Articles : The Ocean Tour Diaries – Part 4

Words and images: Mark Hoffmann

It’s Sunday morning in Brisbane, the sun is shining and all is quiet. After the craziness of the previous night’s show, it seems almost an idyllic scene. This evening’s show is a freebie at The Northern in Byron Bay, a leisurely 2.5 hour drive away. It seems almost too easy.

Paul with an Australian souvenir from last night

I catch up with The Ocean boys at a friend’s place in New Farm. They’re doing laundry. Seeing Paul and Loic hanging out their many black t-shirts and other items I joke about taking some photos now to show the real life on the road. It’s a bit like “Anvil! The Story of Anvil”. Paul replies that that is one of the best movies, it’s once that everyone who has toured knows about and it is awesome.

We hit the road around lunch time, with some members of Caligula’s Horse joining the bus and the others driving themselves. The Ocean are looking forward to visiting Byron Bay. Robin tells me of his affinity with the ocean and the beach. He is a scuba diver and tells me of his time in diving in SE Asia earlier in the year.

Just past Springwood (about 20kms south of Brisbane city), we hear a loud splat followed by a slap-slap-slap sound. We pull over in the first exit ramp off the freeway. On inspection, we find that one of the tyres on the trailer has lost its tread, slapping against the trailer and bending the metal mudflap. It was only pure luck that it didn’t completely blow.

Luckily it just held together

Trailer damage from blown tyre

But that’s not all. After waiting a while we are towed to a safer location by the local roadside assist service, only to find that the bus service tools are too large. After several trips to a car parts shop for tools, Jay the ever increasingly versatile audio engineer has removed the tyre. Then he finds that the spare will not fit. Seriously – the spare has different rims than the wheels. And apart from the Supercheap Auto where we bought tools, every tyre and wheel shop is closed for Sunday. We aren’t moving the trailer today.

Patience is tested….

But as they say, the show must go on! Geoff from Caligula’s Horse is called to bring his own car-sized box trailer. Blessed be the drummers and their load carrying capabilities! After a repack which sees half the gear put into the bus, we are back on the road, minus one trailer. But 3-4 hours have been lost.

Robin experiences the lights and sounds during set-up.

We arrive later than planned, it seems impossible; however everyone is pepped by the stress. With a miraculously fast unpack and set up, it seems that they are ready to play in no time at all. Big thumbs up for the crew at The Northern as well as their light/sound set-up, making everything run smoothly. It’s time for doors.

Local openers Fear the Setting Sun tantalise the crowd with their riffage, Caligula’s Horse set the punters up, ready for The Ocean to demolish them with one of the tightest performances on the tour.

The Ocean

We are halfway through the tour, and The Ocean boys are taking a well-deserved couple of days’ rest in Byron to be closer to their namesake. We will rejoin them in Adelaide at the Jive on Thursday the 16th, with local openers Dyssidia.

At this time I feel that some of the behind the scenes crew need to be acknowledged, for their work above and beyond the call of duty. These guys make the tour work.

Jay on sound, in his element

Will on lights, showing the friendly Aussie hello sign

Tibor the tour manager street dog

Ricki behind the wheels, getting us 100’s of kms overnight from show to show