RETURNABLES OPEN FOR BUSH ON EUROPEAN TOUR!
Thursday • July 19, 2001

LONDON - One of the summer's more highly anticipated concert events got underway today as President George W. Bush kicked off his six-day "Kyoto THIS" European tour with opening act the Returnables in tow.

The coupling had some promoters scratching their heads, with many wondering how Bush's staid, spoken word performance art would play against the Returnables' drunken garage pop.

But so far ticket sales have been brisk. In fact, the Genoa G8 Festival was sold out in just 45 minutes, leaving such VIPs as Italy's Silvio Berlusconi and France's Jacques Chirac scrambling to find tickets at the last minute.

"Some guy on the street was asking 556,335 lire (roughly $250 American) for one seat," an exasperated Berlusconi told la Repubblica. "That seems kind of steep."

"I wasn't so sure how this would gel," confessed Returnables guitarist Bobby James Lee Ray in an interview with Pollstar. "But GW's act is tight. I haven't seen satire this good since I saw Jello Biafra open for the Buttholes in '87. I mean, he is kidding, right?"