Kings & Queens

Awoke in the bus at a hotel in Houston where the rain is coming down in sheets. I believe Texas really does rain better than any other state. Grab the keycard from the bus table and find my way into the hotel and up to the room for quick shower, the end of the Brazil / Netherlands game (interesting) and a cup of half decent hotel coffee. Then its back to the lobby and head out to the NASA Johnson Space Center on the other side of Houston. Amanda couldn’t quite get the morning brain in gear so its the lads only crew. Thom is driving us in a Suburban; its fairly heroic that he got us there in an hour; the rain and lightning is beyond belief.

Astronaut Tim Kopra, Mission Specialist, is pictured during the first of five planned spacewalks to be performed by the STS-127 crew. (Photo: NASA)

Tim greets us and we proceed from building 110 through security to a building full of mock up space station modules and space shuttles. I believe these are used primarily for familiarising the astronauts with the layout and basic controls of devices. We get a seat in the Shuttle flight deck and its truly awesome; I’m immensely jealous that Tim actually gets to ride here in a matter of months. It’s also terrifying to imagine the Richard’s, Butler and Good, in control of this thing. The Space Station mock is enormous – must be amazing to pull up and dock with this mini city in the sky; it dwarfs the Shuttle and the Shuttle is big! I’m fascinated by the spacewalk and we get a glimpse of the air-lock process that takes place and hearing him describe that first moment stepping out in to space is almost a bit tear-inducing; the thought of stepping into vacumme with your home planet below you really is a mind blower. Apparently you get a few minutes to accustom yourself to that fact and lose your deathgrip on every grab-rail and, at the end of your ’shift’, you may take a few minutes to just look at it all. In Tim’s case he finished up with a view of the sunrise over the Earth. It’s funny that he thinks our job is cool. When i grow up is still want to be an astronaut. I wonder if they allow replica lion-heads in space?

We also get a grand of tour of three Mission Control rooms, the main Mission Control Center which is live and working 24/7 (they were dealing with a missed cargo ship docking), the rebuilt Apollo Mission Control which will become a museum soon, and the Space Shuttle Mission Control Center where we actually get to wander the desks and our Flight Director friend, Courtenay, talks us through some of the processes. Tim is scheduled for what was to be the last Shuttle mission but has been shifted to the second to last mission. November 1st launch date. I wanna stop off on the way home from Belgium! To my mind, space exploration is worth more than wars; i can’t understand Obama pulling the plug on Ares, it seems at odds with what his administration is about. For the first time in fifty years the US will not have a vehicle to get us out of the atmosphere… In the Apollo-era Mission Control there’s a small mirror taken from the lunar module ‘Aquarius’ that was presented to Mission Control by the Apollo 13 astronauts as a thank you; the idea being that the staff could look into it and see who saved the lives of the Apollo 13 crew. Wow, moving stuff.

We’re out of time, soaked by the rain and so we have to leave this inspiring place and head back to downtown Houston for soundcheck, further ‘band-guac’ and the Uruguay/Ghana game. Houston is flooding! I mean this rain is crazy. If you’re in it for 10 seconds you’re soaked through. I wonder about attendance at tonight’s show and about our flights home tomorrow. Ghana crashes out in penalties – i was behind them – perhaps i’m the jinx. Maybe i’ll try supporting Germany.

The venue is large and warehousey – its called Warehouse Live. I kick an inflatable football around with Paul for a bit and pull a few muscles just to maintain the tradition of injury on the last day. Soundcheck is strangely unsettling but i think the show will be good. More waiting… confined to bus or dressing room. Internet. A chat with Adam from SWR. He gives me a CD of pics he took of us – quite the photographer he is. They play a wall of noise Love My Way tonight in souncheck.. Tour prank! Time to suit up again and don the shoes… I watch most of the SWR set tonight – sound is actually surprisingly together for such a room. They are a great bunch of guys and they’ve been an absolute pleasure to tour with – never a cross word between camps. They are heading back tomorrow to finish their third record – good luck chaps.

We take the stage at 9.50 and do our thing. It’s almost clockwork now but that just makes it more fun for the most part… strange lighting tonight and a weird delay on the drums for me – perhaps a monitor vs wall-echo thing. Regardless the Houston people are loud and happy. Our last encore of No Easy Street, Pyjamarama and Forever Now and we’re off and finished. A lot of compliments on the sound out front so cheers to Tricia for making a tough room work – she does us proud every time or so I (don’t) hear. Za is packing up my guitars and pedals and the whole production is moving out. Its a very hectic last night of meeting fans, taking pictures, meeting James’ friends, getting a few more minutes (not enough) with our Nasa friends, missing the SWR goodbyes and then getting back to the hotel to make some sort of sense of all the crap we’ve acquired over the last seven weeks. More goodbyes to the entire band, crew and our bus driver Jerry. My headspace is entirely messed up and exhausted but I can’t sleep… until about 5 when i give in and set two alarms to wake me at 6.

The abrubt end to touring is always a bit of an odd transition – or lack of transistion; suddenly its all over and the strange routine you’ve come to live by is gone along with your comrades. Now we’re on our own, heading back to the other routines of existence. Thanks to every single person who came and supported us this tour – I for one, loved every minute of it (even the nasty bits where you feel a complete xxxx in front of thousands people).

