london – november 25
well, we actually get in on the morning of the 24th to rest. its me and thøger flying from tucson , and we have hooked up with lonna kelly connecting through dallas.
we stopped in raliegh, north carolina, to say hi to the label folks at yep roc and play them a free “thanks a lot” warm up show in carrboro. but the venue was chaotic and a warm up show is not exactly what happened.
it was good to hang with the m folks though, which was the main intention. was also our first glimpse at winter cold coming from arizona. 35 degrees.
we stayed at the holiday inn and it all felt like what my dad must have endured in his salesmen years on the road. the next day we were off to london.
stopping like this overnight in raliegh on the way to london as a very very good way to travel there. for some reason american flies direct from raliegh and its cheaper to stop over night there on the way from tucson. which is convenient if the record company lives there too. north carolina is very beautiful. folks are fun.
the plane is happily half empty too. makes it a lot easier.
the movie was “ the bucket list”. i took notes.
when we got to London, we had it set up to also fetch lucie idlout from the next terminal. lucie and lonna were both on the ‘provisions’ record and i think we need them on the road to lend their voices on stage and to cut the male cluster muck on the bus. buses travel better that way.
then we head to the hotel by hired van and attempt to sleep. it happens sometimes. always the same there. beer and indian food is the recipe.
later we wake up to find anders and peter had arrived from denmark and been waiting on the jet lagers to get
the hell up.
that night we clustered in the little hotel bar, the bartender was a polish woman, and the man buying drinks all night was an oil feller from calgary. he liked the fact that lucie was from canada too, so he kept the table flowing with single malt and pints. we intended to shove the jet lag out of the room so we could sleep but killing it with drink.
it worked pretty well. then we all got up very early for breakfast. then went back to sleep and that did the trick.
it allowed the lag to chase me from a respectable distance while i set my sights on getting through the first show of this european tour, which unfortunately happened to be london. the problem with this is that london carries its own stress and pressure with it.
it matters.
to start a tour here is never a good idea.
first of all, the language is the same, almost, and so everyone can actually understand everything i am saying and singing about, almost. and the press is also in english, so we can also understand everything they are saying about us, almost.
and the first show on a tour is always something less then how we will be playing a week from now. but this is how the cards were dealt this time, by means of struggling with family time home being fitted in and trying to tighten the tour schedule to be away for less days so as to get back home for christmas and such.
so, i am relying on all the touring we did over the last couple months in the states with neko case to kick in a good set tonight, as long as i can stay off the lag for the first day, which is sometimes possible if you trick it.
then it comes back to clobber you on the next consecutive days, but once we have the bus close at hand, then that will allow a bed close by at all times to deal with it.
so we all met at the venue, koko in camden. it was surprisingly lovely. theater like, bt with no seating, and adorned with red and gold and a bizarre lay out of audience landscape complete with balcony boxes.
and here we find trusted tour manager and brave point man mr. steve left, with the tour since 1989. and then miguel rodriguez has arrived too for the sound control, with dave laney (who designed the CD package) attempting to add projection, and finally natalie wyant from belgium to assist in all other matters that may have need, as well as document with her leica.
and so we are gathered. but first a walk to the bus parked about a 5 minute walk away, to see what we will be living on for the next 3 weeks.
the walk through sad dismal disheartening london is none of that. it has a brilliant autumnal light landscape normally reserved only in manhattan. it is very very lovely and at every turn, simply beatific.
then we see the bus.
it is such a welcome site, similar to what it must feel like to win the lottery. it looks new. it is new. it is also very very very long. (we like to get the single deckers which have more space in its hold so we won’t need a trailer and more room inside to actually stand upright in, which makes life on board extremely more tolerable then the double deckers that you can only stoop in.)
its 40 meters long. the longest we have ever been in.
it also from Switzerland, like its driver/owner, who has hand built everything in it. it sleeps 12 and has a very spacious front lounge and a surprising back lounge too.
but the kicker is it has a working shower. no, it has 2 working showers. and the tank is filled with fresh spring swiss alp water (they invented water, you know).
and so we are a bus.
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back at the venue … my new amp has also arrived with the bus. i have never had a new amp before, but thanks to trying out john rauhaus’, i am sold on this new fender reissue of an old style twin head housing a single 15 inch speaker. the pedals all get hooked up, especially the magic blue and gold ones, and everything works, which is weird. and the rented piano is the finest yamaha cp-80 electric grand i have ever leaned on.
and so it seems all is set.
i head up to the dressing room to stay off the chill that seeps in these dank and dour bricks. lonna is there cleaning up her puke off the floor. it is then she mentions that she is pregnant. she looks so sweet sopping up the vomit with that smile only a momma in the making gets. it is a fine moment of barf and yippity. so very good to hear in these days of death and attacks.
because the opening band had to cancel, there will be no need for a set change. instead we will have the boys in giant sand open with their other band (without me) ‘desoto caucus’, which sounds particularly good in how they sing the songs in double unison an octave apart from each other. after that, lucie idlout will commence to heave a couple songs from her yelpin pipes. and then, lonna will conclude with a couple of her smoldering cinders of lip flip.
it all will be like an hour long mini fest, until we take the stage as giant sand for the umpteenth time in 23 years here in london.
and the show went well. it had that rare and real thrust of hearing something for the first time while its being played. like when we brought the gospel choir on tour, we had never performed those recordings together at the same time before that tour. same with the girls in london. it has an excitement and an incitement for me to behold the clashing sonics at the moment of impact.
it’s a thrill and it rips a hole through the blanketing gravity like it was there to set the place free in buoyancy … for at least an hour or so.
now it seems a blur to me.
i should write these things as they occur.
but you wouldn’t do that either, not when it has spent the moment up to the point of non-register.
afterwards, while we were loitering outside our wonder bus, a couple in their mid 20s came walking by, and the looks on their faces from the show told more about how it al went then any other signal. they gave us their yips with faces still stained with that sonic clash.
a great relief.
but the demon ‘jet lag’ is gonna be very angry with me for giving it the slip.
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