During September and October of 2007 The Sleepers toured Europe and beyond. The following is the complete tour diary, posted on the front page daily (well almost), as we travelled, playing from country to country.
12Sep07: Countdown to World Tour Ends
We're out the door and on the plane. As you're reading this we're somewhere over the ocean. Check in right here, whenever you can, for the tour diary and pics from the shows - and whatever else we can snap.
Sleepers out & OS.
13Sep07: Day One
Ok so here's how it goes. You've got eight hours til Koooahhllaaa Lumpor from Melb. So maybe just maybe you get more than jus a little on the funky side. And wasted. I'm trying to get a plane back to Sydney - in advertently and the rest of the girls are forge-ing on to Europe. 
Which is nice, cause that's where we're going.
Ok it needs to be said. Nomes and I had a food fight on the first leg. Hell of a mess it was. We were the last isle and she started it. If we were flying grumpy Qantas there's no way we would have got away with it. Lucky.
I felt guilty. Shit everywhere.
2nd leg: Maxie suggested we'd all be better doing airport stuff sober. So by the time we got to Amsterdam we were just a lil hungover. But lucid.
So now I'm sitting in the internet cafe re the hostel we're in. Taken heaps o pix but nuthin they'll lemme upload. No USB port. And we're actually all wasted.
This is the city o sin in the truest sense of the word. You can still smoke in pubs and you can smoke 
anything you like in said pub. And (fellas this one's for you) we're staying and gigging in brothel central. And these are not normal brothels (not like any of us know what a normal broth'd look like but...) women in window sills and a club where the guy at the front is yellin... "dope, weed, coke...etc".
So.
The girls are hookin for a walk round ol' Amsterdam. I'm out here with em. Hi Mum and Dad.
Bald Sleeper out...
P.S At this point i would just like to interject and say MARTY STARTED IT!!!
Honestly, would i do such a thing?
nomsey out...
14Sep07: Amsterdam Fiasco
Having trouble uploading the pix we're taken. Which is painful cause we really want to show you guys what this place looks like etc. We'll make it happen when we find someone with a computer who'll let us do it.
Today's the day. We're playing tonight - right next door to the hostel we're staying in. Which is in the centre of Amsterdam's red light district. It's actually pretty creepy. Ted, our doco film-maker joined us yesterday. There's too much of me drunk on film already. I'm hoping much of that hits the cutting room floor by the time he's filled 60 tapes worth of footage - and edits the film down.
Yesterday was a debacle (though you probably picked that up from the rubbish I put up here). Must say, I was a little under the weather. We'd calculated this morning that we'd been up for 2 days by the time we crashed last night.
I went down at about 7pm local time. The girls were in bed a couple of hours later. It's a mixed dorm with about 8 people in one room. Kinda works. You meet people like being on a scout camp... with alcohol. Anyway, I woke up round 10:30. Got up had a shave, realised everybody was in bed - and went back to bed again. Woke up at 2:30, went for a walk around the red light district. Hords of drunk, stoned people swaggering all over the place. Never good being in the middle of that when you're straight. I had that moment of "should I go in here (to the club we're playing in tonight) or should I go back to bed 
and make myself sleep somehow". And chose wisely for once.
So today, I can report that the band is now on Euro-body-clock-time. We all got up between 8 & 10. It's really strange having a camera film everything you do. Whatever you say, whenever you say it. You notice the wierdness especially when you're trying to eat breakfast (in front of the lens) and metres away a group of tourist guys are window shopping a long line of prostitutes behind said windows - at 10 in the morning.
And there are times you forget the camera's there which is even stranger.
Hey, we'll do our best to get the photos uploaded as soon as we can. Germany could be our soonest bet. Maxine reckons Sunday in Eindhoven. That's only a few days away. I'll let you know how the show goes tonight too.
Sleepers out.
16Sep07: Amsterdam Fiasco 2
Just got back to the hotel. We played a show in Tilburg and it was great. We had a ball. It was at a small suburban beer barn called Little Devil.
Really cool place (not unlike the Yak). So we felt a bit at home. The crowd really got into it - which is so cool, especially round the other side of the world. Last night we played Amsterdam. That was strange. I'm still getting my head around what happened there. I've gotta go back to Amsterdam to drop off the room keys - we forgot to check out. Dammit.
