British metalcore act Bring Me the Horizon are currently on a U.S. tour in support of their latest record, There Is a Hell Believe Me I’ve Seen It, There Is a Heaven Let’s Keep it a Secret. Each week, guitarists Jona Weinhofen and Lee Malia will be checking in with on-the-road updates and behind-the-scenes action.
"My Cherry Angelus prior to being destroyed"—Jona Weinhofen
Well I never quite know what to write about when writing a tour journal/diary so I think I’m just going to write a bunch of stories and things that have happened while on the long, long road that is tour!
The first thing that comes to mind was something that happened to me last week. I’ve owned a lot of guitars throughout my 14 years of playing guitar, some of them were free (thankfully!), most of them were bought, paid for or traded. I’ve put chips, dents, scratches, character marks, etc. in all of my guitars. For anyone who knows me as a musician, I love to throw my tools of the trade around the place during a live show. There’s nothing I love more than to find a nice speaker stack or stage truss and climb to the top in front of the crowd to bust out a solo. I know…I’m a bit of a show off! Whenever I do this, my poor guitar is usually slung on my back getting dragged up there with me, the whole time bashing around earning new scars.
"My new DBZ Bolero AB White Gold thanks to Dean Zelinksy and the guys at DBZ"
On the night of 3/16/2011 we played Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The crowd was rabid right from the first band on and this continued well into our set. Something that is not so common during our set (but can occur when we’re playing with bands who have fairly different fans to ours) is that there can be a few people who do not really care for BMTH. And by saying that, I mean they don’t mind standing there during our entire set flipping us off, yelling obscenities at us or throwing whatever objects they can find at us (bottles, shoes, cartons of milk!). It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen.
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"Detail of my new DBZ Bolero AB White Gold"
Normally, I don’t take notice of things like this and am vibing off the other 2999 people who absolutely love the show. This particular night, all in the name of fun, I thought it would be cool to stage dive but the one thing I hadn’t taken into account was the angle at which my guitar had landed on the stage when I flung it backwards over my head while gearing up for the stage dive.
"Dean working on my see-through Blue Maple Custom Caparison Angelus TR"
I emerged from the crowd with the help of the Pit security only to look up and see my guitar tech, Dean, holding my beloved Caparison Angelus…the headstock snapped completely off and swinging back and forth like a clock pendulum held on only by the few strings which hadn’t broken. It was the first time I have ever destroyed a guitar beyond repair. Luckily, I have great support from the guys at Caparison guitars and I have a backup guitar. I also contacted my friend Dean Zelinsky over at DBZ guitars and he was kind enough to send me out a couple of Bolero models to help back me up in case something like this occurred again!
