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Jonny wakes me up by opening the door to the Buddhist cabin and proceeds to talk non-stop, which is pretty shocking and disorienting when you’ve been in a pitch-black sensory-deprivation chamber asleep for hours. We grab showers and I eat a granola bar while trying to figure out how to use the house kettle to make some coffee. By the time I figure out it’s a water filter, it’s time to leave.

We drop off Rogier’s girlfriend at the airport and start heading northwest towards the English Channel. At a gas station Stevie and I buy baguettes for one euro -- the sandwiches at French stops are incredibly expensive, especially considering how weak the dollar is. Add to that the fact that using the restroom will cost you 50 euro cents a visit, and you’ll go broke in a hurry if you’re not careful.

Crossing the Channel has always been one of the most memorable parts of these tours. The first time we crossed we were going to London to play a Peel Session on the BBC, but our shoddy excuse for a tour manager hadn’t done all the necessary paperwork (the UK has very strict work permit laws) so we were stuck in Calaise while we waited for things to get sorted out. The same thing happened again two years later, but this time it meant two days in a cheap hotel because of a bank holiday. Last year we crossed the Channel in the opposite direction on election night back home. I tuned in the BBC on a tiny radio, desperately trying to hear the results before we lost the signal.

This time we’re excited to be experiencing the “Chunnel” for the first time, a high-speed train that runs underneath the channel. After a blessedly short time spent with British Customs, we drive the van right into a train car, and they lock us in. A tiny window is the only thing that tells us we’re moving, and as the train enters the tunnel it gets dark. Actually that’s pretty much it. I don’t know what I was expecting, but this is boring as hell. I crawl up into the loft in the back of the van and go to sleep.

We emerge driving on the wrong side of the road 20 minutes later.

A slight panic ensues when we realize we have no pounds to pay the highway toll, but thankfully they accept Euros and we’re able to keep on to Coventry.

The last time we played Coventry a pack of tough guys showed up and got bounced after they started throwing punches while we were playing. After the show, some of them were waiting for us. As we were getting in the van they jumped our French friend Ben, dropping him with a sucker-punch, and hurled a pint glass which missed and slammed into the side window of our van. Our English friend Luke took on three of them at once and ended up getting shanked in the throat before his friends from inside the club jumped in to help. Luke’s a pretty tough guy. We kept trying to get him to go the hospital, but he just smiled, blood gushing down his neck, and asked that we get him drunk instead.

Needless to say, we obliged him. Folks of that caliber don’t come along often.

This time around it looks to be in a very different part of town. Taylor John’s House is built into an old coal storage tunnel next to a canal basin lined with houseboats. Coventry is the home of 2-Tone Records, The Selector and The Beat, and 30 years ago The Specials shot the photos for the cover of their debut album right here in this plaza. It’s been somewhat gentrified since then.

A cheerful young barmaid unlocks the doors, and we load in and wait for the sound engineer. She gives us coffee and San Miguels while we set up and wait for soundcheck.

After testing everything out they feed us vegan chili and couscous, garlic bread, salad and pitas with hummous. It’s a delicious meal and much appreciated.

Our friends Robbie and Luke show up, Luke sporting a scar on his neck he still maintains is “nothing.” Stevie’s friend Karen has flown in from the States to travel with us in the UK, and she takes a bus and meets us here.

Turnout is pretty disappointing for a weekend, and the set is over before we know it. We settle up and load out in the rain, too exhausted to make it to the afterparty.

We find the hotel, and before too long it’s clear this is going to be a painful and truly idiotic experience. The first time I ring the buzzer to the Formula 1 hotel, the burly stand-offish security guard just stares blankly at me. I ring the buzzer again, and the now-hostile guard waddles over to the door to mumble to us that we have to check in at the adjacent Etap hotel. We walk over to that hotel, but they say the promoter’s credit card was only used to reserve the room, not to pay for it, so we have to call her in the middle of the night so she can e-mail or fax (fax!!!) permission to charge the credit card. We hand the desk clerk 52 pounds for two rooms of three each in case the permission doesn’t come through. Then we collect our keys and head back across the parking lot. The guard challenges us once we get in the front door, and we inform him that only six people are staying in the two rooms; the extra two are leaving.

“I need six people for two rooms, not eight people for two rooms,” he says.

We reply that we know there are eight people, but two are just walking in with us, using the restroom and immediately leaving.

“I need six people for two rooms, not eight people for two rooms,” he slurs again, slightly rocking back and forth. It soon becomes apparent that the guard is stoned out of his mind. We explain again and he replies, “She already used the restroom,” then repeats his mantra.

After about five minutes of arguing with the belligerent burnout (keep in mind it’s the middle of the night, we’re exhausted and already annoyed at the hotel), he finally gets sick of saying the same thing over and over again and for some unknown reason decides to let us in, shadowing us to our rooms. His presence turns out to be convenient, because the room Eddie, Mike and I are given doesn’t seem to have any working lights, a problem he attempts to fix by repeatedly flicking the light switch, then for no particular reason heads over to the window.

“Make sure with this window that you…” he starts, reaching for a window handle that isn’t there, “oh…nevermind…it’s broke.” Slowly he stumbles off to find us a new room and leads us to it.

“What time is checkout tomorrow?” we ask him on his return, assuming that’s probably the kind of thing he should know.

“6 a.m.,” he replies with confidence.

We all look sideways at each other for a moment and inform him that almost certainly can’t be right.

He thinks for a moment before coming up with 8 am. We tell him to try again.

“I don’t know. I have to go check,” he mumbles and wanders off.

He does not return – but at this point we figure that checkout is pretty much whenever we feel like it.

The new room does in fact have electricity. It also has a window frame caked in mildew and a comforter on the top bunk COVERED IN BLOOD. I push it into a ball and try to get ready for bed anyway. The toilets and showers are down the hall, and while I’m getting ready I hear the security guard yelling at a family in another room for “smoking in the room,” which seems odd because he has to wake them up to tell them.

“I’m a paying customer and a family man, and I don’t have to take this kind of abuse,” the father protests.

“Isn’t this the first time you’ve seen me?” the guard mumbles. The father grows silent, utterly confused and surrenders, unable to argue with someone who refuses to make sense.

Later on, the coupe de grace of this hellish evening occurs as The Loudest Fire Alarm In the World goes off at 2:30, waking us from a sound sleep. The manager from the other hotel runs over and shuts it off, assuring everyone it was a false alarm and that we can go back to sleep. Which we do – at least for three more hours when it goes off AGAIN, and then, unbelievably for a THIRD TIME 20 minutes later.

Jonny hasn’t been able to sleep since the first alarm. When the second alarm sounded, he stuck his head out in the hall and yelled “SHUT THAT FUCKING THING OFF!!!” Now with the third alarm he’s given up on sleep.

He stomps out to the hall and suddenly the guard is upon him.

“Where are the other two?” Sgt. Spliff demands.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Jonny says.

“You had eight people for two rooms, not six people for two rooms, where are the other two?”

This is the last straw for Jonny. He marches out to the parking lot to pace around for hours and smoke cigarettes. Sometimes that’s all you can do.
 

About the Author

Phillip Price is the keyboard player for Wilkes-Barre-based band An Albatross.

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