Mono Asia Tour 2017
Taipei, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Seoul
Preparation || Taipei || Hong Kong || My Beautiful Broken Brain || Bangkok || Kuala Lumpur || Seoul

So hi, konnichiwa, ni hao, g'day, 

I'm not 100% sure what this is all gonna be just yet, I'm kind of just putting some music on and letting my consciousness spill out through my fingers. I'm currently sat in a hotel room in Taipei jamming Ceres' 'Drag It Down On You' a bit too loud and drinking an ~okay~ Taiwanese beer that cost me about $3 AUD. So strap in.

I thought it might be pertinent to start this whole thing by detailing what goes into preparing for a tour like this and how it all comes about.

I first worked with Mono in 2015, on a tour of Australia and New Zealand which took in 6 shows over 2 weeks. At the time I hadn't really listened to the material too heavily but, having worked with similar bands in the past, was acutely aware of who they were and what they were about. I had also done a bit of research and assignment work around Steve Albini, his bands and his recording ethics during my time at university years ago and Mono featured somewhat in that, having worked with Albini a few times on different records. So that last run was a bit of a journey of discovery, which isn't necessarily how I would normally approach working a tour as its best to be as familiar with the material as the band themselves, but it was an amazingly eye/mind/heart opening experience at the same time.
So anyway, one day a few months ago I received a facebook message from Jef Vreys, who runs a touring and promotion company out of China called New Noise (I'll get more into Jef later), basically laying out the tour, the stops and what would be involved. I had worked with Jef on a tour of Asia and China in 2014 and absolutely loved working with him and the band previously, so pretty easy decision really. From there it just became a few months of anticipation, making sure to keep myself alive, healthy, employed etc.

Before any tour, kinda like meditation, I like to sit down and take stock of what I've done previously, what I'd like to achieve, what I'll be working with and what I'll need to make it happen. For example: the last time I went out with Mono, I ran it as a total rock band setup; threw mics on whatever was making noise and turned it up (not that basic, I'm not an idiot, but in a general sense that was my approach to it, and it worked really well). This time around I'd spent a lot more time actually listening to the recorded material and getting a feel for how the band had chosen to present themselves to the world as opposed to how I thought they should be presented to the world.

[Just a quick note on this, and this is something I discussed with my mum on the way to the airport yesterday, in contrast to other bands and artists doing the post-whatever, instrumental thing, Mono definitely have a very specifically unique way of doing things. I, maybe hastily, coined it as a very Japanese way of making music (in contrast to some American bands playing a similar style) which I don't think I believe is 100% a product of where they live, but manifests in my mind as such. If you've not cared to immerse yourself in Mono's music, in short they bring a very orchestral, romantic-era sensibility to the very grand, dynamic type of light/shade music that post-rock tends to lean on; where their American counterparts might prefer to work with layers and layers of different textured guitar lines, some percussion extravagance and occasionally some vocal embellishment, Mono literally employ string sections and orchestral elements in their music, which gives it a completely different mood and way of worming into your feels centre. I liken it to a movie score rather than a rock band.]

 So having gained a bit of a deeper understanding of the music, I decided that this time around I was gonna try something a bit new to how I would normally do things and run two mics on each guitar cab in conjunction with everything else that we've got going on. I did a bit of research (ie. asked a bunch of audio friends what they do and why) and decided that for this run I was going to try using ribbon mics as well as dynamic mics on guitars. This is something that is usually saved for the recording studio and isn't widely done in the live sound setting for a couple of reasons:

1. Ribbon mics are EXTREMELY delicate. They employ a ~2.5 micron thick metal (usually aluminium or a 'soft' metal) 'ribbon' that is suspended between two sensors which measure an electrodynamic pressure gradient between the front and back of the ribbon, which is translated into electrical signals and eventually sound. Basically this means that a strong wind could essentially bust the ribbon or damage it to the point of being unusable. Gradually over the years this has been changing with some of the bigger manufacturers now making live audio specific versions with thicker ribbons and more robust casings, but ribbon mics remain far more fragile than a standard dynamic mic that can be run over by a car and put straight onstage and still work perfectly. 
2. Because of the way the mic works, it picks up sound from both sides of the diaphragm, front and back (otherwise called a figure 8 polar pattern). This is summed internally to give you a single output which generally favours the side that is pressed up against a guitar cab or whatever the mic is placed on, but means that in a live setting it will also be picking up whatever is on the opposite side of it (which is usually a stage monitor or another instrument). This means that you can get some issues with feedback and isolation if you're not careful which is why they aren't widely used for live sound, but there are ways around that.

