Tim’s Mexican Tour Diary (Patreon)

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2018Hello Ne Obluminati,I write to you today on the road from Xalapa to Mexico City here on the final (extra) day of our first ever Mexican tour. The experience has been a pretty amazing one for us as a band overall and so I thought I would write a bit to let you know how it’s all going!Going back to the start; Matt, Xen, Dan, Troy and I left Australia at 9:30am on September 4 for the 14 hour flight to Los Angeles, California. The start of a long tour that sees us on the road for the next 11 weeks straight with just 10 days off in the middle. The flight itself was ok.... it’s always long but we managed to get a direct flight this time and the worst part about travelling is lugging our stuff through the airport all the time so it was not too bad this time. Upon arriving about 6:30am (3 hours before we left Australia haha) we collected all our gear and headed to a nearby hotel where Benji had already arrived the night before from France.We were still short one member though as Martino wasn’t flying in from Italy until 1:30pm, so we had to wait for him to arrive and then the Mexican promoter was sending someone to pick us up at 3pm.With quite a few hours up our sleeve I decided to head down to El Porto beach, about 20 min uber away, for a surf; a new hobby I picked up whilst in Lombok on my honeymoon in July. I often try and get some exercise on the day we land as I feel it helps recalibrate my body to the new Timezone; it helps make it realise this is a time for being awake and doing things not for sleeping. It doesn’t get rid of the let lag completely of course but I feel it helps somewhat at least.Anyways.... after a surf down at El Porto I met back up with the guys and we were picked up and driven down the 3-4 hours to Tijuana ahead of our first show there the next night.After checking in we all headed out to dinner together (minus Xen at first, though he did join us a little later) and I’ve got to say the Mexican food in Mexico is much better than in Australia....by a long way. (Might have something to do with the fact that we don’t have many Mexicans in Australia...haha)The next day we had a few hours free before soundcheck so I took some time to walk around town in Tijuana for a while checking out the city, enjoying some more great Mexican food, and even having the pleasure of a performance from some local street musicians. They played a song for me initially and after that I asked them if I gave them some money if I could film a song (for the Ne Obluminati). So see the below video for the taste of Tijuana Mexico I captured for you :-) 

https://youtu.be/S_x0R70H1lEThe first show went well. We hadn’t actually rehearsed or played together at all since the European tour 4 months ago and Martino had actually never played Black Noise or Pyrrhic with us as a full band until soundcheck. But everyone had obviously practiced their parts (which is of course the idea) as I thought we actually played really well, maybe the best I can remember we had done for the first show of a tour. The crowd was enthusiastic and really got into all the songs and we had a blast overall.The next morning our lobby call was a brutal 4:45am as we needed to get an early flight to Guadalajara to make it there in time for the show. By the time we got back to our rooms post show in Tijuana and into bed this meant about 2 hours sleep for most of us.... which was pretty rough. But we were excited to be in Mexico so you just make it work.The lack of sleep also made things a bit harder for Martino and Xen, both who turned up on Day 1 of the tour sick as bad luck would have it.. they were pushing through ok though and both performed well in Tijuana thankfully.The Guadalajara show that night was amazing. We had about 400 people there (about double Tijuana) and the vibe was incredible. We also sold a ton of merch which was great to see as merch is basically the difference between whether a tour makes a loss or a profit for us every single time and we didn’t really know what to expect seeing we hadn’t been here before.After the show we got back to our hotels quite late again after everything was packed up. It always take a while to wind down after a show and get down from the on stage adrenaline high, so it wasn’t until almost 4am that I was asleep. Then another 2 hours of sleep later we got up for our 6:15am lobby call to drive the 10+ hours to Monterrey.It was a long day.....Unfortunately as the day went on I started to feel quite unwell myself. After some checking of symptoms I decided it must be Xen to blame as the culprit that infected me :pThe same thing happened on the European tour actually, which was the last time I got sick. It’s pretty hard when sharing flights, hotel rooms, buses etc. to avoid catching stuff from your bandmates, especially if you’re getting run down by a tough tour schedule.As a violinist it is harder mentally to focus when sick but I always manage fine. Though as a singer this presents the bigger issue of still being able to sing properly. Earlier in the bands career this was a massive issue. I would get sick and basically not be able to sing that well at all. My voice would die quicker and I would struggle to hit high notes... it was a real struggle. When we started touring internationally more often from 2015 I made a big effort to try and improve my fitness and overall health so I could give my immune system the best chance of staying healthy on tour. Plus I started putting a lot more work into my vocal practice. I took a few lessons here and there with an excellent singing teacher Alana K here in Melbourne focusing on technique related stuff to help with my vocal conditioning, and