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Tour diary
by Nigel Powell
Hello everyone,
Following is an on the road diary which you'll also
be able to find on the Virgin website. I thought you might like it delivered
right to your door. If you'd like me to stop clogging up your mailing list,
just post something telling me and you'll never hear from me again....
Nigel
Tour diary 1
Tour diary 2
Tour diary 3
.
La (le?) tournee diary (?) Francaise.
Dear tout le monde,
forgive all the cod school level french, I'm here
to report on the unusually eventful journey of the past two weeks (two
weeks? it seems so long...), and I get the feeling it's going to be a looong
one, so either delete now, or gird your loins.
I've lost my itinerary for the tour, so if the chronology
is a bit off, do forgive, but I guess I might as well try and take it from
the start, although I'm sure there'll be all kinds of diversions and rambling,
not unlike what's happening right now.
So I climbed into our splitter van at midday one
fine saturday afternoon (I can't remember the date, but it was two weeks
ago today, ish). (A splitter van, by the way, is not a truck that tells
on it's friends at school, but a big van, blue in this case, with 12 seats
in a big cabin at the front, and a separate compartment for the equipment
in the back). The first discovery to give the tour taste was finding that
we now take so many musical instruments on the raod with us that there
was no room in the back for suitcases, making the cabin a rather amusing
pile of luggage with enough seats poking through the mayhem for all band
and crew's bottoms. On this tour the crew consisted of the inevitable Warwick
(tour manager) and Matt Napier (front of house sound), Adam Cummings (no
sniggering, backline tech, suffering thematically throughout the tour with
a broken rib sustained while skiing) and additions since the U.S. tour
of Leggy (lights) and Mikey Stewart (monitors, top bloke).
Along motorways, onto a train, under the ocean, more
motorways, the second half of the journey thankfully eaten up by a hard
fought game of travel Monopoly, ultimately won by Leggy as we pulled up
at the hotel in Brussells. Pizza, then bed...
I woke up feeling absolutely fine to the sound of
knocking and Jason's voice outside the door, rolled over to answer it and
somebody stabbed me through the shoulder blade, or that's what it felt
like. Andy (my roomie) answered the door while I hollered melodramatically,
imagining it was just a twinge that would pass in seconds...
Three hours later we called a physiotherapist, since
I was now in more pain than when it firsty happened, so while the crew
went off to the gig to set everything up I was being pummelled and pressed
and pulled by an extremely genial Belgian with whom I couldn't really communicate.
Pain partially relieved, we all headed off to the venue, did our soundcheck,
then a couple of hours of interviews and such, and then back to the hotel
for a last quick torture session with my new doctor friend. This time,
during one of his judo holds, there was a sound that I've only heard before
when the kung fu expert baddy in a spy movie breaks someones neck, a moment
of exquisite pain, and then it all seemed better. Rush back up the road
to do a gig (shoulder began to revert about halfway through, but by that
time the atmosphere could have cured me of anything), then finally after
that off to eat while doing an enormous interview with Anelyse, during
which someone hurled a wine bottle through the window of the cafe where
we were. That's more than seemed to happen on the entire U.S. tour, and
that's only the first day.
Up and off driving early in the morning (touring
musician tip no. 1: never unpack, always be ready to leave. That way when
you oversleep and are finally woken by the tour manager phoning you from
the lobby to say "Where are you, we're leaving now", it's just a case of
throwing your clothes on, et viola!) to Evreux. A basically uneventful
day - got to the gig (apart from this day, from now on add the phrase "we
got extremely lost, but eventually..." to news of us finding any destination),
soundcheck, interviews, gig (I'll leave gig reviews to the audience point
of view...), pack up, back to the hotel. This was the first gig for Sandrine,
and also for Matt (, Matt, he's got an orange hat... although he didn't
wear it on this tour) whom we met on the Tori tour, and who we roped in
to help sell our depleted T-shirt stocks. Only notable moment was us arriving
back at our hotel late, tired, dirty and cold, and being refused entry
by an over-zealous night watchman who obviously had us pegged for a bunch
of British football hooligans.
