CAMERON POTTS from Cuba Is Japan writes on the band’s recent tour to Malaysia, Taiwan and China, where they performed with the likes of Tricky, The Stabs, Placebo and Angie Hart.

Tricky is one of those people who has the moment in him and everybody around him feels it. It’s an energy that people love to be in the radius of. We sat on the grass at Tao Yuan Stadium that night in Taiwan and spoke of the moon. He pointed to it, clear and bright in the hot, festival sky, laughing, “We're so lucky man, we're so lucky!”

Like the brilliant lunar sphere that shone that evening, and for every evening to come, our tour of Malaysia, Taiwan and China was a celebration of similar feelings: purity and the joy of expression.

Kuala Lumpur

Half jungle/half city. Steel girders and glass structures rising from the canopies of trees. Hot nights of Long Island Iced Tea and sheesha pipes. Curries and coconuts. Our show with The Stabs and The Holy Soul was a late affair. The Stabs were, perhaps, the drunkest I'd ever seen them play. And they were brilliant. Hilarious. Endearing. We went on at 2am. There was more photographers than people it seemed. At one point, my friend Willy, who came along on the tour with us, counted nine photographers at the front of stage. We were in hysterics! Big cameras too, nothing discreet. They were all very serious about making an image. The Petronas Towers looked like two giant pillars wrapped in tinsel, lighting up the steamy night. The mee goreng was delicious. The hotel was full of hookers.

Taiwan

We were invited, along with the Stabs, Mick Turner and The Holy Soul to play at the Music Terminals Festival outside of Taipei. Headlining it were Tricky and Placebo. The former became a permanent fixture in Mark Nelson from the Stabs’ hotel room, and an endless source of entertainment. The festival show was nothing short of amazing. We played at 2.30pm in the direct, baking heat (it was a searing 39 degrees). In light of this, we played well and finished the set on our legs. Bianca went back to the hotel to rest, but we all stayed on with Tricky, chewing betel nut, laughing and smoking like naughty children in the school yard. He had good words to say about Bianca, turning to me with a clenched fist and thumping his chest: "Her voice breaks my heart man! Breaks my fucking heart!"

“The Petronas Towers looked like two giant pillars wrapped in tinsel, lighting up the steamy night. The mee goreng was delicious. The hotel was full of hookers.”

Taiwan was seething hot. The sun clamped upon our skins like an atmospheric vice. The day before the festival, we made it out to the night market. Crab shells on the pavement, the smell of dried fish and dumplings. We tried a heap of staple goodies: oyster pancakes, honey sausages, chicken feet and 100-year-old eggs. The lure of great tea was never far from us, and we all – along with our loyal tour minder Luke (who we could never persuade to relax) – made it to an old wooden tea house on the top of a mountain outside of Taipei. We sipped on aged Oolong tea and snacked on dried pineapple, mango and pear, looking over the fold of hills beyond us, to the grey steel pillars of Taipei on the horizon.

After the festival, we stayed with Tricky, Chicks On Speed and Placebo throughout the night. Some of our friends, including Will, Chris, Jodie and all Stabs personnel kicked on all through to the morning – and the next day, and the following morning. They exhausted the nearest 7-Eleven and Grand Formosa Regent of all alcohol, and from what I heard, turned the five-star bed sheets and pillows to red splatterings of betel nut and beer stains.

Willy and Bianca had made arrangements to get married underwater via Skype, and during the course of the night, Willy had told Placebo's drummer of his plans. He signed Willy's CD in the morning, "Good luck on the underwater Skype marriage”, not really getting the joke. We were sleeping. We had a plane to China, to start another tour.

Beijing

Riddled with deplorable taxi drivers. Never try to hail a cab ANYWHERE near Tiananmen. Beijing is heavy around there. A lot of ghosts dwell in that real estate. We were greeted at the airport with manufactured signs: "Cuba Is Japan. Welcome to Beijing." We were about to start a four-city tour of China with Frente's Angie Hart, and it was a dream to play these shows with her. Simon Austin had to return to Australia, so playing guitar on the tour was Sam Agostino from Digger and the Pussycats. What a wonderful surprise! The show the following night at Beijing Star Live was 700-strong. I never realised Angie was so famous in China. We were the only group on support during the tour and we were well looked after. We played well in Beijing, and the response was overwhelming. We took a good half-an-hour after each show signing autographs and endlessly posing for photos. Angie took even longer! Two art students sat next to me at the bar and sketched me. They was something very focused about that kind of energy, it was a relief to feel it. There should be far more of that at gigs.

Our able tour operators came with us all through China, and we were greeted at each city by a new brigade of minders/interpreters. They had in mind to show off the cuisine of each place we were in, in the form of large, rotating table lunches. The food was wonderful and delicious, but frankly, I couldn’t tell the difference. Angie and I share a non-appreciation for mushrooms, which cancelled out a few dishes here and there. Almost everyone steered clear from the pig head soup.

Shanghai

Endless skyscrapers. In every direction, every shape, size and colour. Everywhere … Bladerunner, Bladerunner! We capped off the night with Angie and crew at the highest bar in the world, 89 floors up. Made use of the dry martinis on the menu and the view stretched out before us. It was utterly un-natural, un-nerving but incredibly powerful to take in. We spent the day at the ancient markets, a maze of warehouses dating from the 1600s, encircling an enormous Buddhist Temple and lake. Bianca stocked up on tea; a gorgeous little tea set and clothes while Darcey and James went shopping for their girlfriends. We played at The Dream Factory, and it was another fantastic gathering of excited faces.

Nanjing

The first of two theatre shows. Big music halls made for big cultural productions. We had a tour bus to take us to Nanjing from Shanghai. The road houses were a definite eye opener. All the oddities you would come to expect in the backstreet markets of China are in the isles, only here, it’s in airtight packaging. The theatre in Nanjing wasn't set up for all the channels we needed (Cuba Is Japan have a lot!), so we played tonight stripped back, focusing on vocal harmonies, strength in percussive playing and letting the space dance a little more in the songs. It worked. Angie played a fantastic set, and here in Nanjing and also Hangchow, she and Sam really sounded at home and full of delight in the theatre setting.

Hangchow

The best show of the tour, and sadly the last. The Zhejiang Concert Hall in Hangchow was a gorgeous building. Red velvet seats, white curved balconies like ice-cream clouds and a Steinway grand piano. James was in heaven, sitting down to play it. There was a typhoon coming, and as we soundchecked, we could feel the cool wind of its tail blowing through the back door of the theatre. We hopped off the tour bus from Nanjing to Hangchow, and immediately felt the coolness of Hangchow, the only city we'd visited with trees along the streets. It was a welcome respite. A truly picturesque town. We played one of our best shows tonight, and the response was overwhelming. Angie finished an equally fantastic set by sitting on the front of the stage with Sammy, crowded by crazed fans, taking photos with her and singing. It reminded me of the closing scene from The Muppet Show. We were all in tears of laughter. And, so there it was. Blair, her manager Will Larnach-Jones, Angie and ourselves went to a bar and finished the tour the same way it started in KL: beers and sheesha. But at this end, a karaoke bar wasn’t far away.

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