'North America, Winter, 2002' - Date Unknown

Off again we go… America, land of the free. What a piece of work.
We are filling in some of the gaps we left on our last visit here, doing the Eastern side of the country from Chicago to Florida via Canada. At Heathrow the band and crew gather like criminals summoned for a job and have a pre-flight drink to break the ice. Steve, our new Tour Manager has two pieces of good news: he has blagged us an upgrade and Toploader have been axed. Now I don't usually relish another band's demise but this is the single most positive piece of news to have come out of the otherwise moribund British music industry for years. The clock ticks over into afternoon and we drink a toast.
Drink is crucial to most aspects of our professional lives, but never is it so important as when getting on a plane. We fly so often that we go in phases between confidence and fear. The more we travel, the more the probability rate tips into the red and booze is our way of putting it out of our minds.

Chicago.
On our first night in a snowy Chicago we go out to a seafood place that offers the added bonus of live jazz. We are, as ever after a long flight, hallucinating with tiredness. To hear such jazz-fusion crimes in the home-town of Herbie Hancock is enough to make a man weep. Food was a bit rubbish too. People are slurping at each others faces (they call it kissing) and singing. Oh well, there’s always insomnia to look forward to.
We wake up to Thanksgiving weekend and venture out looking for thrills in Chicago. We find very little as everyone is at home forcing turkey and goodwill into their relatives. The only food we can find is in an English Pub of all things and we reluctantly go there for breakfast. To think we’d come this far, across oceans and mountain ranges and then find ourselves sitting in The Elephant and Castle. The faux cockney décor sits uncomfortably with the grinning automaton waitress who brings us our eggs. In the real Elephant and Castle things would be quite different. We would get beaten up.
We wander about and I buy some trainers. Chris buys earmuffs.
In the evening we go for Thai food. It is very good. Tell me if I’m boring you.

Suitably rejuvenated we wake up bright and early for our first gig day. It’s just so cold. After a stroll we locate our bus and introduce ourselves to Calvin the driver. Bus is good, interesting lighting options and satellite TV to keep us from killing each other. The gig is in a cool part of town but don’t ask me what it’s called ‘cos I don’t know (the travelogue element of this journal is sadly deficient). Suffice to say it’s where all the thrift stores and independent boutiques are and we bankrupt ourselves on clothes and trainers. As ever, none of our equipment is working. Our crew are gathered around some box or other, scratching their heads. They really are beginning to hate us, they are always pleading with us to replace bits and pieces and we always forget. But, hey, what does it matter? If something doesn’t work we’ll do it a different way.
Gig is good.

Detroit.
Can it get any colder? The snow is thick on the ground now, and Detroit, like every other time we’ve visited, is deserted. We go en masse to get breakfast and much hilarity ensues. It’s got to be said Americans aren’t much cop at making tea. They think hot tea is a dubious sub-species of Lipton Ice. Like drinking microwaved 7 Up. In fact, to be pedantic, the needless use of the word ‘hot’ in conjunction with ‘tea’ suggests a vast missing of the point. I’m sure they won’t lose any sleep over this criticism. And then Chris tries to order Earl Grey… The show is fun. Afterwards Caroline organises fans into an orderly line and we parade up and down it signing shirts and having our photos taken. It is a strangely structured moment, like a politician's baby-kissing photo opportunity. We remember it was in this club that we first discovered our incompatibility with the Devil’s Drink, Jaegermeister. We drank too much and Liam fell out of a window on to the pavement below and damaged himself. Actually we all damaged ourselves that night in different ways and since then I can’t even look at the logo without feeling waves of nausea. We manage to avoid it tonight, opting instead for a cheap sparkling wine that erodes anything with which it comes into contact. We trudge out through the blizzards and get all snug on the bus. It already feels like we’ve been away for weeks.

