NATHAN FAKE/VINCENT OLIVER: TOUR DIARY

I started writing a tour diary to battle with my awful memory. We have such great times and I don' t want to forget them. It's not particualy.. anything.. but if you're interested in what we've been up to wrap your eyeballs around this.

As you can see, the photo collection is not complete. If you've got some nice ones please send them to me.

January 28th - The Pod, Dublin, UK:
VINCENT: This was my first gig ever and I was terrified until I actually got there, when I was fine. I wasn't the least bit nervous, which was a nice surprise. 'Twas a good gig, too.. They loved it. Met some nice chaps. Unfortunately, though, they didn't know I was coming at all so I had to book my own flights, which then meant that I had to hang around in Dublin for a day. Accidentally met up with a lovely lad we met the day before who we nicknamed briefcase 'cos he was a lawyer.

NATHAN: first gig with Vincent. Got off to a bad start with the promoters forgetting/not knowing they had to book Vincent's flight. Good gig, people liked it. Nice venue and nice people, Ronan and briefcase.

left: nathan on stage with my bunny behind / right: Jus' Nathoid

February 3rd - De La Warr Pavillion, Bex hill, UK:
V: We played in an enormous pavilion, but nobody turned up. Must've cost the promoters a fortune, 'cos there were loads of acts and equipment. Pretty good gig, though. Couple of amazing co-incidences, too. There was a reporter there who used to go to college with a great pal of ours and one of the artists playing used to live with someone else we know.

N: played in the de-la-warr pavilion. Was an interesting event but not many people came, which wasn't that surprising as Bexhill is a tiny town. Hung out with martin from the vector lovers who was very drunk.

February 11th - Teritoires Electroniques, Marseilles, France:
V: This place was brilliant, two lovely big screens and everything... everything went well during the line check, but when it came to playing there was just a nice big slab of dark. I stood around like an idiot for the whole hour trying to sort it out. Met up with my bestest buddy Olivia and we both went back to her place in Cannes and had the loveliest time ever. She's brill.

N: Very cool event but marred by Vincent not being able to play. Stayed with Olivia in Cannes the day after which was really nice. Fun weekend.

Febrary 24th - Stiff Kitten, Belfast, UK:
V: I didn't get to play this gig because they didn't have the right cables, so Nathan played the techno set. I felt a bit lost and got drunk and upset. Was alright, though. Stayed in a really nice apartment.

N: Again Vincent couldn't do visuals so I played the club set which was fine. A bit un-satisfying.

February 25th - Gasyard Centre, Derry, Ireland:
V: This one was a bit strange. Most people there were white Ralph Lauren shirt wearing bastards who shouted at us for not playing hard house. Quite aggressive, some of them.
We were showed around by Phil Kieran for these Northern Ireland gigs, who we got on with really well. We loved him, actually. He's fucking excellent.

N: Ok gig, some people liked it and some people wanted harder music. Just that really.

March 3rd - Petrol, Antwerp, Belguim:
V: It was Nathan's birthday! I made a surprise animation to pop up but then he saw it and it was ruined. Gig was fine. Nice big venue.

N: Nice venue with a phat stage and stuff. Also my birthday, which was nice. Went rather smoothly.

March 4th - Baroco, Belgium:
V: Christ.

N: Did this gig due to a last-minute cancellation somewhere else and got put here instead. Had to do the club set as it was a housey club and was completely the wrong place for us. Felt really uncomfortable while playing, the worktop was wet and laptop kept getting bashed about by punters in the crowd who were leaning over me and stuff.

March 10th - Nitsa, Barcelona, Spain:
V: Best gig so far. Great big venue, lovely crowd. More technical issues, though. Visuals were just really fuzzy and nuts. Was pretty cool, though. Got very drunk as usual and apparently kept telling Martinez that I wanted to go to bed with him. "We don't have to have sex, we could just hold each other".

N: My 3rd time (I think) in Nitsa. First time with Vincent. Gig went really well, felt quite rock and roll playing. I think half the crowd liked it and the other half were wished I'd played the clubby set like I'd done the other times. Barcelonians seemed slightly miserable, maybe due to the smoking ban.

March 11 - Espacio Digital Festival, Gran Canaria:
V: I almost cried my eyes out on the plane between Barcelona and canary's, 'cos the scenery was just amazing. We weren't picked up from the airport and had to wait for ages, which was shit.. but when we got to the festival we found that we were supporting Karl fucking Bartos of Kraftwerk fame. He was quite nice.

N: Fine. Had to set up in silence with everyone looking at us. Also had to pack away like this. Strange event. Met Karl Bartos from Kraftwerk. He was nice, though I'm sure he wasn't interested in meeting us because he is Karl Bartos from fucking Kraftwerk.

left:view rom hotel/ right:nathan with a couple of mates

March 14th - Album Release Party, Social Bar, London, UK:
V: Everyone was here and we had the best time ever. Met a lovely lady, who told us we should make t-shirts of the visuals. Shagged 'er. That night a friend of mine insisted that we don't go to bed, but instead spend the whole night walking the streets of London.. I agreed, expecting a thoroughly awful time, but actually had a nuts night smashing bottles and shouting and talking to pretty girls on their way to college in the morning. Walked fucking miles, as well.

N: Best gig yet. Ace small venue and it rocked and the crowd were ace. Power cut halfway through the set but that didn't really matter. All our friends came and it was great fun.

