Soulwax Tour Diary 19th Feb Glasgow Stephen's Tour Diary Here I am back again....on a bus that smells like the ghosts of a hundred previous bands....and a sore throat because of the air conditioning inside. At the moment we are in Glasgow, where we played King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, really nice people and a great mushroom-cream soup. Tonite was kinda hard with my throat and David's guitars breaking down (something technical I'm not gonna bore you with), or maybe I should explain that his voodoo vibe is gone and that the input of his plexi-Dan Armstrong felt the same vibe....VOODOO, and how we all stood and stared at him as he himself was figuring out what exactly was being voodoo'd..... I already wrote that it's really hard to write about being on tour...it's even harder to write 'about being on tour' while you're on that tour.... Glasgow was a really warm place and I'm looking forward to coming back when we play here again with The Wannadies on the 6th of March.... Who is reading this? Does it make sense to you? What's happening in Austria? Question of the day: If you could be a member of the Wu-Tang-Clan, what would be your name...? 16th Feb Edinburgh I've never written a tour-report and I certainly do not see the significance of it... let's face it, it always comes down to gettin' on a bus, going off that same bus, gettin' prepared to soundcheck, wait... hang around... try and steal some drinks from the main act... do the gig... go back into the bus ...start talking about the gig... occasionally a MUSE-groupie will ask to buy something off our rider and tell us we weren't that bad... and at some point during the night the bus will take off for another town... and we start all over again... don't get me wrong we knew all of this beforehand, and we thought we came prepared.... Some people still have this romantic idea of goin' on tour with all your friends, lots of fun, drugs... drinks... girls.... meeting other bands... but the actual truth is somehow different and much more complex. Last night we played in Leeds and all of the above happened except for the stealing of drinks cause the landlord of the Duchess of York already knew the burdens of being a support-band and provided us with drinks... Another thing that takes up your time is interviews... mind you, this time the person turned out to be the good cop and him and my brother David had a real nice chat about music, interviewing Prince, and if we'd heard the new Oasis album... I didn't have time to check out the town but the other guys did and told me some store sold a pair of sneakers I've been looking for some time, so Leeds provided me with a new pair of sneakers and a cold. I always find it hard to describe the difference between audiences in Leeds or Norwich, I've never done it before actually...they appear to be very young and fanatic about MUSE... Before we came here, people told us that English audiences are very critical and not very enthusiastic...au contraire...it seems that we are talking about different people. Last night in Leeds people really got into the gig (from what I saw on stage...) and decided to buy one t-shirt, complimented us on our set and were totally prepared for MUSE.... Today we are in Edinburgh, having a day off at the Cairn Hotel, takin' a bath for the first time and recording a song for a compilation on our mobile-home studio (how very rock'n roll)....tomorrow it'll be our first breakfast in along time.... I don't want you to think we're not having any fun...but sometimes I feel like David St. Hubbins will walk through the door and ask me, "Where's the stage...?" 14th Feb Somewhere on the M4 Hi. This is David from Soulwax mailing the first of our tour diary updates from our tours with Muse and The Wannadies in the UK over the next 4 weeks. It's been a strange few days. We are in our third tour bus for this week (we've been in Germany for the last week) - our specially converted bus which has our studio and stuff on it has had something horrible happen to its engine and we won't be back in it until the end of the week. This message is coming to you via a mobile phone and our record company e-mail as my computer equipment is still on our special bus. Sob! We miss it so and all feel slightly unsettled. This is our longest ever tour in one go and we really wanted all of our home comforts around us. Last night was the first date supporting Muse and despite a few technical difficulties we had a great time. The Bristol people were very friendly (our bass player Stefaan says 'hi' to the girl down the front in the cool Radiohead shirt) and despite tiredness we enjoyed ourselves. You get good pizza in Bristol too. Today's tour bus album is Prince - 'Lovesexy' followed by Sly & The Family Stone - Greatest Hits. Today's tour bus DVD is ... oh, it's broken. Once we get under way properly I'll have more news, and when we get our bus back maybe I could drop in some 'on the road' photos and you can check our Spinal Tap lifestyle! More from Leeds or somewhere soon. Soulwax Tour Diary Meet Soulwax. They're a five-piece from Belgium, formed by two brothers - vocalist Stephen and guitarist David Dewaele, with Stefaan Van Leuven on bass, Stephane Misseghers on drums and Inge Flipts on keyboards completing the lineup. They've just released a new single, 'Conversation Intercom', which you'll have heard on The Evening Session. Recorded in LA with producer David Sardy (formerly of Barkmarket, who's worked with the likes of Helmet and Red Hot Chili Peppers), the track's the second single to be taken from their forthcoming album, 'Much Against Everyone's Advice' (their debut album, 'Leave The Story Untold' was released a couple of years ago in Europe, but not the UK). 