Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons - Old Lions Still Tour - Day 9

Apologies for the delay with these posts.  It's been due to a combination of crappy WI-FI, being busy doing other stuff and in all honestly prioritizing other methods of entertainment whenever I get some free time - sorry!

Anyway, back to show day in Switzerland! After a hardcore night of mini golf and pizza we woke up refreshed for the show.  We were parked up outside the venue but were told we wouldn't have access to our dressing room until 3pm so we had quite a lot of time to kill.  Todd and Mike went for an early walk to the city center but I didn't know until they got back. I wish I had gone for a walk because it was a nice day and ended up cooped up on the bus (probably writing a blog entry) until it was official venue time.

The venue was great and all the venue staff were cool. This place definitely had a strong hipster vibe going on so it was an odd choice for a hard rock gig but I guess it doesn't matter! We were given a large dressing room with the usual rider items, a pod coffee machine and a beer tap - YES A BEER TAP.  Unfortunately, it might be shocking to some of you but as we are all professionals it didn't get touched by ourselves until after the show. Talk about will power!

Fun fact - when I was 18-19 I used to be a barman and really used to enjoy pulling pints.

It was one of those days where we had merch items to sign. Tedious task but it's got to be done and it definitely helps with sales.  The hardest part is finding Sharpie pens that actually work properly!!

Soundcheck time. Bit of an odd one as there was a strict DB limit that our sound engineer John had to do his upmost best to adhere to. He actually asked me if it was possible for me to "go easy" on my cymbals for this show as playing them at my normal level was almost hitting the max DB limit on their own. Very odd as the cymbal brand I use are Swiss and I thought it was comical that they were louder than their own countries DB limit! For anyone interested I use Paiste 2002 cymbals with this band, they are the ultimate classic rock range of cymbals in my opinion.

Apart from having to tap my cymbals, soundcheck went fairly well. There were two local support bands booked for this show plus there was another room downstairs where (at least) 5 bands were booked to play a totally separate gig. All the dinner catering was shared and there were lots of vegan options so that was nice for me...this also added to the hipster feel of the venue.

The gig ended up being pretty awesome despite fears that the low volume would greatly affect the mood and participation of the audience. But annoyingly I couldn't get into it as much as normal because I was constantly conscious of the cymbal volume so was mainly concentrating on playing the songs whilst going easy on the cymbals but trying to look like I was still hitting them hard! Not easy!

I spoke to a few guys in the other bands after the show so that was cool. Plus the venue made some really nice sandwich rolls for the band and venue staff so I nabbed the last vegan one and it was a delicious post-show meal.

Onwards to Germany.

To be continued...

Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons - Old Lions Still Tour - Day 8

So what I failed to mention in the previous blog was what we had to plan for in order to take our merchandise into Switzerland. As it's not a member of European Union there is no free trade so technically we have to pay Swiss tax on whatever merch we take into Switzerland and then claim back the tax for whatever we didn't sell on the way back out. This can be difficult when travelling in a tour bus and driving through the night as not all borders are manned 24 hours. At this point we still had 8 shows left of this tour so that equates to A LOT of merch!

Paying the tax isn't a massive deal as we know it's possible to get the refund back but it's the time that it takes to make sure everything is counted up accurately etc. As we were travelling with almost 20 boxes of merch we decided to only take 4 boxes of minimal quantities into Switzerland for the single show and dump the rest of the stock in a cheap hotel just outside of the border. Good idea but this still takes a lot of planning for our tour manager John and Mike the driver to figure out the best route in and out without going too far out of the way. They are both legends and worked something out that made sense so all we had to do was prepare some merch boxes for Switzerland. Our merch seller Dai prepared all this after the last show in France so our tour manager just had to prepare a document with the quantities and selling prices to show the border control people. This is important as we've heard horror stories of bands having to count everything up as they arrive at the border with the customs staff. This can take hours and hours and waste valuable travel time.

We checked into the hotel at around 9am and then about 5 us started carrying boxes of merch back and fore from our bus, through the lobby to our room. I bet the staff were so confused or maybe it was a common thing that bands do? Luckily our room was on the ground floor! Didn't take long, onwards to the Swiss border!

Luckily we didn't have to count anything up and managed to sort it out within 15 mins, pay the bill and get the document stamped! Success! Stress over!

A few of the guys were hungry we stopped at the first service station we saw. I didnt buy anything but a few of the guys bought some food. My brother Tyla bought a Burger King meal for what cost the equivalent of £17.50!! Back home in the UK the same meal in a service station would cost about £7. Welcome to Switzerland!