Up early, off next day to Riems (a French name which
requires more phlegm than any of us possessed to pronounce properly), as
we arrived at the hotel I had a slightly funny tummy that rapidly degenerated
into gastro interic delerium. Around 6 o'clock (probably - I was already
pretty much off in cloud cuckoo land) it was decided there was no way I
could do the gig, In fact all I could do was lie in my hotel bed and drag
myself frequently to the bathroom (I could be nore graphic, but I think
not...). The next 36 hours, in which I was reliably informed everyone else
did two excellent show without me, we're pretty much a daze. I remember
swearing loudly at Matt the Hat, who was only trying to help, having lots
of half-awake dreams that all ironically involved food and having to explain
to a local doctor via our very kind and lovely promoter/interpereter Christel
a very detailed description of what my confused digestive system had been
up to. I stayed put while the others went off to Strasbourg, then me and
Warwick ,who'd also stayed to look after me, got a train, via Paris, to
the beautiful city of Grenoble. Well, let me qualify that. The buildings,
roads, and pretty much everything else that makes a city was not much to
shout about. However, whichever way you looked, there were beautiful soaring
mountains, that dwarfed the man-made rubbish, and reflected their beauty
down onto Grenoble itself. The gig is a bit of a daze in memory (I was
recovered, but I hadn't eaten anything except half a plate of plain pasta
for three days), but it was great to be playing again.
Next day travelling to Marseille, and celebrating
Leggy's birthday (not many effective celebration alternatives in the back
of a splitter, however). Night off in Marseille, caught up on sleep (hard
to believe since I'd been asleep for nearly two days solidly).
Next day, interviews, found the venue, the smallest
of the tour, had a thouroughly excellent gig, I reckon, hotel, bit more
of Leggy's birthday in Jim and Jason's designated party room (makeshift
banner made from toilet roll, motorcycle cleverness on Eurosport, the night's
drinks rider on the bed, one complaint from next door).
Montpellier, uneventful, everyone beginning to suffer
from sleep deprivation due to the cycle of late nights/early morning travelling,
Jason and Mikey get the flu, gig in a big place that nearly got away from
us, but we pulled it back in the second half, Ron.
Bordeux and Nantes followed, we weren't too fond
of these gigs because the stages were very tall (especially Nantes, where
it was six foot and taller only in the front row, if you wanted to see
anything), we prefer to be a bit more face to face with the audience, and
from the back on a drum riser in Nantes I felt like I was playing on a
rooftop to the back garden.
Long travel day to Paris, followed by the most eventful
non-gig night of the tour. We were in the same hotel as the Stereophonics,
who are now tour managed by ex-employee and friend 'Big' Neil. Everyone
except me Andy and Jas headed straight to the bar, which proudly proclaimed
offering 'more than thirty different types of whisky!!', where they installed
themselves for the night. We had something to eat, I went off to catch
the end of Garbage's show at The Zenith, and by the time I got back the
bar belonged to bands and crews. The Stereos (as i will proceed to call
them) proved themselves far more capable of holding their liquor, drummer
Stuart in particular sadly shaking his head at the sight of Jim arguing
loudly with himself over which beer was his (", no, hang on, itsh thish
one..."). Warwick and Adam's normally amiable sparring had escalated to
one step short of a fist fight. Andy and Kelly were the only ones left
talking soberly and quietly among themselves. I headed off for bed, but
after I did, so the reports have it, Adam mistakenly smashed a glass table
(" it was an ACCIDENT"), and was last seen heading of muttering something
about "fighting the welsh" ( he actually bought them a drink. A fun night.
To ramble off the storyline momentarily, though,
that night was food for thought. A few of you who I've talked to at gigs
seem surprised by my appraisal of UT's commercial potential (ie not huge),
usually treating it as some sort of modesty thing. But in one night, seeing
Garbage and talking to the 'Phonics (as I shall proceed to call them) was
enlightening in that regard. Here are two bands who very much want to be
famous. It doesn't frive us. Commercial goals are the record companies
concern with us, not ours. Deep down it seems to me that we're just a bunch
of hippies who want to make records and not prticularly do anyhting with
them. Examples: Garbage are not a band I love, admire or respect, but you
look at them and they fit in an enormous venue like The Zenith they work
the room, they entertain, Shirley Manson wants to BE Liza Minelli, and
will talk about shagging and blow jobs until all the column inches that
can possibly be theirs are full. And the 'Phonics were just getting into
the stride of a promo tour of around two months. That's NO playing, all
interviews, videos, photo seesions, T.V. miming. I personally can't do
what either band does. In terms of being an entertainer, all I can do is
play our songs the best every night I can, try and put whatever I can into
them each night, and if I react visually then fine, but it's not why I'm
their. And if I tried to do a promo tour like the 'Phonics, I would go
utterly mad, forget why on earth I wanted to be doing any of it anyway.