Was an OK show there but not too many people (we were first on).
Getting to Tilburg today was a commedy of errors and everybody was tired from kicking on the night before. We really needed to sleep but we didn't get much.
So right now everybody's in bed early (2am) for the midday check out. We're miles from the venue in a Formule 1 Hotel. The girls make jokes about it every now and then. It's like the McDonalds of cheap hotels. Pretty clean and good not to be sleeping in a hostel for a night - don't sort of worry as much about the gear being pinched because you can lock it in your own room.
There's a whole other story about how we got here. But the girls can tell you about that one.
Catchya in a day or so.
Sleeper out.
18Sep07:Berlin
The last show in Eindhoven, Netherlands was a small one. We went on last. Cool place - a venue set up for rock and metal. We haven't had a good sound on stage for any of our shows yet so we just forget about it and go for broke. Maxie was off the stage and in the audience. I was being wheeled around the room on a road case while doing the guitar bit at the end of Without (the epic one that speeds up into a frenzie at the end). Nomesy didn't stop bouncing from start to finish - and Llara's settling into going nuts nicely. All up, a pretty wild show.
Netherlands seems to be a country where smoking in pubs etc is full on. It'll be years before they stamp it out there. Some of the folks in the other bands are really suffering with the smoke in the venues - they don't do ventillation there either. I'm guessing we're a bit used to it from the Yak days so it's not hurting us too much just yet.
So yesterday at midday we hit the road for Berlin. Train ride actually. 7 hours. This is a big, big place. It feels like the city goes on forever. And we're in the middle of it. We landed in an apartment owned by Arthur, a Brazillian guy who loves having travellers come stay at his place on the 6th floor. There are maybe nine of us there. Arthur is a cool guy. Really geniune and generous. He took us down to an amazing place last night.
We trained further into the city. Then walked a bit til there was a break in the buildings. Our host then takes us through the rubble& sand etc and round the corner to this 'abandonded' building. Which is about 6 floors of artists partying and putting on exhibitions. Every piece of everything in the building is second hand or re-claimed from somewhere. Somehow they've got power in there so they run a few bars and clubs on the various floors. Crazy place. 
We still might get to play there before we leave this city. There's a whole band area set up. It'd be awesome - people everywhere - but might be tricky with the late notice. Nomes, Ted and Llara stayed back and partied til the wee hours. Max and I dodged that bullet and went early. Glad we did. Nomes is prolly still not outa bed yet. You can hear the head pounding from here.
Today, cause o' dodged bullet, Max and I have been walking around Berlin trying to get our heads around the place. We don't actually play til Friday - with the next coupla days filled with a huge industry 
conference where we'll be trying to make the right contacts with the European music industry (fun). So we're spending now trying to soak up one of the biggest cities in Europe before it's business as usual.
It's an eerie place in many ways. Not so long ago Hitler and his armies marched down the street, past the window i'm typing this at, and on through the Brandenburg Gate. Really scary shit it must have been for millions of people in this place. Now you walk around it and take photos. But for mine, the hairs were standing up on the back of my neck this morning.
Sleepers out.
(right - Berlin out the apartment window)
22Sep07:Prague
Hey there everybody. Sorry about the wierdness going on with the front page over the past few days. Getting to a computer over here isn't easy - and getting harder as we move further into eastern Europe.
I've just about given up trying to upload photos. Might have to wait til we get back and I'll put em up then.
There is so much to report back about the past 4 days.
I'm sitting in an internet cafe in Prague. We got in a few hours ago and everybody is really tired. We've got a show tonight and we need to leave for the venue in about an hour or so. This is a beautiful old place. It seems really really cheap to buy food or whatever, so far, and there are pubs and bars everywhere. We're staying in a hostel and we've got our own room just for the band. I'll let you know how the show goes tonight. We leave for Krakow in the morning and Kiev the following day. Pretty full on.
We caught the train through eastern Germany this morning to get here. Last night we had an amazing show in Berlin. Fantastic. Plenty of people to see us. We're getting some serious interest here. There are people talking to us about all kinds of deals. It's not easy to keep calm about it and you never know how things will pan out. At the show last night we had a couple of really important industry guys come to see the show. They're talking some really big stuff (Cool guys
to hang out with) We ended up drinking and talking with them til the early hours.