Columbus, Ohio.
A huge shopping mall, the inescapable, nauseating smell of cinnamon, oversized porky legs bursting out of lycra, we are in a labyrinth of shops, drenched in artificial light. A mechanised piano sits proudly at the centre of the mall eerily playing jazzed up Christmas carols, its moving keys the only clue that it is the source of the muzak. There is terraced seating around it like a scaled- down colloseum and people sit stuffing enormous sandwiches and buckets of coffee into their faces watching the piano, watching as an invisible chip presses and releases its keys in a sequence determined months, possibly years earlier on a computer far, far away.
Outside the streets are worryingly empty, there is nothing. No people, no dogs, no rubbish, no graffiti, no dirt. Might have seen a pigeon but it wasn’t doing much. There are, we've been told, 60,000 students here somewhere...
In spite of the promoter’s best efforts the gig is a bit of a let down. He’d been looking after us very nicely all day, and everyone in the place was at pains to state how busy it would be, how many tickets had been sold. Everyone we see, sound engineers and lampies, caretakers and bartenders, stop us and gush "Tonight’s gonna be wild, man, the phones haven’t stopped ringing, the whole town is talking about it." As the day progressed we started to see cracks appearing in their stories. Normally promoters don’t say much. People grinning this much can only make a person suspicious. And then we met a man with such dramatic trousers as to take the breath away.

Toronto.
Ahh, Canada. Never quite sure what to make of it but I think, on the whole, they are good people. One thing's for sure, they know how to do vegan food. Oh yeah. Now, slow down, I’m not getting ‘new age’ on you, that’s not going to happen. I am an unreconstructed omnivore but after a week of eating American food it feels good to eat something that looks like it came from the ground or a tree. Chris and I order healthy food and gorge on it, feeling the colour return to our cheeks, the vitality racing though our systems, repairing those mutating cells. It's just too damn cold outside to do anything and I spend the afternoon painting the 'Bloodsport face' on my bass drum head. It's reached the point where arts and crafts are required to alleviate the boredom.

Montreal.
Still freezing we set out to find clothes and misadventure. Joe is on a mission to buy a sailors’ jacket. We’ve been here before (figuratively as well as actually) and yet again his plans are unsuccessful. He’s noticeably disappointed. I buy loads of sew on patches. We have a quick look at the Museum of Modern Art which is alright if you like that sort of thing.
At the gig I take a dislike to an unnecessarily grumpy lighting engineer who seems reluctant to allow us to show our projections. After the show we all go to some party ‘only three blocks’ up the street. Half an hour later, with one eyelid frozen shut, I find myself in a strange club where the dj is trying some funny business with records from the eighties. Drinks flow and we meet a few people but we are so tired from seven nights getting drunk that we retire early.

Quebec City.
What a strange place. Was it built yesterday? We can’t work it out. The architectural style is Post-Rapunzel, with turrets and twee little niches. A bit like Disneyworld. The deep snow only serves to heighten the fairy tale effect. Joe and I wonder about, kicking our heels wondering what to do with ourselves, a familiar kind of blankness. We enter a tourist shop and experience the most threatening bit of spoon-playing I’ve ever seen. A guy who looks like he spends too much time at one with nature is clacking two wooden spoons together in time to what we assume to be Quebecois folk music. Rrrrickety-pickety-rickety-pickety. He doesn’t take his eyes off us. I had a friend at college who used to play guitar at you in the same way. He’d come into your room, uninvited, and play some Simon and Garfunkel while staring disconcertingly into your eyes. I didn’t like it then and I don’t like it now.
At the soundcheck everything starts to break down. We have a small but growing pile of equipment that has stopped working and at each gig we add to it. The plan is that if the crew get a spare minute they will start fixing things but each day something new breaks and they never get a chance. By the end of the tour we imagine we will be doing just acoustic sets, chris on guitar, Joe on Harmonica and me with the bass drum on my back and cymbals strapped to my knees. This time it is my sampler that has gone down and we try everything we can think of to get it working again. We fail.

Brooklyn.
We wake up in Brooklyn. Outside the gig. It is a beautiful, crisp day. I’m excited to be here as a tourist. My guide book tells me that if Brooklyn were counted as a separate city it would be the fourth largest in the U.S. This is my fact of the day, I repeat it ad nauseum to everyone I meet. I fail to meet anyone who is impressed by it. Joe and I go for some Mexican food for breakfast. It’s great, we are happy. Joe reminds me of a row we had had the night before. I have no recollection of it but it sounded like fun. We then walk ourselves into the ground, the thawing snow seeping into our boots.
At the gig we have a special guest star, Fernando, a fan who is celebrating his birthday. Chris drags him on to the stage and he dances like a man possessed. Happy Birthday!

