06.10.2004
Follow-up to the missed show (Download/ Donington Festival) and the bus troubles.

The fun didn't end with our broken down bus, 12 hour pit stop on the side of a highway (luckily for us the bus crapped out just a few hundred yards from a rest area/ store with restrooms!). The next day we played Rock Im Ring and that was incredible (met Avril Lavigne, hung out with Linkin Park and got to see them and Die Toten Hosen). The crowds in Germany are incredible! We waited for our replacement bus to arrive around 9:30pm to no avail. Waiting and waiting, watching the other band, got to see the German phenomenon Die Toten Hosen, the show ended 1am, still no replacement bus. The dressing room getting torn down, as we took turns napping on the floor, waiting, all other bands had left, it got colder, trying to nap, and finally the bus arrives around 5am. The crew loads the trailer as we crawl into the bunks and get to sleep. Waking up the next morning around 10am and find out that we only travelled about 1 mile, noticing Rock Im Ring in the distance we were at a hotel/ restaurant plaza that bordered the complex. Our trailer had it's brakes frozen and we could not move. Waiting for a replacement trailer and a 28 hour drive to Portugal! A few hours later a rickety old cloth-covered trailer shows up, we load alot of the gear into the replacement (very old) bus and we head on out (with 2 drivers, so we can make the marathon 28 hour supposed non-stop drive to Lisbon, Portugal!). I was talking to Wayne and we shared the feeling "Don't get on that bus, we're not going to make it".
(Two inside notes: 1. The bus situation in Europe is this: there are so many tours going on that there is a bus shortage! There are no more buses to be had, this replacement bus was probably drug down off a scrap heap. 2. We missed out on playing Portugal on the Machine tour due to scheduling problems on the Slipknot tour, so we had to play the UK instead of Portugal at that time. This made our current Portugal stop on this tour all the more important.)
On through France, and a few hours into Spain the bus coasted to a halt, luckily we were going downhill and somehow the bus driver managed to veer into a rest area with a store, once again. This was really lucky because it was hot and we were in the middle of nowhere (about 2 hours south of Barcelona). This was at 12:00 noon. Many phone calls were made, and just when it looked rather bleak, a call came through (thanks to our promotor from Spain) from a charter bus company, 2 hours away. They showed up about 3 1/2 hours later, by nightfall. The crew loaded all our gear into the bays of this charter bus (all seats) and the rest up in the seating sections and we slept in very uncomfortable chairs and floors as the bus cruised through the night making the 12 hour drive to Portugal. A very hot day in Lisbon we pulled into the venue overlooking the bay on the east side of Lisbon. We got a complimentary hotel stay that night, so we headed back to a hotel for an hour and a half to freshen up, then back to the venue for press interviews and a meet & greet. Then 45 min. to get ready and hit the stage. Playing at 7pm the crowd was about half capacity of the 40,000. We watched side stage as Linkin Park hit the stage and after that, an incredibly late-starting set for Korn at 12:00 midnight. Tour manager Dink and I walked through the crowd meeting the Portugese fans and taking in the festival, half-way through Korn's set we grabbed a shuttle back to the hotel. I said a quick goodbye to Chester (LP) and wished him luck as they leave for Indonesia and a Southeast Asia tour tomorrow. I hail out to Linkin Park, they may not be exactly my type of music, but they are stand-up down-to-earth guys. Arriving back at the hotel, grabbing 2 hours of sleep after checking in online, then the 5:30am lobby call and to the airport and off to Austria via Belgium. A tour highlight tomorrow as we share the stage with Motorhead, Slipknot, Korn and Metallica in Vienna, Austria.

Hail, Tripp

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make sure the check out the tour dairy section on the site.. its now active

This message has been edited. Last edited by: *morgan*,

Poor guys what a crappy bus situation. But at least they didn't have to shit in a bag I hope they're more comfortable now.

Static-X withMotorhead, Slipknot, Korn and Metallica???

Shit. Those lucky asses

Awww. Well, at least everything is ok now. =D

a bus shortage?!awww...
i hope everything will go well

i want to go to vienna

Better Luck to Them.

"you look like an insufferable egotist."

I'd love to see Metallica and Motorhead play on the same night. That'd be the best concert I could go to these days, except for QOTSA.

..wow, what a horrible bad luck streak

it's kind of funny.. but at the same time very sad and unfortunate

Oh yeah, I saw the Hosen concert on TV and it was kinda funny.
And this bus thing sux. Especially for those in England who couldn't see them. And for the band. Getting no sleep is not good.
I will see them together with Korn on June 22nd; I hope I can take a lot of pics!!

oh jeez!

i would've been crying by the time the stuff in like the second sentence happened. meeting avril lavigne sounds like the most god awful torture. poor guys.

The concert in Portugal was great. I Hope see you back here soon.

[][][][]
Malloy

That doesn't sound fun

Hi guys!

I live in Austria and I have been to the aerodrome festival at June 11th. I know it's a bit late to give a little review but anyway...
It was really awesome. I’ve had tickets for both days. But the second day (mostly metal bands) was much better then the other one. Static-X were supposed to play after Lostprophets but there was a change in the line up and they changed slots. Thank god I didn’t miss them, because I knew nothing of the changes. Therefore I was really surprised when they came up on the stage. It’s more than one month ago but awww… this memories… it was amazing. I hadn’t heard anything but cold before this festival and I was overwhelmed by their performance. They’ve done a fu**ing rockin’ show. Tripp was standing right in front of me nearly the whole time and did the guitar spinning thing a view times. When I saw him the first time I just thought “what is this?” but I changed my opinion to “he is a really good musician (and kind of hot in a weird way)”. They said it was the first time they played in Austria. Tripp threw a lot of his guitar plectrums into the audience. One hit my leg but bounced off before I could grab it and the guy next to me picked it up…Now I’m totally into Static-X music. They just blew me (and my sister) away…. Wow! The other band were good as well (Korn, Metallica and Motörhead). I liked Slipknot a lot. Corey is very nice and talked to the audience a lot (about 60.000 people where there – one of the biggest festival in Europe). Many bands don’t do that because of the language barrier. I couldn’t find any pics of the show, sorry! Otherwise I would post some. I hope they come here again soon and they enjoyed it as much as I did. I would love to see them again!

And: please excuse my English. I hope I didn’t make too many mistakes. Bye!

Nice bit of Journal there.. Although it was frustrating at the time, i'm sure it can be smiled about now.

Stupid thing was, there was no announcement made at Download, on the Game On stage about the bus troubles, etc. They just let everyone run rumours around the crowd, though being at the front with the security helped..

Thinking about it though, would anyone wanna stand in front of a tent bursting with fans, and tell them Static-X won't be appearing after all and explaining why!??!? ...Alot would of been yelled and thrown i think. Which does kinda suck.

EmptyShadow,so what happened with the crowd?

did the other bands play or did they all go home and get thier refunds?