We're on high rotation on a commercial rock radio station here in Prague with 'Skeleton'. They're also playing another song from the EP (but we don't know which one yet). We're also on rotation on the rock radio station in Istanbul. The guy responsible (really nice fella) came to the show last night in Berlin to see us - and he reckons he's heading back to Istanbul now to hype up our shows there. There's a really good vibe happening.
Anyway, back to Berlin: we spent three days at the Popkomm Festival -which is the biggest music industry bash in Europe. The deal is you go to seminars, walk around and meet people at trade stalls and, I must say, get very drunk on the way. Everybody's on it. Then you end up out at night with the people you met during the day partying til the wee hours. And the next day it starts all over again. We've been getting about 4 hours sleep a night - which will need some adjustment really soon me thinks. Suffice to say, we made some great contacts at Popkomm - including some who came down to see us at the Berlin show - who want us to sign deals and or work with them.
On a lighter note the documentary film maker who's been following us around on the tour is probably the funniest bloke I've ever met. He cracks us up all day long. The more tired we get - the funnier he gets. And he's got one of those great English accents with very dry humour.
OK so that's about it for now. Time to go to sound check. Functioning on adrenaline.
Sleeper out.
23Sep07:Prague early morn
The show was great tonight. Best we've played so far. Me thinks we're so tired we relax and let it happen. Still the crazy shit with the leaping about and Nomes busted her guitar tonight - it's OK & nothing gaffa tape won't fix... we're talking a lotta gaff though. She jumped too had and snapped a strap screw in half when her feet hit the ground. Which means the strap busts off and bass guitar flies across the stage and smashes into the foldback wedges. Nomes' stage antics are getting wilder every show.
In case he reads this, I wanna thank Lorenzo. We slept on his floor in Eindhoven (Netherlands) and I haven't thanked him yet. Lovely guy - he even cooked for us - and we're talking great food. We were only at his place one a night & would have loved to have spent more time with him.
Krakow later today. 1:30am now - I'm calling it a night. Nomes & Llara are upstairs in the room and Maxie is sitting next to me on the other puter.
Take care & Sleepers out.
26Sep07:Krakow, Poland - Kiev, Ukraine
The trip from Prague to Krakow, Poland was a long train ride where we sort of slept but mostly didn't. It's a great way to see the countryside without worrying about reading road signs to get where you need to go. You can see the landscape changing from one culture to the next. This trip was the first time all the bands had travelled together - which was really cool. (right - view from Sashia's appartment in Kiev).
We arrived in Krakow at about 6pm & went our seperate ways to accommodation. The hostel our band stayed at (called Ted and Andy's - or something like that) was awesome. They cooked for us, booked a free ride in a mini bus to the show and helped us get out of there without a hitch in the morning.
The show was fantastic at the club (Alchemia). We'd met some people on the train and they came down to check us out. First time we've had a flurry of signing autographs and that kinda thing. The people there were really friendly and generous. I've found the more tired I get on this tour, the more I sweat - which is getting rediculous. The girls are getting showered on stage, which I'm sure they appreciate.
Naomi's bass is holding up well after she sent it flying across the stage in Prague and subsequently had to repair it with a mountain of gaffa tape. Tired or not we're putting on really energetic shows that seem to be getting better and better. At one point during the show in Krakow the crowd were chanting, getting louder and louder. Maxie had climbed a speaker stack during 'Hotel Room' much to said crowd's excitement.
The flight out of Poland was hard going. We got back to the hostel from the gig at 2am and were up and out the door at 4:30am. Our flight left at 6am and I still can't remember much about it.
We arrived in Kiev on Monday arvo. We've been treated like royalty ever since we got here. Our hosts (Borshch and crew) picked us up from the airport with all our luggage. They've taken us out, showed us the city & bought us dinner. We did a live radio show on the first night (they got a couple of us fairly pissed in the studio). They won't let us pay for anything. Yesterday we went down to a studio and rehearsed an AC DC song with Borshch (who will headline tomorrow night's show) because they want us up on stage to play it with them. How cool is that!