Jersey City (Day Off).
Somehow, through a managerial oversight Joe and I have been put in the Presidential Suite in the hotel. The suite is big enough to run around in. Joe and I run around. The sitting room is furnished with all mod cons including a telescope with which to enjoy the panoramic views of Manhattan just across the river. I fail at voyeurism, no exhibitionists undressing by their windows, no murderers furtively destroying evidence, just the city, silent from this distance, with its plumes of smoke and steam and the massive nothing where there used to be two big towers.
It’s a crisp winters day, a Sunday and I set out to explore Jersey City. Joe has gone across to Manhattan but I want to find out what makes this place tick. I find nothing. Absolutely nothing.
I walk for 45 minutes without seeing a living soul. I thought I saw an old lady, but she vaporised before I could focus my failing, booze addled eyes. I call home and talk to my family and get attacked by forty thousand angry pigeons who want to eat my hair. This is not turning out quite as expected. Then just as I start to regret not accompanying Joe I come across a place so bizarre looking that I have to go inside. All around me are stubby high rise buildings from the 80s and 90s, corporate hotels and lazily conceived office blocks that could have been built in any city in the world, and nestled in the middle of all this conspicuous growth is a wooden shack called the Harbour Casino. I stand, dithering on its doorstep for about four minutes trying to summon the courage to step inside. On the one hand I think the scratchy, handwritten advertisements for crabs and shellfish are a sure sign of its credentials, its staunch resistance to the pre-fabricated tower blocks that overshadow it. But on the other hand I cannot get past the threats of four simultaneous televised football games and the fact that it has a reinforced steel door. I step inside and take a seat at the bar, thankfully going unnoticed by the clientele. An ancient old woman, Annie, comes over and serves me a beer. She has the oldest face ever, her white hair yellowing, her eyebrows are painted on in black. I get some crab cakes and try to start a conversation but her hearing is even worse than mine. Next to me at the bar is Joey, fortyish, overweight. He works with cars and doesn’t stop talking. This place has been here for as long as he can remember, he used to play here as a kid. He used to get the ferry over to the World Trade Centre and play in the elevators when they were brand new, bating the security guards and playing hide and seek in the stairwells. It seems strange now to think of those massive towers as playgrounds for local kids. Talk unavoidably turns to 9/11 and he becomes agitated, the beer glass in his hand shaking as he vows vengeance on ‘their country’. I ask which country and he looks blank for a second then answers questioningly "Iraq?"
It turns out the Harbour Casino has only a couple of months left. It is to be demolished, the site redeveloped. Joey says he’ll have no need to visit this part of town any more.

Washington DC.
No offence to its citizens but I don’t much like this town. On an earlier tour we were made to endure a couple of days off here. Trying to find the ‘happening’ part of the city we were directed to Georgetown, a humourless culture-vacuum populated by the worst kind of smug, preppy, Gap wearing, good-for-nothings I’ve ever had the misfortune of drinking near. All those dreadful, dreadful haircuts and cable knit sweaters complacently sipping Californian wines while less than a mile away there are ghettos so degrading and suffering such blatant inequality as to make D.C. the murder capital of the United States (as it was then).
There is always a silver lining of course. The more conservative and unimaginative a place is, the more vociferous and passionate its alternative culture becomes. So it is that we enjoy vodka shots till the early hours with our marvellous hosts from the 9.30 Club.

Hoboken.
A weird bit of routing sees us heading North again. We are in Hoboken New Jersey, birthplace of Frank Sinatra. We find an amazing record shop run by a withered old man who has all the stuff we’ve never been able to find. I buy a video of Miles Davis playing in 1974, Joe finds a copy of the Rolling Stones film, Cocksucker Blues. The proprietor was a rock’n’ roll photographer who had toured with Roxy Music, he told us stories.
Maxwells is a great gig to play. There is no dressing room so we are forced to take the stage by wondering through the crowd. The temptation is to stay mingling with them and have a drink or two but they have paid money so we have no option. We have to play them some songs. It turns out to be fun.

