The third instalment comes to you from guitarist Leon Kemp and bassist James Britton…

2nd March - Day 4 

9.00am 

We finally arrive at Hamburg, me and Frank are up and about after a crazy night of beer and shenanigans. Feeling a little rough but we powered on in search of some food. We end up in Hamburg train station, what a fucking amazing place!!!! Burger King, Hagen Das shop and prostitutes everywhere!! So after getting some grub into us and taking a monster shit (my guts are still fucked up) we headed back to the venue to check out the place.
3.00pm 

Venue is pretty good although the catering was a load of bollocks, fuck all food and not much beer. Just watching the Himsa guy’s sound checking now, pretty good sound but there’s this weird noise coming from the guitar amps, they say it’s due to the magnetic field at the train station, nothing we can do about it but it sounds pretty shit. Anyway I’m off to get some of the limited beer into me and get my shit ready for sound check! Later fuckers
11.00pm 

Just come off stage, pretty fucking good gig we tried a different set tonight, done ‘Fucking Hostile’ to see the reaction and the crowd went fucking mental. A good few Anterior shirts in the crowd tonight was awesome to see the support so cheers to you guy’s for coming out. Air solo’s everywhere, a crazy windmilling motherfucker in a wheelchair, and we all pissed off the roof at Too Pure To Die. All in all a good night, going back to the bus now to get fucked as we have a huge drive to Oslo in a few hours me and frank been whacking some german beer into us and it’s gonna be a crazy night, I can smell it. Snarf (Nick) is going to join us too, so we pretty much gonna kick his ass and tape him to the roof. Rock on!!!!

Leon Kemp
3rd March Day 5

3:00 am

So, we have had a great session on the jaegermeister, vodka, scotch and beer only a few hours after the show and I walk outside to join Chunk and Snarf our new brother from A Life Once Lost where the buses are parked waiting to board the ferry to get our assess to Norway. It’s got to be at least like -1 degrees because everyone who is outside for a smoke is fuckin blue!  After a healthy wait we finally board the ferry and once in the hold, all remaining bands who are awake pile on board to check out the scenery.  Firstly me and Dai get up onto the deck and check out the waves, awesome sight but at like 3:30 in the morning and well into the minus temperatures we can only last a few seconds outside.  We then take a walk down the stairs towards the main deck and meet up with all of the other guys. Most of the Himsa and Too Pure To Die guys are awake and we all embark on an expedition of the ferry.  Dai, legend that he is finds the shop and……Oh yes! It’s open and they sell beer, SCORE! We are still drunk while sifting through all the different liquors and realise that a case of 24 cans of Heineken is like £8.00 so we get two and a bottle of scotch for next to nothing, amazing!  We start throwing the beer around the others and before you know it, there’s whats left of four bands drunk on a ferry and the tannoy starts shouting something in German then translated it means get your Fuckin assess back on your buses NOW!!! Everyone starts running down the stairs to get to the buses, beer and scotch in hand, we finally make it and off we go.  I know we had to take a second ferry shortly after to finally break into Norway but I unfortunately didn’t make it conscious as I had been awake for so long and so drunk that my body gave up and I had to throw myself into my bunk.

2:00 pm

I arise in a complete haze. Crawl out of my bunk and have my first glimpse of Norway, its freezing cold but looks stunning. We stop at a petrol station for a piss stop and some refreshments, hot dogs for breakfast, lovely jubbly! Kempy, fiend that he is, found a funnel and tube so the beer bong was born. We also bought two spray bottles and half filled one with scotch, start spraying each other back on the bus and Chunk says, “snort some scotch” and starts laughing.  I get the bottle and forget that its adjustable nozzle is on death spray and just one direct line of it shoots up my nose and is the most awakening thing I have ever experienced in my life! Fuck me running! Afterwards I start feeling quite drunk due to the nasal ingestion of 40% scotch and take in the drive. On the way I see a healthy amount of lakes and mountains, all still littered with snow and frozen over solid. The roads seem very controlled and the driving is the most peaceful we have endured so far.  After the scotch wears off I actually start to feel sober and take in more of the scenery on the way to the venue.

