Painful / Awkward
I have Chris to thank for this.
U.J. In China again.
So we’ve recently learned that we will be playing in China for the second time this September. Our first show in Shanghai on September 4th and Beijing September 5th. We have more shows in Asia but don’t have the dates yet. We may also be playing in Tokyo on September 25th. More good news to follow.
Asia here we come!
Just heard from our manager the other day. Looks like we’re headed for asia again in a few months. We’re pretty excited about this. I think the production will be even bigger than it was before and we’ll be taking more people with us this time around.
Had a successful release week for “Sound of Defeat” but we’re hoping for more success in the near future with this release.
New Until June Album out Now
New Until June Album is available now on iTunes and all online retailers.
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=314331214&s=143441
“Man who lost his soul” is already #23 on the world modern rock chart.
Vietnam etc.
Vietnam has been great so far, everyone has been very warm and nice to us and the food has been great. We had our sound check at the venue this morning at 9:30 AM. It was pretty unorganized and they were behind schedule. The venue is HUGE and holds 3600+ people and we’re told it’s sold out. The view from the stage is pretty crazy and the audience seems so far away. The place is normally used for classical music and conferences. Take a look at the picture.
We got bac k to the hotel around 1 PM and I feel asleep instantly and woke up to our manager calling me telling me I’m late for some TV interviews. Get to the conference room half asleep and I’m forced to go through 6 more TV interviews and act as if I’m pumped up for some TV interviews. They went well and I was able to go back to my room and catch up on some lost sleep.
Later this evening Josh, Jody Daniel and I ditched our bodyguards and went shopping. It was pretty funny; when they weren’t looking we ran out the front door and split up really quickly and met up at a bank about a 1/8 of a mile away. It seems like every time I turn around my guy is there hovering around me. Its actually quite annoying and trying to loose them has been a fun challenge. This morning I walked out of my room and my guy had been standing there all night next to my door waiting. I walked out quickly as he turned away and snuck in the elevator and pressed the close button. He noticed I got in the elevator and rushed over. I looked at him with that look everyone gives you when you barely miss the elevator and you make the “sorry face” through the 6 inch opening right before it closes. When we escaped this evening from them they gave us a hard time and reprimanded us so we told them we’d be more careful.
We did some interesting shopping. Hanoi has been the most interesting city we’ve visited by far. A lot of Asia is westernized especially Hong Kong. Hanoi is not at all in fact it has been the toughest to get around and understand people. The four of us went shopping tonight and had a great time. We all bought very unique items and the US dollar despite the current economic disaster does really well here. Everyone prefers we pay in US dollar. I spent about 7.50 today and got some really nice fun stuff. I got a few little statues a little Buddha guy (Probably painted with lead paint) some weird copper mini dish with a garden sketch on it. The most interesting thing we found though were US Dog Tags from the Vietnam War. It was really sad o go through these Dog Tags of actual people who had died in the war. I thought I’d buy one because I had heard of someone giving a Vietnam Dog Tag to a vet who had lost his 35 years ago. The street vendor sold me one for one US dollar and I took it back to the hotel and looked up the individual’s name. I sent the info to a website where a lady helps find family members to return the dog tags to. From what I’ve read she is quite successful and would be a cool thing to have retuned to a family member. In some cases the people are still alive and just lost the dog tags 35 years earlier. The guy had 8-10 more dog tags and I was thinking about buying up the rest with the intent to find them owners. I hope I can find time to go and buy them tomorrow.
I’m going to bed now. But you should check out my awesome pictures below:
You can see the venue that we’re playing in tomorrow. I also took a picture when were were shopping on some fake iPods that I thought were pretty funny. Probably the funniest picture though is the one of all the tech crew guys helping Daniel out with his drums. “Helping” is probably the wrong word, maybe “getting in the way” works better. There is also a giant poster of us and I’m feeling my beard in the picture.
Completely Spoiled
Arrived in Hanoi Vietnam after a 4 hour flight from Kuala Lumpur this afternoon. Josh, Daniel and I all agree this is by far the most extravagant part of the tour yet. As soon as were arrived at the airport we were each greeted with huge bouquets of flowers, TV cameras and fans. It was pretty spectacular and we’re feeling very spoiled and lucky right now. The hotel they put us up in is pretty unbelievable; it’s called the Sofitel Metropole in Hanoi. We each get our own suite of course but what is even crazier is the treatment we’re getting. Each of us has our own butler who is on call 24 hours a day. Anything we want we call and they get for us. I know it sounds crazy and thats because it is. I swear on my life I didn’t ask for this treatment if I did I think that would be ridiculous. Not only do we have our own butler on call 24 hours a day we each have our own bodyguard. No…I wish I was lying but I’m not, I feel stupid just typing this. They told us it wasn’t safe for us to walk around by ourselves so they assigned bodyguards to walk with us. My bodyguard even follows me to the restroom and wears a black suit and acts and looks intimidating.