March 18th - Harpers, Hastings, UK:
V: This was in a lovely little bar. Was a nice night. Got given loads of drugs and shots. Saw a child driving a car the next morning, which we loved.

N: Great little venue. Very cosy and played a pretty good set I think. Apparently Four Tet played there previously which was cool. Bizarre night but very enjoyable.

March 22nd - One Central Street, Madchester, UK:
V: Wasn't the ideal gig. Wasn't awful, but everyone was expecting a dancey set. Again, asked us to pump it up and that.

N: Was ok. Club where Matthew dear was resident apparently. Everyone namedropping "matt dear" regularly. People asking me to "pump it up" while I'm playing, which always puts me into a panic and makes me want to stop playing and go and hide somewhere. But some people liked it I think.

March 23rd - Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK:
V: Was really intimidated by this gig, 'cos it's in an arty venue and that. But actually it was pretty normal.. In a big seedy black room with some shite acts on before us. Drank too much.

N: This gig wasn't what we expected it to be - we thought it would be really arty and stuff but it was more like a clumsy rave. Other people on the bill who we hadn't heard of playing breakbeat-ish stuff. Went ok though.

March 24th - Urban Gorilla, Sheffield, UK:
V: This was in a really big student union where everyone wanted hard house. We went on before Dave Clark for fuck's sake. He gave me a dirty look when I packed my stuff up.

N: On arrival realised that we were on the same bill as Dave Clarke, for fucks sake. Thus shat selves. Also people asking to pump up, which makes for shit gig. Saw old friend nick which was very nice.

March 30th - Nouveau Casino, Paris, France:
V: Paris is well good. More technical issues here, though. I could play, but only in black and white, which meant that the visuals had next to no impact at all. I also had to leave during the sky was pink 'cos I desperately needed a piss. The foreigners in the queue for the toilet were most accommodating, though. I also wet myself and pissed all over the toilet of this poor old lad's lovely little café later that morning, 'cos I couldn't find the light switch and was boofed in the mind anyway. Met up with a girl I used to work with who is ace, which made the whole trip lovely.

N: This was ok. Promoters seemed ok but not 100% sure what kind of thing we were going to be doing. Some people liked the gig but one person hated it so much they felt pressed to send me a very offensive and personal email complaint about it.Just that really.

the eiffel tower IS Nathans gnob.

April 8th - Elita Festival, Milan, Italy:
V: This was the most bizarre gig that's ever happened, ever. It was a private party for BMW.. So it was really, really corporate. It was part of the Milan design week, but we didn't get to see any of the cool shit. It was in a beautiful church and we supported a chef!!! He made ice-cream and that with liquid nitrogen and they filmed it and made soundscapes out of the sounds he made with the bowls and stuff. When we got onto the stage we had to walk down this big catwalk.. It was, perhaps, the most awkward stage mount of all time. after the gig we were dragged away to some other people who introduced us to some other people, who introduced us to some other people who drove us to where some other people were, who took us to a restaurant and introduced us to the people we would be eating with. Milan is horrible. Went to a club that night, which was part of the same event. Too many dj's were playing and a single drink was EUR10. Instead of suffering all of this crud we chatted to a couple of girls that had met Nathan a previous trip to Italy. Milan is horrible.

N: Interesting and bizarre gig. Played at a BMW-organised event (!) which was totally, totally weird. I don't know why we were booked at it. Was nice though. Great venue, a big round church.

left:Nathan / righ: shot of venue's ceiling

April 9th - Goa After Tea, Rome, Italy:
V: The gig was great. The hotel we stayed in was amazing - had a fucking Jacuzzi bath thingy and everything. Gave us willy-ups when we lied in it. Rome is absolutely gorgeous and we spent the whole of the next day just walking around looking at shit.

N: Enjoyable gig. Found it rather exhausting though. Spent the day after in Rome which was great. Rome is the most intense city I've visited.

left:kicking back in the tub/ right: fontana de trevi

left:the bubbles are very exiting/ right: vatican

April 15th - Off Courso, Rotterdam, Netherlands:
V: Nathan was playing the club set here, so I just watched. I like Rotterdam. Had a walk across a bridge. We went a day early and saw Mogwai and black dice. Mogwai were good, but quiet. I'd heard a butt load about how loud they were. Black dice looked like the most exiting act ever when I first walked in, but soon bored the shit out of me. We left.

N: Played club set, as apparently promoters who booked me listened to my album the week before the gig and said "ah.. This isn't going to work.". Excellent. Was fine. I can't be arsed to play club sets these days. Maybe if I write some new tunes.

April 16th - Paaspop, Schindel, Netherlands:
V: Didn't play here, either. They didn't realise that I needed to be on stage next to ol' Nathoid. Instead I dressed in a bunny outfit that some dancers gave me and handed out bubblegum saying whatever "happy Easter" is in Dutch to people. Flirted the shit out of those dancers.
me in the bunny outfit

N: This was great actually, even though there were trance dj's playing either side of me. Was a cool festival, didn't know any of the music that was there but it was super cool to hang out in a festival for a day. Really enjoyable.

April 21st - The Magnet, Liverpool, UK:
V: Intense gig. Really hot, really loud, really enthusiastic. All good.

N: This was cool. It was an after-hours party so I was shitting it thinking that it would be a rave up but we played the album tracks and it went down really well, astonishingly. Crazy Liverpudlians.

