CRUSHED BY THE WEIGHT OF THE TOUR - TOP 10 FAILS & FUCK-UPS ON TOUR WITH THE DEADNOTES
-> ORDER YOUR ZINE HERE!
UK, 2022
7 days before our first longer tour in the UK after two-and a half (!!!) years of not playing shows and being able to travel due to the pandemic. Euphoria peaks. / 4 days before the tour is supposed to start: Members of our crew test positive and we decide to cancel the first three shows. Frustration peaks. / Day 1: Out of quarantine and straight back into the tour. Euphoria peaks. / Day 2: We get a call from tonight‘s promoter. The show is cancelled since the support band dropped out at the very last minute (????). Frustration peaks. So what.... / Day 3: It surely can't get any worse than this so let‘s finally get this thing rollin‘. Euphoria spreads among the travel party. / Day 4 – The Morning: We leave the hotel to find our van with all the windows smashed in. Someone had nicked all (!!!) our gear, worth almost 25k, overnight. I‘m crying. / Day 4 – Noon: Without windows in the car we head off to London and play a killer show borrowing instruments, pedals and backline from the other bands on the bill. I start to feel hope and euphoria kicks back in again. / Day 4 – The Night: Straight overnight we drive from London to Paris but get stopped at the border for over five hours and get charged an additional 6000€ of punitive tariffs from the customs department since our gear (the gear that got stolen) is not leaving the country with us. It surely can't be any worse than this. Frustration peaks. / Day 5: After 15 hours and no sleep at all we arrive in Paris. We‘ve made it and euphoria begins to spread. / Day 5 – The Noon: Incoming call from tonight‘s promoter. The show is cancelled due to a water damage in the venue. Frustration peaks. / Day 5 – The Evening: We arrange a last minute acoustic show with the help of our friend Tom and I feel the pressure slowly lift off my shoulders...I could go on like this forever!
Ostend, Belgium, 2015
I speak from experience when I say that there are certain things you really shouldn't - no! - mustn't lose on a three week tour all over Europe. Among the most important are ID's and van keys. In the morning after the show the ID of our old drummer Yannic is nowhere to be found. No chance to travel on to England and carry on with the tour if we don't find the document or get a temporary replacement at least. After stops at various embassies and police stations without any progress and prospect of success we decide to play all upcoming UK shows as a two-piece and as improvised acoustic sets only. The only problem is that our guitarist and singer Darius only passed his driving test two days ago and now has to find his way as the only driver on the left side of the road without any experience or driving practice. It works out surprisingly well though except smaller issues such as a hill start on the insanely steep ferry ramp (the port pilot loses his mind and patience and takes over the steering wheel). After a terribly long day of ups and downs and 16 hours in the car we arrive in Derby (UK) where we find out that no one at the pub we are supposed to play knows about our show since the in-house promoter fell into a coma weeks ago after a tragic motorcycle accident.
Russia, 2015
It‘s 4 am on a country road somewhere between Volgograd and Voronesch, far away from any civilization and infrastructure. We're all dead tired, slowly and carefully driving through the heavy Russian rain when suddenly our satnav, for no obvious reason, leads us off the street onto a small dirt track opposite to the main road. Since we have no idea where we are we trust blindly. Only two minutes later the car is stuck in the mud parallel to the regular street where we were driving on before. We have gotten ourselves into a desperate situation once and for all. We can‘t believe it when we realize that there‘s a small and run down police station right around the corner. We‘re literally in the middle of nowhere, how is that even possible? We try to explain our situation to the two senior officers using a 'German-Russian / Russian-German' dictionary that we got as a present from a super drunk and annoying fan at the merch table the night before and in the end get towed-off with a tow rope in Russian national colors. The two officers leave the unusual scenario in their Lada Jeep quietly without saying a single word. Lady luck is smiling.
South Germany, 2014
I reckon that the first and last time this band had coverage from all big German radio stations all at once was when on the first day of our tour the roof box on our car opened up because of heavy winds, our whole luggage including laptops spread across the motorway and we caused several rear end collisions and a traffic jam 8 km long.
Various Locations, 2014-2019
Various ‚remarkable‘ accommodations, e.g. a high rise porn building in the Czech Republic (don‘t ask!) already and officially cleared for demolition, a kebab shop in France where we got kicked out early in the morning when the sullen owner wants to turn on the fryer. One time we simply crashed in the center of a football pitch after a festival in Bavaria and at 4 am the sprinkler system abruptly wakes Jakob and Darius from a deep sleep.
Istanbul, Turkey 2016
Show cancellation -> reason: a military coup
Vienna, AT 2017
Our drummer Felix is by far the sweetest and and most good-natured if not to say best-natured person you could ever imagine. He‘s always seeing the good in people sometimes to a certain level where he accidentally maneuvers himself into very uncomfortable or even dangerous situation. This one time on tour a very nice but fully unknown person wanted him to join in on smoking a joint and Felix followed them to an outlying urban park, then locked himself into a public restroom together with this person ("we have to do this, there are cops everywhere"). Not until the weird stranger started watching porn on his smartphone as if it was a nothing, Felix noticed that something is wrong here and ran away while everyone else in the travel party was extremely concerned and already looking for him for hours.
Bilbao, Spain 2015
Sentences you really don‘t wanna hear after an exhausting 7 hours in the car driving all through Spain: "You‘re a band? A concert? Tonight? At this place? Hahahaha! The promoter here is a real 'speedhead' and on drugs most of the time. He frequently keeps forgetting about shows he booked. I don‘t think that anyone is going to show up here tonight."
UK Tours 2017/2019
We‘re leaving for our UK Tour. The van we‘re traveling in is a rental from Europcar with roughly 400 km on the display. Technically a brand new car, fresh from the factory. After only half an hour it breaks down and turns out to be a total loss. One year later: In the meantime we bought our very first and very own van and can‘t wait to leave for the very first tour with it. On our way to the UK and after only 30 min the car breaks down and the motor turns out to be a total loss.
Kyiv, Ukraine 2016
After a 15 hours nightdrive and after ALL the bands got to play their sets the festivals is shut down by the Ukrainian police during our changeover. When at 4 am in the morning we carefully mention that we would like to drive to the accomodation to catch up on some sleep and to be prepared for the next 7 hours drive to be in time for get-in in Odessa the next day, we get insulted by the promoter who is far from sober at this point. "I have all the experience in the music business. If you‘re set time tomorrow is at 8 pm, a get-in at 7.50 pm is totally sufficient. We‘re not going home now!"
Well...I‘m pretty sure he knew what he was doing.
Photo by Paul Ambrusch


