Today we're going into a recording studio to lay down our tracks for said AC DC song - and Borshch will finish recording their parts after we leave. The want the song properly recorded so they can make a film clip (using footage they'll shoot at the show tomorrow). It's just nuts. These are the most generous, excited people we've met on the tour so far. They've also put us up in our own appartment for our entire stay here.
(right - Sashia and Gene from Borshch)
I think they like us.
If you can, check out Borshch on MySpace. Pretty full on crazy stuff.
Just quickly about Kiev. All of my expectations were way off the mark. It's a place of immense wealth and, I guess like anywhere in the world, hardship and some visible poverty. The economy is exploding. Buildings are going up everywhere and, even if they can't quite finish them, they move onto the next one. 46 million people with 48 million mobile phones. A cross between ancient eastern european architecture and modern 'Gold Coast' style appartment buildings. And the food here is amazingly good. Cigarettes are 90 cents a pack and half a litre of beer will set you back about 5 cents more (and those are bar prices).
Anyway, I've gotta go. We're being picked up in 20 minutes back at the appartment for the studio session I mentioned earlier. I'm stoked we made the effort to get ourselves to here. You just get the feeling Ukraine's music scene will explode in the near future.
Sleepers out.
PS. AC DC song is 'A Touch Too Much'.
(right - Tea time in Kiev. Ted on the right)
27Sep07:Kiev Blitz
So we arrive in Kiev. Its painful to get into the country. There are visa checkpoints which are more arduous than usual. Customs here there and everywhere. Then finally we're outside the restricted zone at Borispol airport. Taxi guys are trying to get us to come with them - right in your face the whole time.
Our hosts (the mighty Borshch crew) find us and we all meet and exchange pleasantries. They have two cars waiting and we're driven through the city centre to our apartment. Big old spectacular ex-soviet monster of a place. Masses of people teaming the streets. Beautiful architecture. The Russians, according to our guests, bombed a lot of 
it to the ground in the second world war to leave no infrastructure for the advancing Nazi armies. But much of it has either been rebuilt or built anew.
Now, I know I'm going backwards here describing Keiv - cause I'd already done that in the 26th Sep entry... but bare with me...
All week we've not known what to expect of the show on Friday night. The people here have been generous beyond our dreams. The city is wild and spectacular. Then it's show time.
How do I put this into words... The best gig I've played in my life might come close. The place was packed. Borshch are way bigger than we ever understood. Poeple are packed into the staircase down the stairs into the venue - just to get a glimpse. You can't move on the floor of the venue without pushing your way through a 'Big Day Out' style mosh pit.
We go absolutely nuts. Out show passes in the blink of an eye from my point of view. 45 mins of going full tilt to a mosh pit that never stops. People are heaving like a boiling human soup.
Then Borshch hit the stage and deliver a killer set. They are fantastic. People are crowd surfing. I'm standing next to Naomi backstage and she says 'Here, hold these'. She hands me her beer and stuff and runs onto the stage, pumps her fists in the air and dives into the audience. The roar nearly lifts the roof off the place. She's crowd surfin for about a two minutes before they deliver her back to the stage. Fucking insane!!!!
The last song comes around. ACDC's Touch Too Much. Maxine takes the Mic. We're all up on stage w
ith Borsch in front of this insane crowd. Everywhere Max runs to on the stage, a sea of hands go up to grab her.
She runs her free hand across the fingertips outstretched to grab her.
I get the big lead break (which you all know I hate to do).
Then the show's over. Ukraine MTV are there to interview us. We're into the celebratory beers at this point so not making a lot of sense. The whole night is caught on film, not just by Ted (our guy) but by a s
wathe of cameras around the room.
Next thing we know, our amazingly wonderful and generous hosts have delivered us to the airport and waved us goodbye. Max and Nomes shed a tear or two. There's a lump in my throat. We're on a plane with 3 hours sleep and out of Ukraine on our way to Romania.
Sleepers out.
PS. please excuse weird spelling and stuff - the Turkish keyboard is not easy.
28Sep07: Bucharest, Romania
The show is great here. It's a poor country in many ways. It looks rough and tough and really big. There is a big gypsy presence. We're tired from the night before in Kiev but it don't matter after that experience. I think we're all on a massive high. It's a show where we go more crazy than we've gone anywhere so far.