Aprl 28th - Noise of art, National Film Thetre, London, UK:
V: Was more intimidated by this one, knowing that the emphasis was on the visuals. And rightly so - we were in the main screen, which was fucking enormous and everyone was just sitting down looking. Would've been ok, except I had 3 separate technical issues that made playing really difficult. It was very, very embarrassing and I wanted to die.

N: This was the most interesting gig. Playing sitting down on a stage with Vincent's' visuals projected onto a massive screen in a theatre. Some tech issues with Vincent but generally went really well.

May 6th - A68, Budapest, Hungary:
V: This gig was on a boat!! Brilliant. It was a great venue, actually. Good sound, good size, great audience. We met up with some more of my favourite people and had a thoroughly great night. Threw bananas into the Danube. Did a TV interview about myself, which was nice. :) I love Budapest.

N: Brilliant! Budapest is such a beautiful city and the gig was ace. On a boat. Really enjoyed playing and met really nice people, and some of our pals came from various places to see us. Yes.

11th May - The Cockpit, Leeds, UK:
V: Very decent gig. Supported this awful act called 2020 sound system. Met up with some red individuals and had some fun. Bastards at the venue didn't give me my s-video cable back. :(

N: Great gig. felt really well place, normally we have a dj playing techno before us which always shits me up, but this dj played more interesting stuff which set the mood nicely. Gig was ace even though the laptop crashed at the start.

12th May - Snafu, Aberdeen, UK:
V: Not very good. People were quite aggressive and kept shouting for the James Holden remix of sky was pink. Why the fuck would Nathan play that? Other people were nice, though.

N: Was ok, but generally not good really. People asking me to pump up again. One guy was just saying to me "people aren't dancing mate. Look" repeatedly. Cheers pal.

13rh May - Cabaret Voltaire, Edingbrug, UK:
V: Yet again, I didn't get to play. This time it's 'cos I left a cable at the venue in Leeds. It's a shame 'cos the venue is really cool and the supporting acts were brilliant. Went for a couple of drinks with the dj and his bird and had such a nice'un that we ended up staying at their place and didn't go to the hotel at all. Cool. Edingbrug is well nice. Saw a crow.

N: Ace gig, really nice venue with phat support acts. Operator is a lord of 1000 years. Also melvinotronics was nice and we stayed at his house. Edinburgh is a beautiful city. Been before but was really nice to take it all in again.

16th May - The Point, Cardiff, UK:
V: Cardiff bay is nice. Amazing buildings. We liked the venue - it was a converted church and had loads of smashing acts there. Lightning bolt where playing the next week. Nathan was upset that he hasn't seen them play. I have. Rocked the fuck out.

N: Another great gig, also great venue. Support acts were cool. Crowd nice and friendly. They've had some phat people play there in the past - Chris Clark, Four Tet, Schneider tm. The works.

17th May - Cargo, London, UK:

19th May - Audio, Brighton, UK:
V: Blimey.. What a kerfuffle. There were problems right from the very start with this one. First.. Lack of cables. Luckily James and Gemma from border community came with Rhys of MFA fame in tow. Between them they had the right cables to sort me out. Great lads. They also drove us down from ol' London. Sorted us out proper. Anywho, there were more problems that I won't go into and it was very stressful. Gig didn't go too bad, considering. Had only two people nagging us to pump it up and that. Venue didn't provide the drinks they promised us, which makes me unhappy. We didn't see any of the bananas and nuts that are on our rider, either. Hotel we stayed in was nuts. Modest but really nice and definitely interesting. Spent a bit of time in the hotel bar 'cos the bar lady was the friendliest living thing. She's in a band 'my little problem'. Everyone in the hotel was in a band or from MTV.. Most of them trendy bastards.

23rd May - Old Blue Last, London, UK: Vincent Oliver release gig:
V: What a wonderful night, generally. So many of my favourite people were there, and the venue was just perfect. Good size, pretty grubby, full. Good turn-out.. Loads of Japs. Unfortunately, I had to sing. It was the first time and I couldn't hear anything. It was shit as far as I could see. People tell me otherwise, though. I hope they're right.

26th May - Nuits Sonare, Lyon, France:
V: French festivals are always great. This was no exception. Had loads of fun. Got to see the chap play, too. I fucking love the chap. They're great fun live. Check them out. I'm sitting in the airport with Booka Shade, right now. We're all on our laptops. They're nice lads. I've never heard their music. I'm very hung over. We're on the same flight. I pretended that some of their luggage was mine, so they didn't have to pay so much for the overload.

left: a lovely one/ right: us doing radio interview

Japan:
v: Thought I'd do a more detailed account of this one.. Since we're in fucking Japan. And because of the enormous amount of time spent on planes and trains.

31st May, Tokyo:
Arrived in Tokyo at around 11pm local time. Flight wasn't too pleasant. I only got an hour or so sleep the night before, so I was expected to sleep like a log on the plane.. Not so.. My back was giving me jip. Slept a little on the floor between the seats.
Anywho, we're here now.. And it's excellent. Unlike any of the other cites we go to, we find ourselves walking towards the places that have the most adverts. Shiniest adverts.

