Bob Reid’s South America Diary Feb 14 – 22 2017.

Razor completed four shows in four different countries in four straight days.  Bob kept a diary and posted his thoughts on his Bobnoxious facebook page.  Here are the daily entries (no edits):

February 17^th 2017

My last 24hrs. Mexico city 8pm band eats before show,ordered club sandwich,didnt finish boxed it to go. 10:30pm Hit the stage,hundreds of crazy fans, 12am leave stage, selfies and autographs 1am hotel, gta crash early gtn picked up at 4:30 am, have a bite of sandwich and crash-big mistake. 2 am run to bathroom & explode while puking, 4;30am picked up, bumpy ride puking in van. At airport im dying, hate public washrooms but no choice, can barely walk thru customs. While on the can again its boarding time.bumpy ride #2.
hello washroom,, 5 hr plane ride feeling death, land 2 pm Bogata Columbia Long walk thru airport meet fans who want pics & autos-great. Next ride is worse, crazy driving here, get to hotel, hit the can then grab shower and floods floor, dumb drain,water everywhere,its 8:30 pm here,we go on at 10:30, its a huge show,see how it goes, can barely stand,stay tuned

February 18 at 9:14pm

The show must go on.
With food poisoning still getting the best of me, which I inherited last nite in Mexico, we arrive at the venue in Bogata, Columbia. We need security to scoot us in, this is a sign of what's to follow. This is our first time in Columbia and it's apparent the fans are more than fanatics. We have to get thru the crowd to backstage as there is only one entrance. Backstage dressing room is very small, no washroom, not ideal for immediate "oops gotta go" and I still feel very sick to my stomach.
The heat in the bar from 500+ is not helping. When we walk on stage it is apparent how crazy and crammed the bar is. My only saviour is a big stage fan blowing relieve. We open the show with Instant Death, how ironic, cause that's how I felt after the song. From there the crowd grew more violent and so did my stomach.
Using my microphone stand as a crutch, i didn't move much, as Dave rocked the crowd more than he ever has before making up for my statue performance.
With 3 songs to go I held back throwing up. We ended the show with Evil Invaders and the crowd went ballistic. Flopping to a seat backstage, I was spent. Then it got worse.
Everyone wanted backstage for pics and autographs. The room is 10 x 10 and I just want my hotel washroom and bed. When Dave used the bar washroom before we went on he was molested, someone actually grabbed his balls, I have no energy for that.
"Get me outta here". Nope! More shit to sign, more photos and more handshakes. I'm fuckin dying here, some breathing room please. But, that's rock'n'roll.
After what seemed an eternity of torture, we were escorted thru the remaining fans and got in the van. Did I mention previously about the crazy driving techniques here. I believe the rules of the road are - there is none. Go, brake, go, swerve, stop, go etc. omg this is killing me. At the hotel, I abuse the bathroom once again, and perish into bed.
Next morning I feel like I have a hangover, I can deal with this, experience ! Check out, off to the airport. Here we go again,