The stage crew are running all over the place trying to stand equipment back up that we keep knocking over. At one stage one of them helped me up of the floor. I think he mighta thought I was unconscious or something.
The crowd love it. They love their rock here. And the room is pretty full which is awesome.
Gotta go to soundcheck now. We're finally in Turkey now for our last 2 dates of the tour. Need a rest and there's one coming starting Monday.
Sleepers out.
PS. Once again please excuse weird spelling and stuff - the Turkish keyboard.
29Sep07: Istanbul, Turkey.
I've been told a few times that i'll love Turkey... well more than a few times. I'm having a little trouble settling into it. It's a wild, industrious place which is sometimes overwhelming. In other words, I'm having difficulty adjusting to the pace Istanbul moves at. The city is an intoxicating mix of developed and developing worlds. Squillion dollar yachts float out on the bay while the hords back on shore approach, one by one, to sell you a watch or a belt. People pulling carts transporting goods, crowded streets, car horns going off all the time and taxis racing everywhere up and down narrow alleys.
The show last night was wierd. We've been booked into a beautiful venue with cathederal ceilings adorned by ancient artwork and sculpture. But we think it might be a 'jazz/world music' venue suited to Istanbul's upper class patron. Ten bucks per glass of beer and ten bucks to get in; more than the average Turk would make in a week - spent on the entry fee and a few brews, me thinks.
We played probably the best show we've played on the tour so far. The room was about half full. People standing around tables sipping drinks mostly. You get the picture. A couple of folk got up to move occasionally. Heads nodding. Good applause... a world away from The Yak Bar... or Kiev.
The problem with keeping the 'riff raff' out of a venue is that you wipe out 90 percent of our audience. Who cares about the top 5 percent in any society. Let em quaff their chardy and talk about the butler. Who gives a shit. The best culture always comes from the bottom up... and we know it and see it time and time again.
We probably won't get to play for Istanbul's poor or jobless (the 
folk we'd like to play to most) and maybe that's what's making settling into this place difficult for me. At least right now.
Anyhow, we had a pretty good time at the show. We're getting closer and closer to the guys in the other bands. We support each other when we can. There's a great feeling of cameraderie (spelling sorry). Met an Australian guy - which is pretty rare here. Nice bloke. He saw the poster for the gig during the week and couldn't wait to come down and hear a band from his home town. Ended up drinking with him for most of the night.
Today we were treated to a chartered boat ride out on the bay of Istanbul. One shore is Asia to the right, the other Europe to the left. All the bands were there. Really spectacular scenery. Dancing, drinking, smoking... I'm sobering up now for tonight's show.
I think I could get used to this place eventually... but what I'd like right now is to be sinking one or two with 
you guys at a pub in Abbotsford.
Last show of the tour tonight. We're headlining. And they're not necessarily into their rock at this place. But they'll get the best we've got either way.
I'll miss Ted the film maker. We're pretty close now - like we've been mates for years. In fact he's loved by all the band. Great guy.
Cheers my fellow 
Aussie's. I'll tell ya how tonight goes tomorra.
Sleeper out.
30Sep07: Istanbul - The Final Tour Show.
Starting to settle into Istanbul a little more today. It's taking some getting used to. It's a complex place in many ways. Fast paced; hundreds of little bars and shops down hundreds of narrow alley-ways open all night for food, alcohol and so on. It's noisy like New York - maybe more so.
The people here work hard. They're at it all day and night. There's also a huge street culture where thousands of people sit around at little tables, out on the street in front of cafes etc, to relax and drink coffee. 
Beautiful old architecture, modern buildings, castles from a thousand years ago and run-down apartment buildings - all mixed in together.
Can't put my finger on whether it's a city that is either rich or poor. It looks like both - and certainly spectacular.
So last night was the final show of the tour. We played at Ghetto again. We were told today that it's one of the most expensive, exclusive clubs in Europe. I know I've written about the drink prices at this place already but 20 bucks for a gin and tonic...