12th March Wolverhampton Stefaan's Tour Diary I just went cold turkey on my Playstation addiction. I used to play Soulblade till my fingers went numb or somebody would pull the plug. When Stephen asked me to write this tour report, I thought it might actually distract me for a while. So, how's life on the road? Well, Dave's working on a remix for a French band called Tahiti Eighty. Stephen made me really jealous when he found himself a twelve inch original vinyl of 'Bonnie & Clyde' by Serge Gainsbourg. Inge's still flirting with the merchandising guy for The Wannadies. Stéphane went to the Premier drums factory to get himself an endorsement (free drums for all of us). His cunning plan has failed, so far. Aberdeen was a bit of a bummer as our sampler broke down two minutes before we went on. No time to fix it, so we improvised; we played some songs acoustically; Stéphane replaced the sampled beats with live drums and we came up with the rest as we went along. Manchester was a great gig because the crowd was surprisingly demanding, considering us being merely a support act. Usually at the beginning of the show most people are a sceptical when they see these weird Belgians in their smelly suits. Leicester = technical hell; failing monitors, which made Stéphane so mad that he practically shouted louder than his drums throughout the whole gig; the sampler broke down again; my effect pedals died on me and so did Dave's. The first time we played at the Princess Charlotte's, we had similar problems: we jumped on stage and accidentally spilled someone's beer on some of our equipment which caused a massive short-circuit. Nevertheless, the spirit was there and the crowd's reaction was superb. After the show some weird looking cowgirls harassed us (hence the photo). Wolverhampton seemed like the most luxurious venue up until now: big hall, big stage, large crowd, good gear... Rock heaven. Although we just can't seem to get rid of Murphy's law: this time our backdrop came down from the ceiling in the middle of a silent moment during the set. For those who were there, it was all part of the act. 1st March Leeds Stephen's Tour Diary Tonight we played our third show with The Wannadies in Leeds at The Cockpit, and I guess people got into it. Some people said they'd seen us with Muse and came back to see us. We started off in Cambridge and met the friendly Swedes for the first time. After our first soundcheck, they somehow panicked cause we play louder than they do, so we had to reduce the volume during our gig which is a bit of a problem... no, it is a problem. They didn't want us to be louder than they are and I understand that but at this level we might as well take our acoustic guitars and have a intimate sing-a-long.... So again it's frustrating, but I guess that's what being a support band means: frustration. At some point during tonight's gig, I went into the crowd to hear what we sounded like... frustration... I couldn't hear the kickdrum, let alone any drums being amplified...I wanted to die... We talked to their tour manager and he told us that the band wanted to talk to us, so I'm really looking forward to telling them there's no point in having us play electrically at that volume. I hope we can sort things out, cause it's really nice touring with them. Tomorrow it'll be the first time we'll play Liverpool, so I'm looking forward to that, and I really enjoyed Norwich for the second time. I found some new record stores and thought about our artwork for the album - it consists of old 7" sleeves which we changed into so-called vintage Soulwax singles. At this one store, I found some cool vinyl, but my per diems prohibited me from buying. We have one weakness: record stores, and my wallet knows... In Norwich, we were joined on the tour bus by John, who writes for Flipside. It was weird at first but in the end, after some serious karaokeing on the bus and off-the-record interviews, we got to know each other. It must be weird for someone to come on our bus expecting the worst and find us karaokeing to the dvd-machine with total conviction... 27th Feb In the Channel Tunnel Underneath the North Sea, with absolute blackness outside - I'm trying to find the words consigned for this space... it's been a while since I've written anything considering our tour with Muse... it ended on Friday night at the ULU in London... and turned out to be one of the best so far... next day David and I deejayed (yesterday)... in our hometown (Ghent), at the first Belmondo party of many to follow... very strange to see all of your friends back after about a month on a tourbus... the feeling of being back home, but not really... especially if you have to return the next day Now : 22h23 cet, on our way back to London, to start the tour with The Wannadies, which kicks off in Cambridge - tomorrow...the sea is literally above us...it's extremely dark outside... London turned out to be cool... we had fun... a lot of promo... and we had our own little rock 'n roll moment on tour when the support band Crashland showed their rebellious side by smashing our neon lights and Muse's drumkit. This pissed off our roadies so much that one of them took their bass guitar from the stage and broke it in two in the dressing room. They apologized....... The crowd was the most enthusiastic of the whole tour as of yet... it was nice to see that some people came to see us, we could fit the whole backline onstage, and only one of the neon-lights didn't work... we couldn't have thought of a better way to end a technically frustrating two-week tour with Muse, who were actually very nice to us... next week we will start making a remix for them in our home studio on the bus. The night before in Leicester was quite Spinal Tap-like... we'd only had a 5 minute-long soundcheck... David went on stage and said: "HELLO LEICESTER...WE ARE SOULWAX AND WE BRING YOU THE INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE OF ROCK!!" and the power went off... no electricity... no sound... a sold out venue... 5 Belgians in suits and no power... typical... Someone had switched off the power by mistake...after a couple of minutes we were trying hard to bring the international language of rock...electrically... Taken from the Radio1 Website Click here to read the original all images © Radio 1 - 2000