February 19 at 2:25pm ·

We only had 45 min, before we were to start our show.... Bum rushed indeed. Arrive at the venue at 11:30 pm, turns out we were scheduled for 12:00. Out front, many drunk metal maniacs. The van is quickly surrounded. Security forms a circle around us and we "Red Sea" thru the crowd to the front entrance. Once again there is no entrance to backstage except directly thru the 1000+ fans. Our friends Exciter were already finished playing and had left for their hotel. Yup, the fans were totally waiting for us. Backstage is not private, and we were still in our travel clothes. Nothing like taking your pants off in front of strangers. As quick as possible, we hit the stage. The crowd is contained with fence barriers, although many found a way to crowd surf over the top. Holy shit. Crazy, nuts and fun. I couldn't help but keep waiting for spit to fly, like in Ace Ventura as we were warned but thank god it didn't happen, at least we never felt it happen. The one drag was the light guy, who for some reason would have us play for a few secs in the dark periodically .The sound was great on stage, the crowd fantastic.
When we came back out for the encore, we started with Take This Torch. The opening line is "searching in the darkness, searching for the light" .... No shit, the light guy didn't bring up the lights and we couldn't see a frickin thing. It caused a problem and we stopped playing. I was pissed and "kinda" gave the guy shit via my microphone. So we started it again...the crowd freaked and we finished the show with Evil Invaders to insanity thrashing .
Backstage after the show were many happy Chileans. Autographs and pics and broken English, better than my Spanish for sure mio amigos. But this time I am not sick from Mexican food poisoning and can enjoy the many fans.
It is roughly 1:30 am, still backstage and once again we leave for the airport early. Wake up call is 7:00am to depart for airport at 7:30am and we are still at the venue.
We arrive at the hotel which is very old, you know, the ones with a 2 person limit elevator. You step in and it actually drops 3 inches, you close the outside door by hand then close the " baby gate" then push which floor you want and as you as ascend you can see the floors going by... Don't stick your fingers thru...Somewhere around 2:30 / 3:00am I crash. Remember, 7:30am we meet in the lobby.
Here's how my morning starts.... There is a knock on my door, I get outta bed in my underwear expecting one of the guys. Nope. It's the old desk clerk who runs the place... "You're going to miss your plane".. What?... "What time is it", I ask.. "You must hurry, you're going to miss your plane"... he says all bug eyed, which throws me into a panic as I riffle everything into my already falling apart duffle bag.. re: airport baggage handlers.
Scrambling in a woken daze I run out the door, no morning pee, no brushing my teeth, I haven't even looked in a mirror. Screw the scary elevator I take the stairs, I'm on the fifth fn floor.
I bolt down the stairs and enter the lobby tossing the old clerk my room key. I run out to the waiting shuttle van and say to the bad English speaking driver "where are the guys?". He replies,"at the airport"... Wtf... "At the airport?" I ask. "Ci", he replies .... Without thinking I throw my bag in the back and then realize I have left our Razor backdrop case in my room. I run back inside... "I need my key", he still has it in his hand. I run back up 5 flights of stairs military calisthenic style, grab the damn bag and bolt once again down the stairs tossing the key once more. Completely out of breath I load the bag then ask once more.."the guys are at the airport?".. Driver says "yes..airport". Just then I see Danny exiting the hotel followed by Dave who gets in the van beside me and says, " now I'm the one who's sick, I have a lung infection and can't breath well". I say, " ya, well guess how I was woken up !".... Dave tries very hard not to laugh because it hurts his chest but fails and ends up clearing his lungs out of gunk laughing hysterically at me.
"Not funny man, my heart is pounding and my sciatic is now shooting down my left leg from mountain climbing."
The rest of the guys hop in and we are off to the airport, formula one style...fasten you seat belts..
One hour flight to Argentina .... The mountains over Chile were something to see . Then....5 hour lay over in Argentina, where we sit now drinking beer.... Next- 1 hour flight to Paraguay ... This time I'm not letting them check my bag as it's about to blow open,, I borrowed the bag from my gf, she's not gonna be happy when she reads this... I realized today that my shit ass phone provider who I won't mention (Kudoo) did not send my first report that I tried to send Friday. I will have to re type it later as it sits in send mode, think of it as a prequel I guess... Stay tuned amigos...