The benefit to the way the mic is built and works is that you get a much more rich, detailed and smooth sound out of it, which in the case of a screaming Fender Twin guitar cab means there is a lot less to do at the console to get a full, deep and monstrous guitar tone coming through the PA. It also means that more of the subtle moments that Mono employ in their guitar playing will be heard, which is where I'm trying to push things on this tour. And by combining the ribbon with your bog standard dynamic microphone, I'll have a lot more control over which parts of the guitar tone I want to stick out and when, something I had to work hard at the last time around.

So with that here is a bit of a rundown on what tools I'll be using for this tour:
Mics
Audix D6, D4
Shure SM57 x2, Beta 91a
Sennheiser e609 x2, e606 x1
OPR The Grill x2, OPR84 x2
12 Gauge Green x2
DI Boxes
Radial Pro D1 x2
Headphones
Audio Technica ATH-M50x
Hardware
LP drum claw x4
Homemade Z-bars x4
Macbook Pro
GoPro Hero 3+
Ipad 2
Pelican 1610 case
Software
Waves V9 plugins
Waves Tracks Live
 

Thats enough for now. It's dinner time and I'm out of beer. Cheers!

It's the morning of the first show and Jef and I have been hanging out since he arrived last night. We went and had a great Taiwanese dinner at a very small restaurant last night then proceeded to sit on the sidewalk outside the closest Family Mart and drink beers, catch up and talk shit. Jef is my age, originally from Belgium but lives in Chengdu in China where, as I mentioned previously, he runs a promotion and touring company called New Noise which operates tours around Asia. I first met Jef in 2014 after I was booked to go on a tour with US band Caspian through Asia and China. Since then we've kept in contact and this is how I came to first work for Mono in Australia. Super easy going guy, very well adjusted to being on the road, very passionate about the bands that he works with and takes very good care of everyone. There are very few people that I've had the pleasure of working with that are as friendly, professional and loyal as Jef. 
The guy knows his way around ordering some food as well. I can't say I've ever eaten better on the road than when its on a New Noise tour.

I should also give a mention here to Muto Yang. Muto is a young photographer who lives in China and goes on tour with bands that Jef takes out to document the process. The Caspian tour that we did together a few years ago ended up being turned into a photo book kinda thing that Muto did off his own back and looks incredible. Another really cool part of working with this group of people, unfortunately he's not on this particular tour but I hope to see him soon.

Mono have just arrived so time to get a bit of a nap in and head to the show, yeeha!
 

Its the day after the first show, and and I'm still absolutely flying. It's hard to remain disconnected and uninvested when you spend so many countless hours listening to this band over and over and over and over; committing to memory every tonal shift and volume swell and devising a plan for how best to make that translate live: will I bring in a bit of reverb here or will I hide that guitar a little to make the lead lines stand front and centre etc. There was a point at the end of the song Kanata last night (the song is based around repeating piano motif that gets systematically swallowed and regurgitated by these massive swells of delay laden guitars) where the rest of the instruments fell away and the piano was left to finish the song by itself, and I had practiced in my head for weeks fading the direct piano signal out and bringing up this gigantic 'cathedral' reverb with something stupid like 5 seconds of reverb from each note played, and my fingers were shaking with my brain shouting in this strained whisper 'slowly, slowly, slowly', and the air in the room gradually blossomed with this deep, lush echo from the piano, and this tingle ran up my spine and a wierd, warm wave of....something washed outwards from my solar plexus, down to my toes and up through my head and Tamaki (piano, bass) hit the last note and it rang and rang and rang and it was like I could hear every one of the 600-700 people in the room breathe in with a slight gasp simultaneously and then erupt with applause (jesus christ thats a long sentence). Its moments like that that completely change this from a job to an absolutely pleasure, and I can't imagine ever finding the same rush anywhere else. I don't need to have anyone come and say 'hey great job' or let me know they enjoyed the show. I just need to be in that seat night after night, doing the things that reinforce every decision I've ever made in my life.

