Blog
Montreal
22nd September 2008 | Juliet
It was very french in Montreal and I ate french onion soup twice. Walked along the waterside. Very chi chi.
Jim says it was the best gig of the tour for him so far. It was the gig that had sold the least of the tour but was incredible in the end with the audience’s enthusiastic response. Someone brought some little tins of maple syrup, one for each of the band. And there were gifts from Peru from Fernando of Peruvian hats for Jim, Tim and Larry.
Drove overnight to Toronto. 7 hour drive….
Club Soda, Montreal QC
22nd September 2008 | Larry
Sharks and Sacred Land: Asbury Park, New Jersey
21st September 2008 | Juliet
We drove through the night after the gig in ………was it Washington?….and woke on the bus to bright sunshine late morning. Walked along the miles of boardwalk, passing a disused empty Victorian casino which was used to film Jesus Christ Superstar, and wooden huts selling quesadillas and coffees and a clam place. It felt like a ghost town. A man was sculpting a fairy castle on the sands and a crowd watched him. The sun shone. There was no one swimming. Dogs were walking. Made friends with a pony-sized Great Dane. Dog of the day.
We all gather at the Stone Pony from where we can see the sea. Tim and Larry arrive by train. They took a hotel room last night to avoid 2 nights on the bus.
In the seventies Bruce Springsteen used to play the club. Met a Frank Zappa lookalike who said he’d seen Bruce for a dollar. Patti Smith used to play this venue and her mum would watch from the side of the stage. One wall is embellished with real guitars, signed and strung up to give the place a real sense of history. Its another small black-painted-wall club. A trailer complete with brown corduroy, velveteen upholstery and mousetraps is out the back. It’s the dressing room. “It’s got atmosphere,” says Dave. Everybody else thinks it stinks.
The Mayan guy from El Salvador gives me some history on the area.”There were the shark attacks around the 30’s and 40’s, and so people stopped coming. There even used to be a funfair in the Great Gatsby times. Then there’s the fact that some people think there’s a lot of sacred land over there so projects don’t get finished. The place became a bit of a ghost town then the Stone Pony arrived in the 70s… The Stone Pony is the only thing that kept this town alive…”
So it’s a packed house when the band get on stage. Five minutes before they go on half the band are on the bus and half are in the trailer out the back. Separated by heaving audience… Hmm and it’s four minutes to go. Tim is having his ears attached by Magic who has to work his way back to the side of the stage in three minutes. Then Tim loses his earring. It’s a crisis.
All on the bus finally ready to go to stage. The gig is a storm. Audience dancing in the open-air extension out the back. Whole place pumping. Walls are jumping. Clean cut American guy asks me, when they do an unusual encore of Sit Down, “hey I never heard this, what album is it on?”
After the show Tim drinks champagne with his mate Lenny from the Patti Smith band. There is much partying in the trailer. We run out of beer, again… Then we go to the gay disco for a quick drink at the Empress Hotel where we had a day room. Glitter ball hanging over the swimming pool outside, Andy and Saul had used the pool earlier and had been excited all day to find out why indeed it was there? Now we knew. The disco was like that Fellini film. Before we knew it it was five to two and time to run back to the bus.
Wake up on the bus at 9am. Do a bit of hoovering and chucking out the remnants of last night. Everyone has got to get up for the border checks. Make a huge pot of coffee. Incredible scenery as we pass Adirondack Park Preserve (sic) heading up to the Canadian border. Endless xmas trees, bright blue sky….
All fruit including a magnificent pineapple and 4 lbs of strawberries has to be chucked off the bus in Plattsburgh service station. Dave also gets left off the bus. He rings 20 minutes later with his last dollar of credit to say, “I appear to have been left behind.” Mark sends him a glib text to ask if he wants us to come back and get him? Finally we get to the Canadian border. We are warned to behave. The guards get on the bus and we get off. No jokes allowed. Paul the driver enjoys telling a rather long yarn about musicians who got their “cavities searched….”
Cavities intact we get back on track and finally, a football match later, brought to us by Mark from the UK via his computer and his telly at home (don’t ask me), we get to Montreal at 3pm. Today is called a day off. It says so on the sheet.
Stone Pony, Asbury Park, NJ
20th September 2008 | Larry
El Tesoro
20th September 2008 | Juliet
We just woke up in a parking lot on the bus, on the outskirts of New Jersey near the Sheraton Hotel. The bus got bashed last night. It hit a wall outside Radio City after the gig.
Radio City is a really incredibly ornate venue, like going back in time but with security tighter than at the White House.
Yesterday started with New York Fire Department being called in to check the colour web/lighting screen which someone had “tested” by setting light to the nylon. It had gone up in flames and it was decided the whole lighting system was a no go area. However the Firemen said it was OK in the end.
As we had driven through the night from the 9.30 Club, everyone knackered. Tim rolled up in duvet down in the small dressing room; Jim shopping, showering and tootling around the venue. Larry took loads of photos of the features of the building.
Gig at Radio city was a very different vibe, more of a sit down and listen musical gig than the rock n roll, audience-in-your-face of the last three. Here it was proper velvet seats and grand theatre. Somehow by the end the audience were on their feet. It was more like a matinee dinner dance at the beginning.
I went to Central Park south side and walked round the sanctuary. Checked out Zara. Located the Museum of Modern Art but didnt go beyond the shop. Went to Hells Kitchen to find a 99cent store to buy I LOVE NEW YORK mugs for the bus and some Chinese china spoons for breakfast (the metal ones had sharp edges).