Atlanta.
This sounds terrible but I have no recollection of anything happening here. We watched some movies on the bus. We did the gig. We had drinks afterwards with a few people. Other than that I just can’t remember. Oh, wait a minute…we did some laundry in the hotel…that was good. It meant that our bus would no longer smell like a pet shop.

Fort Lauderdale.
We are approaching the end and Calvin takes us on a long ride from Atlanta to the Southern tip of Florida. It’s Calvin’s home state and he has perked up somewhat. When we leave the bus we are surprised to feel the heat. The problem is it’s not sunny, it’s overcast and humid. We go for a swim in the hotel pool and before long it starts raining heavily. I float on my back staring at the vanishing point of the rain as it hits my face. I feel that feeling when you know you are going to remember a moment for as long as you live.
It’s a strange gig. The kids are got up in a strange mix of Nosferatu and Miami Vice. The stage is so high up all we can see is a collection of disembodied asymmetrical haircuts bobboing in time. These strangely dressed people seem oddly pissed off. Which proves contagious.

Orlando.
Here we are, the last day of the tour, we’ve made it. We were expecting sunshine, we had imagined ourselves on a beach hanging out, playing volleyball, but it’s overcast and an icy wind whistles through the deserted streets. We wander about. It’s a Saturday but everything is shut. I’ve got dollars to spend. C’mon America, I wanna spend some money… I’ll buy anything…
Our bus has no satellite reception so we can’t watch movies. This is going nowhere. We retire to our hotel and gaze at the TV. From across the way we can hear some performance going on. I go and have a look. On a covered stage like a mini Hollywood Bowl children dressed in tin foil are performing Christmas carols and readings with a gospel choir. Rivalling this is the noise from the hotel bar, which appears to be hosting a corporate event. The corridors are filled with the sounds of drunken office workers whooping, high-fiving and trying to get off with each other. We feel thoroughly miserable. It’s gig time so we wander up the hill with our spirits at low ebb, wandering why the ends of tours are always anti-climactic.
As we approach the gig we see a long line of people snaking around the block. It takes a while for it to dawn on us that they are queuing to see us, it seems somehow unlikely. We take to the stage to a sea of people cheering and shouting. We are genuinely surprised. No matter how long one does this job there are still gigs that are totally unexpected, that leave you grinning uncontrollably like a fool. This was one of those.
Afterwards we make a lot of new friends and drink. Then it’s straight on to the bus where we all dance and hug and wave bottles of champagne around, falling out when we make it to the hotel and continuing in the foyer. Caroline is as drunk as we’ve ever seen her and the crew are mooning us from the elevators. It could have been worse. It could have been the other way around. We stay up until the booze runs out and then we collapse.

​

'Huddled Masses Part 1' - Date Unknown

U.S.Customs Officials. We're trying to get in to America. It's always the same. You fly for six hours, get a little drunk and bleary, restless and bored, queue for endless hours at U.S. Immigration Control and then, when you think you are safe, you think the ordeal is at an end they descend on you like podgy vultures, eyeing you up and down in their sleek black uniforms. The alpha male comes over first. We are stuck in no man's land, our tour manager occupied at the customs desk with all our cases of equipment. Sitting targets.

" Hey, are you guys a band?"

We murmur sleepily as he circles us, observing our movements for clues. The others, the rest of the pack, have looked up and are surveying us with interest. He glances back at them.

"You guys a band?" He repeats. "What's the band called?"

"Sneaker Pimps"

"Snookie what?"

"SNEAKER PIMPS"

"They're a band," he's shouting over to his colleagues, who are slowly approaching, "say they're called Snicker Peaks"

"SNEAKER PIMPS. Sneakers, like shoes, y'know, sneakers." We all, as one, point at our feet. " And pimps, like, ummm, pimps."

"THEY SAY THEY'RE PIMPS. You coming over here to do your pimpin' huh? Say, you coming here to do your pimpin'? heh heh heh"

We smile. These guys are scary. They have the power to strip and humiliate us. They could probe us with rubber gloved hands. They could hold us here for hours sorting through every last case of equipment, checking serial numbers, weighing things, opening delicate electrical boxes with their meaty fists.

