Here it is!
Cancer Bats epic journal of the Never Say Die tour!!! 22 days of non stop ripping across Europe and The UK, featuring the hardcore talent of ComBack Kid, Park Way Drive, The Mother Fucking Cancer Bats, The Warriors and This Is Hell!
The whole tour should have been called the traveling Bro Festival of 07…because the friendship level of this shit was off the charts. We knew 2/4 of the bands on the tour, CBK and TIH (note: I’m gonna use some short forms for all the bands CBK,PWD,CB,The WAR,TIH coolio?......thanks) Mikey our drummer has been best friends with Andrew the singer of CBK since they were 12 yr old skids, ridding skate boards in Winnipeg and stealing their mom’s smokes.
We first met our homies in TIH when their van broke down in Toronto during their first tour. They were stuck and needed a place to stay, I hooked them up and we’ve been hella tight ever since, grrrreat dudes. Anyhoo so we didn’t know anyone in The War other than Javier their guitar player, and we didn’t know any of the dudes in PWD, but all members were fully vouched for by all the CBK TIH bros, having just been on tour with them in the US. All I knew was that I loved the Warriors and couldn’t wait to watch them rip every night and I knew the PWD kids were a bunch of laid back surfer dudes who shred on guitar.
Needless to say the idea of being on tour with such awesome bands for a month in Europe sounded like the best ideaIi had ever heard! Best part was that the whole tour was going to be in two buses split between the 5 bands. We Bats have never toured in luxury and I was looking forward to having a place to sleep every night.
Usually when we tour the UK its in an old mail van full of gear, so the idea of sleeping in a bunk instead of on a bass cab sounded awesome! We all met up at the airport in Frankfurt Germany and have a huge hug fest with old friends and meet all of the dudes in PWD and The WAR. Everyone seems awesome and I could tell even from the start that this was going to be an amazing tour.
The upside to the whole Never Say Die tour was that we were going to cover so much ground in such a short amount of time. No days off, 22 shows in a row in Germany, England, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, France…just a total non stop assault of hardcore. Best way to travel and have an incredible time.
The tour started in Luxemburg and before we knew it we were already in England tearing our way through the first half of the tour. Each night was pretty much sold out in 500 to 1000 capacity venues. The Warriors, TIH, and Ourselves would get kids loosened up and ready to party every night and ParkWay and CBK would just tear the roof down. So many sing a longs and stage dives every night. It didn’t matter which city we would be in, what language anyone spoke, the universal language of kicking ass would prevail and kids just loved to have a good time to and mix it up.
I always feel pretty ignorant when we tour in europe when every kid can speak at least a little english and can communicate with us and none of us can speak German or Italian or Spanish or any of the languages in any of the countries we travel through. No one ever minds but I still feel rude, one of these days I’ll learn enough of every language to show that I at least care. As the days and shows keep rolling on we all find ourselves saying how fast the whole tour has gone by. A lot of times it feels unreal, we fall asleep as we leave the last venue and wake up in the parking lot of the show ready to do it all again.
When you’re traveling in a van you can take a lot more of your surroundings and really see the country side roll by, where as in a bus its all a blur and you sleep through most of the travel. Doing a tour this huge, where we travel so far it would be impossible to do it in a van. I can’t complain at all, because being able to have a good nights sleep every night, instead of staying up driving to make it to the show, is incredible.
The best part is that no one is really tired or worn out so everyone can be totally on their game for each show every night, and I feel like every band is crushing every show. This whole month I’ve had the best time watching every band on the tour every night. With all of the bands getting along so well, every night has felt like going to a show with all of your best friends and just hanging out. We all watch all of the bands and sing along, stage dive, there’s been lots of cross overs with singers from other bands coming up on stage for their bros sets. Winston from ParkWay singing every night with The Warriors or Rick from TIH singing during the ComeBackKid set is just awesome to watch.
We’re on the last two days of the tour and I can easily say that this has been one of the best experiences of my life. I don’t think I’ll ever get a chance to be a part of a tour that has been this much fun. We’ve had rad times with all of our homies in TIH and CBK and have now become awesome friends with ParkWay and The Warriors.
If i had it my way this tour would continue across the US, Australia, Canada, The Arctic, everywhere we could go. Never Say Die Tour forever !