The rest of the show wasn't without it's hiccups, we lost power to a guitar amp midway through the first song (which wasn't as much of a stumbling block as one might think), and I decided to play Don't Stop Believin' between bands which didn't vibe with everyone the same way it did for me and the one dude standing next to the sound desk singing every flippin word (I'm now known as Mr Journey, formerly Mr Star Wars). But overall it was an absolutely raging success. 1 show down, 4 to go.

We fly to Hong Kong today in a few hours so its time to get up and repack all my shit and go sit in an airport for a while. I stole a banana form the venue last night, things could be a lot worse.

Left the hotel at around 10:30am after about 6 hours sleep (not bad), took a couple of vans to the airport and stood around for a few hours. The lines were massive, exactly the kind of thing you DONT want to deal with after a super late night. Eventually got through customs etc and the flight was delayed. Cool. I took the last 400 Taiwan Dollars that I had and bought a replacement Stormtrooper keyring for the one that I lost with the rest of my keys a few months ago, so that was nice. The airport had a big free games arcade right next to our boarding gate so I also wasted a bit of time failing miserably to pilot a McLaren MP4-12C around a pixelated racing track.
The flight was super easy, 1.5 hours direct to Hong Kong. I watched about half of Jurassic World and ate the inflight meal (which was absolutely the worst airplane food I've ever had. I still ate it all, but it sucked).
We got to Hong Kong and met the founder of the venue and promoter for the show, Steve-O. Wild guy. Super high intensity, lots of energy, always laughing and very hands on. We went to the hotel, had a shower in the most amazing water pressure I think I've ever felt, and headed out for dinner (by this time it was 6pm). Steve-O took us to a local place that I guess was his favourite, led us up some stairs to a tiny concrete room with a massive table. He told us we would be eating from both of the restaurants either side of where we were: one for dim sum, and one for local Hong Kong food. He then proceeded to bring in plate after plate after plate of insanely good food, many bottles of TsingTao (brewed in Hong Kong) and we gorged ourselves. I don't remember exactly what everything was, I do remember trying some pork intenstines and organ bits, which was really chewy but overall tasted not bad. I have a feeling I will be dreaming about the BBQ pork buns and Hong Kong style sweet and sour pork for a while.
We ate until we couldn't eat then headed back. The venue that we played in Hong Kong was literally next door to the hotel, so Steve-O took us in for a look around before we called it a night. And ooooooh boy. There just happened to be a HK power metal band playing, and they fucking shredded. I had to leave to go get some earplugs and came back and they were playing a Katy Perry cover, just too good.
Called it pretty soon after that and got some sleep.
Being that the venue was so close we slept until midday, went and had some more amazing food for lunch then Jef and I went to the venue and set up the backline, mics and got ready for soundcheck. The drumkit was a bitsa: a 24" Tama kick drum and 13" and 16" Ludwig toms. It didn't sound great. The venue is what I would equate to about Crowbar size at home, but the bar is in an extension to the left of the stage so the capacity is 400, high ceiling and big ~something~ PA (it had been rebranded to the name of the venue: Hidden Agenda). The PA itself was difficult to get total control over, I have a feeling there were some high frequency drivers missing, there was just no clarity in the top end. Very boomy and dense, and since the venue is all concrete and tiles, very reflective once you get two Fender Twins and a Marshall stack going. There were these two tiny 8" (? maybe?) speakers sat in the front of the stage as a front fill, which were also quite harsh sounding, but together with the PA it became useable. The only problem with the setup is once you cram 400 people in the room, the front fill disappears completely amongst the first couple of rows of people, so being stuck at the back was difficult. I think I ended up changing most of the graphic EQ over the speakers above 1.5kHz, but in the end it became a very powerful, and quite nice to listen to experience (albeit loud). 
I had a couple of people come and comment on how much they enjoyed it (it was one guys 12th time seeing Mono, still more than me!) which was nice.
Following on from the 'Journey incident' in Taipei I decided I would play whatever music the band wanted before the show, but after the show it was dealer's choice. So we kicked things off after the show with Boston, then a bit of George Michael and just to bring things back around, some more Journey. 
Taka (guitar) and I hung out for a while after the show, and I copped a bunch of stories about Mono's beginnings and early tours. There will be more on this later but I just want to mention that in 2019 it will be their 20th year as a band, and they still have the same lineup as they did the first time they stepped into a practice room. Jef calculated that ignoring days off, and based on the fact that they are touring about 160 days every year, they have been together in the same room/van/space for 10 years straight. Absolutely wild. Another big part of why being invited to be a part of the journey is such a huge honour. 
We went to dinner after a while to a restaurant that I apparently ate at in 2014 when I came to HK with Caspian. Didnt really remember it but they were playing the English Premier League live on a bunch of TV's around the place (Liverpool, my team vs. Manchester United) and once again we were presented with mountains of food. We were joined by Steve-O, Felix (a young local who works with Steve-O as an interpreter for international bands), a young fellow I didnt formally meet who was taking photos at the show and Ruby, a long time friend of the band. Again some pretty wild eats, I had some squid mouth (I made sure to confirm exactly what that means but apparently its just that, deep fried mouth of squid. Fucking delicious), pork knuckles, a bunch of tofu and noodle soups. Great vibes, many laughs, many beers and just a perfect way to cap off what ended up being a sold out show. 
It's days like this that bring into stark focus how much I miss being away from home sometimes as well, and how much I wish I could share these experiences with my family and friends. But I still have a ways to go before I get back there, onto Thailand!

