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 25 September, 2007 – London
“We Should Have Known Better” KRIS SCHROEDER of THE BASICS provides RAVE with some snippets from his recent European tour diary. In this episode, Kris, Wally de Backer and Tim Heath encounter some difficulties heading to Cornwall from London for a gig worth the princely sum of £30. A drive in the country sounds nice though, doesn’t it?
It had started out all right – I had booked a really good car for a really good price through Europcar, and managed to work out that with Cornwall about five hours drive away we could pick it up at Victoria Station at 1pm and make it to the gig for a decent soundcheck, a meal and a couple of beers. When Tim casually mentioned the night before that we could pick up his guitar “on the way”, I had anticipated a short detour on the West side of London before recommencing the pleasant trip through the English countryside. So I only have myself to blame when, arriving at Victoria Station, Tim informs me that his guitar is in fact in Clapton which is not only a couple of suburbs away from where we are staying (Kings Cross), but also on the diagonally opposite side of London to where we now were. That meant a ‘detour’ through the centre of London in the middle of the day. I have to admit, it was fun for about 30 minutes, passing Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, London Bridge etc, but when the realisation dawned on me that we would then have to travel along the accursed M25 around the top end of the city my heart sank. True enough – traffic jams galore. We all made mistakes that day. Tim’s I’ve just mentioned, but Wally did his fair share of choosing small winding roads that he assumed would be quicker than just taking the freeway through Plymouth, and I made two or three really shocking wrong turns which took several minutes to rescue us from ending up back in the centre of London. At least I can finally say “I was driving at 100 miles an hour” down the M4 towards Cornwall. It also made for an adrenaline-driven gig when we finally arrived (half an hour late) and smashed through two hours worth of classic Basics material. I’d love to see another Australian band manage to stick together under the same circumstances – we hadn’t eaten since before leaving, we hadn’t gone to the toilet for several hours, and we had to set up our gear and play without a single drop of the amber ale. It ended up being quite fun, and after a few beers and then several follow-up Scotches we retired to bed quite contented, aware of a 7:30am rise in order to get the car back in time. That was until Wally woke us at 9:30am, having slept through his alarm (he claims it didn’t go off). Outside, we then discovered we had a £30 parking fine. There’s a lesson here for other bands thinking of doing one-off regional gigs outside London – not worth it. So just as quickly as we had arrived, we had to depart, having not been able to enjoy the sights and sounds of South-West England at all. Arriving at Stansted Airport, the Ryanair folk were never going to let us check in late, but it was a risk we had all been willing to take and now we’re sitting an extra 5 hours and 150 pounds lighter at Caffe Alba in Stansted Airport. Anyway, not long to go before we witness the fjords of Norway... The Basics return from their adventures for a Homecoming Tour this month, taking in Thursday Oct 18 at the Sol Bar (Coolum), Oct 19 at the Gold Coast Indycar Fest, Oct 20 at Rosie’s (Edward St, CBD), and Oct 21 at the Great Northern (Byron Bay). Tickets on sale now from the usual outlets.
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