Midnight Juggernauts 2007 Tour Diary

nik.mercer — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 11:32:07 -0800

The photos to the right are in the same order as the below tour diary text.

6/10/07 : Los Angeles
The first leg of the trip is a tour of North America with Justice. Have had fun with these guys in the past and knew this tour would be a blast. Also on board along the way are Busy P, So Me and DJ Mehdi from the Ed Banger stable. A fun introduction for us into North America.

7/10/07 : San Diego.
The first show of the tour in San Diego. Good times.

7/10: Californian Car Park
From the beginning I kept getting mistaken for Gaspard from Justice. The previous weekend I shared a cab with Xavier to some after party where Justice were Djing. As soon as we arrived a bunch of Justice fans took their photos with me (Gaspard) and started giving me free records. By the end of the tour i just put on a french accent and went with it. Being a mock member of Justice has its perks.

8/10/07 : Los Angeles
The first of two sold out shows in LA at the Henry Fonda Theatre. It felt very Hollywood. You'd walk through the crowd and bump into all these other big bands, B-grade celebrities, suits pretending to be studio execs etc.

8/10/07 : Hollywood Boulevard
They treat you like rock stars in this city. Without knowing what was going on, we were pulled into a Limo and were sped off to the Viper Room for another afterparty. Here's Kavinsky and DJ Mehdi trying to open the sunroof.

8/10/07 : The Viper Room
Busy P Djing. Every party is filled with people with cameras who take hundreds of shots to put on their blogs the next morning. You have to be careful what you get up to because every night is well and truly recorded. "What happens on tour ends up on MySpace". That's Mark the Cobrasnake on the left who's become a celebrity photo blogger type guy (I don't know the proper term) amongst other things. We went to his house afterwards and slept in his backyard.

9/10/07: Hollywood
Graumann's Chinese Theatre. Not sure what's going on here...

10/10/07 : San Fransisco
Soundchecks are a short window for jams before each gig. Here's Xavier and Chris our tour manager jamming on Sweet Home Alabama.

11/10/07 : Oregon
Amongst all the crazy sold out shows and afterparties and monkey impersonations etc there was also a hell of a lot of driving. The U.S. is a huge country and we were driving the whole tour from coast to coast. However seeing these changing landscapes and amazing vistas along the way made up for it.

11/10/07 : Some Portland hotel room
We Dj'd before Justice at their Portland show. This town has a really cool music scene. Hoping to get back here again soon

13/10/07 : Vancouver
Vancouver we love you!

14/10/07 : Montana
We had an amazing time driving through middle america. We stopped at this old burger place and hung out with the locals while explaining why a troupe of Australians were seemingly lost on the other side of the world. Also we had to stop here in this tiny town of Missoula, Montana as it's where David Lynch was born. Later this night we got drunk in some bar and were slowly befriended by the locals who looked like they spent the day at the rodeo. Surprisingly we found a Justice track on the Jukebox, but when we played it they kicked us out.

15/10/07 : Wall, South Dakota
In an old quiet town on the edge of the Badlands we came across this kind of theme park for the elderly (well the only people there were a handful of elderly couples of around 80). It was some historic wild west village but full of all these frightening robot puppets from decades ago which sort of sing and dance. They seriously were the freakiest most frightening things I'd ever seen. Something straight out of a horror movie. I was afraid to take a photo of them incase they were haunted and I'd somehow bring their evil spirits back home with me.

16/10/07 : The Badlands
This is the Badlands. An amazing stretch of mountainous desert which is more like the surface of Mars. If we knew how amazing this place was we would have spent more time to shoot a clip here.

17/10/07 : Chicago
We love you Chicago!

18/10/07 : Magical Mystery Tour Bus
A Tour Bus is pretty much a living room on wheels. After playing Toronto we spent this night just drinking and listening to iTunes until 5am with Xavier and So Me. It's nice being driven around and waking up the next day parked in front of the venue.

19/10/07 : Montreal
Montreal is definitely one of my favorite cities anywhere. Pretty cool that Justice were able to play to 5000 people here in the one night. This town loves its music.

20/10/07 : New York
Back in NY. Here we are meeting up with Alex, Steve and Bek, three black belts who apparently teach the ancient art of Kung Fu in Queens. Incidentally, the guy here with the Blue Bandana played Zed in Pulp Fiction. Bring out the Gimp.

20/10/07 : New York
It was great being able to play to over 6000 people on our first weekend in New York. I wanted to take a shot with Kanye West who was hanging out for the night but I didn't want to come across like a stupid fan. I'll PhotoShop it together later.

21/10/07 : Brooklyn
After Party at Plan B with Justice and Erol Alkan. Was sad to see the North American tour come to an end. Will try to get back soon.

25/10/07 : Paris
Back in France again. It almost feels like a 2nd home. We decide to move into a houseboat for the week so we could live like the Monkees. It was quite cool being able to wake up on the Seine and walk past Notre Dame on the way to get a baguette. Romantic city.

26/10/07 : Paris
Meeting up with Busy P to share war stories.

26/10/07 : Rennes
Playing France once again. People really get into it over here. This was a fun show. You always find a lost shoe on the dancefloor at the end of the night.

31/10/07 : Paris
This man is a dentist. Actually no, it's Kavinski again. DJ'ing a Halloween party with A-Trak. This was our night off. I just like this shot.

2/11/07 : Copenhagen
We did a very brief Scandinavian tour with Surkin from France, which took us back to Copenhagen. We also tried to get in touch with Princess Mary again (ex-Tasmanian), but to no avail.

3/11/07 : Stockholm
It's not exactly an action shot but we were just excited to see our name in lights.

3/11/07 : Stockholm
Backstage at our show we came across this poster of some '70s prog rock clarinet guy. If anyone knows who he is please drop us a line.

4/11/07 : Stockholm
We're not sure what happened that night but Daniel woke in the morning with some clarinet guy lying next to him.

7/11/07 : London
Back in the U.K., playing at Koko supporting !!! (Chk Chk Chk). Fun show. Old muppet show theaters are the best.

7/11/07 : London
Roaming through Kings Cross with Nic, the singer from !!!. It was their last night of a seven-month tour so we had a big night out. This basically meant drinking on the streets because our door man kicked us all out of our hotel room.

9/11/07 : Paris
A fun night playing an arena show with Klaxons and MSTRKRFT. A big room...

9/11/07 : Paris
... and even bigger when filled with a crowd.

9/11/07 : Paris
Later that night we DJ'd at a FluoKids afterparty with Busy P. The kids were crazy this evening.

11/11/07: Oxford
Back to England. We started a tour right throughout the UK with Digitalism. Jence and Isi are swell gentlemen.

12/11/07: Brighton
When in Brighton I think you're supposed to go to the pier with the lights and amusement rides on it and eat mushy peas. So we did.