| 6/16 City Fair: Kansas City, MO- |
|
Flew from Los Angeles to K.C. after doing our video and I got on the
plane with a godammn throat infection. Well my ears never popped on the descent
into Kansas City and I couldn't hear too much for a couple weeks. had to go to
a doctor, who told me that my hearing is that of your average 65 year old
person.... said i should start wearing ear plugs onstage but i set him straight
and told him that was for fags. standing onstage playing, felt like I was
listening to the band from the bottom of a swimming pool. great gig tho and a
cool venue outside in the middle of an open air market.
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| 6/17 The Ranch Bowl: Omaha NE- |
|
This gig was in a bowling alley
bar...not the nicest place we ever played but for some reason it was one of the
better gigs we've played. I don't remember too much more other than it kicked
ass.
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| 6/18 Ogden Theater: Denver CO- |
|
probably the rowdiest crowd we've ever
played to, and that's the truth. this shit was out of control. 'N Sync were
staying at our hotel and there were little girls camped out in front of the
place for the whole 3 days we were there. I think our lighting guy fucked one
of them in the ass.
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| 6/19 Ogden Theater: Denver CO- |
|
I think this was a good gig too, but I'm
pretty sure the first night was better. We played different tunes both nights
anyway. Played golf with Jkeats and took his money.
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| 6/22 Vogue Theater: Vancouver BC, CAN- |
|
A pretty big show for us...sold out way in advance. I think we played pretty well...can't be sure though. Drank
too much, etc.
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| 6/23 and 6/24 Showbox: Seattle- |
|
We played Seattle on the night that
Experience Music Project thing that that computer guy opened, or something.
These shows ruled....2 sold out nights.....we got very dark in this town. There
were great shows happening all over this city to celebrate the opening of the
museum. i enjoyed the hell out of both of these shows.
|
| 6/25 Crystal Ballroom: Portland OR- |
|
this was a really interesting venue
and a great show. i guess they finally closed down La Luna, but we should've
played 2 nights. i love the northwest.
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| 6/27 Warfield Theatre: San Francisco CA- |
|
had a great stay in san
francisco, got to jam with my friend jon weiss and bill, the old bass player
from faith no more on our night off. mick preston, our roadie, saved a little
girl's life at our hotel when she fell into the pool and sunk to the bottom
while her mom was drunk -not paying attention. it was like 50 degrees outside
and he saw this kid wander over the side into the pool, jumped in with all his
clothes and boots on. the hotel replaced his cell phone and all his
shit...pretty heroic stuff for a dirty douchebag like mick. as far as the show
goes, the warfield is a great venue and they treat us well every time. that
being said, this show never really seemed to click. maybe our expectations were
really high or something but i came away from this one pretty frustrated. what
i'm really trying to say is that i thought we sucked.
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| 6/29 the Palace: Los Angeles CA- |
|
got to go see a dodgers game, what a
beautiful stadium...makes veterans stadium look like the toilet that it really
is. jim leyritz hit a pinch hit 2 out double in the bottom of the ninth to win
the game, pretty exciting. the south park guys opened this show for us with
their band DVDA and they ruled. "Everybody Loves Crack" was my personal
favorite. Also, the Queens of the Stone Age guys were all there so we had a
nice reunion with our old touring buddies. The gig was good but short because
of a dance night curfew, a problem that we seem to encounter a little too
often.
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| 6/30 the Glass House, Pomona, CA- |
|
earlier in this day we played a
drunken punk rock set at Benway Records in Venice....lotta weird tunes we
haven't played in a long time but it was a total blast. amazingly enough, we
recovered in time to have an awesome show out in Pomona. The venue was really
strange, no alcohol or smoking on the premises, very un-rock and roll. I have
no idea why the best gigs occur in these strange places, but that's the way it
seems to work. overall, one of the best days of music on the whole tour.
