No time for sight seeing today as it is 8 or so hours to Vitoria & the van is beginning to make worrying squealing noises…more on this later although Maekawa san has kinda spoilt the ending with his blog yesterday!

The last show of the tour is in another great little rock n roll venue on an industrial estate outside the city. This seems to be a common thing in Spain, doubt it would work in England, people here don’t like to travel to get to shows.

The place is called Hell Dorado (see what they did there??) & we have a great night, over 200 people show up making the venue pretty full & again Peelander put on a great show. As you probably know the Eel Shock crowd these days consists largely of ‘gentlemen of a certain age’ such as myself. It is great fun each night watching these guys getting involved in the silly games that Peelander force on their crowd. Actually I suspect that an older crowd is more willing than kids to do this kinda stuff…we’re well past worrying about looking cool at our time of life!

We have a little PA trouble (it seems I’m too loud again…oops) & the right side of the PA cuts out a few times. My mixing position is up on the balcony so after turning down it takes me a while of running up & down stairs before I get it sounding right…sorry about that. Worse still during this time I don’t notice that Aki is signalling that he can’t hear himself…the fault should not have affected his monitor but it seems that it did. We are into Iron Man before everything is running smoothly…piss.

Despite this the response is great & we are so happy to have finished the tour in Vitoria…well, the bands are, I have to confess to being a bit tired & grumpy…I can’t remember the last night I got a good night’s sleep.

After the show I drop Gian & Aki at the hotel (Aki has a lot of driving to do tomorrow…more than we thought as it turns out) & Kazuto & I drop Peelander at Bilbao airport which is about an hour drive away.

It has been an absolute pleasure to work with them for the last 3 weeks…I was a bit concerned before the tour because they have known Eel Shock for years & obviously are Japanese too so I thought I might be kinda excluded but they were a great bunch of guys & always made sure I was involved. I hope we will work together again soon…hopefully they will be back in Europe early next year.

The drive back to Vitoria is pretty scary as I am struggling to keep the van between the lines on account of seeing two or three lines for every one that actually exists because I am so tired. Fortunately there is very little other traffic about.

It seems that I didn’t take any pics today…maybe Kazuto can add a few.

After a few hours kip we get up at 11ish & head for Paris where EES have flights the next day. The plan is to do most of the drive today & then stop for a decent meal & a few drinks somewhere short of Paris & then finish the journey on Monday…never make plans!!

Just over the Spanish border the fan belt comes loose & we have to pull onto a parking area by the side of the motorway.

We have a running gag on the tour based around Aki’s belief that Déjà vu means actually having done or seen something before rather than the feeling that you have. For instance if we miss a turn at a roundabout & have to go round twice THAT apparently is déjà vu. Having said that the pic above does kinda remind me of something.

Fortunately this time we have AA cover (well, sort of, the less said about that the better!) so we get towed off to a local garage where initially we are told we will be stuck until at least Monday. Aki & Kazuto start attempting a repair which prompts the local mechanic to help out & between them they bodge a repair that may get us home although there is damage to the fan belt so we are not sure it will hold.

We have also developed a water leak which means that for the following 500km to Paris (& the 500 beyond that to London) we stop every 50 mins or so to top up & cool down.

We crawl in to Orly airport’s hotel area at 4 in the morning & then Aki & I have to stay up doing homework until 6am.

When I go out to get a bag from the van I see a long trail of oil running across the car park to our van. It seems our bodge job was not as successful as we thought & a bolt on the alternator has pierced the oil filter…lucky we got this far I suppose!

Next day we find a Kwik Fit style garage near to Charles De Gaule but do not have time to visit before I need to drop off the guys for their flights. They seem very guilty about leaving me to pick up the pieces again but I am just glad that we have got them there & that we have not picked up any extra expenses like last time. Besides, if shit didn’t happen no one would need tour managers would they!

The garage should be about 10 minutes away but the road signs in France are extremely confusing & I get badly lost & very worried as the oil light has been on for some time & I imagine the engine will seize up at any moment.

Finally I find the garage but they can’t fix the leak but kindly top me up with oil for free & point me in the right direction. Thanks Speedy!!

At the Ford garage they fix the oil problem for the price of the filter (thanks again!) but can’t do the fan belt or the water so I hobble up to Calais on a wing & a prayer (translate that Kazuto!).

I get on the ferry at 11.15pm & treat myself to a meal at Eel Shock’s expense. Check out the tea…not sadly the pyramid bag but it is PG…JOY!! My stash ran out a couple of days ago so this & more PG at the Costa shop makes my day.

I pick up Bob at his house & we unload the stuff into mine at about 4am before he drives down to Autodan to fix the van.

So, another tour over & all in all a bit more successful than the last one…at least financially! It’s always great to be involved with Eel Shock…can’t wait for the next time.

Arigato!