Today is Friday 13th May, 2011 and Rock Sound have been given full access to the touring life of Riot! In The Boulevard for a full day, the young and extremely lively band have spent the best part of May on a tour bus as they embark on a UK tour in support of the hugely popular Fathers Of Fury, the fact that Riot’s first tour of any real note is in the UK and not in the bands native USA comes as somewhat of a surprise, but as you’ll find out if you read on, they’ve all clearly fallen in love with the UK. So without further ado, here’s how my day with this ever popular band went.

It’s 8:00am and I have arrived in Bradford as the band are set to perform at the O2 Academy tonight. The two tour buses (One for Fathers Of Fury, One For Riot! In The Boulevard) and a large truck, carrying various stage amenities are all located in an undisclosed location in Bradford. The three vehicles are located together and it’s obvious which bus belongs to which band already, a huge band photo on the side of both buses makes my task a little easier. As I walk over to the bus for Riot! In The Boulevard, I’m just about to knock on the door as it swings open, and I rather embarrassingly jump back a little startled to say the least, Amy Meyer is standing there in a pair of shorts and a sleeveless Aerosmith T-Shirt with a slice of toast hanging from her mouth, she jumps down and out of the door and gives a quite enthusiastic welcome to me, “Hey dude, you hear for that Rock Sound thing right?.” She enquires as she casually takes a bite of her toast and before I could respond she says, “I gotta get out of there (pointing to the bus), They’re cooking Bacon, I’m pretty sure they just do it to annoy me.” she pauses for breath and then continues, “Have you had breakfast or anything.” she enquires and before I can answer she carry’s on, “Feel free to ask the guys for something.” I smile and then let her know that I’ve already had something to eat.
She continue’s to talk again, often checking her mobile for messages, “So you gonna hang around with us for the day.” she laughs, “Your gonna need some headache pills then.” She walks over to the bus and encourages me to follow her, as she steps inside of the bus she puts her hand over her nose, “I hate the god damn smell of Bacon.” she walks over to the back of the bus and sits down on one of the very small beds, “So this is where I sleep.” she points over to four other beds, “The guys all sleep over on that side of the bus, as far away from me as possible.” she laughs and then continues, “So I’m gonna head back out before I vomit, feel free to look around and talk to the guys, although if your of a nervous disposition then maybe you should stay away from those drawers, that’s where the guys keep their … umm … adult entertainment magazines.” she laughs, grabs a copy of the book she’s been reading and heads back outside of the bus.

The guys all shout hello to me and lead guitarist Justin enquires, “Hey man, you want something to eat?” I explain that I’ve had something a little earlier and Justin quickly reply’s, “So Amy tends to talk constantly, so don’t be afraid to tell her to shut up.” he laughs and continues to cook the Bacon nearer the front of the bus. As I take a look around the bus I notice countless sheets of paper scattered all over the place with various scribbles written on them, bassist Jason Greenberg walks over and sits down on a small sofa, “There’s probably at least 50 songs written somewhere on this bus.” I ask him who writes them, Jason laughs “Definitely not me, I’ve tried but I just haven’t got the patience. Nah, it’s all Amy to be honest, she’s always writing something. Justin sometimes writes things with her but the rest of us just let them get on with it, we don’t really have the same crazy mind that Amy has.” he laughs and then continues to talk about Amy, “Just whatever you do don’t mention, Minor’s or Major’s, Bach or Brahms. She’s a piano obsessive, she’ll bore you to death with it.”
I laugh and then carry on looking around the bus when I discover 12 books all piled up at the bottom of Amy’s bed, a various mix from, The Catcher In The Rye, The Great Gatsby and even The Bell Jar are these all Amy’s, I ask Nathan who is sat nearby, playing on a Nintendo DS, he looks up and laughs “Yeah, if she isn’t scribbling on some notebook, she’s got her head stuck in some book that she proclaims to be “EPIC!!!.” we’ve managed to channel out her inane ramblings pretty good by now.” He then continue’s playing on his Nintendo.