"What is it? Heavy metal?"

I attempt a drunken response. "No, it's sort of Electronic, umm"

"Hey, you're Simon Le Bon. Heh heh. Pimps huh? So, you're the singer, right?"

"No, I'm the drummer"

"You should be the singer, you look like Simon Le Bon. I had those guys come through here, yeah, those guys know me. We get 'em all through here."

His colleagues are with us now, but standing slightly removed from us. Their manner has changed. Where seconds before they had looked threatening they now look nervy and reticent, as if queuing up to ask questions. We start to realise the U.S. Customs and Agriculture officers are not going to strip search us, they're actually excited by us. Questions start flying from all directions. "What's the band called?"

"Sneaker Pimps."

"I haven't heard of you. Are you famous? Have I heard of you?"

"Well, I guess not."

"Do you like Starship?"

"Not especially,no, not really."

"Hall and Oates?"

"Mmmm, not really."

"The Smithereens?"

"No."

"What's the music like? Do you have CDs?"

"Yeah, in the shops, but not with us."

"I'm going to phone Rosie. She'll know you. If you're worth knowing Rosie will know you."

The leader is punching numbers into his mobile. The menace has left him. He's become life and soul of the airport party. His expression is pure New York. A wide, dumb, emphatic smile that says 'Hey, You guys are alright. I like you guys.' That welcoming smile that will always contain molecules of threat right down there in the grain if you look close enough. While waiting for Rosie to answer her phone he turns to Joe.

"So big fella, you like Jethro Tull? You look like the bass player from Jethro Tull. You know that band? Jethro Tull? You look like the bass player."

Joe growls silently to himself. Joe doesn't like looking like anyone.

"Yeah, Rosie. You got any CDs by Sneaker Pimps? A slight pause. "You do? What's it called? Bloodsport. Okay, I'll be right up. You got two?" He terminates his call abruptly and turns to us, businesslike. "I'm going up to Rosie's store. I'm gonna buy two of your CDs. You are gonna sign 'em for me. Okay guys?" This is said in the tone normally used for "You have the right to remain silent, although anything you do say may be used in evidence against you" then he's off, jumping onto a baggage conveyer belt, up into the roof of the airport. We wait and wait and wait but he doesn't return. Without their leader the others scatter and disperse.

There is nothing more frustrating than the short trip between an airport and your destination. The top three worst journeys are:

1. The drive from Dover to London, invariably taken drunk and at some ungodly hour. It takes you through the very darkest parts of South East London and always makes you wonder why you are coming home at all.

2. The two-hour traffic jam that is the M4 heading into London from Heathrow. Usually drunk, usually at about 9 am. Body clock says it's bed time and yet the people are just going to work.

3. The drive from JFK to Manhattan. Yup, always drunk I'm afraid (complimentary drinks on plane). Again, a body clock confusion which makes you snappy and impatient. "Take me to Manhattan, dammit, take me to a bar."

We are met by an excitable puppy who turns out to be our new tour manager, Geoff. I think he actually skateboarded to the airport, high-fiving everyone en route. Our tour mangers always have nice, big soft eyes, I think this must be one of the basic criteria our manager, Caroline (who is also here, done up like a Christmas cracker) requires. There's the usual confusion as we are herded about like a kindergarten on photo day until we are stuffed into a yellow cab. As we pull away there is a loud thump on the back of the cab and the driver brakes jerkily. He's back, it's the U.S. Customs guy clutching two copies of Bloodsport.

"Guys," he seems genuinely hurt, "Guys, where are you going? You didn't wait for me. You said you'd wait. Can you sign these for me?"

We are in the Tribeca Grand Hotel. Which is very nice, except they don't have our rooms ready yet, so we sit in the bar catching up on things with Gaz, our roadie who we haven't seen since the Placebo tour hundreds of years ago. It's about 11pm in our heads but it's actually 6pm NY time. We are off to a party tonight and we are beginning to fade a little. We had had our first drink at Heathrow at about noon and hadn't really stopped since. Time for a disco-nap before heading out.