February 21 at 6:57am ·

Lay over in Argentina...
5 hrs can be a long time, depends on the company you have. So the next 5 hrs waiting for our next flight passes by rather quickly as the band and our new good friend Danny share personal stories ( not to be divulged ) over Argentina Angus prime beef. "So you've been to the market, and the meat looks good tonite," Gene says... Perhaps he was speaking of women passing thru this Argentina airport, as from our view, there seems to be a constant flow of them. Which leads to our new man joke word "Angus" which is code name for check her out, obviously male fun killing time.
Boarding time has arrived, Dave and Mike go first while Rider, Danny and myself finish our beers... Turns out we three are the last to board the plane because of our tardiness, how convenient, as our seats are at the front of the plane, easy breezy. Kudos to Aerolineas Argentinas airlines for exceptional service, not for their packaged junk they claim is food, but their friendly service, especially helping Dave boarding early ( if you didn't know Dave is partially blind ) compared to rude pretentious Air Canada or Lufthansa airlines who won't accept carry on luggage that passes other airline requirements, you guys suck! Sue me, it's true.
We land in Asuncion, Paraguay. When you exit customs they conveniently have you enter the liquor / smoke shop to pass thru. I check out what they have of course and saying to Danny ( promoter/ tour guide looking after everything ) "it's hard to find Rye whiskey outside of Canada. Most will serve you JD when you ask for Whisky." Danny points to the lower shelf. Holy crap, there's Canadian Club. Sold! So we purchase, Danny has not experienced the Canadian Whisky ride..ever ( evil grin ).
When we step out of the airport we are smacked in the face by high humidity and heat. 38 degrees. Canadian not complaining here but Dave is suffering with breathing/asthma issues so now he contemplates a hospital for attendance. We get in the van and once the air conditioning kicks in Dave decides to attempt the trip to hotel and forgo the time delay as it is 3.5 hours to show time.
At the hotel, in the lobby fans approach and welcome us to their country. They are so excited and say they can't believe we are here.
After we check in, Danny's and my room are beside each other. "Hey Danny, there's some pop in my fridge, you wanna try some Canadian Whisky?"... It starts... I warn him "whisky creeps up on ya and then it will smash ya in the face!".... He tries it and says, " it's good".
60 minutes later ( half a 26er ) I say we better get going to the venue as we are on in an hour. The venue is 1 block away so we walk. When we get there the crowd outside starts yelling 'Razor...Razor' etc.
What is it with all these clubs that have no back door? The Fire Marshall must have missed that, again.
Backstage dressing room has air conditioning, thank fn God, but the bar does not. There is 1 air fan onstage for all of us. It's 36 degrees outside now and hotter inside. We are about to go on and Danny sounds to me like he's starting to slur... Yup... He's on his way.. lol
We take the stage and the sticky heat is horrible. There are big metal barriers in front of the stage to keep the metal maniacs back. Some do manage to surf over. Meanwhile the lights are constantly blinking a strobe effect which is horrible. Nobody can see and it's annoying.
The song ends, the crowd goes nuts and I ask Danny to tell the light guy to stop with the blinding blinking lights. He says something in Spanish over Dave's microphone. Maybe the guy didn't understand my whisky friend because after the next song nothing has changed so Dave yells "turn those fn strobe lights off !! "... It seems he heard that.
A couple tunes later, one drunk goes over the top rail and hops up on stage and runs around me, grabs the back of my shirt and goes to jump off stage holding it but I'm grounded. Danny pushes him off stage. Danny returns to his spot behind Dave and stumbles....I warned him it would creep in, he's starting the whisky shuffle.
6 or so songs later, mosher guy returns to the stage and does the same thing as he previously did, but this time scratching my next as he tries to grab my shirt and stage dive pulling me. Ok, now I'm pissed. No accident, he's a drunk dick and he's trying to pull me off the stage. Got my eye on you fucker! He is wearing a white shirt amongst a sea of black shirts...marked !
Behind Dave, Danny is staggering. Whisky drunk is creeping in more and he's drinking beer to boot. The air fan isn't cutting it for all 4 of us and Danny is drunkingly spinning it manually, trying his best to share the air on stage. The crowd is packed from the back wall to the steel barricade. They are soaked in sweat and still rockin.
And here he comes....
Drunk whiteshirtfuckface comes over the barricade on my right, gets on stage and goes behind me again. But this time I'm ready. I feel his hand touch my back, I spin around and with the bottom of my mic stand I try to pitchfork him off the stage. He resists my subtle offer so I let go of the stand and with both hands I grab the prick and throw him forcefully this time off OUR stage. He awkwardly flies thru the air stopping abruptly face first into the friendly barricade.
Muchas gracias !!
Now that the garbage is taken out I can concentrate on sweating. We finish the show after losing a few pounds and retreat to the beautiful air conditioned dressing room. Not sure why everywhere we play fans want in our room immediately after we are done. Bands just want some space as soon as they're done, to change, to sit down, scratch ...whatever. And so is the same tonite. Which is where a guy at the door being the prick is better than a band member.
Once we have done our 'backstage thing' we were happy to sign autos and take pictures. Our fans are awesome.
Danny is smashed !! We return to the hotel late and everyone crashes. I can hear Danny trying to put his key in the door.... I never warned him about the whisky hangover...buenas noches amigos ( g nite my friend )

