Touring a punk band through Asia was a fucking terrible idea in hindsight. For starters I had never been to Asia before, I can’t speak any language outside of English and I already knew that there was no money to be made. We wanted to do it for fun and to hopefully break even on our costs – which we didn’t. Touring everyone there ended up being a holiday that I eventually ended up paying for. But this isn’t all about that tour; it’s about the time I nearly got married.
The first show was Malaysia. We landed and waited two hours for this nervous dude to take us to a bus. We finally got to our destination and into in our little rooms – which was more like an Ensuite (or little bathroom for my American mates) with a bed inside it. From what I could tell none of the promoters knew exactly what was going on, and I had no idea who was running the show. They took us out for a lovely street meal and our guys explained that rival promoters held gigs in protest on the same day ours would be running. The rival punks stated that Guttermouth were a homophobic and racist band. What they didn’t realise was that our merch guy’s wrist is more bent than the Queensland police force, oh and Asia is probably not on the list of racist white dude’s holiday destinations. They were way off. Our first show in Malaysia was to around 40 people, who admittedly showed a lot of energy and were fucking fun. The next day, full of odd seafood and very cheap beer, we flew to Singapore.
We met up with a friends band from Queensland called The Pints. Parker, the drummer and singer, had been drinking for several hours on a plane and passed out in the aisle before the flight landed. I met their lovely merch guy for the first time – a heavily tattooed bloke who is probably the biggest sweetheart in the world. I think he had it worse than anyone on that whole fucking tour. The authorities stripped searched him and roughly put their hands up his bum – WITHOUT A GLOVE! They did that because they found anxiety tablets, which he had a script for. We weren’t even in Singapore a whole 24 hours and when you mixed The Pints crew with ours, things got messy pretty quickly. We were all staying at this disgusting hostel called ABC. It was one of the gross ones where you had to wear shoes in the shower because it looked they had never been cleaned, and the water barely trickled out of the tiny taps above you. The beds were as equally horrible as the showers but we met so many great people in short period of time that it made up for the grit. Such is life on tour though!
We all made it to the venue which was surrounded by barbed wire, and very strict signs saying that if we jumped the fence we’d be shot with machine guns . Because the visa forms you fill out on the plane say “drug traffickers will be forwarded death” I think we took it pretty easy and just drank ourselves stupid. It was more like a Regional Rugby League drunk vibe going on with all of us. A bogan punk tour of sorts. The promoters in Singapore were a group of VERY organized and lovely girls, who were so worried about us being drunk the whole time we were there. They have toured a lot of international bands and said that they had never seen anyone drink so much, so I guess that’s something Mum would be very proud of.
After the small show we all sat around drinking and talking with our new Singapore mates, and then I started talking with this very attractive Muslim chick. She was funny and fun to hang out with, but after a few more beers I started attempting to flirt. Now I didn’t want to come across like some Australian, Bintang wearing idiot that these Asian countries have grown to expect. For me it’s hard not coming across as a bogan after a few beers though – I even love Rugby League! I didn’t want to scare off a poor Muslim girl and give her a bad image of my country. I’m not sure if it was the weird tasting Asian beer doing this, but I was pretty perked up and confident. “Can I kiss ya?” I slurred in front of all of her mates. She came towards me, grabbed my shirt “Not here, but we can go behind the building” she whispered. For some reason I was really fucking awkward as soon as she gave me the option. “OK let’s go” I mumbled, then she grabbed my hand and we went behind the corner of the building. She was probably 3 years younger than me, but for some reason the kiss felt similar to my very first run of kisses growing up. My first kiss growing up I was with a blonde bogan girl, surrounded my Aboriginal teenager’s shouting at us. “Stick YA toung in mate!” they yelled. OK so maybe this wasn’t as intense as that, but the shy Glenn passed through drunken Glenn and my awkward stage began. She was equally as nervous which in retrospect was pretty cute. The kiss maybe featured the tip of our tongues, if that. It was so innocent and nice; the kind of kiss you see on those stupid afterschool soap operas – only we were in our mid-20s.
goon from a bowl
After our awkwardly lovely kiss we went back to the hostel and continued parting on. Fuck the accommodation was a joke, seriously. “I was ready for a “you-get-what-you-pay-for” kind of deal. But this was extreme.” A google review read. But although the location and actual place was a dump, they did let us drink all day and night on their front porch.
I slammed a beer, had an ice bucket tipped on my head and then looked this Muslim girl in the eye. “Will you marry me?” I asked. Now, it’s not that uncommon for me to propose to strangers. I’m going to be that guy who has too much fun in Vegas, vomit all over myself then wake up married – and fuck it! There are far worse things in the world than me accidentally waking up married. This was different though because I was asking a drunk Muslim girl to take my hand in marriage. It started getting late and our flights were leaving very early in the morning to Thailand. I insisted that she go home and I lent her money to take a taxi so she was safe.
In the morning you start hearing familiar sounds, voices and conversations going on when you’re on tour – and it means that it’s usually time to leave. One by one people start waking up, hung-over and regretting that they drank so much. Every fucking time! We walked in the hot sun towards our van, and quietly drove to the airport ready to depart. We walked around the airport for ages trying to check in to our stupid Air Asia flights. Justin puts his hand on my shoulder and with his award winning smile “your wife is here man”. I laughed it off and continued to try and check in, then I turn around and she was there. Oh fuck!