After a snooze that has made me feel decidedly strange we head out to a party hosted by Bruce, an old friend of the band. The cab pulls up at our destination and we realise to a mixture of horror and gruesome fascination that the massive vacuum we have arrived at is Ground Zero. Bruce lives in an apartment overlooking it. We went inside hypnotised by a hole in the ground. Bruce is the epitome of cool Manhattan living. His life is perhaps everything you wish yours might one day be. He oozes an effortless charisma, his apartment is furnished just so. You look around wondering where he puts all his stuff, or more accurately if I were to live here where would I put my stuff, my piles of books and boxes of detritus that are all I have to show for my time. He serves us champagne when we arrive, and then makes us perfect vodka martinis, never losing his thread in whatever anecdote he might be telling as he mixes the gin and vodka with scientific precision. If you came to my place you could sit on a pile of CDs while I fumble with an Ikea tumbler of gin and tonic and maybe, if you were really lucky I might have found the time to put some olives in a bowl, though crisps are more likely. Our sound engineer "Whispering Dave Cooper" is all Armani-ed up, the most suave engineer we've ever had the pleasure of working with. He suggests going for a cigarette and having a look at Ground Zero. Chris and I need the air so we accompany him. Two minutes later and we're there in a crowd of people staring sombrely at a void. It's such a difficult thing to fathom, especially at the tail end of a very long and drunken day, this hole in the ground and what it stands for. There was no way of connecting this huge redundant space with the footage we have all seen repeated and repeated and stamped on our memories, the explosions, the clouds of smoke and dust, the horror, the panic, the people, the twisted girders in the aftermath. All reduced to nothing, a hole in the ground, as if the earth sucked it all in, like the film had run backwards to nothing. There are people here crying and there are people selling souvenir picture books and trinkets and there are people having their photos taken in front of it and then there¹s people like us just speechless with it all, looking up at the nothingness trying to picture where the towers would have topped out. In the centre of the space a crucifix has been erected and we feel uneasy about this unbalanced symbolism. It just doesn't seem right but, drunk as we are, we lack the vocabulary to say why. You would have thought...oh, you know... We head back to Bruce's apartment for another drink. We've made it this far. From London to here. The world really isn't that big. Time for bed.

The next day is hot as hell and there is a dense mist obscuring the sun, making a perfect orange disc. We are off to rehearse as it's been weeks since we last played our set and we are using hired equipment which will take a bit of getting used to. I'm afraid the least interesting thing we do is play music. I'm not going to bore you (who are you anyway? Who reads this? You should be out meeting people, turn the damn computer off, come on already.) with the details. The grubby minutiae of the rehearsal room. More importantly we went for a great lunch. Big American food.

The first gig is a private party on a rusty old boat, the Frying Pan, moored on the Hudson. It spent a few years on the ocean floor before being raised and turned into a party venue/death trap. The interior was rusted out, the erosion exposing razor sharp edges on every surface. Wherever you sat or walked there was a danger of slicing yourself up or snagging your clothes or falling twenty feet into a hole, never to be found. What's more it swayed dramatically with the tide, creaking and groaning and sending equipment toppling. Also creaking and groaning was Joe who had had an unfortunate encounter with some dodgy chicken the night before and was barely capable of standing without throwing up. We had been warned in advance about the logistical difficulties of this gig and they were by no means underestimated. The PA had to be brought in specifically on this, the hottest day of a heatwave, and the crew where sweating like whores in church. The ship's bilge pumps kicked in intermittently with a loud growl that came through the (pretty lousy) PA, there was no monitor desk, not enough room for us to set up, what¹s more the boat appeared to be full of useless middle aged stoners who just kept shouting "DUDE!!" as if they were at a frat party. When we arrived our crew looked at us with undiluted hatred. They wore faces that cried "Why are you doing this to us?"

As if to compound their annoyance we are whisked off from sound check to have a swanky dinner with the Musicmatch folks who are sponsoring this tour. I think now is as good a time as any to thank Dennis and Pam Mudd, Jonathan Gear, and Meredith Merkin for enabling us to make this trip. Hopefully this won't sound too much like an Oscar acceptance speech but we really couldn't have done the tour without them. Now I feel like bloody Paltrow.