I've debated writing this entry the last couple of days, mainly because it's not really about audio or being out with a touring band or food or anything that has come before it. A couple of days ago I received some bad news from home. News that has kind of rocked me pretty heavily and put me in a very real position of deciding whether or not to stay and finish the last 3 shows or go home. I won't go into the specifics but mentally I've been out of the game for the past 1 or 2 days and feel like I will be for a while. So I've decided that I will make this entry both as a coping mechanism, to get it out of my brain and onto a page, but also to document the time and place, maybe something to look back on when the sun is shining a little brighter.

Since I was very young, Im talking 10 or 11, my mental health has never been very stable. I've developed over the years a wildly innate ability to push my problems aside and carry on with the task at hand, never really addressing things fully or making new ways of coping when things turn bad. And it worked really well for me, all through my school years and young adolescence right up until I started having real world relationships, the kind that has other people not only depending on you for emotional support but vice versa. And then all the shit that I had pushed away and not dealt with, all the times I should have been forming techniques and arming myself with tools to be able to properly deal with new challenges came around and let me know that it was time to make a change. And it was long, and it was hard and it broke me in so many ways I never thought possible. I did it all, psychotherapy, group therapy, the meds, the hospital trips, meditation, all of it. And it lasted for years. And eventually one day I had had enough. I didn't want to keep living in a hole, I didn't want to keep losing jobs, friends and loved ones because of it. I thought I had made enough of an effort seeing psychologists and spending money I didn't have on medication that made me unable to feel anything, so I did it again, I pushed it all aside and got on with things, I just didn't know it. Actually not until about an hour ago did I realise I had done it again. It's now been 10 years since then, and I feel like it's coming back around.

We got to the airport yesterday in Thailand and I quietly took myself away from the group as they were waiting for luggage to come out and I completely broke down. Hat down, sunglasses on, phone pressed to my ear talking to my mother at home and just absolutely losing it, ready to walk straight back through the departure gates and get on the next plane home without a word. Its one thing to be homesick, to miss people and places and routine and all that, its another thing entirely to be halfway across the world and completely alone with your broken brain, shaking, crying and unable to say a thing to anyone for fear of what it could mean for your future. I guess that last part is a moot point now that I'm writing this on the internet but having spent a bit of time talking to my family at home and making some long overdue concessions for who I am, what I've been through and where I've taken myself in the last 3 decades, I feel more at ease with being so far away from home and making an effort to finish what I've started. In the end there's nothing I can do whether I'm here or there and either way, everything will be fine eventually.