Passed kids popping and locking in Hells Kitchen park. Woman haggling in the 99cent store. I bought three butter knives for a dollar for Larrys toast on the bus. Peeked in at the Brill Building where all the great songwriters did their deals. Mirrored hallway, grand and fancy, like being in an old black and white movie. Through Times Square, a giant Leicester Square, and back to venue for dinner in the basement of Radio City. Roast salmon with berries on top and roast carrots with their green tops on… Salad with gluey blue dressing.
Dressing room quiet. Ironing, head shaving, lying on the floor, all very peaceful. Carpet very clean. Big bouquet of flowers in dressing room. Lights that work all round the mirrors. Proper backstage scene, showers that run both hot and cold, and toilets that flush. But that was yesterday….
Today stumble off bus into bright sunlight. Go for a walk with Chris the American guy who does the lights in his turbo dynamic style. We find a park 200 yards from this hotel car park and take some sunlight. I hang off a climbing fame to stretch my spine. There are lots of squirrels about but we don’t see deer. Kids are playing basket ball.
Everyone else showering in the day room or doing laundry or drinking coffee and slowly coming to. Dave’s first bottle of El Tesoro Tequila is nearly gone after last night. But there’s another full one beside it.
Tonight there is gonna be a long drive to Canada… and a wake up for passports somewhere on the border…
Radio City Music Hall, New York, NY
19th September 2008 | Larry
Washington D.C.
18th September 2008 | Juliet
Larry says last night they went for drinks and comedy in an area called Adams Morgan or as the locals call it Madam’s Organ.
Dave ate cranberries, dried apricots and unsalted peanuts yesterday. That was all. Oh but he remembered he also went for a Vietnamese meal in the evening. A sound bloke Dave met during the Millionaires era is bringing him a bottle of Tequila tonight.
Band has a show for some competition winners for a radio station. It was a small gig in a club for an audience of 100 in the poshest town of America says Larry. The streets look as if theyve been hoovered. Different to the filth of Philadelphia says Dave. Everybody but Mark did it. He wasn’t there due to technical set up requirements of his monster rig. They played Laid, Oh My Heart and Hey Ma, Out to Get you and Born of Frustration were in there.
It was really good said Jim, everyone seemed to enjoy it.
We all met again later at 3ish at the venue 9.30 club in Washington DC. Great vibe in the place. Staff seem really friendly and the rider is good. Loads of fresh fruits and berries as well as organic veg for juicing. Super power juicer. Carrot, beetroot and pineapple with ginger goes down well as the band arrive.
I go to Wholefoods to buy stuff for the bus. Good organic brown bread, cheese, butter, tons of muesli and granola like cherry and vanilla flavour.
Tim eats early, chicken and roast sweet potatoes, and gets some sleep on the bus. The rest of us do our thing. There’s a free laundry upstairs in one of the rooms. Hang out in the two layered dressing room with mezzanine bunk platforms. Then the salsa and veggie chilli arrives. Time to track down the iron and ironing board… will the iron have gaffer tape imprinted onto it?
Some family has driven from Florida to go to the gig tonight cos this is the nearest gig to Florida.
9:30 Club, Washington DC
18th September 2008 | Larry
Wednesday in Washington: Day off
17th September 2008 | Juliet
Travelled through the night. Much partying on the bus. Got in to the grounds of the hotel at 5am. Had to hang on in there til midday for rooms. So, much sleeping to be done in the bunks. Hotel plush but surrounded by endless traffic… here it’s unusual to see anyone walk. Cars fly past the hotel in all directions.
On days off we all do our own thing; trip to the gym, a run (not round here probably), a swim, or like Andy and Mark watch a game of footie on the bus. Larry and Jim are having a coffee in reception’s very own Starbucks. Saul has gone straight to New York with Unkle Bob. Theres tons to do in Washington but mustering the energy is another matter.
Today is a day off. Its official. It says so on the day sheet which gets posted under the door whilst we are sleeping. The day sheet also tells us it’s Wednesday.
Tuesday: Philadelphia Trocadero Theatre
16th September 2008 | Juliet
We travelled overnight down to Philadelphia on the bus which took about 7 hours. Hardly slept. Those of us who woke at 7 after a series of multiple road lumps wanted to eat breakfast and kept saying, “Eggs, we want eggs!” But the day room hotel wouldn’t have us til 3pm. Saul got us a new hotel – a dodgy motel, two day rooms for us to get washed and sorted. Then we headed off for eggs. Ended up walking along a freeway to find the 24-hour diner, passing 24-hour golf and 24-hour peepshows and 24-hour talk booths.
The diner was busy with very large locals. There were piles of pancakes with maple syrup and stacks of toast being consumed. I joined in the swing of big eating with four poached eggs. Jim had corned beef hash with his eggs and Dave had sausages. The others were somewhere else eating eggs. Saul was running. Tim was sleeping.
Next, back on the bus and heading downtown to Chinatown where the Trocadero is. It’s the oldest operating theatre in the USA. It used to be a burlesque theatre. It’s a shabby old place with sticky carpet, red velveteen, and gold paintwork on ornate pillars. Jim got a cockroach in his coffee and they were in the shower too. But the acoustics were OK. We ate locally in the restaurant round the corner. Thai chicken and Pad Thai style things and spring rolls.
Gig set list caused the usual disputes, what order should things go, what should and shouldn’t be left off the set… What works for who and why is all considered and finally the show starts with Seven. Andy wears his red dress tonight.
Good crowd, lots of dancing, and lots of James t-shirts old and new in the audience. A stage invasion for Laid the end of the gig.
Sit about in dodgy cockroach dressing room discussing 9/11 etc. Much heated debate about conspiracy theory etc.
Time to drive down to Washington. Two hours to go… listening to Glasvegas in the front lounge, its on loud.