1st June, Tokyo/Sapporo:
You know that junction you always see in films and stuff based in Tokyo, where there's 5 zebra crossings over a cross-roads? One of them diagonal.. Loads of neon lights and shiny billboards. That's where our hotel is. It's a modest room, really but you step out of the door straight onto that junction. Smashing.
I'm writing this in the window of that very room. We're both on the 18th floor and the view is amazing. I've popped my laptop on the windowsill, rather than the desk and I'm checking out (for the first time) a CD by a lovely lad called Charlie march.. It's beautiful. Perfect for the situation.
I woke up at 4:30, 5:30. 6:30 and 7:30. Finally, I took the hint that my body was giving me and fucked off outside after a modest 5 hours sleep. Had a nice walk. Saw tons of crows. They have crows instead of pigeons. It's quite smelly in Tokyo. The most noticeable thing about Tokyo in the morning, I think, is that everyone's bunging a fucking load of water around. Shopkeepers and that just throwing a butt-load of water around the front of their property. Some of them were washing the walkways and that.. Most of 'em just seemed to be having a smashing time, though.
Now I'm debating whether or not I should wake Nathan up. I'm going to pay a visit to plop, who distribute my EP over here. Perhaps he should sleep while I do that.

left: tokyo by day from hotel / right: tokyo by night from hotel

(Later)
Plop weren't in the office, so I just walked around a bit more and had some breakfast. They have bad coffee here.
One of the people who brought us over met u with us and took us to the airport to fly to Sapporo. It's on an island at the very top of Japland.
When we got there we were bundled into a camper van with blacked/purpled out windows.
The venue we played at is very famous around Japan. It's a strange one. It underground and is all wooden. They don't bother with niceties in this club.. I mean, the wires are all on show and stuff like that. It doesn't seem like a big famous club.. More like a grubby, little gem that only cool people know about.
While setting up, I realised that I'd forgotten my MIDI interface. It's a total bollocks show without that. Even though it was quite late, lovely chaps Momo and Danny brought me to a big electronics shop and bought a new one. Great! Problem solved. Love Japan. Danny was an American lad and we thought he was great. He didn't know who we were, but he talked the shit out of us. Most of the people there didn't speak good English, so it was nice to have the translator.
After sound check we went for an excellent meal. Sapporo is famous for its fish and crabs, apparently, so it was well nice. We then went off to a super exclusive bar owned by a lad we were with, where I drank lots of saké and absinthe. There were lots of birds, but they were mostly interested in Nathan and I didn't kiss any of them.
The show went well. The crowd were quite reserved. Perhaps 'cos they were expecting techno. But they seemed to like it anyway.
After the show we stayed in the club until it was very light outside, 'cos it was just a cool place. I don't remember the time. We then went back to that super cool bar again. I drank lots more and was secretly sick all over my left leg and shoe. Vaguely remember this. Don't remember what happened after that.

1st June, Sopporo/Osaka:
Woke up in the hotel room. Went for a bit of breakfast. We really like this thing they have called baumkuchen (Nathan informs me that it means tree cake in German.. don't know why it's in German). I felt totally shit. I don't usually get very hung over, but I fucking was this morning. Drank one and a half litres of coke during the ride to the airport. It was sad saying goodbye, 'cos everyone was really nice. Always is, really.

left: osaka seiko! / right: we got free t-shirts from the club

Arrived in Osaka to a very warm welcome. Another bloody American here. They're all over the place in Japan.
Osaka is a great place. It's exactly what you'd imagine a Japanese city to be like. Full of stereotypes and that. Wasn't much westernised, like Tokyo. There are lots of old men walking around with beautiful young ladies that they have paid money to have sex with.
So yeah, we just walked around a bit and had a beer with the lovely ladies that we were with, Anna (the American) and Chika.
Then everything turned horrible for sound check. The people in the club were rude and had really bad euro-trance style hair. The music they played was fucking shit, as well. We thought it was going to be a really bad gig.
After line-check we went for a totally swell meal. It was too much for us, though and we didn't finish it all.. I hate that.
Back in the club we were interviewed by an Australian lad, for a magazine. After that we hung around and talked to lots of girls.
The gig went really well. The crowd dug it something rotten. Afterwards we separated, so I don't know what Nathan was up to but I was having a fucking great time chatting to girls. Girls. I was in my element. I was like a master at work. I had like 10 girls going on at the same time, and that was only one group. Girls. Took 3 birds back to my hotel room, too.. Didn't touch any of them. Just stayed up talking and being silly. One of them told me "I am falling in love with you". I told her she was wrong. On the way out of the hotel room in the morning the aforementioned American gave me arather unexpected snog.. And a CD. Girls.

left: charmed the shit out of all the birds / right: getting robular in the hotel

2nd June, Osaka/Nagano/Nagoya:
O out of the hotel, we fucked off to the train station and met up with a butt load of other people. The organisers Laura and Masa (lovely) and some other staff and artists. We all took a couple of trains through the country side. Japan is so beautiful.
Sat across the isle from a lad called Simon who is Bonobo, so we had a little chat about our willies and robot wars and football and other boy stuff.
We stayed in a lovely, traditional style guest house with paper doors and all that kind of shit with Kieran Hebdan and Steve reed and DJ Koze and Peep Braddock. We had some lovely chats with Steve and his bird Francesca, who is a painter. They're all old and experienced and really warm and charming. Kieran is excellent, too. He's become quite a hero of mine since meeting him, actually.. Apart from being wonderfully talented and well famous he's really nice and relaxed and funny and professional and open-minded and knowledgeable. I'm not actually the biggest fan of his music (I always REALLY love the first minute of each of his tracks, then it repeats for another 3 or so and I get bored), but now I'm an enormous fan of him.

