THE TOUR BLOG



Welcome to the tour blog for Starlight Searchers and their various concerts, tours and shenanigans. Check back regularly for images and on the road anecdotes about one of the hardest working live bands around.

All upcoming Starlight Searcher concerts can be found here

 
Your host will be Starlight Searchers main man Louie Fontaine. So let’s get to it!!!

More live, backstage and random pics can be seen on our official Facebook page here


DON’T BRING THE KIDS TOUR 2015

BASEMENTS AND GOULASH (Sept 27 – Oct 02)

Banja Luka Sun 27th Sept Bosnia Herzegovina
Klub Bunker

Another basement! The guys were nice but the place had a broken mixer and it took forever to make sound. There was a known punk band in town, who apparently stole the audience. The ticket lady, Nadja, was nice to us and helped me find some smokes. Thanks for that, we are now facefuck friends. The promoter Nicklas, tried all the guitars out and was very exited about them, he is a great player himself.

We started to play in front 10 people but suddenly at the end of the show, some people arrived and demanded extra songs. I started off a few songs not on the list and the band ended sounding like a rock n roll band, the sound was extremely bad in that room and my ears were ringing like church bells all night.


Sarajevo Wed 29th Sept Bosnia Herzegovina
Club Monument

This very nice place was full from the beginning to the end of the show. People were into the music 100%. I had some trouble with my guitar so i did the mic show this night, which was good. Some girls were rocking that hard that I almost had a hard on onstage. Flirted a bit after the show …just a bit! Nice people we met in Sarajevo. After the show, I met Maria who told me/us a bit about the siege of Sarajevo during the war, a nice person she was.

We had the first day off before this show and the bad boys, me, EK and Rick had been hanging out until 15.00 in the afternoon in the jazz blues club (24 hrs open) building up a big, big bar bill. Our manager Johnny Angel put us to bed and rented one room for another day in the apartment hotel next to the jazz bar.

I had a weird dream that night. There was no window in my room and when I woke up I was sure (maybe because we were going to Romania next day) that I was locked up in a gypsy horse trailer.
After the show we went back to the Jazz blues bar. I think we played a song or 2 there before heading straight to Serbia, a terrible long ride.


Budapest Fri 2nd Oct Hungary
Route 66

The sound check took forever and nothing worked. Very few people were there, to be exact 22. Most left after the warm up band who played the show with no PA. The owner and friend loved the show but there’s not much to write about. We went for a little walk around Budapest the next day, had the best Goulash I ever tasted and now have left for Slovakia, hoping for a full house.

Louie Fontaine


THE CROATION LEG (Sept 24th – 26th)

Zagreb Thurs 24th Sept Croatia
Hard Place

A rainy day, no people in the street, met local promotor Demitre. The place was probably the best we had seen so far on this tour and the sound check went well. But the previous night in Bratislava, drinking heavily to build a 180 euro bar bill that we ran away from, had taking its toll on us and combined with the fact that we smoked a joint before the show (which was supposed to fresh us but took us down instead), music-wise the show was not the best. Not enough people as well. I think was the reason Drummer Jacob was not pleased with the situation and gave the band a lesson after the show. He was the only one that did not smoke. I went to sleep after the show, I was completely dead.


Bjelovar Fri 25th Sept Croatia
Klub

The band woke up in the tiny apartment, and slowly got washed, Martin Burke and I slept in the golden bus but both of us woke up early with a desire for a toilet. I did some shopping and brought breakfast for the band. Was planing to make bacon but found out their was no stove to cook on, so that didn’t work.

We arrived at the club in time. Met promoter Dino, who was extremely helpful, and who invited us out for a dinner. Having a meat plate, Croatian style was very good and a lot of it. It was raining heavy like the day before, Dino was expecting more people but they never arrived. We had 40 people there rocking, the band played extremely well and ended up having a little party after the show, drinking a local white wine that is supposed to keep your erection up high, even after drinking 1 or 2 bottles. Well I don’t know about that, I guess I will have to try it out one day. We took of after the show and drove all night


Split Sat 26th Sept Croatia
Klub Eks

Well this place was probably the most weird club I ever played in, the home of a bike club. We were picked up by Jimmy, who came on a bike of course. We followed him but suddenly he turned off into a little mountain road and disappeared into the hills. It was way up high and somehow we managed to drive the golden bus up there. The trailer could not turn at the curve and it took quite a struggle to get it there.

So when we go the stage, it was build like prison cage and looked a bit like in the movie with the Blues brothers. The place was more like a garage and I was not too optimistic from the beginning, but we went for it anyway.

Klub Eks

I had a Danish friend, Kenneth Majgaard, who I hadn’t seen for 17 years coming to the show as well as a Norwegian friend, Vendel Hausken and her friends. We met them in town and went to the show together. The warm up band was rocking already when we arrived, the Norwegians seemed to be a bit scared of the place and left again less than 5 min after we arrived. I had warned them that it was a shady club but all folks gotta do, what they gotta do.