as a result my voice has been holding up much better every tour we do these days.My health in general had always been a battle when it comes to NeO but things have come a long way over the years. I’ll save the long story for another time but the short version is that in 2002 I got a very bad case of glandular fever which turned into Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and I was very very sick for many years... in fact in the early years of the bands career in Australia I didn’t even think my health would ever be good enough to cope with touring overseas. So to have the career I do now is remarkable to me. But maybe I’ll explain that decade long journey another time...Getting back to the drive to the Monterrey show... where was I? That’s right... It was a long day...The drive was made even longer by twice getting stopped by federal police searching the van for drugs etc. The first time was not very long and we maybe only were stopped for 10 minutes or so but the second time we were held up for about 45 minutes. They searched all our backpacks and eventually came out to us with a stack of clear plastic ziplock bags filled with pills thinking they had found a drug stash. In reality it was just my vitamins and health supplements for the next 6 weeks... thankfully with the help of our Mexican tour buddies, the band ‘Craven’, who spoke to them in Spanish on my behalf, I was allowed to keep them. (It must have been my nice smile that won them over)After we finally got to Monterrey, enjoying the sites of this city amongst the mountains on the way, we got stuck straight into soundcheck as we were a bit late by now.The show was a big success and despite not feeling very well at all I sang great and felt I managed to push through strongly for the show.It was also great to catch up with one of our dedicated Ne Obluminati Talia who is from Monterrey. Last year she flew all the way up to Houston, Texas in the USA just to see us play and came down early for soundcheck and meet n greet etc. So it was nice we could come to her this time around.Another 3 1/2 hours sleep later it was up at 7am to head to the airport to fly to Mexico City. By this time we were all REALLY really exhausted. It was starting to feel like it had all just been the one epic long day since Tijuana with a few naps here and there to keep from passing out. I was now definitely sick with a cold and hoping I would be able to put on a great show for all the fans in Mexico City tonight- a show that had sold out completely a few days earlier (400 capacity).Upon arriving to the airport in Mexico City there was a fan waiting for us to sign some stuff and take a photo. Then when we got to the hotel we were greeted by a handful of fans who somehow had found out where we would be staying and wanted photos and autographs. Seems like the fans here in Mexico City are pretty passionate about Ne Obliviscaris!Whilst at the hotel the promoter brought up with me that the venue had received over 100 emails and phone calls from people wanting to buy tickets to our sold out show in Mexico City and was there any way we could play an extra show? Normally such a late addition would not be possible but just by chance we had a 2 day gap in between our Mexico tour and our first show in the USA and so we re-arranged our flights back to the USA and booked it in and announced it straight away so that we could give everyone who wanted to come see us a chance to do so.As the Mexico City show got under way we realised that the venue was getting really hot.... like 50+ degrees Celsius at minimum. On stage it literally felt like performing in a sauna. Before we went on stage we were already struggling from the heat and I was just hoping the tough conditions (including my illness) wouldn’t cause a poor show on our part when we had so many people there to see us.Thankfully despite us all losing several kilograms in sweat over the course of the 90 minute set the show went really well! The sold out crowd was so hyped up and so responsive to everything on stage it really just carried us along the whole way. It felt like a very special night to be able to play to so many people here in Mexico. I didn’t even get as far in my dreams as contemplating that we could come to such far off places as Mexico and have sold out crowds that are singing the words to our songs and had apparently been waiting years for this moment to share with us. Our life is pretty surreal sometimes.After packing up and signing and taking photos with the 50+ fans who were waiting for us to come out of the dressing room, and then more to sign and take photos with who were waiting outside the venue..we headed back to the hotel where, of course, there were one more group of fans waiting for photos and signatures. I think Mexico City definitely now holds the record for the most number of fan signing/photo sessions in a day haha.Tonight we were “spoiled” by almost 6 hours of sleep time available. Unfortunately I was feeling even worse after I came down off the adrenaline I had for the show and woke up feeling pretty terrible in the morning.But Off we drove in the van this time to Xalapa. Thankfully only about 4 1/2 hours away. The guys from Craven had organised this show themselves as part of this tour and they looked after us really well all day which was nice. After navigating loading in our gear amongst a torrential downpour that thankfully disappeared by showtime, we got set up for soundcheck where we rehearsed a couple songs we were going to add in for our extra show in the 2nd show in Mexico City - Forget Not and Painters of the Tempest.The Xalapa show also went really well. The guys from Craven explained that we were one of the only international bands to ever