Today was a travel day / day off and luckily we had access to the venue that we were due to play the following night. The venue was called Kiff in the city of Aarau. The venue was in an industrial area but luckily there was a petrol station and Lidl nearby. Luckily Lidl prices were still relatively comparable to back home so that came in handy for supplies on a day off. I bought a bag of spinach, some bananas and some blueberries for smoothies.

Apart from chill out there wasn't much else to do but one of the guys discovered there was a mini golf place around the corner so a bunch of us went there when it opened at 5pm. It cost 5 Swiss Francs per person for an 18 hole course so I'd say that was excellent value.

I haven't played mini golf for years so I didn't expect to be good but it was a good laugh and passed the time. Our tour manager John ended up winning by 10 strokes. I came 4th out of 6. Here is the scoresheet below for anyone interested.

The night ended with an overpriced but very decent pizza delivery and Todd managed to get the Manchester United game streaming on his laptop so that filled the entertainment gap for the evening. They won the match 1-0 which was nice for a change as they have been performing terribly as of late. I had a fairly early night as I wanted to appreciate being able to sleep while we weren't driving for once!

To be continued...

Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons - Old Lions Still Tour - Day 6 & 7

Long drive from Leuven in Belgium to park at the venue Boisseuil, France. Arrived around midday to discover it was in a very rural location. Not ideal for a day off when you're living on a bus...remember no number two's! A few members of the band and crew treated themselves to a hotel in the nearby town that was 15 minutes away in a taxi. Good for them but I decided to tough it out and save the pennies.

After a bit of Google research one of the guys discovered there was only one place within walking distance where food would be available - until 2pm! So we rushed there and to be fair it was a really nice, comfortable restaurant. Unfortunately for me, I can't speak French and nobody there spoke English but I managed to order a portion of potato wedges anyway. Not exactly my usual standards when it comes to healthy meals but at least I could safely order knowing there were no animals involved.

When we got back to the bus to our delight we discovered that there were people working in the venue until 6pm and we were allowed access to the toilets, showers and Wi-Fi! If you've ever toured you will appreciate how great that news was! Also, it was an absolutely stunning, boiling hot day so I grabbed a chair from the venue and read my book in the sun for an hour or so. I am currently reading 'Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind' by Yuval Noah Harari. I would highly recommend it to anyone who has the desire to learn more about the history of our species evolved, how and why society gradually changed due to the agricultural revolution etc. It's a best selling book so you won't have trouble finding it if you are interested.

Meanwhile our techs Solj and Dai made use of the free time by re-stinging the guitars and also attempted to see what was potentially wrong with one of the guitar cabinets. I think they managed to solve the problem anyway. Here is a photo of the insides of a guitar cabinet for anyone remotely interested.

I grabbed a shower before the venue closed and felt pretty good. A few of us even cracked open some beers. Back to gaming, I packed my Nintendo 64 console and after using what seemed like endless use of adaptors I managed to get it hooked up in the back lounge. Myself, my brother Tyla and our driver Mike spent a good hour battling it out on Goldeneye 007, Mario Kart and International Superstar Soccer 64 which were our favourites 20 years ago! We all decided to play on the same team as Wales vs Belgium and got pummelled by the computer controlled team. Football games these days feel very difficult but back in the day you couldn't beat ISS64 and it's made up player names! We actually took a short break to go check out the beautiful red sky after sunset. I was gutted I actually missed the sunset itself as I imagine it was probably glorious!

Hunger was striking. After a struggle we managed to find one junk food burger/pizza place on JustEat.fr that would deliver to our rural location. Again, nothing vegan on the menu but I ordered a portion of French Fries to get involved anyway. That's when my emergency stash of microwave rice/grain packets came in handy. 1 minute microwave lentils and vegetables from Aldi and you've got a relatively half decent meal to go alongside with the fries - which were awful by the way.

For me the evening ended with a few beers watching a Pritchard Vs Dainton DVD in the back lounge with Tyla and Neil. Even though I was well aware of it I hadn't really watched a whole lot of Dirty Sanchez back in the day so this was an eye opener. Those guys were absolutely mental doing all sorts of hideous acts involving shit, piss and sharp objects etc. I follow Matt Pritchard on social media after he came to a 'Bastard Sons show and he is now an inspiring vegan chef, author, TV presenter and multi iron man endurance athlete!

I had a decent sleep and onto the show day.  There was a promise of breakfast up until 11am so I made sure I was there for that. Muesli and juice indoors instead of inside a bus was a nice change at least. There was egg and bacon also available so it bonus for the other guys who woke up in time.