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| 7/1 House of Blues, Las Vegas NV |
|
This was a really fun show, altho
i'd like to play somewhere a little scummier next time. the best sounding
stage monitors i've ever heard in my life. after this gig i lost 400 bucks
playing blackjack before i managed to win it all back plus an additional 200
bucks at around 4 am...took the whole damn night though. Saw Hoover Dam while
driving to the next gig....i was all kinds of fucked up at the time though.
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| 7/2 Alice Cooperstown, Phoenix AZ- |
|
a sweltering hot gig....i thought i
was gonna melt....i'm ready to play somewhere else next time....this is
basically a sports bar with Alice Cooper's name on it; you play outside in the
courtyard. All the employees wear Alice Cooper eye makeup....gay. don't get me
wrong, they were nice to us and all...but whatever.
|
| 7/3 Sunshine Theater, Albuquerque NM- |
|
Got to hang out with my close
friend and partner Dickie Moist (Guy Heller) who's band "The Voodoo Junkies"
opened up the show with a great set. Last year when we played here we had the
famous lactating girl incident...that didn't happen this time but it was still
a really rowdy show. Everything went smoothly.
|
| 7/5 Will Rogers Center, Oklahoma City, OK- |
|
Had 2 days off here, for the
4th of July. someone gave me a bunch of quaaludes...not exactly the most social
drug. 3 of us ate them....one of us woke up in the garden in front of the hotel
surrounded by security.....i peed on the air conditioner in the hotel room
thinking it was the toilet....and the other guy smartly passed out in private.
watched the fireworks from the roofside pool at the hotel under the close eye
of some hotel security dick who kinda sensed something bad about to happen. i
wanted to write "Used Ass Towels" on the hamper that said "Used Towels" by the
pool...spent way too much time trying to figure out how to do it without this
guy seeing it. At the time it seemed hillarious. the show the next day was a
lot of fun......went back with some kids to a house party and deejayed for a
while with our tour buddy johnny.
|
| 7/6 Gypsy Tea Room: Dallas TX- |
|
Texas usually means trouble...and this
was no exception. had a great sold out sweltering gig...i like this venue more
than the places we usually play. got horribly, heinously drunk (yawn) and
followed our dallas friends to a small after hours "club." the rest is a
haze.....i think we had fun....austin was hanging overhead though.
|
| 7/7 and 7/8 Stubbs: Austin TX- |
|
what can you say, this is the coolest
venue in the world, with the coolest staff, in one of the best music towns in
the world. we played to almost 5,000 people over 2 nights, pretty much double
the amount of people we can draw in any other city. the shows were a blast,
there were girls all over the stage, and people were overly generous in giving
us their drugs. if we ever make another live record it will almost definitely
be recorded at stubb's. these few days were capped off by us getting to meet
and hang out with curt kirkwood of the meat puppets, one of my all time
favorite guitarists.
|
| 7/10 House of Blues: New Orleans LA- |
|
sin city.......i always love to go
to this town, although if i were smart i'd probably never go back......we've
made a lot of friends in new orleans.....i think that's part of the problem.
there's something magical about this city, if you've ever been there then you
know what i'm talking about. the gig was great.....i think.
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| 7/12 5 Pts South Music Hall, Birmingham AL- |
|
blame new orleans, blame me,
i don't know, we got pretty drunk on tequilla before ever playing a note.....i
think we probably sucked but i'm not sure.
|
| 7/14 Cow Haus, Tallahassee, FL- |
|
shit haus
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| 7/15 Jannus Landing: St. Petersburg FL- |
|
i love this place...it's a cool
outdoor venue in a weird sorta courtyard. last year it rained buckets during
our gig, but this time the weather held on for us. went swimming in the gulf at
like 5am with a bunch of friends while a bunch of freaks partied in my hotel
room. the gig was one of my faves, helped by the beautiful girls dancing
onstage. this was one of the better shows for sure.
|
| 7/16 Hard Rock Live: Orlando FL- |
|
i figured that his show was either gonna
rule or totally blow after seeing the venue and where it was. it's shaped like
the roman colloseum and it's inside universal city in orlando, which is exactly
like playing in disneyworld. the stage was a half mile long and they gave aaron
a wireless microphone, which ended up being a key part of this show's success.