Anyway, these last two dates at Ghetto have tought us a little more about ourselves. Technically, they've been the best shows - meaning we've played really tight gigs. But I think the energy in the room wasn't right for us. The crowds were attentive, though they were probably expecting to hear world music or jazz in that particular venue. And jazz we are not. That said, we had an OK response all the same. My long winded point here is that we play technically well when the crowd energy is down - and not so well when the crowd energy is driving us over the top. But when the crowd's going off we don't care about bad notes or falling over on the stage in a crash of equipment. The energy is what we're about.
The girls have bruises too. I've got a couple of bumps but they've managed to pick up plenty of scratches and knocks along the way. We've been experimenting with our own style of on-stage acrobatics - which ain't all that condusive to OH&S.
We (all the bands and crew) went out for celebratory drinks after the show. Everybody was pretty tired so nothing got too outa hand. And sleeping in this morning was mandatory.
Things are a little melancholy right now. We've been saying goodbye all day as the bands and crew leave for home, one by one. We've all been staying in our own big room at a hostel here. On the up-side, we've got a radio interview and live perfomance on K Rock this evening. And television tomorrow.
One of the fellas in one of the other bands won't be going home too soon, however. Poor guy has lost his passport which means he ain't going anywhere outside Turkey til he sorts out a new one. And the Aussie consulate here is closed today with his flight to Melbourne leaving this arvo. It's a good thing some of us are staying on. He's gonna need some moral support and a few bucks. It must be really fucking stressful.
There are sooooo many people to thank for their generosity on this tour. The organisers, friends we've met and made along the way, people like Arthur and Lorenzo who put us up and cooked for us, people who believe in us from media in different countries like Timur at K Rock here in Turkey. 
Ted - our documentary camera man (who we forgot to thank on stage) who worked his arse off filming us all tour - and left for home this morning. Borshch (read the Kiev experience below - 26th & 27th Sep). I don't want to leave anybody out so I'm gonna go make a list and do it properly over the next few days.
I'll let ya know how the radio goes tomorra.
Check ya then.
Sleeper out.
PS. Hi Mum. Hi Dad. Hi Ronda and Hi Clive!
PSS. Everybody smokes indoors here... EVERYWHERE. In the Taxis, in the pubs & bars, in the restaurants, in the internet cafes, in the hostel... I'm gonna have serious withdrawal problems when I get back home. Might be time to give up???
2Oct07: Istanbul - The Day After.
Firstly, check out the shots of Nomes crowd surfing - and other stuff from our show in Kiev, Ukraine - on our MySpace site. Scroll down to the message section (Borshch put them up for us). www.myspace.com/asleepinthepark
Back to Istanbul...
We slept in this morning. Last night we met up with Timur from K Rock. He took us down to the station to do a 'live to air' performance and an hour long interview. K Rock is Istanbul's only commercial rock radio station.
Seriously professional and seriously big. We had no idea. We thought it might have been a community station.
They've been playing Orbital Pull on rotation for the past month. Naomi is a gem - she made contact with Timur (one of the program directors there) a couple of months ago - and he loves the EP. He's been down to see our shows both here and in Berlin. The sorta guy you look forward to seeing and having a beer with. Speaking of which, we're going down to see a band, that he manages, launch their album tonight.
So we played through a few tunes for the guys at K Rock. They've recorded the whole thing for an hour-long Asleep In The Park special to run on K Rock twice this weekend. Then there was the interview...
I am an idiot. After weeks of hard touring and no sleep I managed to dig myself a big hole... twice. Then trail off into some rediculous irrelevant monologue about the Melbourne music scene. Luckily the girls saved the day by verbally injecting some homour into the situation (otherwise it would have been a complete debarcle). I had no idea what I was talking about - and still don't. Because it's been recorded, you'll get to hear it when we get back and upload the whole thing onto this site.
I didn't feel so great at the end of it all but apparently it was really funny (or so i'm told). Sense of humour must be fading through lack of sleep. I hate it when you srew up and a bazillion people are listening.
We were at the station for nearly 4 hours. The guys drove us back to the hostel - the driver (rock guru at the station) informing us that he actually drove Eddie Vedder around Istanbul when Pearl Jam were in town. We got something to eat. The girls went to bed and I went out for a drink and called Mum. No matter what mess I make of anything in life, I always feel better after talking to her about it... At the end of the call I could see the funny side of the whole thing. Not so bad after all.
