A Positive Perspective: Australia

Well apparently this update has been much anticipated. I've been asked all week when I was going to write about Australia and I finally found the time to sit, rather lay, and write it. So here it is, Australia.

xBishopx Street (I swear we didn't do this ourselves)

Our first day in Australia was September 8th. Of course, when flying with Jetstar, our flights were messed up. Our original flight to Gold Coast was cancelled and we had to fly into Cairnes and then to Sydney. Once in Sydney we met up with Blood Sport which was the band we would be spending our tour in Australia with. We were also accompanied by Shay and Ollie, who were our driver and tour guide. 11 dudes in a van for a 8 days. It was going to be interesting. We left the airport and hit Newtown. Apparently vegan food is hard to find in Australia. There were some record stores which of course we had to stop at, burger places, pizza joints, and a few asian places. We ate Burger Fuel which was really good but a little over priced. We soon found that everything in Australia is over priced. Water bottles ended up being about 2 dollars in U.S. dollars. I have to admit though, Australia has some of the coolest looking money I've seen. Its all colorful and even has little parts of it that are see-through. After Newtown we made our first long drive to Brisbane. It took us like 12 hours or something. I tried to sleep but sleeping in the van was a mission and it took all of us a couple days to get a floor plan set up that had everyone with their own sleeping spot. We got to Brisbane pretty early in the morning after driving over night. We had beds set up for us thanks to Sam from Time Has Come. It was nice to sleep for a few hours.

The Famous Van

Blood Sport

Shay (The Driver)

Ollie (The Tour Guide)

We headed to our first show after that which was an hour away. It was one of the best shows of the tour. We played with some big band from Australia so a lot of people were at the show. We went back to Sam's after that and stayed there. The next day we went to the Koala Zoo in Brisbane. It was probably the highlight of our trip. A lot of famous people have been to that place and their pictures are up all over the walls in the gift shop. We got in for free because we were a band from America and they took our pictures with the Koalas and are putting them up on the wall too. We got to walk around a huge open field with Kangaroos just hanging out that you could feed and pet. We took pictures with those too. After that we went to our next show which was at a Club. It was weird because the club was split into 2 areas. On one side there was some kid blasting some of the worst mosh metal I've ever heard. I'm sure there were like 10 Emmure songs played, probably some Devil Wears Prada, pure garbage. Every once in a while he would throw in some good stuff, but it was torture nonetheless. On the other side of the wall they were playing dance music. It was funny because inbetween the bands playing you could hear the other music playing. After the show a bunch of people went next door to dance and it was pretty entertaining.

Koala saying hi

My Kangaroo Friend

Just hangin' with our mates

Koala kisses

Koala eating

Bishop loves Koalas

After that show we made another long drive back to Sydney. More Newtown the next day. This time we ventured to a place called Burgerlicious. It was so good. Definitely my favorite food spot in Sydney. I believe that was the day we played 2 shows in one day. Australia has a lot of laws when it comes to shows. They either have to be All ages with no alcohol being served, over 18 only, or under 18 only. So we played one all ages and then one 18 and over at a club down the street. The first one was at a pub-ish kind of place but it had a big theater in the room next to the pub that we played in. The best part about it was that there was a kitchen in the back of the venue that made these huge steaks. Levi from Blood Sport treated me to one and it was delicious. Probably the best non fast food meal I had all of tour. After that show we drove down the street to play at another interesting venue. Three stories, on the middle floor is where we played, on the bottom floor they played some weird dance metal goth I dont even know. The people that were walking down there were interesting to say the least. I dont know what was on the top floor but Im sure it was more of the same weirdness.

Bishop @ Snitch Nightclub, Brisbane, Australia

We drove to Melbourne after that show, another long over nighter. We made it into the city with just enough time to stop at Lord of the Fries which was a vegan burger place. They had a bunch of good stuff there. Burgers, Fake Chicken Nuggets, Fries, all which had special sauces that you could choose from that were amazing. I got a burger and fries with the BBQ sauce. But I tried some of everyone elses stuff which was good too. We drove to the show which was in Mt. Eliza. At least thats what I think it was called. I shaved my head and monster beard off in the dressing room of the Venue with some help from Knotty from Blood Sport. When I was all done and cleaned up I came into the front room of the huge hall that we were playing at and my jaw hit the floor. There she was, the love of my life, well at least the one for the Australia tour. She was gorgeous. She was small which was cute and she had the most beautiful face I had seen in forever. When she talked my heart melted. Australians have the most amazing accents and when you find an attractive female, which isnt hard because they are all over, it just makes the accent that much more sexy. So anyway after much courtship, I found out her name and got her info and that was it. I didnt get to talk to her, I only had 1 night in that area so there was nothing I could do. We tried to get her to come hang out in the city the next day but she couldn't. So that was the only chance I got to see her. But I have kept in contact with her since then and we are good friends now. Hopefully when we go back there I can make her my wife and bring her back to the states. All jokes aside though, Chloe Woods, whatever Australian guy ends up with you is going to be a very lucky man.

The next day we hit up Lord of the Fries again and a couple stores downtown. Hung out with Holly who was a great tour guide and helped us find all of the places because Ollie was not on his A-game that day. We were supposed to play 2 shows again in that day but the first show was cancelled so we only played the one. It was the last show of the tour and it was fun. We had our final goodbyes to the Blood Sport boys and ate some Mackers as a fairwell dinner. Oh I forgot to mention, Australians have slang words for everything. Mackers is McDonalds, Hungrys is Hungry Jacks which is the name of Burger King over there, Keffers is KFC. They also have words like suss, keen, and heaps which they use all the time. We would make fun of each other for how we talked and said certain words. By the end of the tour, we were all close friends.

Berry Cheesecake

Thats the ocean

Last show of tour

So after that we made another long drive back to Sydney again. We had 2 days there before we flew back to the states. The first day we went to Newtown and ate, and then we went to Luna Park and took some band promos. The next day we went Downtown and to the Opera house and took more band promos. Chucky from Sixlip was kind enough to hook us up with those. We stayed at Dan Misztals house those 2 nights and then we got dropped off at the airport the next morning. Of course, more travel complications, but everything got taken care of. We got on a Delta plane which we all had our own TV screens and got to watch whatever we wanted. I watched 5 movies on the way to L.A. Once in L.A. we dropped off Pete and Dual Dave because they were staying there for a few days and me, Sam, and Derek continued on. We had a 4 hour layover there and then flew to Detroit and then finally got home to Fort Lauderdale that night. It was a 23 hour travel day. Not fun. But Audra and John Warden picked us up from the airport, short one bag of luggage that was left in Detroit and had to be delivered the next day, just to add to the travel problems we had throughout the tour. But all in all it was amazing. I loved Australia and I can't wait to go back. We are planning a world tour within the next couple years and that will definitely be one of the spots we hit. I will be looking forward to it.