left: needs a nap/ right: needs a smack

We had a little nap at the hotel.. I only caught about an hour again. Maybe less. Then we went out into the festival with Kieran.
The site is beautiful. Some of it is in a forest and some is surrounded by tree covered hills. The stage crew were super-organised, too.
Unfortunately, Nathan had awful trouble with his laptop, so we only got to play half a song or so before it crashed up. Monika Kruze covered for us, though. We (well, I) managed to fix it and we were told we had to wait until 8am before we could do the show again. We thought that was shit, since we've had no sleep but actually we had the time of our lives waiting to go on. We hung out with Monika and Stephan (DJ koze), neither of whom I'd heard of before. Both of whom I'm totally infatuated with. A couple of other German chaps were with us, too. A young looking lad called Peter and a girl whose name escapes me.. Christine? Stephan is nuts in all the best ways. I love it when he makes fun of me - he's creatively nasty. He's really sweet, though, really. Monika is also funny and is beautiful. We flirted the tits off of each other. there was a play park near the stage and we spent most of the night/morning on the slides and swings and in this cool maze. Stephan cheated 'cos he's a miserable bastard, but we still got out of the entrance before him. Wanker. God I love him. People were stopping us and taking pictures loads. It was fun each time.

left: kezza, vingle and nathers/ right: best fun ever - trampolines in play park

When DJ koze took to the stage we came with him and stood at the side laughing at his hilarious performance. He was calling me up to the mic and I went up to rap "body poppin', no stopping, just automatic beats.. Yo!" (Which is from a song that my friend Jamie made) over and over. Unfortunately, there was no mic. At one point he stopped the music for a couple of beats just to shout "VINCENT!". I loved it. Instead of the rapping, I went to the centre stage and did some body popping and break dancing, Stephan joined me for a bit to fan my hot ass with a record. I want him forever. We all had a kiss on stage and the promoters and stage crew were very angry with how much fun we were having. Stephan wouldn't let me have his tongue.. Just cheeks.
By the time Nathan and I were to go on stage it was so light that you couldn't see the screens, so I just relaxed. He did a good set, though, and the poor exhausted crowd did their best to enjoy it.
I find it very upsetting to think that I may never have another night that is as much fun as this one.

left: me breakdancing to dj koze / right: terumi was nice

You can see a video of some of the body poppin' and breakin' here.

left: bonobo and I / right: we love it

After the set we had to pack up and leave for Nagoya. We were driven in a car. Only took 3 hours, maybe. We were accompanied by a lovely girl called Kuma, which means bear.. awww.
Back at the hotel, Nathan had a bit of a sleep, but I needed to fix a big problem I was having with vvvv (the program I use for the visuals) and had a nice wank. The naps were quick, though, so we weren't the bubbliest customers. Got a bit annoyed when we got on stage ready to party and were told to wait an hour. We soon perked up, though, 'cos people were nice and when we did play it went especially well. Great performance by both of us. I drank about 10 cans of beer on stage.. I usually drink a lot, but they just kept bringing me more and more cans. Fucking bloke, aren't I. The gig was early and the place closed at about 12. That's convenient 'cos it meant we could go home and sleep.

3rd June, Nagoya - although I was fucking knackered last night, I woke up at 6:30 today. It's a decent 5/6 hours sleep, but considering I'd only had 2 hours in the past three days I thought I'd be dead to the world for about 12. Nathan got up even earlier, too. He came and knocked for me at about 7:30. I'm feeling fine, though. A bit achy... I killed my leg during the break dancing last night, but it's healing now. I was standing on my head and trying to spin, but I toppled and hit the stage hard.
We went for a walk and some coffee round the city. It's nice. Japan is SO GREAT. It's just a great place to be. Apart from being different and exotic to us - everything is beautiful and everyone is friendly and the food is healthy and everything. Love it.
We're back to the hotel now. I'm in Nathan's room writing about this and he's actually having some fun putting together a new live set for his dancey gigs. kuma is coming to pick us up in half an hour for lunch.

you want us for your party

Later - Kuma came with a few other chaps and we all had a nice lunch and a walk around Nagoya city. Bought a couple of t-shirts. We like to buy really bad/good tourist shirts. We wanted to leave really early for Tokyo so that we could meet up with the other artists and buy presents for our loved ones. Kuma didn't seem to want to let us go, though, and we loved her so.. So we ended up staying until about 3:30. At which time, we caught the bullet train to Tokyo, which only takes an hour and a half.
As we got off the train we were met by our old pal Masa. He took us back to the hotel where we met with Stephan and said goodbye to rhythm and sound and Pepé Braddock. Blessid. We walked around a bit with Stephan making fun of each other for only 20 or so before we had to return for an interview for a magazine called 'ok Fred'. It was a good one. Proper questions were asked about the visuals, instead of the usual rubbish. We had to wait for several minutes in between questions while our answers were translated, though. After that we went up to Nathan's room and listened to operator and danced like idiots. We had another interview to do for a DVD of all of the artists from the festival, which again was quite nice. Then time for dinner. More niceness. We ate raw horse. Didn't taste of anything. They should fucking cook their fish and meat, 'cos then it tastes nice. After dinner we were taken back to the hotel to sleep, but we're naughty and popped back out with Stephan for some debauchery. We couldn't find that much going on, but each others company is enough? A man told Stephan he looked like Hitler 'cos he's German. He doesn't look a bit like Hitler. I offended him with racist jokes a couple of times, too. Nice lad. When the bars closed we went back to the rooms again after buying some ice-cream and whisky from a vending machine. Chatted until Nathan and I both fell asleep. We only had a couple of hours before we needed to rise for the bus to the airport. 7am.
I'm on the airplane now, and I've just won a Korean football shirt. There was some kind of raffle draw and my seat number was picked. It's quite nice, actually. Anywho.. I suppose this is the end of my Japan tour diary.

