Naked Tour Diary (Part 3)

We’ve reached the end of our journey with Hobart band Naked and their buddy Alex Romano, with this, the final installment of his tour diary. I almost feel like I’ve been on tour with Naked this whole time, don’t you? Nah, cuz you’ve been at work still? You work Christmas retail/ hospo but you’ve been getting blind every night anyway (IT’S CHRISTMAS) and you see death’s approach clearer every day? Yeah, me too.

Ah well, get away from it all with these tales of urine, suggested bestiality, brushes with indie movie stardom, hangin with Whitney Houston’s Crypt ( <3 ) and Peak Tour.

Thanks Naked! Thanks Alex! See youse on the road again soon.

(Part 1 HERE Part 2 HERE)

Day 7 – Sydney is hot 2nite

By Alex Romano

I said the boys are back in town boys are back in town boys are back in towwwwwwwn. Thin Lizzy is rockin out in the Juicy Van I’m sure of it! The boys are in the harbor city, and ready to rock out. I’ve been contemplating snorting cocaine all day in preparation to rock out!

8:15 pm

The Marly Bar is just how I remember it from the night before. A tasty mix of people, high class aussie gastro pub fare and chalk board specials.

9:15 pm

Lenin Lennon are playing their first show for 18 months and a lot of people seem very excited for that. They scream into the mic for a bit and appear to forget how to play a song at one point. This is what music is about people! I also have a chat with the Pillow Pro’ers, can’t wait for their set tomorrow night at the Union!  I make the fateful error of telling them that I missed seeing them multiple times in the past. I don’t think it goes across well, but they are really lovely so hopefully they forgive me if I make it in time tomorrow.

10: 30 pm

By the time Naked starts I’m sweating like a Big Kev. It’s an absolute stinker of a night and the boys play such a hot set that my sweaty pits are showing no signs of slowing down. I get a massive shout out from the LADS and awkwardly wave my hand at the crowd and let them know I’m up for a chat and will sell them a record.

11:15 pm

I just sold 7 records which might not sound a lot to you music industry types but it’s a lot in the scheme of the tour so far. It’s actually the most. So cop that. We end up being pretty rock and roll back at the Lenin Lennon’s Whitney Houston’s Crypt house and we are having a couple of cold tinnies and some joints early in the morning. This is fuckin living, and don’t you dare to try and stop us. I go home because my head is spinning from all of the rock and roll, sweat and drugs.

Sydney version 1.0 at the Marly Bar: 5 out of 5 rockdogs – could not have got more rock if we tried. At one point it was getting so out of hand I thought Jordy was going to purposefully and impractically rearrange the van. Fortunately he didn’t.

Day 8 – Sydney is on an Ultralight Beam

11:30 am

My throat stinks of last night’s VBs and Bond Street Gold’s. I’ve never felt quite as alone as I do this morning, soaked in urine with my housemate’s cat licking my toes so lightly we could be lovers. Images of Paul Walker race through my head. Is this who I have become? Fast and the Furious 7 is playing on my television, I have vague memories of queuing up all 7 films before I went to sleep last night…What time was it?! Shit!!! The boys! The band! I scramble out to the microwave, my only source of time. Where the fuck is my phone? Not to worry, it’s 11:30am. Better chuck that sickie at work, it’s time to turn the volume to 11 and tackle another day on the job with Naked.

12:30 pm

I find the boys in a similarly limber state and before we know it we are off towards the great Pacific Ocean. I’m really hamming it up with em now, yeah boys Mackenzie’s Bay is the place to be, it’s really gonna be a great one! There’s a natural water slide! There’s heaps of dogs! Kieran’s eyes light up like a Christmas tree, Rob and Jordy are similarly enthused, like little elves. Here we are bounding down the rocks to another beautiful day but the waves are way too big for these Hobart kids so we kinda just end up rubbing our faces in the water at Tamarama.

2:00 pm

I completely forgot. We went to Gordon’s Bay – now that was a fucking good one. We ignored the sea lice warnings because tbh wtf is a sea lice anyway? We’re swimming and Rob disappears for a bit so I see an in to tell a funny story to Kieran and Jordy about how people drown at Gordon’s all the time! Then Rob reappears so it becomes a really funny story and almost a bit of a gotcha. ☹

3:30 pm

We have now been having a discussion for around 15 minutes about the most equitable way to split our 6 potato scallops between four. We could cut each scallop into four giving a grand total of 24 slices of scallop and each of us getting 6 healthy bits of scallop. But 24 is too close to 23 which is Rob’s favourite number but also his arch nemesis so we try and figure out a way to change it to 23.

In the end we just end up eating the 6 scallops and nobody really paid much attention to who got what but it was really fun and we are sitting in some nice cushy grass in front of a big old house in the eastern suburbs. Doesn’t get much more live than this.

8:30 pm

Woah! This night is cool. I just ran into a girl that I met through the popular dating app Tinder. It was a bit of an awkward exchange but I think that is probably because she was jealous that I was hanging out with my band mates. I smoked a cigarette and felt cool and my anxiety at seeing her was gone pretty soon thereafter.

After the gig Rob got called a hottie! It drew some awkward and nervous laughter but there was not any further rock dogging to be had there. It’s always nice to receive compliments like that though so I’m sure Rob was really chuffed.

12:00 am

I have to leave the gig and try and find my way home now.

Anyways. Pretty pumped for the road trip to Canberra. I am really looking forward to the seat of power and really want to see Lenore Taylor and/or David Marr and/or Cory Bernardi.

