The first part of our exclusive Anterior tour diary is written by front-man Luke Davies…

28th Feb – Day 1

European Himsa tour starts tomorrow! That sounds exciting, right up until I start the car to begin a head on full day of driving, to pick up our tour bus with driver Glyn. That wouldn’t usually be a problem at all, however, on this occasion sleep has been a little hard to come by over the last week. We played 2 festivals in New Delhi India, and only landed back home in sunny UK just over a day ago. So 4:30am me, my girlfriend and our Merch/Tech guy Dai head off to Bridgend to pick up Glyn then, embark on a traffic and pro plus riddled journey to London. Any road traffic that we encounter seems so mundane compared to the complete chaos of Delhi which we were thrown into a few days ago.

10am

We arrive at the depot, bus looks good, everything works, lets get in and get the fuck out because we have to get our bad selves back to Wales, then leave for the channel tunnel.

5:30pm

Everything’s sorted, were loaded up and leave for the tunnel. A Hard earned beer is in order, or a straight hit of vodka with Dai. Cheers mother fuckers! By the time we get to load into the train Ross, Nixon and Frank are hammered, chanting and screaming and drinking vodka from home made cups, which are basically cut-in-half strongbow cans. A little bit of fuss at the check in with money. Fuck this was expensive! 35 minutes later we arrive in France, all a little drained and mashed but happy that we’re finally making progress.

29th Feb – Day 2

1:30am

Everyone’s passed out in their bunks and me and Glyn are busy searching for diesel through a city of industrial distribution warehouses like stimulant fuelled nomads. We pull into an un-manned petrol station in some town and the card reader spits our British debit cards back at us, great. A local French guy pulls in to fill up and I attempt to ask him for advice in using this bastard device. I must have sounded and looked like a Drunk troll at this point and my mumbled slurring Welsh accent must have been a little too steep of an incline for him to handle at this wee hour and he leaves quickly, leaving us as dumb as ever, bastard. Anyways, the trusty Garmin sat-nav directs us to another un-manned station and we have a little more luck with this one. 78 litres later we’re off, Bring on Germany.

3:00 pm

We’ve arrived, I’ve slept well and feel great. We meet and great with the other bands and the tour manager, load in and proceed pretty much straight for the free food and beer, well at least I do, Nixon and Leon are busy re-stringing their guitars. I cant say I envy them, I’ve done that quite a few times and it sucks when everyone else just seems to be talking and drinking. Glyn has to battle with the bus outside, he’s not use to driving with a trailer and his reversing leaves something to be desired. I know he doesn’t want me to mention this but I’m going to anyway, Himsa’s driver has to reverse our bus into the venue, ha-ha, well done Glyn!! Himsa have just started to sound check im sat in the bus with a beer writing and listening to RATM. If the shows come close to this then its going to be a good tour.

Luke Davies