People arrived and we played well. I was hanging in the prison bars half the time and people went crazy, dancing in front of the cage. Not the safest show I ever played and security is now everything for me. Jimmy and Jamie were barbecuing outside the club, it felt bit like playing in some remote Arizona highway shack. All together a good night, we got a framed picture from the owners which is now hanging on the wall in the golden bus.

Louie Fontaine


THE TOUR GETS UNDERWAY (Sept 21st – 23rd)

Torun Poland Monday 21st Sept
Pub Hard Rock Pamela

Very well promoted gig and the house was packed already for the opening band. The band played very well, the only problem was that the light show blinding everybody, it was like playing in the dark, so there were a few mistakes here and there but the energy was high.

I (Louie Fontaine) went to bed after the show, but the bad boys EK, Martin and crazy Rick got in a cab after the show and picked up some booze. In my room next to the party …freaks …it sounded like a boys gang bang. Later, i was told that Rick Heart, who has a tendency of showing himself naked in front of people, had done it again and stripped in front of his band mate,s showing his 17.5 cm master piece which he is so proud of.

It was impossible to wake the bad boys up the next day and therefore we ran 2 hrs late, but made it just in time for the next show in Krakow.
torun gig


Krakow Tuesday 22nd Sept
Club Grodzha

Well it was pure torture getting the gear down into the basement dungeon. The show was badly promoted, no drinks, dinner or even hotel. It looked like it was gonna be a nightmare when The Hammond broke down but we managed to fix it just before the show.

Things were looking pretty bad until our polish manager Mr Wozhy and i met Monika, who had come to the show to write about it and take photos of the show. That gave the situation a little push in the right direction and 30 min later the place was almost full (which means 30 people), an extremely small place in a extreme deep basement. After the show we took off and the house sound-man Luciano Lucifer joined the band. We went to his parents house and picked up his passport, which i later realized had expired in June, so we planned to smuggle him into Croatia. Now we are 8 people in the bus so it’s a bit crowed.

In Krakow we got a new power converter which Wozhy bought for us and now the sunpower system is operating a fridge and freezer, yes… you heard me, ice machine cold drinks. It is a fantastic thing to have.


Bratislava Weds 23rd Sept
Praotec Music Bar

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Terrible terrible show. The place had nothing and things took a bad turn when an angry old man stopped us in the middle of the street because we were promoting the show with our roof speakers. He later called the police to stop the show.

When we arrived the the police came and some lady accused us for bumping into to her car, which we did not.

After playing 5 songs, a security guy came and shut down the power and the DJ ‘s wife pulled the plug out of my guitar, a real bitch. I later had a fight with and spit her in the face, she deserved it, she was a hysterical bitch and was hitting me as well. We started at 21:30. Nobody told us that we should be finished by 22:00. We played some quiet blues after that and hit the bar that they compensated for us and we drank wine and rum on the bill which we ran from later.

A real stupid place, we’re never going back there.

Bratislav hotel
The only thing that was good was the hotel art gallery, a cool place and nice people.

What a night!

Louie Fontaine


BURIED & BLESSED TOUR 2013

17.11.13 FONTAINE PALACE, LIEPAJA, LATVIA

The band except Ek stayed in the golden bus, i woke at 11.00 toilet needs, and went to my own place, meet my wife, got a little pleasure, that felt good after all that girl attention we just had.

When i went downstairs i found Washington and Martin drinking black hot drinks under the excuse that i left them in cold truck with the window open, well i guess i was my fault, they got drunk from the morning sure it was.

This was the last show as Louie Fontaine & Starlight Searchers from not on its just Starlight Searchers, and the last show in my old pants, a full house about 500 people maybe more, some left since we played last after a very popular Latvian Band called Iron wolf but there was still a lot.

We had a trouble with the first songs but the middle part went well. When band members started to change instruments and leaving the stage time to time things got a bit loose, well it was an emotional show, but all together good it had its moments, a lot of people is always good, we might been a little to used and we stated around 2.00 in the morning but i felt fine after the show.

 
There of cause was a party the club manager had made collection of flavored Whisky’s, the Iron wolf boys joins us after the show, and the party went on, i ended up in a fight with my wife close to noon, we still don’t talk to each other, it’s Wednesday now, I’m going home.

Louie Fontaine


17.11.13 (early) THE SHIP BACK TO KLAIPEDA

Manager Johnny Angel and Washington could not land after the show as they kept the party going strongly. It all ended up in an accident when Mr Angel tried to get us on the cargo ship that left 1 hour before our ship …he did it but came back covered in blood after a bad fall on the ship deck. I think i was sleeping …i’m a good boy.

Louie Fontaine