Before the show in Hong Kong was the first time I properly started to lose control, standing out the back of the venue by myself in a pitch black alley, in the cold, fighting back tears every 10-15 seconds. I stood out there for maybe an hour until it was just about show time. It's like psyching yourself up for a skydive or a jump into a freezing pool or any physical or mental leap into the unknown, a few deep breaths, a small mantra repeating in your head and then one foot in front of the other until it's over. I walked back to the front of the venue, stood behind the console and did it. And thinking back now, I was totally in the moment the entire time. My thoughts never strayed once and (at the risk of sounding conceited) I fucking killed it. I've mentioned before how much of a technical challenge mixing Hidden Agenda was, but the mental challenge of getting through that show knowing what was happening at home, and being more terrified of making it through the next day or week was more intense than I think I've realised. Which brings me back to what I'm still doing here. During the multitude of therapy sessions I went through a decade ago, one of the best coping mechanisms I was given by my therapist was what she called "All Time" activities (or something like that). Physical activities that I could do that completely encompass my entire being while I'm doing them. At the time it was playing drums. I used to play drums 2 or 3 times (sometimes more) every single week for years, it made me happier than anything else at the time and it was when I started losing control of my thoughts and battling with depression that I stopped doing that. But it was something that I needed to force myself to do, to give my brain time off, to be able to get that endorphin rush that was so absent from the rest of my life (or so my brain was telling me). A small amount of happiness to keep the torch lit and to keep on keeping on. Having made it through the show in Hong Kong I now realise that this time around, my All Time activity is doing exactly what I came here to do. I'm never happier than when I'm mid show, with a band that I love working with, watching other people feel what I feel because of what I'm doing. So I don't know what the next few shows and days will be like, but I'm staying. It's going to be hard, we still have a lot of downtime and the show is only 1.5 hours out of every two days, but I need it.

Thanks for reading.