In the midst of an overseas tour, you do feel a bit lost at times. There's so much going on relentlessly. Moving quickly from place to place, Lugging your gear around - guitar pulling your arms out of their sockets, doing the shows and working with the media. All the cities we've been to have been really big and fast and we don't ever seem to really relax. It doesn't matter so much when you're on a high. It's just that bit more painful when things don't go quite to plan...
That said, this tour could not have gone better for us. Nobody knew us before we started and we've made a big splash in a very short space of time. And they want us back here as quickly as possible. Which we're very much looking forward to. We feel it'll be even bigger next time.
To Betty and Dennis - Naomi's bass is fine. The gaff is holding up well. Is there anything that stuff won't fix?
And about the guy who lost his passport (from one of the other bands). He's holding up OK. The girls are at the Aussie consulate at the moment helping him out. Looks as though he's getting things sorted. Pretty depressed there for a bit which I can fully understand. There's no leaving here unless you have that magical little booklet . And at the end of a tour, the money starts getting thin on the ground.
We've still go a couple of business meetings to go this week. But the hard part is mostly behind us now.
Starting to wind down.
Chat tomorra.
Sleeper out.
PS. Over Two Thousand hits on our website during the tour. Half of which have been from Australia (we think it's you guys following these updates). Amazing & many thanks!
PSS. The girls now take finger puppets (bought in Amsterdam) into all media interviews - which makes concentrating on the question almost impossible.
3Oct07: Istanbul Civilians.
Hi everybody. Not a lot to report about today. Trying to master the art of dawdling. And it's working. Starting to get sanity back.
Nomes went back to the consulate for a less stressful day of helping our mate from the other band get his passport re-issued. So he's all good now and able to leave Turkey and come home. Max and Nomes have been assisting and giving moral support... and Nome's folks back in Melbourne have been working on it too. So he flies home this week. A lotta relief going round at the moment. We'd have hated the thought of waving him good-bye knowing he'd be stuck here indefinitely with money running out.
Other than that we've been wandering around Istanbul doing tourist stuff. Which is OK. Not really my thing at the moment. I think I need a few more days to chill out. Shop owners vigorously hassle you to buy stuff when your walking through the city. Makes you edgy after a while.
Max and Llara bought some clothes and other things. I kinda enjoyed sitting down with a smoke while they went into different places looking for exotic things to buy.
Went into the Aya Sophia (now a giant museum. Was a mosque - and a Christian church before that) and the Blue Mosque. Both are huge, ornate & intricately detailed arch and domed constructions. At sunset, the sky-line of this city looks like something from a Star Wars set. Ancient spires rise above modern buildings to pierce the sky (poetic eh?).
The band we saw last night were great. 7 piece act playing a mix of traditional and western music. Sounded like Moloko crossed with Baba Mal. Timur from K Rock was there (read 02Oct07) working the room as the band launched their latest album to an almost packed house. 9 bucks a beer and 6 big ones for a coke. Maybe that's just how it is here in the clubs. Certainly curbs your urge to get hammered I can tell ya.
Got another one of Timur's shows to see tomorra.
Chat then.
Sleepers out.
4Oct07: Istanbul Thursday
Tourists again today. We took a ferry out to one of the Islands off the coast. It's really spectacular and beautiful when you're out on the water looking back at the shore-line. Istanbul is enourmous when you see it from the water. It spreads and spreads along the coastline. Nearly 12 million people live in the Istanbul province.
We had some respite from the city on the Island. We all took a walk right around it (a few hours). Away from the reasonably busy dock area, the landscape feels a bit like being out the back of Sorrento. And was very quiet - which was what we all needed I think. Weather was OK. A bit overcast, humid and maybe 20 degrees.
We're back near the hostel now. Horns going off all the time. People teaming up and down the street. Cars and motorcylces tearing past. This area we're staying in is like Istanbul's 'Kings Cross'. Never a dull moment.
There's a main street, 2 minutes walk from the Hostel, where 2 million people walk by everyday. It's like a giant people soup. I've gotta get a photo of it tomorrow (our last full day here).