We loaded in early and made sure there was plenty of time for a soundcheck. The venue staff were really friendly and there were lots of them. In France, it's quite common to have regimented Lunch and Dinner times for the bands and venue staff and today was no different. Thankfully for me, the lunch was very healthy and they had made special vegan dishes for me and the other veggies. There was lots of it too! Very happy and full drummer ready for soundcheck.

Despite having plenty of time for a lengthy soundcheck we got it over and done with pretty quickly. Tyla had a bit of an issue with his bass rig but it got sorted out fairly quickly. I had cleaned my IEM's out again and changed the buds on them to experiment whether they could sound better for me. I think they were a tad clearer and seemed to stay inside my ears better so that's an obvious bonus.

I went for a lie down after soundcheck and put on a meditation session on my Headspace app. I found it difficult to zone out properly so it didn't go very well so be honest. But still it's nice to try and rest your body and mind for a short while.

Soon enough it was dinner time which was even better than lunch! Whoop!

After dinner I used the time to go through some drum videos on my laptop and I did try to upload one but unfortunately it kept failing so I gave up after the 5th attempt. Sorry.

Showtime was soon enough. It wasn't the busiest crowd but was pretty decent considering where we were in the country! The audience didn't take long to warm up and we got them jumping up and down, singing and giving us the middle finger soon enough! Sadly my monitor sound was nothing like how it was in soundcheck, this was frustrating but I just tried getting on with it anyway instead of spending half of the gig asking for changes to be made in between songs.

Overall it was a decent show in a nice venue! I would come back for sure. Shower, pack away my drums, load out as we were leaving at 1am for another mammoth drive to Switzerland.

To be continued...

Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons - Old Lions Still Tour - Day 5

Het Depot - Leuven, Belgium. Supporting Glenn Hughes.

Woke up with the tour bus parked in a bus station. The venue of was very central so there was no way of parking the bus anywhere near it to load in the gear. Fortunately they had arranged for a van to come and collect our gear and take it to the venue for us.  No headline show tonight, we were supporting the mighty Glenn Hughes! Only 45 minute set, yes!

I had a chilled morning before all that happened and managed to get a bit of PlayStation action in. I played a platform game called Klonoa: Door To Phantomile that I remembered by friend from school used to own and I had recently read somewhere that it was an 'overlooked gem'. Pretty much a kids game but was still fun and tricky in parts nevertheless.  Hopefully I can complete it before the end of this tour. Anyway, enough nerd talk!

Load in was a ball ache but had to be done. Luckily there was an area behind the stage to set up so I got to listen to Glenn Hughes' band soundcheck whilst setting up my kit. Amazing band, drummer sounded excellent too! I got big into Deep Purple about 5 years ago and have fond memories of 'Highway Star' being played on tape in my dads car when I was a kid. The Glenn Hughes era was actually my favourite so I felt great getting on as support for this show. We have previously shared festival lineups with him but have never been able to stick around long enough to watch his set.

Our soundcheck was a bit of nightmare. Todd was getting feedback problems from a mysterious source. I was having difficulty with my IEM mix as the panning didn't seem to be working properly.  After some experimentation we figured out it was down to the headphones themselves. So after soundcheck I gave them a clean and pulled out a considerable amount of ear wax...gross! I think it helped a little bit as both the left and right sides seemed more balanced now.

The actual gig was great and I managed to film most of it so hopefully I can upload a video very soon. We cleared the stage and packed away the gear as quickly as possible and tried our best not to get in the way of the headliners whilst doing so (as is the way to do it). Managed to grab a quick shower as I wanted to catch as much of Glenn's set as possible. Frustratingly they played one of my favourite 'Purple songs called 'Sail Away' whilst I was in the shower! I absolutely love the main riff in that song and it sounds really funky for a rock band.

The venue was nice and there was a balcony seating area reserved for the bands and guests so I watched the rest of the set from up there with a couple of bottles of Stella Artois. The city of Leuven is the home of Stella Artois so it had to be done really! Actually watching the band from the front confirmed that they were all brilliant musicians and the drummer was actually incredible...one of the best I've ever seen actually! His name is Ash Sheehan so make sure you go and check him out! I filmed his 10 minute drum solo on my phone, shame I was so far back because it was mind blowing! The kind of drum solo that non drummers can be wowed by also a solo that all drummers can appreciate the skill and talent required! Lots of flashy bits but just excellent drumming! I got to meet him after the show and he was so kind - top bloke! In fact the whole band were super nice and complimentary about our band. Soren Andersen, the guitarist actually mixed my dad's solo album that is out on October 25th. Very nice guy and top guitarist. Sadly, I didn't get to meet Glenn but nevermind.

