort on going out somewhere to eat healthily we’ll just stay grotty and phone in some pizzas. After the third attempt at finding a place that delivers, the following conversation takes place over the phone…
Hines: Hi can I get a delivery order of… (multiple pizzas)
Girl on Phone: What’s the address?
Hines: Moshulu. It’s a club on… (insert address)
Girl on Phone: I don’t know if we can deliver there. Is it for staff or something?
Hines: It’s for a band.
Girl on Phone: What band is it?
Hines: Errors.
Girl on Phone: Errors?
Hines: (pause) No, Editors.
Girl on Phone: Editors!?
Hines: Yes.
Girl on Phone (apparently telling everyone that Editors are ordering pizza) Okay, sure, no problem. We’ll give you a 25 per cent discount too.
So we get our pizza cheaper because they think we’re a famous band and we lounge around being ill and tired some more. Our friend Scott who runs the Adventures Close to Home nights in London and Aberdeen arrives and comes in for a chat and tells us a potentially libellous story about Foals, who’d been in the venue the other night, and a cake fight of sorts. It makes me wonder how bands can end up getting in fights so easily; then I remember when we played at the Tramway Theatre as part of Glasgow’s Triptych Festival where Steev and Greg had a legendarily epic drunken brawl in the dressing room involving flying shoes and keyboard stands as weapons. People tend to blow these things out of proportion though.
We go onstage at 1am and don’t play the best we’ve ever played, a sentiment echoed by one audience member after the gig who tells us, “I saw you guys at Connect, you were pure amazing. You weren’t as good tonight though.” I don’t bother telling him that partially it’s because I spent most of the set trying not to pass out. I even manage to fuck up the start of ‘Toes’ because I’m not paying attention to what’s going on, instead I’m focusing more on not throwing up in front of a club full of people. We hang out briefly with the guys from Copy Haho, then go back to Hines’ house and watch a Tad documentary and some awful-but-brilliant reality television show called ‘Cheaters’ before crashing out.
SUNDAY 12TH OCTOBER: DUNDEE, THE DOGHOUSE
The city of Dundee is roughly equidistant between Aberdeen and Glasgow, meaning it’s less than 90 minutes drive north from Glasgow, yet for some reason in four years as a band we’ve never played here. We’re still mostly fairly shabz feeling when we arrive at the venue. It’s a tough slog on our worn-out bodies even though we know tonight is the last night of the tour so we’re going to have a good time with it, so the load in feels kind of like I imagine pensioners feel when they’re fucking; it’s tough going and it’s creaky and sore, but with a nice reward at the end. Remember Remember are supporting again tonight, doing some pre-release shows as they are for their album which is coming out on Rock Action in November (which, did I mention I play drums on? Nope? Well I do) as are Popolo, who as it turns out are a pretty awesome instrumental band from Dundee who you should probably check out. Soundchecks go as usual; I’m not feeling half as sick as I was the previous night in Aberdeen so I’m actually able to play drums like a man instead of an asthmatic mouse.
Ourselves and Graeme, James and Joan from RR go for dinner at a Chinese restaurant which does great noodles and arrive back at the show in time to watch Popolo play a really tight set of wonky, quirky but tuneful instrumental rock. There’s some kind of unspecified technical difficulty during the Remember Remember set which brings it to an early finish unfortunately but the crowd responds well nonetheless. We take to the stage with Steev saying, “Hi, we’re Errors from Glasgow and we’ve never been to Dundee before. Yourselves?” Pity we’ve not been before because we do seem to go down very well. After the show we hang around and exchange banter with each other before bidding a fond adieu to the touring life (for, y’know, a week until we do these Mogwai support shows) and driving in a Rock Action pseudo-death-race with Remember Remember back to Glasgow, which we learn the next day we won because Graeme took the wrong turn and drove to Edinburgh.
Unsurprisingly it’s still raining in Glasgow.
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Errors’ ‘It’s Not Something But It Is Like Whatever’ album is out now on Rock Action. See the band live as follows…
November
12 Paisley Town Hall w/ Sons & Daughters
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