Leipzig.

It's around 6.30am and we're leaving Leipzig. Tonight has seen three performances that will take some beating from all of the bands playing to a great audience. On top of this an aftershow  with Madlyn and Knupfi.

Thank you Leipzig, you lived up to your reputation as being goth party central, massive thanks to Madlyn for going out of her way to give us a great show.

Today is a day off, we will spend the evening having a fairly quiet night with friends somewhere in Hamburg before we play there on Monday..

The adventure continues...

One down..

It's 3am and I'm laying in my bunk. For a show that was nearly cancelled it was a great night, saved by the intervention of a couple of great friends Michael and Hanna who took it over and gave us a great start to the tour. Good to see friends that had travelled a long way to be there too. I'm not naming you all,  you know who you are... thank you!

So that's the first show out of the way, not perfect but who needs that? This is rock n roll! We left Cologne a while ago and have been winding down while we head overnight to Leipzig for the next gig.

Tomorrow is a long day, load In is at a 5pm and after the bands theres the aftershow that will see me finishing 6.30am. I should sleep, we all should but the excitement of having just played a show a few hours ago is too fresh so I lay here as voices and laughter drift through the bus and slowly fades as one by one people climb into their bunks and call it a day. We should be Leipzig around 6am

Goodnight Cologne.

Cologne

7.30am. After leaving the pick up point at Heathrow at 4.30pm yesterday and driving through the night we've arrived. The ferry crossing was ok, a little bumpy but only an hour and a half, and once on French soil we gave up partying on the bus and fell into our bunks. Colin the driver getting us to Cologne for 7.30am. We have a day here now to take a look around and our first show is tonight at MTC. Right now I'm sat on the bus as people start to stir and Colin gets some well earned rest, looking at a Burger King. That'll do...

Change of venue...

Sadly, due to unforeseen circumstances the show for 16th September in Moerbeke Waas has been cancelled.

Luckily we have found a replacement which is only 100km to the south in Lille (France). You'll find a Facebook event HERE. There are no tickets but it will be only €10 on the door.

We made a video

And here it is...

Getting closer...

Less than nine weeks to go, the final tour dates have been arranged and we've booked the tour bus, flights have been sorted and we're all getting really excited.

The full tour dates are below.

9th   - MTC, Cologne
10th - 4Rooms, Leipzig
12th - Logo, Hamburg
14th - Viper Rooms, Vienna
15th - Das Bett, Frankfurt
16th - De Kring, Moerbeke Waas (BEL) Dame C., Lille (FRA)
17th - Elektrowerkz, London (UK)
18th - The Library, Leeds (UK

2016 tour - Europe!

It's been a while since this was updated, but since we're less than 6 months from the start of the next Near Dark outing (Near Dark over Europe) we figured an up date was due.

The Last Cry and Strap on Halo will be joined this time by The Last Dance, and we'll be travelling around in a 16 berth tour bus. We have most of the tour booked now, just one or two shows left to find and then we start the serious promotion. So far it looks like this:

September 2016
9th   - MTC, Cologne
12th - Logo, Hamburg
14th - Viper Rooms, Vienna
15th - Das Bett, Frankfurt
16th - De Kring, Moerbeke Waas (BEL) Dame C., Lille (FR)
17th - Elektrowerkz, London (UK)
18th - The Library, Leeds (UK

Please subscribe to this for updates, and we'll do our best to document the tour as we go. You'll find events for the most of these shows by checking the 'Tour Dates' page of the Near Dark website, or look for DJ martin oldgoth on Bands in Town.

2016 - Planning starts now...

The Near Dark tour rolls again, and we're starting the tour planning now, this time we'll be sticking to Europe.

Keep an eye on the website and subscribe to this blog for more updates over the coming months.

Click -  Near Dark Website

Photographs

A small gallery of our adventures, pics from martin oldgoth...


CLICK HERE

LAX

Sat in the airport, waiting for the flight back to Heathrow, laughing at photo's and having one last drink on American soil. All of us have had an amazing time, met some fantastic people and are coming home with some great memories. We will no doubt bore you with our tales of touring should you meet us at some point. We're going home soon to plan the next adventure.

Thanks for following these ramblings.

Leaving

Friday morning, West Hollywood. We have only a few hours left now for one last small adventure before the UK part of the tour heads to the airport and flies back to the UK, and reality. This past 15 days will live with us forever, we've not only realised a dream but we've shared it with a bunch of people that have made it really special, made it an experience you just can't buy. With friends like these you feel like you can take on the world, and we did, if only a small bit of it. We reckon we won.

Day of the Dead

A trip to Hollywood Forever to visit dead stars and musicians, Jayne Mansfield, Peter Lorre, Johnny and Dee Dee Ramone... Then a trip to Jet Rag for some vintage clothes shopping and back to the house.

