I Exist - Halloween Melbourne shows - Day 3 and 4

Benny eats a chip, Jake or Jarred took these photos

We ate breakfast at a cafe called retro, they make vegan breakfasts, but they were basically a pretty average plate of fried vegetables.

This photo is basically Paddy in a nut shell; coke, internet on phone, flat brim.

Sean spends his week days saving the economy.

We met up for lunch at Bimbos with Craigos, who runs Midnight Funeral Records and put out the I Exist 7”, for some reason I didn't take any photos of him. The place is a  bar that serves food and is full of big couches. We ate $4 pizzas that were really really good, they have one with soy cheese, but it's apparently not vegan so we got vegetable toppings without cheese.
There's minimal lighting inside the place but big windows onto the street let just enough light in to shoot 1600 ISO at f/1.8.

With a few hours to kill before the gig we went to a park to drink beer, fruit juice and pepsi max.

We also climbed some trees and watched a bunch of birds trying to have sex.

We turned up to load in at the venue to see this running sheet stuck up on the walls inside.

We then spent the remaining time before the gig being mean to a parking inspector and cutting sleeves off shirts.

I've only been to one show at this venue before, it's pretty good for bands to play, as gets them seen by a lot of people and they get paid a good amount, but the crowds at these places are the worst people, I genuinely hated every second I was in this this place.

The first band that played were Lover's Grave, they're are a newish band from Melbourne, I think this was like their 5^th show. I saw their first gig a few months ago when they played at the Arthouse with dead kings. I like them, but I wasn't really having a good time when they played.

Sam almost didn't get let in because he left his I.D. in Canberra, and he looks about 15 years old, so he had to walk to a police station and get a signed declaration of his age. I didn't take any photos when I Exist played. But they played really well, it sounded good and was very loud. Jake seemed really into it, more than usual and he seemed to startle the audience whenever he jumped off the stage, like they didn't understand what he was doing running around amongst them.

In Trenches were headlining, I wasn't real keen on their album when I first heard it, but seeing them live a bunch of times, I've really started to enjoy them.

Kevin is a maniac with his guitar.

It's always easier at live shows to take photos of the front man, they're up the front the most and generally move around more than other members, also I was lighting with a speedlight either side of the stage and the light evened out in the centre. That's why most of the photos are of Coyte.

Day 4 - going home

Benny got tattooed by Matt Gordon the day before.

I think it looks really good with the solid black, but I still think an old school telephone with 'smoo operator' would have been cool. Benny was forced to rock a midriff top for the ride back.

On the way back we stopped at a small town called Woomargama, it's a very small country town and the only reason we stopped there is because there is a giant pentagram pained on a shed, that is visible from the highway.

We stopped there on the way to Melbourne months ago when Dead Kings and I Exist toured together. We jumped the fence and took a crew photo, because it was too good a location to pass up.

This time there was a bearded guy mowing the lawn in an iron maiden shirt as we approached. The following conversation took place;

Jake: Hey man, our band's on tour, and we were wondering if we could take a photo in front of your shed?

Bearded man: Fuck yeah!
Jake: Thanks a lot man
Bearded man: I'm just glad someone appreciates my artwork.

The guy was really cool and we asked him to join us for a photo.

Good times, good tour.

I Exist - Halloween Melbourne shows - Day 2

Saturday the 1^st of November was World Vegan Day, some of us went to the vegan festival at Abbotsford convent, or as Jake called it the 'Not dog Festival'. He refused to go and ate bacon and eggs in a cafe. The festival mainly consisted of stalls selling vegan food and vegan wares,and everything was really expensive.

We crossed a bridge and Sean pretended he was in Joy Division

We also found some sick graffiti.

We went to dinner at the East Brunswick club with a bunch of people. The place serves basic pub meals but also makes vegan versions of most things, the Vegan chicken parmas are really good.

We ate outdoors and there was just enough daylight left to shoot photos at 1600 ISO

The following photos were taken by various people around the table, mostly Jarred and Jake.

 Emma's sister's boyfriend is was massive 'normy' weirded out by the punx according to Sean.

After this we went to Pepper's house to hang out.

 I found a set of clippers and tried to cut Josh's hair, but gave up when we found out they were blunt.

This didn't stop Emma from having a go at shaving his chest and an inverted cross into the hair on his stomach.

After this some of us left to sleep elsewhere, while others stayed at Pepper's and woke up to a burst water pipe flooding the house.

I Exist Melbourne - Halloween shows – Day 1

This is the third time I've gone on the road with I Exist, both other times have been short tours with two shows. This time they played a house show on the 31^st of October with Terror Firma.

And on the 2^nd of November they played at a nightclub called Plastic in Melbourne.

12 of us went down in  12 seater van.
This photo was taken during a stop on the way back to Canberra.

From Clockwise from left; Sean, Benny, Sam, Murph, Jullian, Josh, Jarred, Paddy, Me, Jake, and Aaron. Emma also came down with us in the van but flew back.

So 4 members of I Exist and 8 friends.

The ride down in a van is always half the fun of the tour.

My mate Jake the electrician loves his fireworks.

 The sea is his mistress

Sean decided to buy a Picture magazine at one of the servos which provided hours of entertainment.

At some point we passed a couple of cars with Krew stickers on the rear windows, recalling that the Krew skateboard were currently on tour in the country, I mentioned that Chad Muska was part of this team. Jake seemed to take this as proof that Muska was in the one of the cars, and was determined to get his attention, we kept driving along side them until they got sick of us and sped away.

When we got to Melbourne the hessian contingent of the van went dumpster diving behind a coles, and came back with a load of bread and crumpets, some of which contained bugs, and most of which spent the rest of the trip on the van floor.

For a while now the I Exist have talked about doing a promo photo with KISS makeup, and since it was halloween, it was decided they might as well play the show in it as well.

The make up was done by Aaron's girlfriend Lauren and Benny.

Each member was photographed individually and I blacked out their necks and shoulders and arranged them in photoshop. We were in a rush and so I used a very simple set up. Out in the street at night, 1 speedlight through a shoottrought umbrella on a stand above my head pointing down onto the subject.
This was kind of the reference for the group shot

We got to the house party just in time for I Exist to play.
The show was in a small room, and was extremely hot and sweaty in there.

Suprisingly a bunch of kids new the words to the songs and were really into it.
I took photos, Julian videoed the set and Sean activated the pit.

Terror Firma played afterwards, I didn't take any  photos, but I videoed the set, I'll put in online one day.

Then we drove to the city in hopes of seeing the Kiss cover band Kisstroyer play at bang, by the time we got there we had missed them, so we spent two hours walking around to find bar/club without a ridiculously long line for entry, and ended up listening to a Pantera CD at Pony for about 3 seconds before going to sleep on various couches around Melbourne.