All I want to do is play and write. Take that away, I'd rather do an office
job where I could play and write every night. Fame - hah! Selling records
- huh! A Jedi craves not these things.
Anyroad, into the home straight of the tour, but
it wasn't over yet in the excitement stake. Off down to the Paris venue
the next day, met a local crew fella to direct us round there, we get a
to a wide bit of road in our big wide van, where he says "U-turn here,
go back up the other way", Warwick signals, maneuvers... and the BMW that
was trying to shoot up our inside gets, ahem, redirected into a traffic
cone. Not dangerous, just damaging, and time consuming as we sat at the
side of the road watching Warwick fill out forms. Luckily the guy took
it all with a smile and a Gallic shrug, so it didn't get ugly, but it did
make us very late arriving at the venue, meaning a bit of a mad rush. And,
yes, we did have a great time onstage. The realisation that with another
album's worth of material (and b-sides) next time we tour might mean some
of the less-favoured songs disappearing from the set forever gave everything
a freshness and focus that's hard to come up with every night, plus throwing
in one or two unusual songs... a very emotional night. I was close to tears
when I thanked everyone for making it the best year of my life.
And home again. That's it. I'll stay in touch and
let y'all know how the album's going.
And I don't often reply directly to mailing list
stuff, but one thing I wanted to dispel immediately... it's YOUR list,
not ours. Please feel absolutely free to air any opinions you wish, discuss
anything. I'd like to point out the whoever was worried about controls
on the list that the band and management had nothing to do with asking
anybody not to talk about anything. It would make me sick to imagine anybody
tempered any response just in case we read it. I know this is just a UT
mailing list, not big in the global scheme of things, and probably not
the place to get so polemic, but never kow tow to anyone, never automatically
believe the majority view or the party line. Apply it to this list and
your whole life, true believers (as I'm sure Stan Lee would have said).
And, with thanks also to you for a fantastic and
memorable year of music making, farewell.
Nigel
Stationary Diary 1
Hello all,
A short one, since not that much has happened. As
you know, we did Nulles Parts Ailleurs on French T.V., for all non-French
residents it's a bizarre but very cool mix of hip talk show, live music
show and Spitting Image (a reference probably lost on anyone but the British...
errr, it was a satirical show using grotesque latex puppets, charicatures
of Thatcher et al). It was the second time we've done it, and we played
Settle Down. For two reasons we took along a keybaord player just for the
night, a supremely lovely fellow called Richard who used to tickle the
ivories for Dodgy, and is now a full-time esconsee in The Bluetones. Reason
one is that the live version of Settle Down always sounds a wee bit spineless
in the chorus without the piano part from the record. Reason two is if
truth be told we're all a little bit bored of that song, so we wanted an
extra element to exite us for live T.V. And it worked. We rehearsed once
the day before, Richard arrived at midday, fifteen minutes later we'd utterly
nailed Settle Down, and spent the next three hours blissfully running through
some of our songs, which he picked up immediately, and listening to Richard
and Andy share a passion for early David Bowie. Lovely old job.
Mere hours after we got home I headed off again to
Brussells in Belgium to do a round of interviews (you know you're travelling
a lot when you get recognised by the guy checking passports at the Eurostar
terminal...) This was my first time as solo spokesman for the band, it
was kind of fun, badmouthing Andy and Jas, knowing the articles we're going
to be written in Flemish or French so they'd never know (just kidding...).
Home again, a quick (and unsuccessful) bout of shopping for instruments
to make the next album with, mixing a b-side for a top-secret Oxford project
(the a-side, which I had precicisely nothing to do with, is terriffic,
I only just finished doing the b-side, it's vaguely O.K., for a b-side),
home again, and that's utterly it for now.
Take care, y'all, I'll report from the other side
of the French tour (I can't give on the road reports due to my palmtop
still being AWOL, sorry...)
Nigel
(UT) Re: Best Concert
I don't usually join in the group discussions, but
this time, I really feel like it, and since everybody else has been doing
a whole bunch of best concerts, that is what I shall also do.