We had an hour-long press conference at the hotel today. I drank a bunch of tea before we went on the stage which turned our to be a bad idea. The translation thing during these events sometimes makes them twice as long as they should be. I had to use the restroom so bad I thought I was going to die. I couldn’t get up and leave there were 300+ people looking at us asking us questions so I had to hold off until then end. Soon as it was over I ran to the restroom and my bodyguard followed.
We have our sound check tomorrow at 9 AM but we don’t plat until October 1st so after our sound check we’ll be free most of the day. I think we leave Hanoi on the 3rd, I can’t believe we’ve been gone for over two weeks already. I’ll be sad when I have to get back to normal life (No massages, room service or butlers) back in Los Angeles but I’m also excited to get back so I can see Alisha.
Check out my bouquet of flowers, they look like birds of paradise. You should also look at the rose pedals in the toilets in my room (About time they did something right here).
Karma Chameleon & a back massage.
Friday in Kuala Lumpur we had a little free time so I thought I’d check out the spa and get a massage. Josh has taken full advantage of the hotel incidentals being completely covered by the tour. He’s gotten a massage and spa treatments in every city so I thought I’d take advantage of it too. We were staying at the Traders Hotel, which was a really nice hotel in K.L. I reserved a time and headed up to the “spa”. Apparently the real spa is undergoing some renovation so they just changed one of the floors and some smaller rooms in to the spa. It didn’t bother me until I walked in the room and I noticed the music they were playing was from the television and was one of the music stations on TV. I got ready and laid down on the table and thought maybe this is just the music they play while you’re getting ready. About 5 minutes in to the massage I heard Karma Chameleon followed by a George Michael tune then some commercials in Chinese. The older lady giving the massage was a little chatty and I think too old and weak to be giving massages. About 30 minutes in to the massage I heard a commercial for a contest to win tickets to the “Until June Hennessy Artistry Concert” the next day. It was free so I guess I can’t complain but it was funny. Nothing says relaxing time at the spa like “Karma Chameleon”.
Here is the Hotel:
http://www.shangri-la.com/en/property/kualalumpur/traders
Day Off
We couldn’t leave for Vietnam until the 29th because of the Visa screw up. This worked to our advantage because we were able to sit around, sleep in and do some sight seeing here in Kuala Lumpur. We visited the Batu Caves outside of Kuala Lumpur and went hiking to some water falls. At both locations there were monkey everywhere, I was pretty excited about that. The monkeys were used to humans being around so they weren’t shy and didn’t move when we took pictures of them. Here are a few pics from the adventure today. Tomorrow we leave for Hanoi Vietnam and our show is on October 1st.
We had our show last night and it was great. It wasn’t our best sounding show but we had the greatest response. There were over 2000 people inside and more outside waiting to get in. We pulled up to the venue and as soon as we stepped out there were over 150 cameras taking pictures of us and people wanting to interview us. It was pretty exciting when we were speaking to someone earlier yesterday when they told us how big our fan base was.
I have so many stories but very little time to write. Maybe tomorrow on our flight to Hanoi I’ll try to write a more detailed version of our days here in Kuala Lumpur.
Another Video
I uploaded a video of some clips of before and during our Guangzhou China show. I snuck the camera on the stage just like I did at the Athens show back in June. I put the camera on my amp which was a bad idea because it’s aimed at my butt the entire time. I’m sorry to disappoint everyone but I kept the video short so my rear end doesn’t steal the show.
New video link below:
http://gallery.me.com/danielballard/100172
I’ve also updated the look of my blog a little the header picture was taken during our tour in Athens.
Youtube Video
Here is a video of Josh singing the song in Chinese I mentioned a few days back. This was taken at the Hong Kong show.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxtmbYRiDlU
I think this was only the second time he had sung the song and I think he did pretty darn well.
Here are a few iphone pictures from our shopping adventure at the night market in Taiwan the other night. My favorite hat is the one that says “Sexy New York Tokyo”. I regret that I never bought it.
I’ve also included a picture of my laundry because it was wrapped so nicely and looked so pretty.