So Thailand started really shit. I lost all motivation to do anything, I didn't give a shit. I couldn't put my phone down or take my earphones out. But Jef is really good at making even shit times bareable, so I stopped being a sad dick and started to enjoy myself a bit. The hotel we had was amazing. I didn't go see the pool or sauna but the breakfast was ok and a heap of cats and frogs and dogs were roaming outside. I don't really remember much of the first day, I think we went and ate and I spent most of the time talking to my sister or my mother on the phone. In fact I don't remember much of Thailand at all apart from the show. Just goes to show how being in the moment and present and actually enjoying life can change how your brain works.  So I might as well just talk about the show.
We got to the venue, its stinking fucking hot, I'm sweating in aircon, Jef and I load shit in and start setting up. There were a couple of backline issues that needed to be sorted out so I just checked out the venue for a bit. It was really, really weird. The venue was two levels, the floor and a balcony. The floor level was super wide but only about 10 metres deep from the stage to the back wall. The stage itself was probably that wide as well, with two huge load bearing posts at either downstage corner and the front of house speakers positioned outside each of these but pointing kind of diagonally out from the stage. 
The speakers looked to be an older EAW system, with massive subs that stood to about head height and 3 or 4 tops on top of these, but the tops were angled to blast up at the balcony level. Like Hidden Agenda in HK, there were a couple of front fill speakers positioned in the middle of the stage to fill it out a little but because the front of house speakers were so bloody wide (regardless of the fact that they were pointing directly away from the middle of the floor level audience) they still didnt do a whole lot to make a cohesive image (put some headphones on a close your eyes and listen to some music. your brain can usually locate a space for each instrument or voice and place it in a left to right space, you can picture what it would look like in your head. Thats an image) as you walk from left to right. In conjunction to these there was a third speaker stack (might have been the same as the front of house, I didnt get close enough nor was there enough light in the venue to see) placed at the upstage left corner of the stage (thats essentially the back left corner if you're standing on the stage looking at the crowd) on the floor, but angled from the floor back to fire at the back corner of the balcony level, but was so far away from that point that it had to be absolutely SCREAMING to make any difference, which is kind of dangerous for anyone standing at side of stage. There was also another single speaker on a stand standing up on the balcony at the opposite corner from the random floor stack, but again, kinda useless. So really, when it came time to soundcheck, there was just a bunch of stage noise and some subs blasting a very small space. Pretty wild. They had a seriously impressive light show though. A bunch of laser type fixtures and rotating mirror type lights that created a bunch of effects that I've never seen at home. A bit too much smoke machine but you seem to get that in Asia. The Marshall amp that Taka uses in conjunction with his Fender Twin died 30 second into soundcheck so the venue guys got a Laney bass amp and chucked it up for him instead. It sounded like someone had their hands over my ears the whole time, just not nice. Eventually someone rode their scooter down with a replacement Marshall amp (a totally different one, but better than the alternative) and we were back in business, but it meant that soundcheck went forever.
Mix position was on the balcony level just in front of the stage left speakers but at the back of the balcony, with the lighting console to my left at the front of the balcony, so I couldnt hear anything from the stage right speakers at all, nor could I see the stage once there were people in there. Lots of time spent under headphones and on tip toes.
We've not had support bands on this tour (bar 1 in Taiwan) which is usually how Mono rolls everywhere except Australia but we had two in Bangkok. Now the stage was about 5 metres deep and we weren't sharing backline so things got really squishy, really quick. People and instruments everywhere, so we had to essentially reset and recheck every mic, line and power source. I was kind of shitting myself just before we got started but when it came time for kick off, everything was cool. The room absolutely packed out (might have been another sell out? 400 ish people) and it sounded surprisingly good. I couldnt move or get down to the floor level to check it out down there but after the show we almost sold out of merch and the band spent a good half an hour or more signing things so I guess it went pretty well. Well, almost. Just before the end of the last song (Requiem For Hell for those playing at home) someone pulled the Cat 5 cable that connects the digital mixer to the mix rack that sits down at the stage. So the console froze and had to be restarted 3 times and the whole PA cut out. No sound from anywhere except the stage. Thankfully due to it being a pretty small room it didnt kill the show, the band kept on like it was nothing (hows working with professionals huh?), finished the set and we had enough time to get things back up and running before the encore. 
All in all, considering what we were up against, it went really well. The venue also provided the rider exactly to spec, which meant that we got a nice bottle of Glenlivet whiskey. And it tasted SO much better having sweated my life out, running up and down stairs all day and stressing like I haven't in a while. We hung out for a while afterwards, obviously with the signing happening, and I talked a while with the venue staff who had a lot of questions about the mic setup I was using. My mind was still kind of elsewhere as soon as the show finished but we went down to a 7/11 once we loaded out, I got some Milo (in Thailand!) to remind me of home and went to the hotel. On the way we got stuck in a bunch of traffic that turned out to be a pretty major accident: there was a beer delivery van (ironic, right?) on its side across three lanes on our side of the road and half of another car absolutely obliterated on the other side of the road. People and shit just everwhere. It made me feel really really anxious, not for our safety or anything but with everything else thats happening in my life right now it seemed like some kind of omen. I don't know, it was just weird timing. At the hotel I couldn't sleep, stayed up til about 4:30am talking to friends and family at home before realising I had to get up in 3.5 hours to catch another plane. 
Overall Thailand wasn't enjoyable, but I do feel a solid sense of accomplishment given what happened both in and out of the show. As I get closer to going home I find myself wishing that this would never end. That I wouldn't have to go home. But I do and I will and it'll be fine. Onto KL!

 

A Word From The Author

As of right now its 9:45pm on the 20th of July 2018. Thats a full year, 6 months and 1 day since the rest of this tour happened so please bare with me for a bit. The reason its taken so long for me to get back around to writing this is because my life has undergone some pretty intense changes since this tour. Im no longer married, I've got a full time job, I rarely actually tour anymore, I moved away from Brisbane and am currently putting into action a five year plan that started not long after this tour. However I figured this was a pretty epic time and is worth reflecting on, so here we go!