In no particular order, as the cliche would have
it...]
Mark Mulcahy, Twelve Bar Club. Can't remember exactly
when it was, sometime in the middle of the tour we did with him supporting,
and I think the day before we went to do Jools Holland. Now, I don;t think
it's unfair to say that Mark live sometimes suffers from a lack of focus,
but this night, he was just perfect. I only arrived halfway through his
set (he'd typically told us all the wrong time for when he was going to
be on), and a drunk and lairy Warwick insisted on loudly requesting Clash
covers, one of which Mark eventually did, but nothing could disguise a
perfect night.
Throwing Muses, Bristol Bierkeller, on the Real Ramona
tour. Don't know why particulaly, it just rocked in the most amazing way.
I remember they started with the quiet bit of Soul Soldier, and they had
a Standard Lamp on stage.
P J Harvey, New York Academy, 26th June 1993. With
her old band, at the top of their powers, and firing on absolutely all
cylinders. Stunning.
and just to prove it's not a dirty word around here....
Radiohead. Hard to choose a particular gig. I've
seen so many, and I've seen them suck majorly, and be god-transcendingly
amazing. The ones that immediately stand out in memory are Manchester Apollo,
warming up for T In The Park one year, and Birmingham N.E.C. on the O.K.
Computer tour. And the Amnesty show was certainly up there too.
Y'know, loads of others as well... R.E.M. at Hammersmith
Odeon at the beginning of the Green Tour, I.Q. (old prog rock band) a load
of times at the old Marquee on Wardour Street, Beaker a number of times.
Gig's are great, aren't they?
I seem to share Laurie's disability in the brevity
department. Sorry all, and bye.
Nigel
---------
Hello everyone,
Not strictly a tour diary, since we're having a bit
of a break right now, but just a quick note from the home front.
The Tori tour finished very emotionally, as you can
probably imagine, us having been part of a travelling community for two
months, all of them having been out for at least three times that long.
The night before the final date we indulged in a mass game of football
(trans: soccer) in the car park (trans:parking lot) of the venue, us verses
Tori's crew. I'm pleased to report that we won five to nothing, despite
the disadvantage of the opposing team having twice as many players as us.
Some particularly penetrating runs by Mike Hornby... O.K., none of that
match of the day stuff. We were challenged to a return match of American
football the following day (full contact, no pads, on concrete) but thankfully
everyone was too busy.
For the final gig we hoped to get Warwick our tour
manager to sing 'I Wanna Be Adored' with us (my, we were getting blase
about playing in front of 10,000 people), but when the time came he was
nowhere to be found, so Andy leapt into the breach. Luckily for us, everyone
was also too busy and stressed to play any pranks on us. Apparently when
the previous band the Devlins left the tour they were subject to all the
humiliation Tori's crew could muster (being sworn at through the monitor
speakers, naked dancing behing them, the drumkit being removed piece by
piece during the set), but we escaped entirely unscathed. Tori and her
band were on particularly fine form that night, 'Silent All These Years'
was eye-wettingly moving, and the version of 'Waitress' they did that night
was scorching. It was very moving to see them all in tears onstage at the
end of the set, it was the only night the 'group hug' at the end didn't
look like a laughably fake cheese-a-thon.
We had to leave swiftly afterwards for our marathon
drive back to New York for the Shine show. Due to it being Christmas Lights
weekend (or something), the nearest hotel we could get that was under $500
per person per night was nearly an hours drive away from the city, so there's
was no casual flitting in for drinking/shopping/sightseeing. The actual
gig has been well documented already by those present, I'd just like to
add how great it was for all of us to see Mark Mulcahy again, both playing
and personally.
Flew home the following day, wrestled with jet-lag
up until the Bloomsbury gig the following Sunday. (we had one very sleepy
rehearsal the day before). Again, the details of the gig have been fairly
well done over. Things to add: enjoyed watching Astrid, however me and
Warwick were rather dismayed when an over-zealous house employee brought
the auditorium lights up just as she was about to start her last song,
just her and a piano. We offered to let her do it as part of our set (would
that have worked? seemed like a wierd idea, but not necessarily a bad one),
but she demurred. Rather pissed off to find that Virgin had bought up loads
of tickets and then left them empty, while there were still people we knew
off who couldn't get tickets. We'll try our best to stop them next time,
but we tried quite hard and failed this time...