In the evening a night out in a restaurant called Genghis Cohen, a Chinese place, and a time to reflect on the tour, to laugh about it, to sit in silence for a moment as we realised we were heading home soon and a little sadness thinking about Strap on Halo, and how we'd not be seeing them for a while. Then more talk of days gone by and more laughing, something we've been doing a lot of lately.

Tomorrow a day of beer tasting and maybe a little shopping, see what the day brings.

Relaxing...

It feels odd, this not moving around. For a week and a half we've been waking up and going somewhere else, arriving at another hotel, checking in and in some cases having less than an hour to head back out to go to the venue, play the show, get back to the hotel around 3am and grabbing a few hours sleep before starting again. Hard work but fun. 

Today we've slept for several hours, are slowly getting moving, and just enjoying not having to rush anywhere. Takes some getting used to  but the surroundings are helping.

Hollywood baby, oh yeah....

We've arrived in West Hollywood, settling into a beautiful 5 bedroom house just close to Sunset and chilling with a beer. Tonight we're heading to the Rainbow to celebrate Ade's birthday and to experience a cool bit of LA history. We'll be there for about 8pm if you can make it.

West Hollywood, here we come!

All of us Brits are southbound today, taking the long drive back down to LA to spend a few days taking it easy in West Hollywood. We cycled and walked for miles yesterday, from the waterfront in SF to the Golden Gate bridge, sitting down is the plan for tonight.

It's Ade's birthday so we'll be sat in The Rainbow, people watching and grabbing a bite to eat, feel free to join us, we're aiming for around 8pm.

Sunday morning, San Francisco.

We did it, we made a dream happen and we filled our brains with visions of an America from the movies and memories of happy times with some great people. We're coming back, we have to, we've got a new addiction.

This tour was two years of planning, a year of that arranging the details and finalising plans. It's given us headaches, stress and tension but more than that it's given us a lifetime of memories crammed into a few days. We are family now, not just friends that chatted over the internet for the past ten years or more. We have shared experiences, little jokes that no others will understand, images to remember and a whole heap of things to laugh about.

We wont list the people who helped build this dream for us, through fear of missing someone out, but we offer our heartfelt thanks to all the promoters, the people that helped flyer shows, spread the word, the other bands and DJs, the crowds that showed up. Everyone we met has been a part of something very special and there simply isn't the words to express how much it means to us.

The tour is over, Strap on Halo have two more shows to play before heading home, and the UK part of it is heading back down to west Hollywood for a few days. This diary may still be updated from there, but for now we have one last day together, and we're going to enjoy it.

Final date....

So its 3.35am and we're back in the hotel in San Francisco after playing the final date of the Near Dark tour. It's been an adventure but soon we have to go our separate ways, there will be tears. Tomorrow we get to play tourists in San Francisco!

Earthquake!

When LA had an earthquake measuring 4.2 a couple of weeks ago we said that we could better that when we turned up and played, as it happened we didn't need to, they had one measuring 5.3 tonight. Strangest feeling, having the ground shake like that, one more experience to tick off the bucket list.

Tonights gig was fantastic, Release the Bats always put on a great event, and Dave's mum makes the greatest pumpkin bread and fudge on earth. Long Beach, we love you, thank you so much....

The first long bit.

It's 2.30am, Scottsdale was another great night, so good to finally see Reliquary play live. We leave here at 8am so this update will be a short one. We have a drive of nearly 400 miles tomorrow, well, today, starting and ending in rush hour, one stop for gas and then only short stops for a 'rest break' and a change of drivers along the way.

And now. Sleep.

The Wild West

Left El Paso early yesterday to drive the 340 miles to Tucson, adding 50 to that to visit Tombstone, just off the route. The road out of the city passes within a few hundred yards of the Mexican border, a huge black fence, on one side shopping malls and hotels, banks and restaurants, on the other a hillside crammed with run down housing and broken trucks.

Leaving the city behind the billboards get further apart and the terrain more rugged, more barren. Tumbleweed and mountains, small twisters dancing in the distance, dust storms and cactus. Going through border control into New Mexico, being wished a great day by the guard as his mates search an old black truck, clearly looking for whatever the dog could sense.

At a trading post somewhere on the road we met the merch team for Bone Thugs and Harmony, a completely different style of music, and swapped CDs and chatted about the drive.

We got to Tombstone in time to see Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday shoot the bad guys, eat lunch in a saloon and take a lot of photos. Headed to Boot Hill cemetery at dusk and watched the sun set as we drove into Tucson.  The day ended as most do, with good food and beer, and meeting friends, this time Pete (from The Last Dance) and Shawn his wife, good to see them again.

So now it's Thursday morning, it's only about 110 miles to Scottsdale, on the outskirts of Phoenix, for the next show at The Rogue Bar.