About 20 minutes pass, it’s now began to rain pretty heavily, the band are quickly up and looking out of the windows before Amy jumps back into the bus and jumps onto her bed, “So guys, Are we gonna go into town today?” the rest of the band look rather un-enthusiastic and they all seem to say in unison, “No!” Amy looks unaffected by their response, “Fine,” she says as she picks up an old hooded sweater from her bed, I point out that I’d be willing to go into town with her, in a pretty obvious attempt to get some interesting things to write about the band, “Awesome.” Amy responds, she grabs her small bag and puts her hood up before jumping back outside of the bus and into the rain, “Come on then dude.” she says smiling and with that we head out into the extremely horrid weather of Bradford.



About 45 minutes pass before we finally make out way into Bradford town centre, it’s not as packed as you’d maybe expect it to be, maybe the weather and the fact that it’s 10:15 on a Friday morning could be the reason. But Amy’s enthusiasm and energy don’t seem to waver, “Man, I fucking love the rain.” explains before handing me her mobile phone, she makes her way over to a nearby statue, “take a photo.” she shouts as she climbs her way onto the statue’s shoulder, she giggles and then sticks her tongue out, making it look like she’s touching the statue’s ear. I take the photo and she jumps back down and runs over to me, “That’s what I call a fucking tour memento.” she laughs and spots a music store, I have a feeling that her aforementioned obsession with the piano is gonna come to fruition, “Let’s go over her.” she says enthusiastically as she runs over to the store. As we make our way inside, the store is almost completely deserted, she walks over to one of the staff members and enquires, “Can I play these stuff?” the member of staff says sure but tells her not to brake anything. She runs over and sits down at a big black Steinway piano and begins playing some classical composition, she laughs, “I fucking love this.” I timidly ask what it was, hoping she didn’t laugh in my face, “It’s called Two Rhapsodies by Brahms. It‘s Epic man.” she says with all the enthusiasm of a small child.

As much as I’d like to write about the rest of the journey, sadly I’m pressed for space so I’ll quickly gloss over one or two things, after the music store, we headed to a clothing store where Amy insisted on buying me a fedora hat, “She, your Johnny Depp now.” she kept saying, we then found ourselves at an animal shelter where Amy was almost tempted into buying a pet but she decided against it due to being on tour. And the final thing of note was as Amy joined a local busker into a duet on the rainy streets of Bradford, they sang The Beatles All You Need Is Love, which was rather entertaining and Amy generously gave a £50 to the busker. We then made our way back to the tour bus.

It is now 2:45 and the band had to make their way out to the O2 Academy to do a quick rehearsal for the performance tonight. The band performed their two singles Sweet Little Fantasy’s and All The Non Belivers which was a great experience for me, it was like my own personal concert and it just wet my appetite for the performance later tonight.
Once the band finished their rehearsal run through, we stayed in the audience to check out Fathers Of Fury’s rehearsal performance which was another fantastic experience. However my time with the band was now up, with the exception of the performance tonight and it was an extremely memorable day with the band and in particular Amy Meyer, I left with more than enough material to write about and a bonus, yes, that fedora hat.

So at 7:00pm I was in the O2 Academy again, this time the place was packed to the rafters and after about 5 minutes, Riot! In The Boulevard made their way onstage, with Amy Meyer screaming into the microphone, “I FUCKING LOVE BRADFORD!!!” and the band quickly kicked straight into an extremely fiery version of their new single All The Non Believers, quickly followed by unreleased tracks, Mona Lisa Smile and Assassination On A Subway Station and the crowd were quickly in full support of the band by the time they began the cover of Dead Roses, Common Mistakes and Modern Heartbreak. Rarely does a support band have so much support from the crowd and the fans support was evident as the band then played their final song of the night, the number 2 hit, Sweet Little Fantasy’s and the with that, the crowd erupted. Despite the band’s young age, they’re already performing like seasoned pro’s.



So what did I notice when I spent a day with this band, it’s pretty evident what makes this band “special” and that’s the energy and complete quirky-ness of Amy Meyer. The rest of the band are very cool and reserved and they seem more than happy for Amy to have all of the attention and plaudits but they do play a big part in this band, creating the kind of music that gives Amy the freedom to run free onstage and as I came to realise offstage too. She’s sort of in a crazy little world of her own, she does bizarre things and makes bizarre noises at times, she shouts and begins singing at random intervals and seems just way too happy, I commend the rest of the band for not going crazy in her presence, I figure that she’s a lot to handle. But the bands star and Amy’s star in particular shines very brightly.