:: on tour with the tunnel ::
by Jake Shell
I had the pleasure of accompanying with Fudge Tunnel as their merchandising man on the tour to support The Complicated Futility of Ignorance. This came about because Ady was playing drums in mine & my brother's band Tubesurfer and Mike, their usual guy, couldn't go.
I jumped at the chance & in fairness to The Tunnel & Blue Grape (the merchandising Co.) I was crap, probably more of a hindrance than anything but they did a good job of tolerating me & making me feel welcome.
Anyway, the tour took in England (four dates), Belgium (2), Germany (3), Netherlands (1), Switzerland (1) & Austria (1).
The set for that tour comprised mostly tracks off Complicated plus SRT, Grey, Boston Baby & Bed Crumbs. I think they'd rehearsed a bit before setting off. It rocked.
Low Points: Vienna. Six (count 'em) people turned up, it was freezing, we drove in, they rocked, we drove out.
High points: The Tunnel themselves. One thing that has often been missed about the Tunnel is that they have a wicked sense of humour. They are, to a man, incredibly funny in a dry way which you could miss if you're not turned on to it.
Ghent: Played to a packed house, absolutely rocked it & drank ridiculously strong Belgian beer.
Amsterdam. Brilliant venue, great crowd, monster performance 'warming up' for Shudder to Think who we all really wanted to see. Well, the Tunnel blew them away. Ok I'm biased but after the intense noise STT's delicate & subtle take on DC hardcore just couldn't compete. Even if Mr Ryley did forget what he was playing during one song.
Zurich. Great town, great venue. Somehow I ended up DJ-ing the night and was request by the band to play Leonard Cohen's Sisters of Mercy as their intro. The Tunnel befuddling people's expectations again.
London. Greg Ginn & Surgery in support, say no more.
But for me the biggest thrill was being out on the road with a band whose music I loved and who were also nice blokes. Hearing the first feedback note of Random acts of cruelty' opening the set every night never failed to lose it's potency for making the hair on my neck stand up. Neither did the whole of Grey. I always felt that Complicated was their most accomplished album although some of it's impact was lost because of the insurgence of US hardcore/noise/metal (think Helmet, Machine Head, Pantera, etc) that was starting to make a real nuisance of itself in the UK. As someone who first saw Fudge Tunnel at the age of 16 I feel that they deserve more credit than they get as an influential band.