Final date of the year was last night, Your Song
at the Point in Oxford, Mac's biannual covers bash. After a bunch of bands
I sadly didn't see (I caught the band before us, Callous, from backstage
as I tuned our guitars, and can report they did a thouroughly great version
of the Rockerfeller Skank), we threw our equipment onto the stage, cheated
by opening with 'Ciao, My Shining Star', followed it up with Jim singing
on 'A Life Less Ordinary' by Ash (I can't fully say I love the band, but
they've written a few unbelievably fantastic songs), then Andy retaking
his pole position for 'Wave of Mutilation' by The Pixies, and, natch, 'I
Wanna Be Adored'. Very enjoyable - I haven't worked up a sweat like that
at a gig for some time. The Bigger the God were the final band, with epic
versions of 'Geno' and 'An American Trilogy' rounding out the evening in
excellent spirits.
And that's it. We're playing a French T.V. show,
N.P.A., on January 4th, then it's the Jericho and the French tour, and
then heads down for the new album. The only downside is my Psion series
5 which accompanied me around the U.S., keeping me in touch, and on which
the Tour Diaries were written was foolishly left on the plane home by me,
and since whoever found hasn't deemed it important to return it, I must
asssume it's gone forever. So keep a moments silence for my lost companion,
and I'll write again next year, when I hopefully will have something interesting
to say.
Big Respect,
Nigel
-----------
Dear Boys and Girls and others (are there any pets
on the mailing list?),
Only a week left now, so it seems likely to me that
this will be the last tour diary (for this tour, at least - hopefully this
will continue long into the future). The Breakfast Club is on T.V. - what
a great film, not seen it for a long time, one of the few cultural icons
of the eighties that had the quality not to look stupid 13 years later.
So, with amazing inspiration, unless something else
occurs to me I'll give you an example of a day. If I just do it from our
point of view, however, it'll be very short and very dull, so I'll include
the whole day...
9.00 am is the start of the load in (a self-explanatory
term, I think). First in is Mike Pugh, stage manager, the man who has most
direct responsibility in actually running the gig, who is in charge of
telling the local crew (hired in just for the day) what to do and when.
Stuff gets hung from the ceiling (a rigger scampers about in the rafters
attaching things where needed, while the crew down on the ground build
the lighting and P.A. rigs, testing them before they get hauled up into
the air). Everything's usually up and running by around 1 pm, at which
point they load in the stage set (just a riser, it's not U2 after all)
and instruments so that Zach and Sarge can set it all up and make sure
it's all working before the band arrive at 3 pm. Also during this afternoon
time they make the P.A. sound good, hopefully. Marcel van Limbeek, Tori's
monitor guy sits at her stool for what seems like hours, repeating in his
mental institution monotone "Very funny Zach, ha ha ha" while tweaking
on his equipment in ways that are inaudible to anybody else, while Mark
Hawley (front of house) plays 'Fall at My Feet' by Crowded House over and
over while he runs to every corner of the venue to check that the enormous
P.A. isn't too quiet to be heard at the back.
Once all this is done, Jon Evans (bass) and Matt
Chamberlain (drums) will appear and impress the hell out of me and Jase
for half an hour by playing stuff more difficult than we can conceive.
Steve Caton (guitarist) will usually appear a bit behind them, but only
because he walks so slowly.
Any time between 5 pm and half past six Tori appears
and the whole thing falls into some order for a proper soundcheck, and
maybe working a new song up. By this time our gear is set up and waiting
patiently at the side of the stage for the word from Mike Pugh (9 hours
on and still going strong) to put our stuff on the stage. This usually
happens 20 minutes or so before the doors open, so we hurl the stuff on,
make sure it works, and that's pretty much it until the gig. We usually
play at 8.00 pm - 8.40 pm, Tori's usually due to come on at 9.15 pm but
is ALWAYS late (I think 9.22 pm was the closest she got to being on time
on this leg of the tour), show finishes at 11 pm and almost before the
last note has died away the crew, both local and travelling, descend on
the stage to tear the whole thing down. This, naturally, goes quicker than
putting it up, and the last box goes into the last truck somewhere around
2 - 2.30 am (directed into place by Mike Pugh, thus completing his
17! 1/2 hour day).
And that's what happens, apart from on days off,
when you find something to do (a mall, somewhere interesting to shop, go-karting,
ice skating) except for Mike Pugh, who sleeps.
