Get Down years •

Unknown date, location. (Left to right: Steve, John and Gary)

1999: Europe tour

In 1999, from late March through much of April, The Hi-Fives went on a tour through Belgium, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, and Spain, double-billed with a band we’d never met, or heard of before, called Duotang. They were from Canada though, so we were optimistic.

Knowing this was a once in a lifetime event, I ended up buying a large amount of those cheap disposable cameras along the way - the ones that when you hand them over to the Fotomat, get thrown away after developing the film inside (I know it was terrible, but this was before digital cameras or smartphones). I returned home with a bag full of about fifteen of them, and it cost me what seemed like a fortune to get them all developed.

There aren’t many photos of us playing, because I guess I thought that would be boring, and I wasn’t taking them with the intent of posting them on as yet un-invented social media. I was taking them to remember. There are, however, lots and lots of photos of the people we met, and the things we saw…

April 6, 1999. An amazing looking opening band, Duotang and The Hi-Fives played a show at Fitzcarraldo, in Genoa Italy, after a tour of the city center by Andrea Carraro, who arranged the show:

April 4, 1999. The day after a show at Mumble Rumble in Salerno, the van ran out of gas on the way to Genoa right next to Pompeii, so we walked along the highway and took a look:

April 3, 1999. After a ferry ride to Sicily, we played at the Cantari Culturali della Zisa, in Palermo. It was a pretty huge show for us, and though the crowd may have never really heard of us before, they really, really wanted to dance, stage dive and have fun. It was epic. Also in Palermo we took a tour of the very Lookout friendly Recordsucker shop:

Late March, 1999. The Hi-Fives and Duotang arrived in Basel, Switzerland, at the venue for the show: a long running restaurant/club/collective called Restaurant Hirscheneck. We arrived early and met the locals, one of whom decided to take us on a little tour across the river and up to the top of Basel Minster cathedral.

March 26, 1999, we played a show (and spent the night) at a place called Lint Fabriek in the town of Kontich, Belgium. These people were really ready to dance, drink, and party. The last photo is of Rod from Duotang surveying the damage the next morning:

1997: Japan tour

August 11-16 1997, the Hi-Fives went to Japan for the first time thanks to The Mr T Experience (w/ John, Chris, Steve & Gary). I don’t have any photos of us playing, but I do have some of us goofing off, MTX playing, Chris Appelgren drawing on dinner plates, and some nice folks that we met:

1997

July 19, 1997, at the Lizard and Snake Cafe, Chapel Hill, SC. (w/John, Chris, Steve & Gary) (photographs by Daniel Hilton):

The Hi-Fives in Canada with The Evaporators. (Clockwise from upper left: Steve, ?, Chris, Narduar, Scott, John C, John D, and Gary in the center):

February 15, 1997. Playing at a birthday party for Billie Joe at the Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco, Ca. (w/John, Chris, Steve & Gary):

Unknown date (probably 1997?). Bowling competition with Chixdiggit after playing a show with them. (w/John, Chris, Steve and Gary and Chixdiggit, obv.!)