So the gig was fine. Not brilliant of course but okay. Joe managed to avoid throwing up on the audience so it was a victory of sorts. Afterwards Chris and I sat on the roof of the boat tossing Geoff dog biscuits and looking across the river to Jersey. It was a balmy night and we could relax now. There was a party going on below decks but where we were it was peaceful. Oh no, spoke too soon, Caroline has spotted us. No, oh no, she's bringing them all up here. They're all nutters. They're out of their minds. What are they on? Don't make me do any. Maybe a little...

​

'Huddled Masses Part 2' - Date Unknown

The next day we're in Cambridge, Ma. Geoff had driven us up here and the heatwave had finally become a storm. Waiting outside the gig is Fernando who we hadn't met before but loyally followed us to every gig on the tour and deserves a shout for his efforts. Inside, the gig was actually no better technically than the previous night. The crew were running around rewiring the PA, trying to get it to make sense. At one point it looked like we would have to pull the show but eventually we managed to get a short sound check by pushing the doors back half an hour. Only when we went to our hotel did we realise there had been a queue around the block getting drenched in the rain. Apologies to all. The drive to the hotel was perhaps Geoff's finest hour. The trip should have taken fifteen minutes but we found ourselves on the freeway, then back in Boston, then on the freeway again, then in Cambridge, freeway again, confusion and frustration rising in the car, Geoff trying to keep a professional sheen on things, making smalltalk about bands native to Boston, all the while the torrential rain and the tropical heat, and us thinking "Are we ever gonna get a freakin' shower here?! We're on stage in half an hour..." On the way back to the gig, the route is no clearer. At one junction Geoff fails to notice a red light and puts us in the path of a monstrously huge truck, which looms up at us from the left like it was designed specifically to kill us, to mash us into the road. We all see it and are breathlessly trying to put the right words into a sentence ("RED! TRUCK! DEATH!") but Geoff, regardless of those massive puppy eyes, is blind to it. The gig is good, very good, the people dance and shout. We do what is required of us and they reciprocate by doing what is required of them. We eat pizza and give thanks.

We are driving to Philadelphia and Geoff's navigation is as erratic as ever. We have loaded up on food in preparation for a seven-hour drive. Apparently Americans don't think twice about covering such distances, it's a walk in the park to them, but to the English this is an epic voyage, for which provisions are crucial. Joe spends ages trying to find a decent radio station to help us pass the time or even, God forbid, educate us with what's new and exciting in American music. Well, that turned out to be a thankless task. All we could find was 'Classic Rock.' Station after station of classic rock: REO Speedwagon, The Eagles, Heart. God help us.

Geoff does two things on this journey that earn sidelong looks from all of us. Firstly he decides to take his T-shirt off while driving in the fast lane of a six lane freeway, allowing the car to veer dangerously to the right as he tries to disentangle his head. Secondly, he pisses in a bottle while at the wheel. He'd tried to jump out of the car while it was in stationary traffic, obviously under the misapprehension that he could piss and be back in the driver's seat before the traffic started moving again but no. Now he's here with a plastic bottle. We are not normally a squeamish bunch but we were a little uneasy when, in the rear view mirror, his eyes glazed over and his shoulders slumped in relief while the world flashed by at five hundred miles per hour. Joe, who was riding shotgun, noted with some distaste the "fine mist on the steering wheel."

The show is a little better set up than the previous two but has a stage so high up you need to be physically thrown up on to the stage by Gaz and Dan (our monitor engineer). When we take the stage for our encore they throw me a little too enthusiastically and I crack my head on the speaker stack that is suspended above me. For a moment I think I'm going to faint. (It's something Joe and I talk about actually, just how humiliating it would be to incur some injury on stage that necessitated the use of a stretcher or paramedics.) I thought for the briefest moment that I was done for, that I would topple, dazed, into the audience. But as it was I remained conscious and played whatever song it was with my head humming and eyesight blurry. Good show, Goodnight Philadelphia.