4:30 pm

We arrive at the venue and feel a bump which is the trailer half mounting a curb. Me and Chunk lay dormant in the bus and Kempy starts shouting “Boys everyone off, we need to bounce the trailer onto the curb” or at least I think that’s what he was shouting, Everyone is running around shouting and Chunk turns and says “What the fuck, there’s a death metaller on the wing?!” we both almost prolapsed due to the stupid mood and burst into tears.

Rich the glorious driver for the other bus then moves forward so our trailer just falls into place in the parking space and is no longer blocking the tram lines of the main street in Oslo!

5:00 pm

We get sorted and start to load the gear in and at once we all notice that we have only seen a few guys pass, but swarms of gorgeous women passing by as we are trying to lift all of our heavy shit out of the trailer which, as you can imagine did not go to plan! After load in we tuck into the catering and chill out watching the Himsa guy’s sound check.  Everything in Norway starts very late and we go onstage at 9:00 pm.

7:30 pm

After the checks we store all of the gear and make sure that the backline is ready to go for later on as tonight there is no meal but a buy out instead.  We get some Swedish dongs and go in hunt of the nearest Burger King. Success! We chow down on a nice XXL meal and get back to the venue to warm up before the show.

9:00 pm

We hit the stage and there are around 20 people in the venue. Shit turnout but the guys from A Life Once Lost grab a few beers and show us some love down the front of the stage, legendry guys we love you all! We finish the set to their four man applause and then aimed to get as drunk as the world has ever seen.  The night gets better the more the bands drink, all of the band played an amazing show to a very intimate crowd and Snake (ALOL) feels the wrath of the beer bong, well chugged brother! After Himsa wrap up a crushing set everyone showers in the beautiful hotel rooms provided and loads out in a very timely fashion.

12:00 am

All bands are done loading and we all look at the show plans and realise that the bus call isn’t until 5:00 am! Holy FUCK! All of the bands sort out their money and joined by the guys from mighty industrialists Mortiis we head for the bar. The very first bar we find, we hit in large numbers.  The party raged on until they physically removed all of us.

3:00 am

So, many drinks later we are all outside the buses waiting for another hour or so to wake up the drivers to leave for our badass drive to Sweden. The crazy shit starts here…..firstly Bob (ALOL) opens the trailer to check something and Joe’s (Himsa) stage clothes fall off the hanger in the trailer including his boxers, Kempy who is already fucked by this point takes it upon himself to wrap Joe’s boxers around his beer and take a swig through sweaty cold drummer shorts! Everyone is balling with laughter and cheering and John (Himsa) is nearly puking at the sight of it.  After this everyone keeps drinking and the beer bong once again surfaces from our bus and this time poor Kyle (TPTD) had it! At one point we were all sat on our bus which is under half the size of theirs and Derek (Himsa) decides to crowd surf all six foot something of his bad self through the aisle containing all of us, Snarf, Kyle and possibly more. Awesome!

After many more shenanigans myself and Chunk, both drunk as cunts walk to the hotels to wake the drivers and start the 6 hour journey to Stockholm.  On the short walk to the hotel Chunk spots a cherry picker looking machine and finds the switch to turn it on, within seconds I am on the roof of this 15 plus foot machine and Chunk has it going, complete insanity! We finally get to the hotel drunk and get in the lift and keep stopping it in a drunken mess, pissing ourselves laughing.  Chunk gets the drivers awake and we head back to the bus while the drivers sort themselves out.  We arrive back at the bus and meet three random guys from Bridgend which was outstanding but very strange at 4:30 in the morning in Oslo, Norway!

5:00 am

We get on the bus and head for Stockholm, everyone is so drunk we only last an hour or so before we are all unconscious in our bunks but what a fucking night, one of the best parties anyone could ask for…..beer, random welsh guys, hot women, bus surfing, pants beer and drunken machinery operating. Fan-fucking-tastic! Bring on Sweden mother fucker!

James ‘Frank The Tank’ Britton