GROUND COMPONENTS TOUR DIARY
November 24, 2006 | Author: Ground Components. Pics by Marty Williams
Australian Musician has been keeping an eye on the progress of Melbourne’s Ground Components for some time now. The band has been plugging away on the pub scene for several years, releasing EPs at scattered intervals. However it wasn’t until late this year, with the release of their debut album ‘An Eye For A Tooth’, that the media and public alike really started to take notice of the band’s straight ahead, pumpin’ mix of rock, pop, and soul. While on their recent national tour, bass player Indra Adams and keyboard player Dallas Paxton filled us in on what goes down during a Ground Components tour.
SAT 16 SEP – Valley Fiesta / BRISBANE
Just as a nice hot day was about to hit Melbourne, we jumped in a plane for the first show of our tour in Brisbane. It was a really shit day, cold and rainy. And when we arrived at Brisbane airport, we realised no one had booked a rental car, so we loaded all our gear into a taxi, pretty annoying.
The festival was right in the middle of the Valley, seemed like a lot of fun, but the load-in was hell … as it always is when we play a show on Brunswick street. But we always love going to Brisbane regardless, great people and great venues. The stage was an outdoor and there was no road access at all. So we jumped out of the taxi and carried the gear on foot through the massive crowds of people. Pony-Up from Montreal were playing while we loaded in, they sounded great. I’m pretty sure we were on straight after them so we got on stage and did a quick line-check. At this stage, the place was flooded with rain and everyone kinda disappeared indoors. Just as we were about to play, the rain stopped and everyone came out again, ended up being a pretty good show. We hung around and watched Tn’T (Tex and Tim Rogers). I thought one of their songs sounded like David Brent (from the office). Then we headed into Rics and drank and danced for the next few hours, then carried all our gear back to the accommodation on foot again at about 4am.
THU 21 SEP – The Pub / BENDIGO
Guests: The Gingers & Killer Birds
The minute we arrived in Bendigo, with the Gingers… the girls disappeared straight into the bathroom to put on their make-up and get ‘prepared’ for their show… while we loaded in. We let them know that wasn’t going to happen again. I don’t think they were used to loading in their own gear. But they certainly learned how to on our tour. I made sure they carried our bass cabinet and our electric piano, the next show was pretty funny to watch, but to their credit… they pulled their weight for the rest of the tour. The venue was awesome in Bendigo, they bought us pizza and had pretty much unlimited free drinks all night. Got a little drunk and ended up dancing to Panic! At the Disco, was a good night. We stopped at a service station and bought some snacks, the service station guy said I couldn’t smoke in the store. So we left.
FRI 22 SEP – The Corner Hotel / MELBOURNE Guests: The Gingers, Mountains in the Sky,
The Basics, DJ Decland Kelly
This was a great night. Playing the Corner is always a good experience, they really looked after us and kept our fridge stocked at all times! The management there are really nice too and made sure we were having a good time.
Indra started the set by playing Zorba’s Dance with two trumpets at once! The crowd was blown away by his skill and virtuosity, and so was the rest of the band who had no idea he was going to do it. It was even more amazing when he played one of the trumpets out of his nose! It’s always great playing in Melbourne because all our friends are there and it’s just one big party. The Basics, Mountains in the Sky and The Gingers were all amazing and helped make the show a great night.
FRI 6 OCT – Karova Lounge / BALLARAT
Guests: The Gingers
We got our friend Woody’s younger sister Juno and her friend Kairo to sell merch at this gig which was awesome – they sure know how to get someone to buy a T-shirt…and a CD… and a badge… We love this venue. Simon says it’s the best venue in Australia. Afterwards we went back to Woody’s mum’s place, chilled out in their really amazing old house in the Australian bush and listened to a compilation of early female blues singers. Billie Holiday is so sweet.
SAT 7 OCT – PORTLAND
This wasn’t exactly our favourite show in terms of performance but we had a great night with Portland man-about- town Critter. This guy doesn’t stop. He IS Portland. We also had an impromptu MC battle between MC Wrecking Balls (Nellie from the Gingers) and MC Bobby Fresh (Rob who sometimes plays guitar with us). But despite Joe stamping his foot and massaging Bobby Fresh continually, the Wrecking Ball could not be broken!
Unfortunately on the way back from this gig we ran out of petrol! Simon and Rob hitch-hiked to the nearest town and came back with a canister of petrol, but then the car wouldn’t start because we’d drained the battery by listening to music. After flagging down a car that had jumper leads we were back on the road… only to run out of petrol again about 1-5km before the petrol station we were trying to get to. The rest is painful history.
SUN 22 OCT – LEWISHAM (TAS) / THE LEWISHAM HOTEL
Guests: Macromantics, Echo Blue
Who would’ve thought that we’d get a good turn out at a tiny town in rural Tasmania!
Lewisham basically consists of this one pub which everyone goes to to see music. It’s pretty amazing. Macromantics was incredible at this show spitting rhymes and reminding the audience of love, death and everything in between, back by our new best friend DJ Amy. We had a pretty strange show: the first half was a bit flat and then suddenly a mosh-pit formed in front of the stage and the gig turned into a hardcore show or something. People were just going nuts.
After the gig was over we went back to a little log cabin we had booked and stayed up drinking tea and eating mushrooms. Whatta town…
Big thanks to Matt and Nick (aka President Nixon) for being great promoters and making a Tassie experience a fun one.