To conclude: Japan is excellent and we don't want to go home. I've met some extremely exiting people. Hope to see them again.

8th June - The Fez Club, Reading, UK:
V: This gig was organised by some freinds of ours, so we were bound to have a good time. We certainly did. There was an afterparty at our pal James' house, who we used to live with. People put drugs in my face and lounged around the garden until the sun was too hot to bare without a parasol. We put up a parasol and lounged some more. Nathan couldn't come to the party, which was very dissapointing for a fan who managed to get himself invited back. It turns out he's totally in love with Nathan and he got all school-girlish when he talked about him. "Awww, he's just so cute!" he squeel as he pressed his wide open palms againsed his cheeks. The girls didn't beleive he was a gay because he made them feel uncomfortable on the dance floor.

10th June - Stealth, Nottingham, UK:
V: Nottingham is the crimiest place in britain. The only crimes I saw were commited by me, though. I had no change but I needed a drink. There was a world cup match that finished shortly before we arrived, so the streets were full of cunts. The gig went well. Painless. Joyless. We played before Panico! who were fun. I got onto the stage and gestured for everyone to come up and raise their hands so I could crowd surf. I could not beleive what they did. Just fucking moved out of the way. What!? That's not what you do when someone's crowd surfing! Wets. I thought that actually getting onto the crowd would motivate them, but it didn't. Nathan and some other lad managed to keep me up for a little bit, but it wasn't long before I was on the floor. We stayed in room 101. They only booked one single room. Cheapskates. It happened to have a double bed, though, 'cos it was the handicap room. We didn't complain. I'm hung-over.

24th June - Rock Dans Sous Tout Etets Festival, Evreux, France:
V: Christ.. what an awful day. Last night Nathan got into London quite late. I was with Udi, who runs the label i'm on (loaf) in the office, so Nathan joined us and we had a jink. Met an old pal from college in the bar, incidentally - Charlz with a 'z' I call him. All of a sudden it's 1 o' clock and we've missed the tube. We had arranged to stay with James and Gemma , who run border community, but by the time we got there on the night bus it was 4 o' clock.. much too late to be rolling into someones house on a school night. We've been very apologetic, but it's a thoroughly awful thing to do... what's worse is I left one of my fucking bags on the bus. It had no equipment in or anything particularly valuable, but it had ALL of my cloths and my passprt. I got up early so that I could ring the bus company's lost property department, but had no luck. Then my mam rings and tells me that some feller had phoned my grandmother to tell her that he has my passport. She was listed in the back of it as an emergency contact number. I was pretty sure that you could travel within the EU without a passport as long as you had valid ID. I've seen it happen before. I was wrong, though. I won't go into all the details, but basically we talked to lots and lots of people from french customs, english customs, Eurostar staff, british transport police and metropolitan police. Non of whom were helpfull at all. Suffice to say, we missed our train to paris. In the middle of this nonsense, though, we found this nuts policeman who was the nicest prick ever. He was extremely helpful and very funny with it. He managed to contact the feller who had my passport and told us how to get to where it was (half way accross London). He joked about how difficult it was to understand the man with my passport because he is very black.
So off we went and retreved my passport (actually it had been jammed behind a ticket machine) only to find that it was the only thing handed in.. all my clothes and wash stuff is gone forever. I was upset 'cos some of the t-shirts are irreplacable and have sentimental value. We managed to re-schedule the Eurostar without paying extra, though. At the other end, we met up with Arnaud, who books all of Nathans french gigs and also works with TV on the radio!! among others. He and his girlfriend are extra lovely. We had quite a palava getting to Evreux from Paris, too. Missing trains and such. So we arrived at the festival late and had little time to get drunk before going on stage. It went well, though. The crowd was odd, but took it quite well. Quite a lot of people left. Didn't get to see any other bands or flirt with any girls before we went back to the hotel. The view was nice.

25th June - Agoraphone Festival, Ferques, France:
V: When we woke Nathan and I went for a walk around Evreux. Arnaurd said it was a shit hole but it's not.. it's lovely. We caught the train ok and fucked off.
Another lovely lad and girlfriend met us at the other end. David was a DJ at the festival and also a graphic designer. He was really irritating in the most adorable way.. like me. He kept doing stupid things to his girlfreind when she was driving.
The festival was in the countryside, which is always good. The setting was beautiful. Had ducks.
We had dinner with some people from Hoxton in London, who were super trendy and were there as freinds to one of the DJ's. (Don't know his DJ name..). They were alright, though. Danton Eeprom was loud and funny and loved Nathan and I. We liked him, too. The performance went really well. We played after the Mayor did a speach. Odd.. and nice.
The festival was fun and I drank loads. I insisted on talking to the mayor, who was lovely. A strange thing happened that night, though.. I conked out. Nathan and I had been doing stupid things like jumping through the window of our cabin thing and throwing stuff at each other and Danton gave me a quarter of a pill (what on earth was I to do with quarter of a pill?).. then that's the last thing I remember... all of a sudden I'm in a hotel and it's the next day. I was SO CONFUSED. I really was. Nathan informed me that I'd been asleep on the floor of the cabin. Danton tried to make us stay up for longer and snog and stuff, but we weren't having any of it. I slept really hard.

