Bus Driving Band Rocking 2001

BOLOGNA, IT - IND. DAYS FESTIVAL - september 01, 2001

Butch's diary:

Sept. 1, 2001: : We are up early this morning (6:00am) to haul are asses down to Bologna, Italy to play in another festival tonight. All of us grumble and complain that we can't stay longer in this land of love they call Finland. E coins a new word that we adopt the minute he says "Fintastic." I think that says it all. God willing, we will be back soon.

Air France is most helpful and eager to take a lot of extra money from us to safely transport our precious cargo to Bologna. When we get to Bologna airport and 20 of our cases don't show up, we are livid but not shocked. We immediately go into commando combat mode and try to figure out how we're going to play without our essential pieces of gear. We come up with an alternate plan of attack just as we pull up to the festival site.

Literally 10 minutes before we go on the SACRED equipment shows up (along with my lost suitcase) and the crew hurriedly gets it up for us (so to speak). But there are even more problems. E's indestructible amp has been destroyed by Air France. So the crew tries his spare amp which has also been destroyed. We spend the first few songs trying to get borrowed gear to sound reasonable, with varying results. It looks like it's going to be a rough show for us. I have problems with my bass drum pedal and E is going through hell with his amplifier. We pull together and make it through. We mutually agree that we don't enjoy spending our short time on earth at festivals. Next time we come to Italy we will do our own show and give the fans a healthy dose of the ROCK. E goes to Germany to do press for a day. The crew spend the time off desperately trying to repair the Air-Franced equipment.

[diary originally published on Eelstheband.com - copyright © 2001. Used here uncut and as originally published by BUTCH]