February 21 at 8:23pm ·

Monday morning I wake up before 10 am. The plan is to go for a BBQ at a friend of Danny's between 2 and 3 pm. I know bass player Mike said he is sleeping till 1 and Dave and Rider are probably doing the same. TV in Español is getting boring and I've watched a lot of football (soccer) too, so I thro shorts on for the first time this...winter?..as it is 41•C outside and venture out the front door of hotel. Holy crap it's hot. My Casper appearance is a stand out to the locals as I am a feeling the looks. Shamed of my chicken skin, I return to the air conditioned hotel, I'm bored and by now it's noon. I grab the elevator with another guy and in passing he says "hola", I say "hello" as to not lead him into believing I know Spanish. I do small charades to imply it's hot. "Si", he says and I exit onto the first floor. I stop at Mikes room to disturb his slumber, but before I do I notice a small glass door behind me... Well let's see where this goes... Hmm. Out onto the roof... to a pool. A pool !! Then I notice the guy from the elevator getting into the pool. Omg I can catch some rays and go for a swim. Just so happens the swimming trunks in my bag are not a waste of space after all. I retreat back thru the glass door and knock on Mikes door in passing. With a rather uncomplimentary morning face Mike says "hey, just gonna jump in the shower".
"Dude there's a pool, right there", pointing behind me.
"Really, no way, ok meet you there", Mike says.
I leave to get my swim trunks. Passing Danny's door I knock. The door opens slowly... That look! That hangover face...
Glossy eyed Danny clears his throat..."wow, I'm hungover man".
"Whisky bro, I forgot to tell ya about the hangover.. There's a pool dude.."
" I argued with my wife on the phone last nite, ah man, I think it was the pop and the sugar you know..."
We've all been there on that one. And I influenced "that one" in a small indirect way. Lol. Sorry Danny, shoulda warned ya, well I guess I kinda did. Anyways, we went swimming and I sat out in the pool area for 45 minutes until I could hear the oven timer going off in my head, this chicken skin is done. Definitely a nice break, now change and down to the lobby to meet the guys to head for the BBQ.
In the lobby it is revealed BBQ is cancelled. So the we and Danny order food. Their Caesar salad here is awesome. And I didn't contaminate myself as Dave had predicted would probably happen, again. After lunch we walked across the street kitty corner to the Asuncion HardRock Cafe. Cool memorabilia everywhere. Grabbed some swag, and soon request took some pics with some staff and then headed back to the hotel. By now it's 6pm.
We, minus Dave, start finishing off the remainder of bottled trouble. Thinking we were supposed to be at the airport in the morning at 8am to start our ways home (Razor flight is 10am, Danny's is 5 pm)we pour some more and share some laughs. Around 9:45pm we decide to eat again but over at the HardRock. On our way Danny says he got an email... his flight time was wrong, it's not 5 pm, it's 5 am... Oh shit! We want Danny to be there incase of language problems... Oh shit!!
So now we are all going to have to leave the hotel at 3:15 AM !! Big Drag!!
By the time we are done with food and drinks it 12 am. Nobody sleeps nothing to speak of and before you know it we are off to the airport. I got up at 10am... It's what time now ?....
We say goodbye to Danny, take one last picture together and he takes the gate to his flight. We are on our own from here on in. Hopefully we won't need Dave's not always perfect translator.
Here's the potential problem: our flight is at 10:15 am, so we now sit from time we got there, 3:40 am until 9:50 am boarding time. Then we fly from Paraguay to Chile, 2 hrs. Then we check in hotel for 4 hrs then fly outta Chile to Texas, 10.5 hrs and catch a connector for Toronto with only 95 minutes to get our luggage, get thru airport and go thru U.S. customs, then hustle to our gate for boarding and not miss our plane to home, the last plane of the day to home!!!