Sydney version 2.0: 5 out of 5 rockdogs – I completely forgot that Rob’s dad turned up to the gig! Apparently he never comes to see the Nakeds in Hobart so that’s pretty rock of his dad. Good work Mr Fisher.

Day 9 – Canned bears ahh?

11:15 am

We are in the juicy van, on the way to our nation’s capital. The seat of power! There’s a really noticeable buzz amongst the Nakeds and I’m pretty sure it’s because we are all still riding high from the reception Kieran got from the crowd last night when he mentioned Insiders and the fact that he met Mike Bowers. For those of you who don’t know Mike Bowers does the segment on Insiders called Talking Pictures. He is a political photographer predominantly for the Guardian and seems like an all-around top bloke. Some legends in the crowd last night realised that and made a brief woo.

11:30

The highway to Canberra is a desolate wasteland. Wait, I take that back, it starts to look pretty cool once we are out of Sydney, some nice eucalypts and the occasional rolling hill. Oh wait, what the fuck! A fucking windfarm. How hideous. We all collectively vomit and spend 30 minutes cleaning out the van and trying to exhale as much renewable energy as possible.

Those windfarms really hit us hard so we’ve pulled over to take another breather.

2:30 pm

The funniest thing just happened!

If some of this sounds like I’m taking the piss and you don’t believe me then please just believe that this one thing happened and it was seriously warped. Really funny times.

A 12 year old girl just offered Kieran some completely unsolicited advice on his health. We had stopped to have a quick cigarette and coffee, maybe even a vita weat and some avocado and Kieran wandered off a little way as he usually does before turning back to us and saying, “I wish I could have a cigarette!” From the passenger seat of her parked car, this girl turns to Kieran and with a voice barely above a whisper says, “don’t smoke you’ll die.” I honestly don’t know where her parents were but they’ve really drummed a fascist anti-smoking regime into the mind of that poor girl. She probably doesn’t realise that she’s going to die as well, but it sounds like she’d maybe make a good doctor.

3:30pm

Kieran has just confirmed that his Aunty played a character called John in a movie directed by Noah Baumbach. He thinks it was Mistress America and that John was one of the main characters. I haven’t seen the movie so can’t really question Kieran any further but I have a feeling it’s a gotcha. Feel free to leave a comment below if you can confirm or deny whether Kieran’s aunty plays a character called John in Mistress America.

9:30 pm

Canberra ended with a tremendous bang. For anyone who hasn’t been they have really amazing bus shelters and a real great 70s vibe goin through the burbs which quickly degenerates into a pretty vanilla university student urine soaked town. The Phoenix sounded bloody good though and the boys met a true idol of theirs, THAT bloke from TV Colours. He signed a copy of the Monthly. Not just the cover. Literally every page of the Monthly. From the contents to the back cover. It was really nice of him and kind of awkward at the same time but I think we were all friends by the end of the night. True to form the guys rocked the casbah and Kieran even made a few jokes about Canberra.

Kieran: Canned bear a? – [we’re all vegans, but we’ve decided to start a new merch venture and invest in canned wild meat, we’re thinking of selling Canned Bear, ah? .]  ‘ah’ as in , y’see?

Crowd: [largely dumbfounded but some offended silence]

Kieran: We just played in Sydney and they were pretty wild, but not as wild as here.

Crowd: [generally offended silence, a few people laugh and about 6 people exit the bar in protest, someone mutters “aren’t you from Hobart?”]

12:00 am – 4:00 am

A couple of events after the show left me feeling conflicted about Canberra. Firstly, some complete dickhead started talking to us about how he just had sex with an ugly girl in an alleyway. He was complete sludge. SPOILER ALERT part of the reason Massive Cock was written might be that guy.

Secondly, we reached peak tour for a couple of hours when we got back to our friend Kieran’s place (no I knowwwwww what you’re all thinking, not Kieran Sullivan! Another Kieran!). For those of you that aren’t really big on rocking, peak tour is when you reach a point where your brains are kind of fried and think that jokes that make no sense are hilarious; also Powderfinger becomes the best band in the world.

Being on peak tour this night is like being on the set of Rage in the late 90s. I’m so proud to have been involved. It was really the Everest of tour moments and I wish more people could have been there soaking up the rays of good times that soaked us all like a super soaker won during a Cheez TV giveaway.  There is a recording on Kieran’s phone of every song that got sung but here is a rough track list. All acoustic cover versions.

Champagne Supernova

Wonderwall

Black Fingernails, Red Wine

These Days

My Happiness

Funky Monks

Under The Bridge

Canberra: 5 out of 5 rockdogs – we reached peak tour – I felt like Sherpa Tenzing.

Saying goodbye to the guys is like losing my appendix. It really hurts and I have a scar that will last forever but in a good way. It’s 7am and I’m on a Murrays bus really hungover.

After a couple of valiums I am back home, I don’t really know how, so I flop onto my mattress.

All I have to say now is that Naked deserve significantly more recognition than they have currently received but they were named “Triple J Unearthed artist to watch” and that’s a step in the recognition direction.  They’ve also been played on Triple J which means that Naked is one step closer to their dreams of being aussie pop punk starlets. Go Naked good luck on the pitchfork review.

Alex Romano graduated from the University of Queensland with a Bachelor of Arts/Law. He lives in Sydney and works as a solicitor. He never wears a suit to work.

Pink Quartz is available now through Tenth Court.

Oh also we got sent this video from Kieran – if you were wondering if they were joking about the Powerderfinger.