Hottest show i ever played. Even Irving Plaza now falls. Great one though; i really can’t say enough about the exuberant southern hospitality of the Texan audience. Emo’s is one of those places that feels like it might fall down when you first walk in but it lights up when you add a ton of people and a band that is ready to get very very hot. I was feeling like i may pass out during In My Head but I was saved by Sister Europe; just stand still for 5 minutes. So yea, Austin was once again, up there in my favourite shows which was good cause the day was a wash out of rain and humidity.

Bit of a restless bus sleep; burning smells causing stops, rain, waking up with the laptop on top of me, more stops etc… Its good to get to a hotel by 11am.

Back in San Antonio after 13 years. I left this place in a bit of a mess last time. Its a great little town though; especially for architecture. Lots of sun bleached turn of the century and deco stuff here. Our hotel the Emily Morgan is a beautiful example sitting next door to the Alamo. Haunted too so i hear. My eighth floor room is rather fancy and features a cricket under the pillow. Its a beautiful room though. I wander the Alamo and River walk briefly with Mars, get too hot and spend the rest of the day in the room trying to catch up with everything else in life. The TV is excited about Hurricane Alex. Paul and I brave the incredibly rain-loaded cloud formations to visit this vegetarian health restaurant named Greens in a vaguely dodgy part of town. Good food and company.

Getting all melancholy about the end of tour. Last week i was desperate to get home now I’m unsure i want this all to stop. Spent the rest of the night writing my first new song in a year and catching up with the internet… Garageband is a little miracle sometimes.

Sleeep then wake up sleeeeeep then wake up then sleeeeepppp forever.

LA traffic. I can’t really handle it. Our car is here and so I drove Andi, Mars and Paul to The Grove in Anaheim. Took hours! Then the bus went back to hotel to get R, T and A at rush hour! More hours. So soundcheck was quick and cheerful – we ran through So Run Down for fun and ended up doing it at the show. Love that tune.

Great food here today. Touring can be hard on the stomach, especially for us vegetarians, but the food here on the west coast is really good fresh stuff. Actual fresh arugula. Oh, carrot cake. Take note other major US cities! Andi and I took a walk and got the car stationed at the hotel. She’s heading home in the morning and we’re heading out east for the last five dates. Sigh. Not really sure if i’m coming or going anymore. Actually, we’re just going now. Worn out but completely at home with the bus drives, the odd sleep patterns, the noise, the constant company, the meeting peoples, the tour catchphrases and jokes are firmly in place; I could keep going forever or stop tomorrow. As it is it’ll be a week from today. Wish i’d got more things done; wanted to write some new music, get deeper on this dang blog, maybe some sketching – somehow if you’re not playing music the time gets eaten up by day to day activities and some hefty waiting around. Maybe I will prevail in the last week.

The Grove was another great one despite some microphone problems for me; i can’t really distinguish anymore – the band is hot so its really down to if the people are feeling it that night. We’re putting it out there every show. So Run Down was a fun addition and the encore is tailored to each audience. By the way; thanks for the furry bat whoever that was… I wondered if Richard might do an Ozzy with it but its not really his style.

More cousins in town tonight; got to show the baby cousins how it is to stand on the stage and they all left with set lists… Good to see some Furs fans born in the last ten years! Also met some more BurnedDownDays people here – nice folks all, and not a bit of nastiness about setlists! In fact quite the oppposite!

Some deafening fireworks from the stadium next door and we’re back on the bus headed for Vegas. Bye for now…

Back to the hotel and a Stan Getz dinner party at Mars’ pad.

1st Avenue. Seems like lots of small world coincidences attached to this venue today. Last time i was here was with the Pleased in 2005. We played the 7th St. Entry with The Shore. The Shins and Calexico were playing 1st Avenue that night and i had a quick chat with James Mercer outside. He now plays with my good friends Dan Elkan and Jonathan Hischke (that’d be Jonathan from Kings & Queens) in his great new supergroup Broken Bells - currently riding high. I remember the Shins doing Purple Rain that night. Then i noticed on the door of 7th Street Entry that the band playing was named ‘The Book of Right On’ – on of Joanna’s songs from her first record.

Rain.

Anyway anyway… 1-1 England and USA. Pathetic. I decided to try watching the game in an irish bar across the street. When England scored a few minutes in; I yelled out, a chinese guy clapped, and a the Americans stared. Watched the rest of the match in the relative safety of the bus.

1st Ave is a good sounding club and we were sold out again! Great crowd that appeared unconcerned with the anglo-american tension from earlier. Early show had us all done by 10ish (some dance club happens on a saturday night. Wound down with some Thai food and an excellent documentary about Anita O’Day and the car chase from Bullitt.

Irving Plaza was hotter than anything. I’m not sure if they accidentally switched off the air conditioning or whether it was just the electric ambiance, but i could barely see for half the set. Great packed show with a few technical things going on that really didn’t matter thanks to the good vibrations between crowd and band. NY can pile on the pressure but tonight was awesome for all concerned; my ears hurt from the audience reaction instead of the amplifiers. Got to see Matt Pinfield who I haven’t seen since The Pleased days; a little reminisce of the Love shows we did. Ran in to Moby who was around too, missed Mr Flowers who was also in attendance much to the glee of Maggie and co.

Hung out with David a little after the show and then met Mrs Fish on the street. Back on the bus – heading for Boston…

Some nice pics turned up here – thanks Matt.