I've had a few mails about a certain quote from the
last tour diary. The thing that really stood out to me about that quote,
once it had been pasted back to me a few times...
>. Most of the stuff that honestly makes this >world
good place to be is done by people who will never be known for >what they
do except by those they do it for.
is that in my haste I typed it wrong. Very precise
and English of me, but please insert an 'a' after 'world'. I was thinking
about this more with a friend the other day. Watching Tori's fans, some
of them are so insanely obsessed with her personally, that it seems to
me they lose sight of important things. Now I think music is a magical
thing, the way it floats invisibly around and somehow can suffuse your
heart and soul with all kinds of feelings, and I think Tori is a very brilliant
musician, but so many of her fans then seem to eschew the details of their
own lives in the pursuit of her personally. My view on it was that it worried
me that some of these fans were expending emotional energy on "loving"
Tori that they needed for their friends and families. I believe - and I
know that Andy disagrees with me - that the key to mending the world lies
with everyone individually. I live my life hoping having respect for people,
not judging people harshly, politeness, open-faced interest and friendliness
are the seeds that are spread by everyone to everyone they meet and know,
growing exponentially until love and tolerance and respect are the order
of the day for the world. I guess this is airy-fairy hippy bulls**t, and
I understand Andy's point of view that pragmatism dictates that we are
all culpable in the problems of the world and should mobilise to change
things en mass, to create political change, but I hope for a world where
the simple and costless act of being decent to those who you meet creates
the atmosphere where greed, hatred and divisiveness are not tolerated,
for any gain, political, commercial or otherwise.
Sorry, turned into a bit of a sixties rant there.
This is not what you want from a mailing list. So I'll also reveal that
I think we're going to be playing another show in November, at the Point
in Oxford on 19th December. However, it's not just us. It's called "Your
Song" (Oxford people will recognise this), wherein Mac, local hero promoter
and lead singer of Arthur Turner's Lovechild gets a bunch of bands together
all playing on the same equipment, gets them all drunk, and convinces them
to play fifteen minutes of cover versions each. It happens twice a year,
once at Christmas and once on Mac's birthday, and is always a huge laff.
Or so it looked from a punter point of view - this is the first time we've
done it. I guess I should say something like 'check with the venue for
details if you're thinking of coming'.
That's about it for the grand ol' U.S. of A. Maybe
I'll try and report in either from or after the Bloomsbury. If I don't/can't/
won't, then a very happy Christmas to all of you, and bid the New Year
a boisterous welcome.
Respect,
Nigel
Tour Diary Episode 3 -
The Phantom Menace
Dear all,
Every generation has it's legends... WOW! This may
get onto the subject of the tour at some point, but right now I'm only
thinking of one thing. I just saw the Star Wars Episode 1 trailer on CNN...
I was prepared for the whole film to suck, for it to be money-grabbing
franchise greed, but now, you can count me out of any activity on May 21st
1999, because I'm going to be here in the U.S.A. seeing it on it's day
of release. It looks RIGHT, even Renton being introduced as Obi Wan Kenobi
seems perfect. Enough of this, it really belongs on ain't it cool news
(if you're into movies there's no better site).
Okay, I've taken some drugs and calmed down. This
last bit of the tour has mostly been concerned with ice skating. Not just
because most of the venues have been vast interchangeable University hockey
arenas (when we walked out on stage last night I wanted to greet the crowd
in customary rock 'n' roll manner, however I couldn't for the life of me
remember even what state we were in, let alone the city), but because it's
become our mission to find a nearby rink that the concert promoter can
pull strings and get opened at 1 am once everything's all over. So twice
now the wee small hours have seen most of Tori's crew and us and our crew
gliding (or is that stumbling like a newborn fawn?) around the ice. I have
a feeling this might not go on too long, however. Since the first time
Tori's guitarist, Caton, has been struggling around with a bandaged knee,
the second time a member of the university team came and got a puck and
goals and sticks out for us, which just resulted in more r! ecklessness
and more injury (I could hardly move my arm the following day after a nasty
fall, and Mikey our monitor fellow spent the whole day hobbling about like
an octogenarian having done his back in). But it's fun, which has been
kind of hard to find because of the back-of-beyond, middle-of-nowhere places
we've been playing.
