Some days it all goes horribly wrong: Lucerne, Switzerland ...

... well it started out nice ! A short drive, a nice (if overpriced) lunch & a stroll by the lake. It is beautiful (see the first pic I took ... exactly like the picture-postcard Switzerland!). Then we get to the club: everybody is nice, but I am concerned at the sight of a group of people crowded around the mixing board (one of those horrible small digital mixing boards at that), staring into it like it just randomly landed there from outer space or something ! After an hour or so we try & prod them in the direction of letting us soundcheck, which is about when it becomes apparent that they have no control over what instrument is coming through which onstage monitor, & we figure out that they just got a new mixing board the other day & we are the guinea-pigs ! Thanks a lot guys ! Cue a four-hour soundcheck ! (well, not really a soundcheck, just them fucking about trying to make it work!). Eventually it sounds just about decent & we have the right things coming through the right monitors (we use backing tapes so if we can't hear that onstage well the gig is toast basically!). Then the support band load onstage, set-up & the sound-crew completely forget / lose everything we did over the last four hours !! ... Brilliant ! .... thanks again guys !! ... Things get worse ! We cope with all of this in the very best way we can ... by drinking massive amounts of alcohol obviously ! Dyan & Chalkie go back to the hotel & Eddie & I sit at a candle-lit table in the club after dinner, watching the opening band, drinking bottle after bottle of wine, Ed jokes about how it feels like Lou Reed at CBGB's in the 70's ... ha ha !!! Stage time, the gig is somewhat undersold, we are pretty drunk & it is probably going to sound like shit ! : what can we do ? Firstly I grab the ridiculous Guardsmans outfit we found in the production office earlier & insist on wearing it (see pic) ! Then we decide to change the chorus lyric of the set-opener "Creeque Allies" to a direct attack on the Swiss ...... "Everybody was in the French Resistance... Except YOU !" !!! Oh dear, & oh what japes ! Well it goes balls-up from the very top: .. we start the gig & there is NOTHING whatsoever going through the P.A / sound-system !!!! So we stop. We play for a bit longer, then have to stop again for whatever reason ! This is how the gig goes on ! The crowd are really cool & understanding ... we feel really bad for them having paid their hard-earned Swiss-Franc for a good show which they aren't really getting ! We somehow make it to the end, & the crowd are lively & really want an encore, so we oblige ! We start the track & it sounds like absolute garbage ... in the two minutes we left the stage the sound crew fucked it up AGAIN!! ! Basically, I totally lose it !!!!!! In fact I completely fucking lose it !!! I can't remember exactly what i said but I go on a long shout / rant at the club / soundguy / situation, with a lot of expletives, a LOT of expletives (like "you f**king completely useless bunch of absolute c**ts, f***kin useless ! "... that kind of thing !) .... then Eddie comes over, gives me a hug, & reminds me that there is a father with his two young pre-teenage kids right in front of the stage !!! Oh dear oh dear !!! Then I realize that I am dressed in a comedy guardsman's uniform ! Oh the humanity ! Anyway we finish the song acapella (a first for EWITFRN) ... considering our state we actually pulled it off !!!!!! & then we all crawl under a table & want to die !! (or something like that !). What a (insert expletive) day !