First time, face to face
It started with three days of rehearsal in HCMC, during which time the band not only honed the songs for the tour, but also in a number of cases, first met each other face to face. Pete was holding down a day job overseas at the time, Rob (trumpet) had been living and playing with bands in Darwin for several years, Glen (the sax player) lived in Melbourne, and the rest of the band had strung together a number of rehearsals in Adelaide with our new lead vocalist, Brett Monten, a new drummer, Walter Kiess and a new guitarist, John Mulholland. Local South Australian musician, Peter Spooner, also joined the band on keyboards for this reunion tour. Peter had many years previously, played keyboards with PlanB on a tour to the eastern seaboard of Australia and was a part of the recording session which produced the third 'unreleased' single, The Very Last Time/Fool In Love.
Prior to the official first gig for the tour, (New Years Eve @ VASCOS, Ho Chi Minh City), the band played an impromptu acoustic set at Sheridan's Bar after day 2 of rehearsals.
A difficult early rising after the NYE gig saw the band board the bus to Cambodia for gigs at Memphis Bar and Sharky Bar in downtown Phnom Penh. Downtime had various band members visiting the Genocide Museum and the Killing Fields ......... graphic reminders of relatively recent atrocities that the people of this beautiful nation had suffered. A third and final Cambodian gig at the Foreign Correspondent's Club in Siem Reap then saw the band depart on an early morning 'Tomb Raider-esque' visit to iconic Angkor Wat where we were permitted to film sequences for the Call Me and Southern Delta music videos. ....... looking back on that stroke of good fortune we had in being able to capture substantial footage at various Angkor sites, it is highly doubtful that a band without deep pockets would be able to film a music video in the same setting these days.
The band then returned to Ho Chi Minh City for a gig at No.5 Bar before catching an overnight train to Nha Trang for a beach performance at the Nha Trang Sailing Club followed by the Louisiane Bar.
Yet another bus trip south along the Vietnam coastline to the idyllic village of Mui Ne, saw the band performing consecutive nights at Joe's Art Cafe.
Upon returning to HCMC, the tour was rapidly coming to a conclusion ....... but saw PlanB enter recording studios to record Call Me and Southern Delta as well as play two final gigs at Acoustic Bar and Metallic Bar.
FOOTNOTE - To this day, PlanB often film 'tour diary' style music videos that capture the global adventures of the band. On this first international tour of the reformed PlanB, the music videos for Call Me and Southern Delta unknowingly created a precedent for future tour videos