30th June - Scopitone Festival, Nantes, France:
V: From the airport we shared a car with Talvin Singh, who was actually on the same flight as us. He was quite rude. We were starving when we got there so we ran for some scran, which meant we only caught the last track of mono's set. Shame. Saw Why?, though and they were excelent. One of them plays the drums and the glockenspeil and the same fucking time. What a guy. We couldn't find the times of performances so we only caught the last peice by Matmos, too. We were annoyed. They came up to us afterwards, though and we had a lovely big chat. They're so nice I was just about ready to give them each a hummer (Martin (from Matmos) informed us that a hummer is where you put someones balls in your mouth and hum) but we had to go on stage. The gig went well and I saw that Drew (also from Matmos) was in the audience for a part of it. I wrote "We love Matthew Mos" on the projection. He laughed. We shared a cabin with Richie Hawtin so we bumped into him later. I left the conversation to go and talk to some french nutters. It wasn't long before we went back to the hotel.

1st July - Eurokéennes Festival, Belfort, France:
V: We flew from Nantes. Eurokéennes is the biggest festival in france, apparently. 35,000 people. It's a good'un, too. Loads of bands and in a beautiful setting. The place is surrounded by a lake. A bit poorly organised in our experience, though. We met up with some lovley people that we knew from previous gigs in France. The feller that does Nathans french bookings and his girlfriend and beauty called Julie who was our runner at Nuits Sonare. We had a jolly old time together. I started to introduce myself as "monsieur skellette: Garcon des reves" and I recited to them a poem I wrote a few years ago.

le sange
sur ma tete
ill mange
une cacahuette

"What the fuck are you on about" asked Arnaud. I couldn't answer.
We played just after Animal collective on the same stage. Their performance was great and we had a breif chat to them when we went on stage to set up. They seemed nice.
The gig was great and there were fucking loads of people there. I think we were the only thing on at that time (the last act - 03:00AM) so everyone was in our tent. :) Got drunk.

13th July - Dour Festival, Dour, Belgium:
V: Christ this place was dusty. Pretty dirty, too. And big. 120,000 people they say. We met up with a couple of gals we know from reading; Gabbi and Emma, which was nice. There was also Julie, who drove us about at the nuit sonare festival. Also very nice. we had a lovely party of people going on. I introduced myelf as monsieur squellette again.
As we were setting up I noticed i'd forgotten the power supply for my laptop. I hate myself so much. The thing died half way through superpositions and I left the stage and watched with the enormous gang of trendy cunts who stood at the side of the stage all night. Had a good night, though. Shared a dressing room with Joakim and Jackson. Only saw them very briefly, though. Poor Julie had a terrible time getting home. Bank holiday.

Left: A Decent Audience / Right: Nathan Fake & Vincent Oliver: Seriously

14th July - Melt! Festival, Berlin(ish), Germany:
V: Melt! is written with an excalamation mark. It's set in this kind of quarry thing surrounded by a lovely lake and it had these fucking massive plant machines dotted around the place. Very impressive. We shared a car with the lads from the band whitest boy ever. one of which was very enthusiastic and honest. I liked it.
The hospitality was good - food and that. Good festival generally. We chatted to a couple of the boys from hot chip. everyone loves hot chip and i'm no exception. We played just after erland oye and he's loads of fun. gig went really well and the crowd were smashing. left my fucking clothes bag on the stage when we went to the hotel. i'm such an idiot. that's the second time this month. we were going to go back to the festival site in the morning to get it, but we were sharing a car with miss kitten and we had to wait for her for ages, 'cos she didn't realise she was being collected so early. by then it was too late. she was nice. we only just made it to the plane in time.

15th July - Montreux Jazz Festival, Montreux, Swisserland:
V: Montreux festival is 40 years old and goes on for two weeks. So big. The view round this place is amazing. It was a border community vs. wagon repair night, so james and gemma and lazy fat people of the community were there and james djed. also konrad black and mathew johnson (plus band 'cobblestone jazz'). It was great to hang out with james and gemma and also to meet mathew johnson, 'cos we know his brother and love his balls. Had a wild night. won't go into details but we had as much drink as we like and everyone was particularly freindly. We got back to the hotel at 6:30, but had to get up at 7:00. Awful business.

16th July - Lattidude Festival, Suffolk, UK:
V: As you can imagine, we felt awful in the morning. In fact, when the hotel were phoning me to tell me our driver was here, i didn't wake up. luckily i had left my door open and they just came in and got me. to my surprise. I don't remember getting dressed, going outside or anything between that and being at the airport. I was sick at the airport a few times and blood came out. it's a bit worrying.
We met Nathan's brother Ben and his girlfriend Kerry halfway between the airport and the festival and he drove us the rest of the way. He didn't live far away. We went back to his pad to freshen up. The festival seemed wonderful when we got there, 'cos it was so relaxed and pretty. I soon found the whole affair a bit too relaxed for my liking. I was surprised to meet an old friend of mine from school called Lucky who worked in the production office. Nathan's old bird Charlie and her sister Gemma were also there. Again, we had a jolly old gang to knock about with. Martin, (who is Vector lovers) was there, too. (see above - bexhill gig, where he was very drunk and came back to our hotel room).
Wasn't a good gig. I counted the audience during a track. 26. Makes quite a difference from the day berore, which must have been at least 200 times that. The beer was carling too, which is such awful stuff. We saw Mogwai, later, though and that was great. Went home and stayed at Nathan's parents house. I'm in his room right now. I've never been here before. I's the 17th now (day after the gig) and we've had such a nice day. We played scrabble and watched countdown. Then we went for a walk round the village. I saw his old school and the shop and the church and the vicar and the old post office. Before bed we watched some comedy with the parentals and then some in nathans room.