I remember sleeping like shit in Thailand, was on the phone to home for most of the night, got to bed around 4 with a 10-ish lobby call. We did the usual gear stack and count, I think Yoda and I went for a walk to the 7/11 for a super cheap but not so shit coffee, conducted a one way conversation with a cat that was hanging outside the hotel and generally just marvelled at the heat. The flight to KL wasn't bad, but the food was. It MIGHT have been Thai Airways (I can't be bothered checking) but it was like that gruel you see Lunchlady Doris serve to the kids at school in The Simpsons.
We landed in KL and it was somehow hotter. Met our local promoter Mak at the airport, the band and Jef had worked with him before but it was my first time meeting him. On first impression he reminded me a lot of local Brisbane music, beef and smoked meat identity Trad Nathan, which was kind of fitting I guess. We had a long ass bus ride into KL from the airport, I think I got a bit of sleep on the trip but nothing substantial. Woke up at the hotel, begrudgingly unloaded our shit, just not in the mood, turned around to see what kind of neighbourhood we were dealing with and the Petronas Towers were right there. Literally a block away. Crazy way to locate yourself in a brand new world city. I don't recall exactly what happened after that or in what order but Jef and I went with Mak out to the venue, as I was told it was a different sort to the ones we'd become accustomed to. It was a sit down theatre. Now at this point it had been 5 years since I'd even seen a performance in a sit down theatre, let alone worked one. Kind of excited, kind of terrified, kind of mentally elsewhere. After we'd done the venue recon and I'd finished asking for subs to added to the PA (lol) it was back to the hotel. I definitely couldn't sleep so I took myself for a walk around the neighbourhood, checked out the Towers up close, took some pictures, marvelled for a moment at where I was and what I was doing there, then went and hid in the hotel room.

The next day I copped the hotel breakfast, which I recall being ~okay~. It seems like continental breakfast is a multinational language, but everyone does it differently and most places get it so sooooo wrong (prawns guys? really?). But its free food, and it didn't kill me so...c'est la vie. Show day! Again, not a whole lot of clear memories of the day, although I do remember the console being some huge Yamaha deal that was definitely not what was specced prior to the tour, and the only venue contact around had very rudimentary knowledge of it, so soundcheck was tough. A side note here: as part of the preparation for any tour I do, I either ask for, seek out myself or am given a technical rider, or readout, of the equipment I'll be working with in each venue. This usually includes make and model of PA, console, in-house mic kits, monitor setups etc etc. This lets me either recall saved settings for different consoles, make new show files, adjust existing show files, or learn from scratch exactly what I'm going to be doing BEFORE I'm standing in front of the thing. So in this instance, it not being the console I had prepped for, became a bit of a task. 
Luckily most manufacturers don't stray too far from their tried and tested setups, and having worked on multiple different iterations of Yamaha consoles before, it wasn't like learning a new language, more like writing a book that you'd already written...again. The subs I'd asked for were in place for our arrival and after what seemed like ages (and having used every available graphic EQ in the console) everything was sounding good.

Between doors and go time I showed Yoda and Tamaki a little bit of yoga, pretty funny watching a Japanese guy almost twice my height and age trying to get himself into a workable lizard stretch. Taka put a button down collared shirt on, which was the first time I'd seen it happen. He said he felt like a fancy boy, I let him have it.

This ended up being a sell out show as well, 500 eager Indonesian fans lined up well before doors. I busted out the GoPro for this one, sat it near me at Front of House. Still haven't been around to doing anything with that footage yet, but maybe soon. The show itself was great, with a full on standing ovation from every person in the venue. Jef came around to me right as Mono finished, red eyed, wiping his face and said that was in the top 5 of every Mono show he'd ever seen (which, for a guy that has been working with them for many many years, is quite a big deal). I was stoked, the band were stoked, Jef and Mak were stoked, the level of stoke was high. We couldn't leave the venue for a little while afterwards because there was literally a crowd of people waiting at the back door, between us and the bus, cheering and chanting and calling for signatures and photos. I think we agreed to one group photo otherwise it was going to be a nightmare, we were late as it was and just wanted to get back. By the time that happened and we got to the hotel, I think there was something like 2 hours until lobby call for the 6am flight to Seoul, so Jef and I sat up, packing and repacking suitcases, smoking cheap indonesian cigarettes, watching shit tv and drinking the rest of the beers. Theres something really humanising about not sleeping, and not being chemically induced into doing so. You definitely feel all the weak parts of your being come into very sharp contrast with your normal self and are forced to get into little reasoning conversations with yourself about how 'you can do it' 'everything will be fine' 'part of the journey' and so on. Not recommended, but interesting.