(left - 2 million people street)
Had a great chat with Brian on the phone today. He's one of the guys we met in Berlin and seems keen to talk with us about our next move on the world stage. And our next album and world tour. Based in Denmark, he flies all over the world doing business in the music industry. He was very impressed with the band when he saw us in Germany. I think he'd like to be part of making some big things happening for us around the world in the next 12 months.
We're on the home straight now. I'm personally looking forward to coming home. Sorta had enough of it now. There's not much more we can do here and I'm not much of a tourist. I think the girls might be enjoying this last bit more than I am.
Going out tonight to see another of Timur's bands. The show starts around midnight. Bed would be good... but gotta be there. There's talk of us doing some stuff on one of Istanbul's television shows tomorrow.
Chat with ya then.
Sleepers out.
5Oct07: Istanbul Final Day
Got up a little worse for wear this morning. Drink prices in the club were so high last night that we kept ducking out to grab dirt cheap take-aways from a few shops down. Problem was we drank too much too quickly. Saw Timur's band play. Pretty cool act. They pushed the start time back really late because the soccor was on TV - and not many had turned up at the beginning. They love their soccor here. Like us, they go crazy for football.
Anyway, walked around Istanbul again today. My legs are about to fall off. We're going to a party, then to a club to see another one of Timur's bands 
tonight. And there'll be more walking to make all that happen, dammit. I could use a beer right now.
We visited a huge palace today, built somewhere between the third and fifth centuries. Pretty amazing, sprawling design. Millions of mosaic tiles and ornate decorations internally. The rulers of the day in Istanbul did all their business there. Including murdering each other to get the throne.
Not far from the palace, there's a vast underground water storage area. Huge pillars hold up the earth above and you can walk around inside it on platforms, recently built, just above the water level. The whole structure is about 1500 years old. You wonder how they did it and how many died doing it.
Getting used to ignoring the hords of touters trying to sell me stuff, watches, clothes, food, anything. Sounds harsh, but as soon as you acknowledge them with a polite 'no thanks' it's on for young and old and they won't leave you alone.
Tomorrow we're on the plane and on our way home. Not looking forward to the lugging of gear to the airport. Looking well forward to getting back to Melbourne.
Sleepers out.
8Oct07: First Day Back Home
Well... that was the tour that was.
We caught a flight out of Istanbul on Saturday afternoon 6th Oct. We got to the airport hours before and yet, somehow, still managed to end up running for the flight and only making it by about 5 minutes. How does that happen?
(left - Ataturk Airport, Turkey)
The guy who lost his passport, with another one now re-issued, was there to wave us off, his flight leaving for Australia an hour after ours. Relief all round, me thinks. We were the last of the tour bands to leave the country and head for home.
The flight was a long one, as you'd expect. 11 hours to Kuala Lumpur, a 3 hour stop over and another 9 hours to Melbourne. Nomes and I hit the air-port bar at the stop over, gearing ourselves up for the last leg - and back to 'normal' life after that.
The combination of no sleep and Scotch not helping the 'stroll' back to the boarding terminal. Suffice to say, we had the swaggers but got on the plane almost without incident... One of the security guys stopped me and asked what I'd been up to in Turkey. When I told him we'd just finished a world tour, he didn't believe me. Luckily there was an Australian guard there, who weighed in, and started asking what bands we sounded like. Whatever answers I gave him were good enough to get us through and on the plane. My passport photo is a shocker too - and it's nearly 10 years old so looks nothing like me now. Gotta get 
another passport before we leave the country again. That was a pain in the arse and made it tricky getting into a few countries on the tour.
Security was pretty tight at most of the airports (a lot tighter than when travelling before Sept. 11, 2001).
Touched down at Tullamarine and now the Sleepers, back in their home town, are adjusting to life straight after a tour- which feels really wierd already.
When we said goodbye to each other at the airport, there were tears. It was like the 'breaking-up' of a close family who'd seen the world together, living out of each other's suit cases, and who had achieved more than they'd expected. Not wanting to let each other go...
This morning we're already talking about the next bunch of shows in Melbourne and so on. There's a lot to look forward to. And we can't wait to get out there and play for you - our fantastic crew who supported us before and during the tour.
We'll have some shows really soon and we'll let you know when and where they are.
Chat tomorra.
Sleepers out.