18th July - 10 days off Festival, Gent, Belgium:
N: 2 good things about belgium:
1) duvel
2) Lins

though i only saw one of those on this trip.

V: God it was hot. I wasn't really expecting it in Belguim, but it was just like Japan. The gig went really well and we met some people from previous gigs. I had a nice time introducing everyone to everyone else. I met a dentist showed him my bleeding gums. "That is not normal" he remarked. The crowd were great and although we were playing in between a load of hard techno they reacted really well. Got well drunk on horrible beers.

21st/22nd July - Benicasim Festival, Spain:
V: We got to the festival pretty late and but we caught the end of the Pixie's set from behind the stage. Had some dinner with Jenifer Cardini and her bird and Alexander Kowalski, which was nice. Went and met up with James (old holden) after his set and we went of for some lovely fun and to watch the Ellen Alien and Apparat set. I enjoyed it and we went to the front for a bit of dancing. James was constantly being interupted by adoring fans. After their set we went up to say hello to them and we joined some others for drinks. Our performance didn't go too well. We had more video troubles and I spent most of the time fiddling around like an arsehole with the technicians.. probably ruined Nathan's set a bit. We still didn't get it to work. It was the end of the fetival by then (we were the last people on) so some of us went off back to the hotel, while some went accross the road to the after party. I was with Sasha (who is Apparat) but neither of us had any money. Michel mayer lent us a 50 sheet of euros and off we trecked. We had a bit of trouble getting in, but there were some really nice lads in the queue who translated us saying "don't you know who we are!!" to the doormen and gave us some MDA. We got in and saw some of DJ Koze's set (the one I did the break dancing with in Japan). God I love him. We all had a double fun time and fanned ourselves because it was very very hot. Sasha was so nice that we shared every single drink we managed to blag. He was extremely tired and got completely crunked out even though he had a plane to catch early next afternoon. We left for those reasons only to find that there were absolutely no taxi's running in the whole town. We heard that there was a hotel nearbye and some lovely lads offered us a lift there - i figured that they may be able to help us with transportation. The ride was maybe 3 minutes, but in that time Sasha had fallen asleep and when we stopped he was insistant that his equipment was in the boot and made the men open it. He was shocked to find that it was empty. He had no idea where his stuff was. The hotel advised us to walk down to the beach and catch a bus into the town where our hotel was. By now it was 1 o' clock, so it was pretty fucking hot walking along the beach. Beutiful, though. We managed to get the bus (for free, too) and Sasha fell asleep again. He collapsed into a pile on the floor and i had to prop him up with my legs to stop him from falling onto everyone else. People were worried about him. After a 30 minute bus ride we were in the town. Luckily when i got the bastard off, we bumped into a massive fan of his. A 20 year old girl called Sonia. She was completely star-struck and offered to take us back to my hotel (didn't know where his was) luckily, it wasn't too far, but being that it was way past the check out time, we couldn't get into my room. He bought another one 'cos he's fucking rock and roll. I rang Nathan and he offered me a place in his, but i didn't want to disturb him and stayed with Sasha. We talked about boy stuff until we conked out.

Left: Sascha and I with some lovelies / Right: Oliver, Koze, Ring:Most fun you'd ever have

8th August - Big Chill Festival, Eastnor, UK:
V: This gig went so well. Mostly, it was because of all the nice people there. Nathan's parents and loads of palls from college and our labels and stuff. We stayed the whole weekend and there's lots to say.. but I won't go into any detail about what went on. Heady times. Terumi (pictured above) was also there. It was strange to see someone we met in Japan back in ol' England. Met lots of nice people there. Ginger lad called Saul. Lovely girl called Robyn.

8th September - Bestival, Isle of Wight, UK:
V: Well fuck.. the last gig of the tour.. Our last gig together for a fucking long time. Fuck it's sad.. Fuck it's a releif. I can get on with my fucking stuff now.. but my fucking stuff won't be half as much fun. Fuck. It's been the fucking time of my life. fuck. Let's go out with a bang, we thought:
The Isle of Wight is nice. Lovely journey. Boat and everything. Nathan and I spent much of the time reminiscing about the tour, actually.. though it wasn't a concious retrospective due to the finale being upon us. As usual, we listened to, talked about and sang to one another Beach Boys songs.. We always do that. Apart from tits, i'd say 'Pet Sounds' is our most visited subject. Ours is a cute relationship.
Getting in was arduous.. Finding somewhere to store our equipment took so long that it was time to play as soon as we did. Unfortunately, we played just after 'My robot friend', who put on this totally rubbishly, brilliant show.. they had lights and cameras and a dancing jap and everything. We didn't even get the beers we asked for.. i spent alot of the day arguing with the festival staff.. and a fair bit of the last day doing the same thing. All in all they were very unhelpfull. Anywho, the show went pretty well, despite the lack of drinks. Nobody we knew came to greet us afterwards, though. We were expecting some pals. Had a nice weekend.

Vague? Send in your own account.. I'll publish it.. And send some fucking photo's.. we love 'em. x
vincent.oliver@gmail.com