European Tour Diary: Day 2 - Stockholm, Sweden

We gather in the lobby of the hotel we’re staying in and get ready to go. It is absolutely freezing in Stockholm, but none of us mind, and besides it gives us our first chance to try out our winter jackets we bought in preparation. We get to the venue which is a great place called Debaser and begin setting up for the day, getting our merch ready, getting our gear ready to sound check etc. Danko Jones have a cool light show, and I’m really jealous. It makes our homemade MDF boxes look a little tame but hey, you work with what you got, right? When, and if, it is ever our time to have lights, then we will. I hope.

While the others are mooching around at the venue or killing time exploring the local area, me John and Fraser grab our acoustics and head off to do some radio stuff for some radio stations nearby. It is another cool experience, and another first when we play an acoustic version of Weight of The World for John our DJ and host. Melts my mind that I’m sitting in a studio in Sweden singing a song we wrote in our rooms (pretty much), and I am struck once again by how funny life is. You just never know what you’re going to be doing in the future. Cool. We sneak off for an amazing Swedish lunch of Meatballs and Mash Potato and watch as a huge group of people sing happy birthday (I think?) in the restaurant we’re in. It sounds so cool and so Scandinavian and otherworldly, it gently stirs the notion or feeling that part of my history is here in this foreign world. We go back for another interview then head back to the venue.

We warm up and prepare for the show, before eating dinner at the venue before doors, and proving once again that the food is just amazing over here. I could get seriously fat doing this.

We don’t really get nervous (some of the things we’ve done this year pretty much hammered the nerves out of us) but we aren’t really sure what Danko Jones fans are going to make of us so we take to the stage half not expecting anybody to turn their head our way. The crowd is lively and ready for a good night so it works out fine and we flop onto the couches upstairs afterwards tired and sweaty but pleased. 28 more to go!



One of the reasons we were so excited about the idea of doing the Danko Jones tour (apart from visiting all these great countries and actually getting to tour with a cool band) was the idea that we would be playing to an entirely new bunch of people, which is something we’re all really keen on doing. We see making our way over to Europe as in some ways starting again, but in a good way. We’ve been lucky enough to have a great year at home in the UK, and we are appreciative of that but we also want to take our band as far and wide as we can. Europe is a big part of that, and just like at home where we built things up one person at a time, we aim to try and play hard, play well, and to get people to listen to our music that maybe wouldn’t otherwise do so. I hope (and think) that there is something in our music for different generations, genders, and any other divide you care to mention.

We celebrate our first night on tour by going out for some drinks with our managers and booking agent Sean, but every place we go to seems to be closing in 10 minutes so we pass through like ten different bars before the night ends with us (me) being denied entry to a club on a boat because I don’t have ID and apparently look like I need it. Score! Kind of…

We head back to the hotel and pass out. It’s funny, in some ways it feels like we’ve been on tour for ages, and this is only day one.

-Gus.