Did that last bit sound self-pitying? I hope not.
I love being out here and playing music to (some) people who want to hear
us (there are plenty who just want us the hell off the stage so that Tori
will come on sooner), but as the opening act, there's very little for us
to do, usually until 6 or 6.30 pm, at which time it's all rush and panic
until the show's over, which is only two and a half hours or so later.
It can become hard to occupy the other 21 hours of the day effectively,
especially when you're stuck in a town where Main Street is all boarded
up and with tumbleweeds rolling (as it actually was in Spartanburg). Andy
reads a lot, especially news from Radio Free Europe which he subscribes
to over the net, Jason, as I've mentioned, brushes up on his by now encyclopaedic
knowledge of Bruce Lee films, Jim perfects all the Thin Lizzy and Black
Sabbath riffs he can on his wee little practice amp. And I walk and write
e-mail.
To answer a question or two... the late night talk
shows have been approached, but we won't know if we'll be doing any for
a little while. I have no idea what's going on with MTV or MuchMusic, but
of course it's up to them if they play us or not, and being commercial
stations, you end up with the whole chicken and egg thing, "we can't play
them until they're famous", "Virgin needs MTV to break this band"... I
try not to worry. Lots of people are famous, it doesn't make them better
or worse. Most of the stuff that honestly makes this world good place to
be is done by people who will never be known for what they do except by
those they do it for.
I just read this all back, an it seems a bit odd.
I hope y'all don't mind. Maybe I'll make sense next mail. Maybe I've succumbed
to tour madness.
Have a nice day, missing you already, don't go changing,
Nigel, from a band
.
DIARY II
Hello, my little chuckleberries,
(maybe I've been reading too much Steven Fry)
We're just over 3 weeks into our 8 week tour with
Tori now, but this report is going to be shorter, simply because there's
not that much more to report. More gigs, a few more interviews, travelling...
but you know all of this from last time. Our record company informed us
that our album was 5th (or thereabouts) most added at College Radio last
week, but whether that's a good thing, a bad thing, or utterly inconsequential
I couldn't say. Jase has also developed an enthusiasm for Bruce Lee films
("boards don't hit back"), I've never seen a video player used so extensively
to rewind and freeze-frame.
So given the paucity of fresh adventure, I thought
I'd officially introduce the crew members. Actually, Jim Crosskey should
come first. Mailing List, Jim Crosskey, Jim Crosskey, Mailing List. Jim
was guitarist and singer in The Purple Rhinos, a school band that featured
first Jason and later me. He also joined me and Jason later on as backing
band for a London singer songwriter called Groove (for the full story see
Stone(d) 3). Jolly and jovial, and possessed of a razor-sharp Wildean wit
("yeah? well bollocks to you too."), busty Jim, 28, likes nothing better
than relaxing with some fine white wine and a slice of slightly lemony
cheescake. He's also extremely handy with a six-string noise machine, and
can get by more than adequately when tickling the ivories. Likes: Thin
Lizzy. Dislikes: not rocking.
Tour managers look after the band on the road, taking
care of the money, making sure the band don't drink themselves into a useless
stupor or fry themselves on drugs. We, however, like to break that mould.
To whit, Warwick Sayce, friend, tour manager and ex-singer with Dum Dum
Club, another band that featured Jase and Jim (and briefly yours truly).
During the day, solid, dependable, efficient. Come the night, a gibbering
drunken lunatic who more than makes up for the various levels of abstention
adhered to by the actual band members. Tori's Guitar and Drum techs (Zach
and Sarge) have been doing their best to shorten his life yet further,
and Warwick's attempts to keep up with them have done him no favours. Indeed,
today Warwick is sporting a fashionable scar above his right eye, having
protested to Sarge, and subsequently been proved oh-so-wrong, that Americans
don't know how to headbutt.
Deary me, this makes us all sound terribly Led Zep,
doesn't it? To go some way towards redressing the balance, Mat Napier who
is entirely in charge of the sound the audience hears (except for the playing
of the instruments) was once renowned around our neck of the woods for
a sex drive that was, well, an overcharged V8 16 cylinder, to euphemise.
Since coming on the road with Unbelievable Truth, however, he has been
a faithful and loving boyfriend to his other half, to the point now where
no one would be remotely surprised if he was to tie the knot. He still
tries to assert his manhood by the consumption of alcohol, but he can't
escape the essential niceness (and I mean that in the insulting sense of
the word) of being on the road with us.