this was a blast....one of the illest shows in one of the most conservative
environments. we played a really long "lmlyp" and most of the audience was
onstage for the duration. afterwards, they took us up to the special "john
lennon room" and "beatles" room and showed us their private collection of
beatles shit, including one of john's white pianos. pretty godammn cool.
|
| 7/17 the Chili Pepper: Ft. Lauderdale FL- |
|
aaron got too drunk
to.....walk...but somehow managed to channel it all into something gloriously
horrible for our "concert". i'd apologize for the 50 minute "poopship
destroyer" but somehow i think you deserve it for living in ft. lauderdale.
|
| 7/19 40 Watt Club: Athens GA- |
|
we've been playing this club for years and
always have a good time. hotter than a motherfucker in this place.....can't
think of much more....a good show.
|
| 7/20 Moose's: Knoxville, TN- |
|
ate a lot of chicken wings before and after
this show ....jay dubbya came onstage and sang "war pigs" which kinda dwarfed
everything else we played this night.
|
| 7/21 Metropol: Pittsburgh, PA- |
|
after months of hard touring we thought
we'd reward ourselves by finishing the tour in knoxville and
pittsburgh...jesus. show got cut short because of gay dance night or something.
next time we go to pittsburgh we should book the gig into a urinal at the bus
station, which would be a step up.
|
| 7/23 Wellfleet Beachcomber, Cape Cod MA- |
|
i got us this gig through an
e-mail from the guy who books the club...so i guess the internet is good for
something after all. this was basically our "end of tour party" and we had a
blast playing this small beach bar out on the cape. i went to take a leak
behind the club during our set and 3 skunks started running circles around my
feet...in all the excitement i stepped in a puddle of dave dreiwitz's piss in
my bare feet. i was too drunk to care anyway. a good time for sure, i'd play
there again anyday.
|
| Japan/Europe Tour Synopsis |
| 8/5 Osaka/Summersonic Festival: Osaka Japan (Stage 2) |
|
A whole day of traveling
to get to Japan, only to play for 50 minutes in front of a crowd of
about 900. the rest split to watch WEEZER on the main stage. After the show we
had to drive all night to get to Mt. Fuji to play for another 45 minutes.
|
| 8/6 Fuji/Summersonic Festival: Osaka Japan (Stage 2) |
|
This festival was at the base of Mt. Fuji, maybe one of the prettiest venues in the world. Of
course the second stage was in a gymnasium, with about 900 people there. The
other 30,000 people were watching WEEZER on the main stage. I guess we'll have
to wait to conquer Japan. Our attempts to find some Geisha girls to shave our
nuts never panned out either.
|
| 8/18 Bizarre Festival: Dutch Border-Germany (Main Stage) |
|
A pretty good festival featuring Beck, Foo Fighters, and others. It was professionally filmed
for German t.v. and we actually played really well.
|
| 8/19 Highfields Festival: Erfurt-East Germany (Main Stage) |
|
This show was in the former East
Germany alongside a lake. Got to see the new Rollins Band who were one of the
best bands I've seen all year. These festival setlists were about 50 minutes,
not enough time for us to suck or kick ass...we played pretty well tho, i
hope.
|
| 8/20 Hamburg Trabrennbahn Festival: Germany (Stage 2) |
|
I think this was the one at a racetrack, they all sorta blend together. The festival experience
kinda blows, and after 3 days we had seen enough. Little porta-johns, lousy
food, muddy fields, no soundcheck, shitty music on 4 or 5 stages simultaneously,
nothin to do but drink yourself into a coma. I wouldn't care if we ever played
these shits again. Unfortunately, this night marked the birth of a really brown
situation. While driving from this festival to Berlin, the 12 cd changer in our
tourbus broke while loaded with our discs. Our bus was a British made piece of
crap, which deserved to be burned to the ground. Claude, in a an alcohol
induced moment of clarity, decided that he was getting the discs back at any
cost. so with the help of his swiss army knife, he dismantled the stereo,
leaving a pile of broken plastic and simulated walnut grain vinyl on the floor
of the bus. Our bus driver (who shall remain nameless) took this a little too
personally. This kinda thing happens a lot on tour and is usually resolved by
the band paying for whatever damage they've done. Not this time though, as you
will see by reading on.