come there and were excited by how many people had shown up for the show.Backing up show after show sick is always harder as each day goes on vocally. Of course sleep is the way to get better and with so little of it I was getting worse each day not better. As the show started I realised that my voice was definitely feeling a bit more constricted than usual, but thankfully as the show went on it opened up and I thought I sang really well in the end which I was really pleased with. There’s no way I could have pulled off these shows sick and on so little sleep even a couple years ago so it was really pleasing to see all the hard work on my voice was paying dividends on stage. There’s nothing worse than not being able to put on your best show for fans who have been waiting to see you a long time so it’s definitely something I take very seriously.Now as for the set list for this tour- It is always tricky choosing a set list for somewhere you have never been before as there is no way to fit in everyone’s favourite songs. When we did our USA URN tour in 2017 we left Eyrie off the set list thinking fans would want to hear Forget Not which we had never played in many USA cities. And then at every show we had comments that people were disappointed we didn’t play Eyrie and how that was their new favourite... so then when we went to Europe we swapped them and played Eyrie (with my wife Natasha guest appearing on violin for half of the tour) and the feedback on the set was really positive.So for Mexico we kept Eyrie in there instead of Forget Not and figured we would just play it next time we come to Mexico. Why not do both Eyrie and Forget Not? We are always trying to balance the ups and downs in the set. Where we place quieter more acoustic moments in amongst the heavier songs affects the flow and energy of the show a lot and we felt both these songs played a similar role in the show so it worked better to include one or the other. However all we have heard at every show on this Mexico tour is chants for us to play Forget Not! Way more than anywhere else. The catch of course is that we didn’t rehearse that song for this tour and we can’t just add it in on a whim when we haven’t played it since 2017.I have been having a think about why there was so much demand for that song here and my theory is that it seems like we have a lot of fans in Mexico who have been waiting for us to come here since Portal of I came out and so they have waiting years to hear those songs and have never had the chance. Europe by comparison didn’t really start to catch on to NeO until Citadel which sold way more than Portal of I there, and then URN sold double again there also so we knew prioritising new songs would go down well seeing a lot more fans knew the newer albums.As for the USA, I know we have quite a few fans there that have been following us for many years but seeing we had already done some shows with Forget Not in the set here and there on earlier tours it probably minimised people getting upset to not play it. Anyway that’s just my theory. The point is, Mexicans apparently really love Forget Not. Duly noted. I guess we better come back and include it in the set next time.But regardless, the fans in Mexico City do get the extra treat of hearing some different songs tonight including Forget Not. For fans that come to both shows here they’ll have heard every song off Urn, every song off Citadel and half of Portal of I. Not bad from the one tour!So now we are about 10min away from the hotel in Mexico City. We are turning up with only 7 t-shirts and no CD’s or Vinyl as we clearly underestimated how many fans we had in Mexico and so have sold out of almost everything! Definitely file that one in the “good problems to have” category.The success of this tour in Mexico does make me think about the need to finally get to South America sometime soon... the social media demand from fans for us to come to places such as Brazil and Chile is pretty similar to that of Mexico. Columbia is another country I see mentioned quite a bit. It’s not easy to get paid enough to go to South America and not lose money so when bands are smaller it is tricky to get there , but with where we are now it seems the right time to try and make that happen. Just need to work out when!TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2018So now it’s the end of the Mexican tour! Our show last night went very well overall. There was a great crowd considering the 2 days notice and they seemed to really enjoy the set list with Forget Not and Painters of the Tempest included. It was nice to start the show with Tempest In full, all 23 minutes, for the first time in at least a couple years. Still one of my favourite NeO tracks overall I think.I found it slightly more difficult vocally but still felt I did a good job overall. I am feeling slightly less sick but really just need a day off to rest my voice and let my energy return. Today is a travel day with 2 flights to make it from Mexico via Atlanta to Indianapolis so it won’t be that restful but at least tonight we can get a good nights sleep and then from tomorrow we’ll be in the bandwagon for 5 weeks, which means no more early mornings and airports, just sleep until you feel you want to get up, or load in, whatever comes first.So in the end, Mexico was a big success and now we head to the USA for 28 more shows including the chance to play 22 with Wintersun! I think they are a great fit for us and it’s a wonderful opportunity to make a lot of new fans in addition to playing to lots of our existing fanbase.So with that a bid you adieu for today. We have lots of stuff coming up on Patreon in the next week or two so stay tuned as it’s going to be busy around here shortly!Tim