Our backline position (the person who sets up/ takes
down/ looks after the instruments) has been negotiable for some time now.
Thus Adam Cummings, who is fulfilling that role on this tour, is somewhat
of an unknown quantity. I've known him for a while, but he's an intelligent,
friendly, private man, and thus fiendishly difficult to take the piss out
of. Ditto, indeed double ditto, for monitors (in charge of the sound the
band hears). All I know about Mike Hornby, apart from sharing a second
name with a train set, is his laconic way with a burst of feedback.
And that is that. If we should happen to be thrust
into U.S. superstardom in the next couple of weeks I'll be sure to let
you know. Otherwise, expect more of the same dreary shit soon.
Nigel
Tour diary 1
Dear All,
We're out on the road with Tori Amos in the U.S.A.,
and I thought I'd give an update on how it was all going, plus maybe a
slight insight into what else goes on. ("a documentary - a Rockumentary,
if you will")
General pointers about being a support band (or 'opening
act' as our colonial cousins would have it) a) get treated like a lower
form of life by the main band and everybody involved. Thankfully this hasn't
happened at all so far. Everyone involved has been fantastically nice to
us, from the head honcho (Tori) right on down. We've done our best to piss
them off and get in the way, but they insist on being polite and helpful.
b) eat crap everyday, take vitamin pills to stay alive. Again, not doing
well on this, due to there being amazing tour catering serving a top menu
for breakfast lunch and dinner everyday. Sorry to disappoint those who
were looking forward to us returning looking like David Gahan - probably
going to be more along the lines of Orson Welles. c) cram into an absurdly
small amount of stage space. Now THIS we can help you with. The beginning
of Tori's show involves a black curtain in front of her and all her band
suddenly plummeting to the floor (or disappearing! into the ceiling), this
same black curtain is what we play in front of. Speaking as a drummer,
I've never had the experience of playing to so many people while having
my drums nearly tumbling off stage front. Luckily Tori's audiences have
all been very fragrant, so being so near them is no problem.
Tori Amos specific pointers: a) have lots of British
crew. This can only be good news, because it means there's stuff like Marmite
in catering to keep you feeling like it's home (she and all her crew have
been on tour out here since June, so it keeps them sane). b) know every
line from every episode of South Park. Not a day goes by without Tori's
band soundchecking their Mr Hankey funk tune ("Howdy Ho!"), with phrases
like "Eskimos, Dolphins, it's all a bunch of tree-hugging hippy crap",
"No Kitty, it's MY turkey pod pie", "sorry your mum's a slut, dude" flying
through the air at any moment. We're also nearly knee deep in soft toys.
As for the actual gigs, they've been mostly a lot
of fun. It's actually very refreshing to play to large groups of people
who have now the slightest clue of who we are (there's some worry in the
record company that lazy record shop employees will take one look at the
name and file us under "Christian Rock" before you can say "but we're emotionally
charged acoustic alternative!"). After coming offstage the second night
having been our usual talkative selves onstage and while we were leaving
someone shouting "Who are you guys?", we've since been announcing our band
name clearly after every song, as much for the fits of giggling it produces
among us as for the PR value. In fact the best gigs have been the ones
where we've been chattiest and slightly piss-taking with the audience and
ourselves. It seems to allow us to be relaxed enough to then commit ourselves
to the songs when we play them, instead of worrying about the fact that
we're in a strange town in a strange country playi! ng to loads of people
that have never heard of us. That said, the audience Tori attracts have
been great to play to: attentive, enthusiastic when we're playing well,
willing to pay enough attention to understand what we're going on about.
Some bus madness has come and gone, but so far no
permanent insanity has occurred. It's been kind of like the old days of
being in a band as well, since due to visa difficulties our backline crew
won't be out here until next week, so we've been setting our own gear up
with the tour manager, Warwick, and our front of house sound engineer,
Mat. It's getting more difficult now that we're beginning to do more interviews,
meet and greets and acoustic sessions, though, so if you happen to work
in the U.S. embassy in London and can hurry the visa applications through,
please do.
That's it so far really. I'm writing this on the
bus on Thursday 22nd October, so the album's been out here for two days.
I'll write again when things are happening.
Nigel
....
Untruth © Indyrock
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