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Mornings aren’t exactly fun, but when it means getting out of a nightmarish dump you don’t want to be in, they can be glorious.

Our security guard friend has left for the day or perhaps has been arrested, so we don’t have the pleasure of seeing him again. We do, however, get the pleasure of sharing one towel between three people.

I walk over to the Etap hotel to air my laundry list of complaints and to retrieve our deposit. At the end of my diatribe, I am issued a polite apology and an e-mail address to write in to register my complaint. In other words, I am given the brush-off. At least they give me some hot water for my coffee.

We head south to Brighton and pull into the beach town a few hours later. The Freebutt has an upstairs bar and a downstairs club. It has also just been painted, so the air is thick with latex gloss interior.

The stage is big and the room sounds great, even with a dB meter thanks to our highly skilled and attractive sound engineer who displays a great deal of patience while the band figures out some stage power issues.

After soundchecking and enjoying some beers, we all walk down to the sea, past the Taj Mahal-esque Royal Pavilion, to Brighton’s pebble beach. We take some pictures and then head out on Brighton Pier, which to be honest, is a lot like Atlantic City’s steel pier, full of rides, concessions and various ways for one and one’s money to be soon parted. It’s a beautiful sunny day, and we take our time getting back to the club for dinner. Jay and Jonny go off on their own to buy fish and chips at a local restaurant.

Dinner at the club is pasta, tomato sauce and bread, and we make it disappear in a hurry. Suphian, a photographer friend from Paris, is visiting with his friend and shows up early to hang out and shoot. He’s planning to shoot us again in London and then travel with us to the Dour Festival in Belgium. Our English promoter friend Daisy Von Howl arrives as well, ready to travel the rest of the week with us. We spend our idle time hanging out with the staff and getting in a few minutes of Internet time before Rogier splits to visit some local friends and the opening band begins.

Our set goes off well, although the room is not completely packed. The sound is great, and we take liberties with the set, expanding some sections, truncating others.

We pack up and spend some more time at the bar with the staff, but they’ve got a bar to close so the extended group heads out for a night on the town. First we hit a slightly Gothy bar a few blocks away with a giant sculpture of Cerebus hanging over the bar, dreadlocked barmaids and nude photos on the wall. We sit out back in a dimly lit garden and have a few before they close, and we are exiled to the front sidewalk. We walk down London Road to a 24-hour off license for snacks and a particularly vile bottle of cheap vodka. Leaving there, we walk into the gardens surrounding the Royal Pavilion and go on an impromptu tour of locations seen in The Who’s "Quadrophenia," including a strip of shops where the Mods riot, and an infamous alley. Going further, we sit for a while on the beach next to a pier featuring a sculpture that looks somewhat like a giant doughnut. From there we make our way back to the venue.

Some of the staff lives in the building, and they let us set up camp in the upstairs bar for the night. Eddie and I stake out couches to sleep on while everyone else stays up to listen to music and party. I’m somewhat resentful at having to sleep in the midst of all of these festivities – but then again I’m not really a whole lot of fun. I put in some earplugs, and I’m sawing wood in no time.
 

About the Author

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

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