Personalised Towels, Grace Jones and Getting Lost in Madrid: The Goon Sax Tour Diary #1

​The last 18-months have consisted of a long series of firsts for teen pop trio The Goon Sax​. From their first legal alcoholic beverages, to the release of their first full-length release, and their first Australian tour, life has been pretty exciting for the recently graduated high school students. The Goon Sax European tour this month also marks another remarkable first for the Brisbane teenagers - their first shows outside of Australia- and with eight-dates scheduled across Spain and the UK, we asked the group to keep us posted with a couple of entries from the trip. This is Part #1. 

The tour got off to a bit of a rough start when I was looking for my passport the day before we were set to leave and it was nowhere to be found. So James and Louis set off on their own to Madrid, and I, miraculously, managed to get a passport in one day. Thanks to Pat at the Brisbane passport office I didn't miss any of the shows - arriving in Madrid at 3pm and on stage at 9pm at the Teatro del Arte.

Spain was incredible. Everybody was so nice to us and we had a very warm reception. Since it was our first show outside of Australia, we were mostly glad to see anyone there and couldn't believe the turnout. After the show we decided to go for a walk around the city but it wasn't quite as easy to get around as Brisbane and we ended up very lost.

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Eventually we found ourselves at some kind of palace and decided maybe we should just get a taxi. After a few drinks my high school Spanish was near fluent and we managed to get back to where we thought was our hotel. Unfortunately, we came to find that there were four of the same hotels in Madrid so we were back to square one. After driving a little while longer, James who had been silent in the back seat for some time raised his hands and exclaimed "Sol!". Which was the name of a train station near to our hotel. We were saved!

It was quite a relief to be back in bed feeling very jet lagged and very confused. Louis thought Madrid was like a video game or a giant maze or something which I think is pretty apt.

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Our wonderful tour manager George then drove us to Zaragoza. The scenery was overwhelmingly beautiful and we listened to a lot of Grace Jones along the way. Zaragoza was much smaller than Madrid but just as beautiful really. We played at La lata de Bombdillas. No funny anecdotes from this part of the tour really. Actually, someone did try to coax James and Louis into their apartment and then chased them for a few blocks when they refused, I was gladly asleep.

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Then we went onto Barcelona for BAM. It was insane. We had never played to so many people before, or been treated so nicely. We even had towels with our names on them. It was a delight to see Lloyd Cole​- one of my all time favourites. He played an acoustic set and when the riff to "Are You Ready to Be Heartbroken?" began, a middle aged Catalonian woman put her arm around me and we cried together.  We also noticed Lloyd's rider consisted of only ten Twix chocolate bars, which I think is pretty genius but it could be top secret so keep it down.

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​Catch Goon Sax:
Oct 15 - Brisbane at the Foundry
Dec 9 - Meredith at Meredith Festival

​Images: Goon Sax