UK Tour 2010 – February 2nd, Glasgow, Scotland
By: Matt Holland of Man Must Die
We drive up from Birmingham after a restful night. Traveling through England’s Lake District is a treat for all the Canadian and Polish guys who haven’t seen this landscape before. Everyone has bonded pretty well early on. Man Must Die know the Kataklysm guys very well from previous tours and from guitarist JF producing their first 2 albums. The Decapitated guys pretty much keep themselves as this is their first tour together, and they are really only just getting to know each other.
We arrive in a chilly Glasgow on-time, but the venue is closed so we take the Kataklysm guys to our local pub for a pint of guinness… Once the venue opens, load-in and soundcheck go smoothly. I’ve lent Kerim from Decapitated my spare snare, as he didn’t have any weight limit on his flight to bring his own. It’s a Pearl Maple shell free-floating piccolo, 14"x3.5". it has a nice dry crack and cuts through their sound well. I’ve been using my Pearl Masters Maple 14"x6.5. Lovely warm/woody tone and tuned just high enough to give out a good bite.
For Man Must Die this is our home town and most importantly our wives and girlfreinds are there, so we all get some quality time. The venue fills up nicely early on and there’s a good 250 people in when we start. Our set goes well and the crowd really get into it from the start. All the tricky playing parts are perfect tonight and the mid-section of "Kill It…" is probably the best I’ve played live.
The only technical problem we had was Alan’s guitar cable coming loose from the back of his cab during a song, which was due to the bass vibration from my trigger monitor. He fixed it without missing a beat and it didn’t cause too many problems. Super Pro!
I watched the beginning of the Kataklysm set and they were doing well. I then took my wife Agi for some dinner. It’s really hard to keep a nutritionally balanced diet on the road and I try my best to steer clear of junk food. I ate Miso soup and sushi and felt instantly energized. There’s a lot of beer to drink all the time… any rider gets brought onto the bus after the show so it’s floor to ceiling beer! Beer is good, but I always make sure and keep my fluid intake up and drink at least 2 litres of water a day to flush my system. Other than decent food I take multi-vitamins and Ginseng tablets daily. It’s really important not to get run down, as people pay to watch us and to play below par is to rip them off.
I get Back to the venue and see the last half of Decap’s set and they are on fire. The place is sold out which is a great result. We have sold more merch than any Glasgow gig we’ve played in the past and made a lot of new fans.
Load out is easy and most of the MMD guys spend the night in our own beds and meet the bus the next morning to set off for Manchester.
Cheers Everyone… Speak to you tomorrow,
Matt
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