August 5th and 6th

Bow Wow Wow and Ashley The Tour Van

On Thursday morning (Aug 5th) Leigh, Phil and Adrian’s li'l ‘bro Damian loaded up Ashley the tour van. Phil won the Jo-Lo award for diva-style luggage, packing a suitcase (a.k.a. R2D2) so big that he earned the nick name P-Go. The boys drove up the 5 to San Fran talking politics and bollocks all the way, and had a raucous night on the town that evening.

Annabella in San Francisco

Adrian and Annabella flew in the next morning (Aug 6th), just in time to do an interview at Live 105. Annabella’s luggage had decided to take a later flight however, but luckily it arrived in time for the show, which was a relief all-round since her delayed bags contained all her saucy stage outfits. Annabella had a prize bimbo moment, when she got trapped in the van by her seat belt in a parking lot near Live 105. After struggling for several minutes, Leigh came to the rescue and released her embarrassingly easily.

Annabella at Soundcheck

Later the band met up in the van outside the hotel ready to head to the gig. Annabella rushed out of the hotel and into a van – unfortunately it was the wrong van, much to the surprise of a vacationing family. Then things started to get really silly. There was a baseball game at SF’s SBC Park that night, and the police had blocked off all the usual routes to the venue. Between the forced detour and SF’s infamous one-way system, the band got majorly lost. Luckily Adrian (AKA the human Thomas Guide), who was already at the venue, successfully coached the rest of the band through the city via cell phone.

Phil and Gretsch Hot Rod at Soundcheck

Once there disaster struck when Phil realized he’d forgotten one of the band’s most important pieces of equipment – the hairdryer they use for their Mohawks. Since the traffic was so bad, there was no going back for it. The band resolved to put the hairdryer on their list of backline equipment to avoid the situation occurring in the future.

The Pound

The venue, The Pound SF, looked like a punk rock club out of the movie Blade Runner. The band had got a somewhat unfortunate first impression the weekend before however, when Leigh visited the site to drop some stuff off for Jimmy the music booker. All the usual Pound crew had vacated the zone so the Hell’s Angeles could host part of their three-day annual convention there. When Leigh arrived, there was a big draino truck outside sucking the crap out of the venue (literally) via two big tubes running all the way through the club into the ladies and gents toilets. We were a bit concerned about the state the venue might be in by the time we arrived for the gig the following week, but those nice Hell’s Angeles boys had cleaned up after themselves, so it was all good.

Adrian at Soundcheck

The band had fun on stage. Like a dog on a lead running around its owner, Phil and Annabella crossed wires, causing what could have been a potentially disastrous entanglement. But the show was tight, the crowd was suitably hot and sweaty, and much fun was had by all.

A Big Crowd at The Pound

After the SF gig the band hit a private house party to unwind. There, Leigh, Phil and Adrian were accosted by a professional gorilla who was looking to catch a gig dancing during “See Jungle.” He spent some quality time giving Leigh his verbal resume, and showed Leigh a copy of the previous week’s Bay Guardian in which he was bestowed with the title of Best Gorilla 2004. The band were still on the fence as to whether “See Jungle” would be improved by the addition of a dancing gorilla, but when he offered to bring his own bananas the band agreed to let him audition at the soundcheck for the gig the next day.

Phil and Leigh

Annabella and Adrian

Leigh and Annabella

Damian Young

Leigh Gorman

Valet Parking at The Pound