Get Physical tour: Personal notes

Get Physical tour: Personal notes

14 May, 2008 | 12.35AM

• Written by: Industry Boy
• Filed under: Music News: mandy

The Get Physical bus tour was the funniest albeit most draining week of my life.

It might have been the eight clubs in eight days (I only managed seven in the end), the six-, eight- or 12-hour drives, the alcohol, the lack of sleep, or the fact that I was made tour manager on the very first night, but I was destroyed by the end.

All in all, the tour was a very dangerous week of health-depletion.

Whilst all our bodies were visibly exhausted, ‘You look like shit’ people kept telling us, our minds kept losing focus and momentum.

Heidi answered the phone one day with ‘Hello Phonica’, despite the fact she had stopped working at the London record store over a year ago.

Patrick from M.A.N.D.Y. had asked one night what time Audioplay was flying, instead of what time Audiofly was playing.

My brain, too, was not 100% and in Montreal I was close to bailing when Patrick rescued me with some calm, cigarette clouded advice.

Despite the hardship of dealing with five very different DJ personalities, three different DJ set ups (Serato, CDJs and vinyl), two border crossings and an infinite number of afterparty distractions and groupies, we made it through to the end.

“I now understand that really old stupid saying ‘the show must go on’,” said Philipp one night; because it did.

And because we had made it through to the end everybody on the bus bonded in a way that only comrades in battle might – Patrick and Philipp from M.A.N.D.Y., Heidi and Audiofly felt more like brothers and sisters, than DJs I was supposed to be observing.

This became clear as we were crossing the US / Canadian border during a beautiful misty dawn after the Montreal gig.

Montreal had been the ‘wall’ of the tour, the point where our bodies had said no but where we had pushed through despite the ache.

A border crossing at 6 AM should have been a pain too great to bear (especially after the near cavity-search during the first crossing), but as the sun rose, casting a healthy, deep red across the foggy plains of Canada, we sat in the front of the bus together, sharing snacks and watching comedy sketches like one big family.

We all were on the same level and that shared sense of happiness, friendship and love for music must have radiated out of us, because when the border cop came on board, he looked at our messy tour bus, at us in our pajamas and smiling faces, and then let us on our way.

He knew that we were family, and he let us be.

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