Caribou Tour Diary!

hello everyone.
my name is Ahmed Gallab. I am 24. From Sudan, a recent college graduate and, luckily, the replacement drummer for Caribou. I was asked by the fine people at Merge records to document my time with Caribou. It has been a crazy ride. So crazy, in fact, that I haven't had any time until now to write anything about it.

Everyone keeps asking me how I ended up in this position. The short answer is that I am very very lucky and just so happened to trip and fall onto the job. The long answer is as follows:

I have a project called Sinkane that I had been preparing months on end to tour in support of my new record "Color Voice" due out May 6th on Emergency Umbrella Records. Everything was running very smoothly until our van broke down on our way to Chicago. After pumping too much money into fixing the van we ran into more problems and were forced to cancel the first leg on tour. We played two shows and didn't even leave the state of Ohio. It was a major bummer and I found myself back home in Columbus frustrated and wondering how I could score a van in the next 3 weeks in order to make our second leg of tour.

I had given Dan a demo of my music at a Caribou show in Cleveland last October. To my surprise he liked it and got Sinkane on his show in Columbus on April 9th so I started focusing all of my efforts on making sure we would be ready for that show.

A couple of days after accepting my tour had failed I got an email from Dan about needing a replacement drummer. I was on my way out to a job interview so I quickly responded saying that I would do it and within five minutes I got a phone call from Dan asking me to fly out to North Carolina and meet them that night. I didn't hesitate to say yes and here I am.

We practiced for 14 + hours that day and I somehow learned enough songs to play the show in Chapel Hill. I still don't know how I learned those songs and I still feel like this is all a dream. I am a huge Caribou fan and to be playing drums for one of my favorite bands is exciting to say the least.

It's been a little over two weeks since I have joined the band. We are currently driving through the Rocky Mountains to Vancouver. It's some of the most beautiful scenery in North America. I have this fear/obsession with mountains and large landscapes: mountains, large bodies of water, whales, etc... It really puts into perspective how little humans are on this Earth. I mean literally. The Rocky Mountains are so big! It's such an incredible sight!... Here hit this, man...

The shows have been excellent especially Columbus. It was so good to come back and play in front of my friends. I will be posting more frequently now that my computer is working again.

ahmed

Don't miss Caribou on tour!