We had to rush off as we had a 10 hour drive through the night ahead of us to park at the next venue in France.

To be continued...

Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons - Old Lions Still Tour - Day 4 -

Day 4 - Raismes Festival

Interesting day. Weather was glorious and we were headlining a fairly small outdoor festival in France. It was a rural location with horse training grounds etc. Bizarre!

We drove through the night as usual so woke up within the festival grounds. We a great sized dressing room with drinks and snacks etc so all good. Massive (Australian band I mentioned in a previous post) played around 2pm and were great! So much energy especially considering they drove overnight from London that morning after supporting The Quireboys at Kentish Town Forum!

So great location, all good. Lunch was apparently now available so most of us went to check it out. Lots of plates of various meats and one dish of veggy cous cous...all of it covered in flies. Not ideal. Oh well, can't win them all.

We were using the time to chill in the dressing room. I got my laptop out and wrote a blog post and uploaded a drum video. So Wi-Fi though so i had to tether to my phone and it's 4G signal. The things I do for you guys!

It became apparent that the bands were all running late and we discovered that one band had a delayed flight and would be arriving late. Luckily the legend that is Brian Downey agreed to fill their slot with his Live And Dangerous band - who were essentially a Thin Lizzy tribute/covers band. Sadly everything was still running late and it became apparent that if the delays kept continuing we would probably be hitting the stage around 90 minutes after our set time. As it was a Sunday evening we weren't too keen on going on so late so enquired about swapping with another band. Fortunately, one of the bands agreed to swap with us. But it meant we had to go on next after Brian Downey so it was all hands on deck to get the gear setup as quickly as possible on the side of the stage. I didn't mind as I got to watch Mr Downey whilst setting up...Could be worse!

The show went really well and the crowd were really responsive! In hindsight I agree it was wise to play when we did, the sun went down during our set so I imagine that added some drama, but the main benefit was that the entire crowd were still there! Sadly, as it was a bit of a rush I didn't get chance to set up and prepare my GoPro so no footage from this show sorry.

We all managed to grab a shower but nobody fancied any of the catering as like at lunch, everything was covered in flies. Luckily, the kitchen staff said they had specially prepared vegan meals for me and the other veggies in the party. Not sure what it was supposed to be but it reminded me of a chicken casserole or something like that, but with fake meat of course. It was actually super tasty!

The boys went to buy burgers from the main festival site and were generally happy except that the French don't cook them as much as we do in the UK so there was blood galore - gross!

Meanwhile, Todd and Tyla did an interview with some Muppets...

https://www.instagram.com/p/B2cgRLUDMkx/?igshid=1u94ux59vqfwl

To be continued...

(I'm already running behind with these posts but I will endeavour to keep them going!)

Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons - Old Lions Still Tour - Day 3

Bit of a strange one today as 2 days ago we were told the original venue in Bochum was unable to host the show due to fire regulations or something. Luckily we quickly solved the issue by transferring the show to the nearby city of Essen which turned out to be ideal! The organizers actually combined our show with another gig that was happening in the Bochum complex so we ended up with a 3 band bill. Ourselves, Hardline and Outworm.

I started the day with a healthy breakfast in our bus -

As this was our first proper headline club gig I took my time setting up my drum kit to get everything just right. There was a problem as my GoPro holder had come apart so we had to try and fix it. Luckily my good friend Dai and backline tech/merch seller extraordinaire managed to botch it back together with some gaffa tape and super glue! Hurrah! More videos for you guys!

We also had about 20 boxes of merch to count, CDs, Vinyls and drumheads to sign. everyone got involved and chipped together to get this done just in time for dinner! The most tedious job is taking off the shrink-wrapping from the CDs. Unfortunately it has to be done in order for us to scribble on the covers in questionable, mostly awful marker pens. At least we try!

Meanwhile, the support band Outworm were unpacking their beautiful Sonor SQ2 drum kit which left me salivating! I'm annoyed I didn't take a photo because it was stunning! Got a hear a bit of Hardline's soundcheck too. They sounded great and had a keyboard player which was a refreshing change.

In-house catering at the venue was very good and we were fortunately provided with a large plate of homemade vegan chocolate cupcakes...I may have eaten 4 throughout the evening. Oops!

On to the show, not sure why but I was a bit tired so it took me a few songs to get my energy levels on track. Perhaps the cupcakes didn't help! The crowd were fantastic and it was amazing to see so many people singing along to our songs as well as the Motorhead covers.

I had a total of 2 beers after the show over the space of about 3 hours. That's rock and roll!!!

Raismes Fest in France tomorrow. I will update you with how that goes soon.

To be continued...

Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons - Old Lions Still Tour - Day 2

Day 2 - Altenbergen Rock 'n' Revel Festival

Thankfully we found the bus we had booked so managed to board it by about 2am. Sadly there was no trailer attached so our van had to come back and meet us in the morning for us to do the cross-load of equipment, merch etc. But all good in the end!

We had a 4 hour drive in the bus to the first 'venue'. We stopped at the airport on the way to pick up my dad, our singer Neil and our Tour Manager/Sound Engineer John. Then we got to chill for a few hours and investigate the features of the bus.

To my delight the back lounge had an accessible HDMI port which allowed me to connect up my recently purchased mini Sony PlayStation Classic console. Aside from drumming, my main hobby is video games and for the last few years I have enjoyed the resurgence of retro games and have starting collecting games from the consoles of my youth. If anyone wants to donate any old games you don't want to my collection then get in touch, haha! Anyway, after succeeding to connect the console I spent an hour playing some random games - Pepsi Man (never knew this existed), Megaman X5 and Jack Chan: Stuntman were the highlights.

I didn't have the longest sleep last night and I knew we had a late stage time this evening (11.15pm) so I thought I'd attempt a nap in my bunk or at least a rest. I've recently started learning some meditation techniques using the Headspace app so I put one on but sadly as we were driving through the German wilderness my phone signal kept cutting out and so did the audio tracks on the app so it didn't go to plan. Still, I had a lie down and a rest until we arrived at the venue - literally a football pitch inbetween many fields of corn in the middle of nowhere. Apparently the town of Altenbergen has a population of 500. I'm not sure if that's true but it's a cool place for a show. Sadly the phone reception was non-existent but that's too be expected in such a rural area.

We have quite a few brand new merch designs and as it's the first date of the tour we had about 20 boxes to figure out so my brother Tyla and I spent an hour going through them while the other guys loaded out the equipment and began setting up the stage. We had a short soundcheck but it sounded decent. We soundchecked the song 'These Old Boots' from my dad's solo album ready for it's live debut tonight and jammed a few other bits.

Now dinner time! We were blessed with fantastic catering today! Plenty of vegan options for myself and the other vegetarian members of the crew. Very tasty and plenty of it. We also had the biggest fruit bowl I've ever seen plus another fruit plate full of strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and cranberries! Jackpot! My brother Todd brought his Nutribullet machine so myself, my dad, Todd and Neil all brought our Nutribullet cups to make smoothies whenever possible.

It's really easy to be unhealthy on tour so I find this to be a great way of topping up on important nutrients and it can also help with energy levels if you time it right. Hopefully it will decrease the chances of us all catching colds and then passing the germs onto everyone else too!

There is another band called Massive on the bill. They are from Australia and seem like cool guys. We're playing with them in a few days too. I've now got 'Land Down Under' by Men At Work in my head as they jammed it in their soundcheck. Thankfully I like that song and it brings back great memories of the local jam night that I used to often frequent with my brothers and mates. Also my own amaxing holiday in Australia earlier this year with my wife, Anna!

The actual show went really well and the crowd were excellent! Props to the organisers for being very helpful all day. I filmed a few of the songs on my GoPro from behind the kit. I brought an extra stand to mount it on this time to avoid the horrible noise it made due to the vibrations whilst being attached to a cymbal stand. I will go through them tomorrow and hopefully there will be a decent one worthy of an upload!

Show 1 - a great success!

To be continued...

Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons - Old Lions Still Tour - Day 1

Day 1: Travel from Wales to Dusseldorf, Germany in a van to board our tour bus. It was a long, long day. The van and trailer met us at our studio and we loaded all the gear and merch. Luckily it had stopped raining bit it was still wet and miserable.

Thankfully there was a TV and media player in the van so we watched a few movies. Hot Tub Time Machine was a classic but we also watched the Revenant which I hadn't seen before. I can see why Leo won an Oscar for it, the bear fight was epic! It was beautifully shot too!

Unfortunately, travel days mean there is always a strong chance I will eat rubbish all day. I made sure I had a big breakfast at home but since then I've also eaten an entire box of Linda McCartney vegan sausage rolls, a sandwich, 3/4 pack of Oreo's, an apple and a large bag of prawn cocktail flavour Skips rip-offs. I also squeezed in a Costa Almond Latte, a Magners pear cider and a bottle of Budweiser. Very bad.

Once we cross-load all of our gear into the tour bus we will get to sleep it in through the night while it's still parked at the depot. There is a toilet on board but number 2's aren't allowed...

Edit. We just arrived at the bus depot and our bus isn't here.

To be continued...