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“It’s transmitted by hand, air and everything else, and it’s rampant round the world at the moment.”
Ah yeah, the glory-joys of touring. It’s pure glamour, I tell you. Jules and Lee spent the night not sleeping, vomiting horrors out of every hole, and now they’re dead-eyed in the front of the Van, a sloppy pair of balls suspended over the scrolling asphalt. Our aim is Cambridge.
It’ll take a while to get there. The weather on Jules’s side of the Van is very stormy all of a sudden- a great splat of rain has smeared over the window. Ah no, it’s not rain. Cate pulls the Van over and Jules rushes off to do his thing.
On the bright side, the Van has been baptised. Jules falls back into Jean Claude Van Pooko and we’re back on the M23.
Right right, small update.
Last night was Southampton. Over the toll bridge, and down through the industrial estate to the Joiners, where an elderly lady crossed the road on a mobility scooter, and a giant painting of a dwarf riding a tortoise grouched behind her. A circle of kids loudly planned to hand out beatdowns on the corner.
(Look to the left. Jules’s storm has dried on the window. A cop car sits crooked on the hard shoulder proclaiming Kent Police).
Pubs in the day smell of shit, and soundchecks take forever. But we did get it done eventually, and we did get to eat our pasta in the upstairs room, pictures of nobs on the walls all around us, and scrawlings from previous bands on tour:
“Pissing on dead penguin hookers is mint”
… Southampton specialises in strange phrases. I’m at the bar milking a cider before our set and a girl flutters up to me. “Aaaah you’re amazing!” She says. “Can you sign my face?” Yerm, yeh, yep. Afterwards. Fine.
The set goes well – the crowd is big enough to be Crowd, and we have our Small Gods thing flowing on stage. It’s good, these days when I look round at the band there’s almost always a smile on everyone’s faces, and eye-conversations happening between people. That’s a good thing- we’re locked in with each other, communicating throughout the songs, happening as a unit.
The Crowd gets it too. I get my camera out to take a picture of them, and the whole lot throw their arms round each other for a Class Photo, complete strangers cramming up together and cheesing for the lens. We’ve all been through it together.
The girl comes up again after the set. She was deadly serious about the face thing: she’s ponced a biro off the barmaid and wields it at me. “Here you go!” So I do it; my first ever face autograph.
“Cello girl!” A bloke yells to Belle, packing away her double bass. “You’re well underrated!”
Safe, Southampton.
And back in Brighton this morning, I’m woken by the phone – Kassia telling me that 2 of our 7 are plague-struck. Soldier on though, right?
See you in Cambridge tonight, at the Portland Arms. Keep an eye out for the green people.
Peace
Dizraeli