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| 8/22 Berlin Arena (with Foo Fighters) |
|
The "Berlin Arena", sounds really
nice doesn't it? It was an empty hangar, (or warehouse) with big puddles of
water on the floor. Probably could hold 12,000 people. As you can imagine, it
sounded like shit, the Foo Fighters fans hated us, and we really didn't give a
flying fuck. Someone smashed out the tail light lenses on our bus, and despite
our denials, our bus driver seemed absolutely positive that it had to be one of
us who did this. All communication between band and driver ceased after Berlin,
except when Aaron would address him..... in a poor British accent. On top of all
this, Paul Monahan dislocated his knee while loading out. All the doctors gave
him were muscle relaxers, much to my disapointment...I ate them anyway, but they
didn't do shit.
|
| 8/23 Malmo, Sweden/KB Club |
|
This is such a beautiful place. All the women
are blonde and perfect, and all the men were strong healthy aryan specimens.
After 7 months of touring, our ragged, sorry ass collection of jews, negroes,
and white trash, alcoholic, drug addicts came limping into this place on our
broken-ass bus. 70 people showed up for the gig and we kicked their ass all
over the place for 3 hours. Next up was a 24 hour drive back to England to play
the esteemed Reading Festival, which would be headlined by OASIS. Here's where
it gets really chocolatey.
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| 8/25 Reading Festival: UK (Stage 2 Marquee) |
|
24 hours on a bus sucks, no
matter what your final destination. When you're going to England, on a bus with
no music, with a driver who hates you, to a festival packed to the gills with
shitty bands, with diesel fumes blowing out of the vents into your bunk,it can
have a devastating effect on the morale of a tour. We had just taken the ferry
from Belgium back over to Dover, England and we had about 3 and a half hours to
get to our hotel in Redhill where we would rest before the Reading Festival. I
had eaten a bunch of some girl's menstrual cramp medicine with a lot of vodka
and passed out in the upstairs lounge in front of the tv watching "Men in
Black" when the bus suddenly stopped on the side of the road. Our driver had
seen enough of Ween apparently, and called the police on his cell phone to meet
him at a pre-determined location. He came into the back of the bus and the
dialogue went something like this. "The police are here,get your shit and get
the fuck off me bus....." The cocksucker had called the police and left us on
the side of the road. In retrospect, this was probably a smart move on his part
for 2 reasons. 1) where I come from, this is justifiable cause for a complete
beatdown, and the police probably saved his life...and 2) we were
seriously considering setting the bus on fire at the end of the "tour."
Fortunately, the hotel was only a short distance away, and it was agreed
between the police, driver, and Paulie (our tour manager) that the driver would
drive our equipment to a rest area and wait for a new bus company to come get
our shit. Dave Dreiwitz took pictures of this whole fiasco, I'll try and post
them soon. Our new bus driver was named Uncle Mattie and he was about 7 feet
tall. We got along great, altho this bus wasn't allowed to pull a trailer,
which forced us to finish the tour with the equipment on the bus...in the
aisles. Oh yeah, the Reading Festival sucked balls, and our new bus broke down
10 miles outside the festival on the first day. The poopship was now in full
effect, with it's coordinates firmly locked on any unfortunate motherfucker who
would cross our path.
|
| 8/26 Pukklepop: Belgium (Stage 2) |
|
Nice festival, too bad we sucked. I'm
into the word Puklepop though.