KL was sick. I really want to go back.

South Korea. South. Korea. 
Never in my life did I think I'd EVER go to Korea, let alone for work, let alone for this kind of work. All I knew was that K-Pop was massive with Gangnam Style still being flogged at every shopping mall at home, and I wanted kimchi and Korean BBQ (I had kimchi in China in 2014 with Caspian and felt cheated). Slept for most of the 6 hour flight, acutely aware that we were leaving 28 degrees and humid in KL and heading into -3 degrees and snowing in Seoul. I had, of course, packed like an Australian visiting South East Asia in January: shorts, thongs and sleeveless tees. To my credit, I had my one big jacket with me and one pair of 'show jeans' (the stinking black ones you wear during each show to give the loose impression that you're some kind of professional) so the arrival wasn't as much of a shock as it could have been. 
I'd never seen actual snow before; I went to London in 2008 and was snowed on, but it wasn't the type of snow that you can pick up and experience, more like cold slush. So this was a bit of a treat. On the flight over the temperature dropped another few degrees and we stepped out of the airport into -6 celsius, a severe beating for my fragile, Queensland internal organs. You better believe though that the first chance I got to make and throw a snowball with the nearly melted previous days downpour, I did exactly that, much to the annoyance of my touring party. 
Long, long drive from the airport into Seoul. Not a whole lot to see; heaps of white, a few big bridges and spots of industrial activity but kind of boring. 
The hotel was super nice, and was right in the middle of what I was told was a university part of the city, however knowing now how big Seoul actually is, it could be one of many just like it. What it meant was that there was plenty to see and do right nearby, it was weird though, normally I wouldn't have any reservations with going out for a peek around, I just didn't want to. I remember sitting in the hotel with Jef (we always had a shared room) and looking up after an hour or so of spacing out and seeing little bits of white flying around in the air outside the window. I remember ~actually~ gasping like a damn cartoon, yelling "ITS SNOWING" and racing out the door. I went out to the street and full on danced in the snow. It was amazing. It must be like the first time as a child that you experience rain, and how much of a sensory overload it was, except that you're now an adult with 30 years of seeing things like water fall from the sky except its now delicate, helium light, tiny specks of frozen white that blow away from you like bubbles with the slightest change in air movement. It was surreal beyond anything I'd experienced in recent memory. Very cool.

I was expecting a different experience all together from Seoul, but I didn't quite know how different it would be. The first night our local promoter Ssako took us out for a 'traditional' Korean meal, which was a lot of vegetarian style dishes featuring things like beans, lotus, noodles etc. and a shit ton of Soju (korean rice wine) and beer. The restaurant was kind of Japanese style, everyone sat on the floor with a knee high table to eat from and nothing but chopsticks, which obviously suited the band more than me. During the meal I got talking to Taka about things that I as a fan would normally want to know about a band that I'm into, mainly the writing process, recording process, creative inspirations etc. The conversation itself I don't really remember, but theres one thing in particular that he mentioned to me that has stuck with me...we were discussing his method of writing and how he hears things like rhythmic and percussive elements when dealing with melodies. His response: "I just close my eyes and its there. I'm like a pencil for the Gods."
I kind of knew right then and there that I was exactly where I needed to be. I've always been the kind of person that 'feels' music, its much more than an auditory experience for me. I regularly have to physically shake off goosebumps because theres someone with a beautiful voice singing within earshot, or have to stop myself from crying during movies because the music is so epic even when theres nothing upsetting within the movie itself. Working with Mono specifically has brought me to tears more than once mid show. Theres something about the vibrations between tones, the relationship between notes, the way that music can portray visual and physical phenomena like light and shade, weight and depth that permeates all of my conscious states. 

Much like the first nights dinner, the venue was unlike any I've seen before or since. It was part of a complex made out of shipping containers, the kind of thing you expect to see in a slum, or ironically stylised social hub in an upmarket town or city. Walking inside reminded me kind of like the old Arena in Brisbane, a 600ish cap venue with a general standing floor area, a wraparound balcony level and chest high stage. The main difference though was that it was acoustically a very 'dead' space. There was almost no echo or reflection from any noise sources inside.