Atlantic era History part 5:

The 1990 U.S tour

OK, here is where things get a bit tough! 1990 thru 1993 were very crazy times for the band and for me personally. Intense professional satisfaction with VR, to the depths of despair in my private life, with everything else you can imagine in-between thrown in for good measure.... 

The 1990 U.S. Tour started here in the S.F. Bay Area (our home) with 3 local concerts. A show at the Stone in San Francisco on April 13th, followed by San Jose on the 15th, and Cotati the 17th.

As I recall, all 3 of these shows went really well! Packed houses all 3 nights, with many of our friends, fans and families coming to see us off and to wish us well on the journey ahead. We were heading into uncharted water as far as extended touring goes, and the months to come would seriously test our mental, emotional, and physical strength. The live shows would never be a problem, because we were on fire night after night.

From the Bay Area, the first leg of this tour took us to shows in Oregon, Washington, Vancouver BC, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, and more shows back in California. 

On this first part of the tour, our worst nightmares would end up coming true. The Atlantic debut album was given very good reviews before it's official release. The press was behind us, and there was a real buzz about VR in the metal world. But once we got out on the road the shit hit the fan. 

 It seems that every where we went, we would hear the same old stories: The venues did not get any promo material, the fans could not find the CD in the stores, the stores said the label did not give them any promo material, the radio station did not promo the show like they were supposed to, there were no print adds for the show in the local music paper, MTV only played the video a few times......on and on.

It was not like this everywhere, but it was happening far too much. It became pretty clear to us that Atlantic was not doing their job to promote the band like we had planned on. Actually, that was evident much earlier when we were not able to get a slot on a major tour in the U.S. That hurt us badly, because we could have been playing to big crowds every night and thus selling more records. Instead, we were playing in half filled clubs (if to that many people). There were some nights that it was flat out embarrassing for us to get up on stage to such few people in the crowd. About this time, we made a pact. We realized that things with Atlantic were not what we had been told that they would be. 

But, we were determined to play our hearts out every night no matter how big or small the crowds were. To the fans credit, those who did show up were very happy to see us, and they treated us great everywhere we went. We wanted them to know that even though we obviously were disappointed in the turnouts at most shows, the fans who did come see us meant a great deal to the band and we would play with the same intensity whether it was for 50 of them or 500. 

As well as having little label, radio, and booking agency support, we had other things that would plague us. Carl and I noticed this pattern early on. With all of this other crap going on, we seemed to be constantly running into other bad luck. We would show up at a club and find out things like this; that they just lost their liquor license the week before, or the sound man had just quit, or the PA was not working, or the club had us on their schedule as showing up the next night not tonight....! 

All kinds of crazy shit went on like that, and Carl and I would end up calling it "The UFO Factor". Aliens from another planet were controlling all of this mayhem to drive us crazy! Carl and I would almost look forward in a sick kind of way to see what bad luck would be in store for us at the next show and city, and we would happily report our findings to one another! This would all tend to sort of piss off Geoff at times, but that was not our intention. Carl and I just felt that it was our way of letting off steam and having fun with the sorry lot we had seem to have drawn. 

Another great "UFO Factor" was finding out that another signed metal band was in town the same night, and they were playing at the "other club", you know.... the cooler one on the other side of town, the one that everyone "hangs out at!" 

More to come...

Dave Starr 1-17-01