February 22 at 10:42am ·

We land in Chile, the hotel is conveniently across from the airport exit, about from here to there.... That's brain fried for, "I've been up for over 28 hrs "... We check in and 3 hrs later we check out. I spent my 3 hrs writing this stuff and 20 minutes outside in the sun.
So we go thru customs, and during the walk to the plane a security guy says, "excuse me guys but you've been randomly selected for a security check." So individually we are separated and searched. No big deal just another story... We know we only have a small window once we land in Texas. Once seated on the plane there are a lot of red spinning lights outside our plane... 'Houston..we have a problem'...
There's a problem with the fans that cool the communications gear, whatever that means... To us it means a 1hr 30 min delay on the ground.... Good bye connector flight.
So once the plane is cleared to go and we are in the air the stewardess comes round with drinks.. "Would you like something to drink sir?" she asks me.. Bwahahaha, really? Ya, like a gallon of straight liquor poured directly down my throat !! "Yes please, can I have a vodka or whisky?"... She looks at me and says, "sorry sir, you have to pay for that." But before my head explodes off my shoulders she defuses the situation with " ya know what, forget about it, it's on me... What would you like?"... I thanked her and asked for as much as I could have...please.. Vodka, coke or whatever. So I drank my booze and watched an amazing documentary called 'For the love of Spock'... After that, exhausted, I tried to get some long over due sleep.
When we landed in Houston, Texas this morning we had missed our connecting flight to Toronto, obviously. United Airlines said they could put us on the next flight to Toronto in 80 minutes. Good. But all we have is 1st class.... Ahh that's too bad, finally a break.
Not so fast... We are 5 feet from stepping on the plane and a guy comes out and says, "visibility is bad and the flight is delayed at least 1 to 2 hours.... sorry about that." ....
Did you expect a happy ending?
So here we are, sitting in Houston, Texas. It's 9:30 am , the guys are having a coffee and I'm texting this story.
Yup, I'm catching Dave and Riders cold now too... Hope to be home soon, I still have to drive 2 hrs once we land in Toronto...
Next gigs are coming up in May in Vancouver and after that...
Czech Rebuplic !!!
Cheers Fuckers...

February 22 at 1:27pm ·

Just when you thought we were finally on our way home... and in first class... CANCELLED !! We were sitting on the plane even. They say it's too foggy in Toronto. So back off the plane. Now we have to fly to Chicago, then connect to Toronto WTF !! So now we are supposed to land in Toronto around 1 am WTF?
Will we ever get fn home?

February 23 at 5:10pm ·

So of course every story has to have a happy ending, right?... so in my mind i remeber leaving Paraquay something like this.
We head to the airport at 3 a.m. Tuesday morning, and start flying. Paraguay to Chile.
Next Chile to Houston but United Airlines does not depart on time, delayed long enough to make us miss our Air Canada connecting flight in Houston, 8:15am to Toronto, “sorry sir“. We are still in Houston.
So United put us on the next United flight to Toronto, which is in a couple hours, we board plane and on before take off, “Please get off Airplane, bad weather in TO,“ sorry“.
So United flies us to Chicago for connector flight to Toronto. At this point we are pissed. Now in Chicago, Dave complains to United Airlines management, who counters with free meal vouchers, ooohh, use and eat food to kill time until the next flight Chicago to Toronto.
We finally depart for TO at 8:50 pm, arrive 11:30pm. Almost fn midnite!
And now I have to drive home 1 hour and 45 minutes in the dark ,very tired eyes, with my gas gauge betting me I'm not gonna make it.
I get home and crash just before 3 a.m.
Up at 7:45 a.m. for commitments. Stupid tired, I open my gig bag and put all of the clothes into the washing machine, set to hot,
Later I find my check for doing the tour was in my pants. Yes I checked my pants before I washed them.....
The cheque is destroyed... figures!

Thanks for your thoughts Bob!