|
| 8/27 Lowlands: Amsterdam (Golf Stage) |
|
Sometime in the night, the bus
arrived at our hotel in the middle of nowhere in Holland. Unbeknownst to me,
there weren't enough rooms for all of us, and I was passed out in my bunk. Not
wanting to wake me up (because there wasn't a room for me anyhow) Paulie
decided to let me stay asleep on the bus. I woke up at like 4:30 am and decided
to check into my room. The front desk receptionist didn't have a key for me,
didn't speak English, and all I wanted at this point was a bed and a
shower. I found an open door to a room where someone had checked out and passed
out there. Well, Paulie never checked my bunk the next day and left without me
for the festival. I woke up in Dunkelmoidel, Holland (or some such shit) and
the bus was gone. I had no money, no clothes, and no information about where I
was supposed to be. So I sat in the lobby until those bastards got to the gig
and realized they had left me somewhere. Eventually someone came back for me
and we played probably the best festival set we've ever done for about 15,000
appreciative fans. It was totally fueled by frustration and hatred.
You can listen to some of this gig by clicking here.
|
| 8/28 Leeds Festival: UK (Stage 2) |
|
The Leeds festival is basically the
same as the Reading Festival, just in a different muddy field in the North of
England. Saw the awesome American punk band AMEN, who kicked everyone's ass on
this day. Their singer, who was a really sweet guy, had a broken ankle and was
kind enough to give me some Percocet which made me feel a lot better for a
couple of hours.
|
| 8/30 Amsterdam: Paradiso |
|
Our triumphant return to Amsterdam, this show
was sold out in advance and really went off well. Great, rowdy audience, which
is uncommon in Holland, although I felt like at least half the crowd were
Americans. I finally went to the Van Gogh museum, after 15 visits to this city.
Did all the usual misbehaving which is expected on a visit to this town.
|
| 8/31 Wiesen Festival, Austria |
|
It's a long fucking drive from Amsterdam
to Austria with no days off. We were 6 hrs.late and arrived just in time to set
up our shit and play... between the Deftones and Blink 182. Needless to say, the
crowd hated us...and it took about 2 minutes into our set for me to get hit
with the first beer can. This trend continued for the duration of
our performance and climaxed with me getting hit in the face with a full cup of
liquid during "The Blarney Stone." At first I thought it was human piss, but it
was cold enough where I realized that it was probably just beer. You assholes
can suck my New Jersey dick.
|
| 9/1 Winterthur City Festival, Switzerland |
|
A storybook little town in Switzerland, this festival was in the street. it was
pretty enough to be on a postcard. There were only 3 bands, us, Boss Hog, and a
local band. This was a lot of fun, and reminded me a lot of what I used to like
about touring Europe.
|
| 9/2 Munich: Elserhalle |
|
A really nice, new club that
provided us with some of the best food we had on this tour. I asked the
promoter if he could get me any painkillers and he went out and bought me a
bottle of Aspirin. Other than that, it was a great gig.
|
| 9/5 Stuttgart: Longhorn |
|
We had 2 days off in Stuttgart. Not Paris, not Switzerland,
Stuttgart. Mick Preston and I wanted to take the train into town to shoot some
pool, but the bitch at the front desk gave us bullshit instructions, so instead
we took the train North into the middle of Germany. The cab ride back cost us
90 marks. As an experiment, (and out of laziness) I recycled our setlist from
Pomona, California for this show and it ruled a second time.
|
| 9/6 Paris: La Bulle Noir |
|
For some reason, we have only played in Paris one other time, opening for NoMeansNo back
in 1990. This small club was sold out and we played one of our best gigs of the
year. Hopefully it won't take 10 years for us to come back to France. Met
Emanuel, the dude who publishes "Weenbeat" fanzine, a magazine dedicated to us.
We missed the fuel strike by 10 hours, enough time for us to get the hell out
of France. Back to jolly old England to finish this hellish tour.
|
| 9/7 London: Astoria |
|
The British press have never had a kind word to say about Ween. For some reason tho, White
Pepper has been different. Our gig was sold out in advance, like 2,250 people
who gave it up 100 percent for us. I got hit in the face with ice on the first
tune, and beer cans rained down on us throughout the whole show. Apparently,
this has replaced "gobbing" as an act of appreciation by the British audience.
Hopefully next time we come to England we'll have our shit cannons in working
order so we can return your gratitude. Catch the vapors, I'm going home.
|