We leave Philadelphia in the morning and head back to NYC where we are expected for a photo shoot. We have skipped breakfast to get there in time but still manage to get there late. I'm never particularly happy with photo shoots. It's the whole styling thing that does my head in. Some guy turns up with a few bits and pieces he's picked up from Diesel and suggests you wear them. He doesn't know the first thing about us and we never particularly like what he's got to offer. I always find myself trying to like his stuff out of some misplaced politeness, so I'm there putting on jackets in front of a mirror going "Mmmm, I suppose I could wear this..." And he's going "Oh my God, that's great on you." So I end up in fancy dress, which seems okay for a while and then, a few weeks later, the photos are published and I go white with shame. The guys today are quite sweet. They are fun to get along with and they let us wear our own clothes for a few shots. Caroline turns up at about 5pm and we finally eat something, nine hours after we got up.

We play a gig at a club called Shine, which is practically next door to our hotel. The gig is great and Chris invites the audience to an after show party at our hotel bar.

Next morning is rough. I went to bed at about 7.30, a little worse for wear having spent the night sitting up with Chris and 'Whispering Dave Cooper' drinking and talking endless nonsense. I am woken by Joe who barks "You're supposed to be downstairs now, we've got a plane to catch." I fall out of bed, all co-ordination lost and throw what I can see into my suitcase. I'm on auto-pilot and am quietly chuffed with myself when I get to the lobby and I'm told I am half an hour early. What I fail to realise as I dozily wander the streets looking for food is that I have left behind a pair of shoes, a jacket, a shirt, countless socks, assorted underwear and the band laptop which had been my responsibility last night. The day is otherwise smooth. I survive the flight to San Francisco and soon enough we are sitting around the pool of the Phoenix Hotel, an old haunt from many years ago. A place with too many memories attached to it. It is renowned as a 'Rock n' Roll' hotel. Every band who ever tours the U.S. will stay there at some point, will get drunk there, will have ill-advised encounters there, will throw an unwilling tour manager or roadie into its pool.

Where New York had been unbearably hot, San Francisco was chilly and we sat like true British people with our jackets on, shivering by the pool clutching plastic cups of Californian 'Champagne'. Time for the only argument of the tour, but it's not worth going in to, except to say that I was right and everyone else was wrong. (Which is, strangely, always the case). Joe and I get unapologetically pissed.

Next day we go down to Fisherman's Wharf and get involved with some shellfish. We feel like proper tourists, with Joe itching to take the trip over to Alcatraz but the queues preventing us. Instead we go to the aquarium to look at the sharks and rays, and shoals of anchovies, the sea bass, skates, catfish and dogfish swimming over and around us as we are transported on a moving belt through a glass tunnel. We move on to the section entitled "Touch the Bay." Here we can touch fish. I push my way through the crowds of children and touch a ray and a tiger shark. Joe's not so sure, it's a bit interactive for him. We play at Bimbo's, a gig we played a long time ago in our previous incarnation. It hasn't changed a bit, still the model of cabaret chintz. The show is fine, if a little quiet (there is a limiter on the front sound desk preventing us from playing too loud). Afterwards we return to the hotel where they have installed a nightclub. More drunkenness and shame but who wants to hear about that...all that matters is that we escaped with our reputations untarnished. We are getting better at avoiding trouble these days. When we started doing this we would run headlong into trouble like it was a bouncy castle, leaping into it like kids at a party. We have learnt to be self censoring, self regulating, almost entirely convincing human beings.

Another flight. San Diego. The gig is the best of the tour, the people here being nuts. It's as if we have been waiting to play in San Diego since we finished a long eighteen months of touring with Kelli back in 1997/8. The whole experience drove us to the very edge and culminated in Chris trying to swim home to Middlesborough across the Pacific. Anyone with a basic grasp of geography will understand the flaw in his plan but there he was, in his little suit, giving himself to the waves. Liam ran after him and fished him out and then they wrote a song about the whole thing called 'Low Five'. Tonight is the first time we get to perform it in its hometown. Everyone sings along and it feels like one of those moments.

Afterwards, drenched in sweat and booze we meet our fans out in some sordid back alley for a photo session, the resulting shots looking like publicity material for Alcoholics Anonymous. But it's genuinely heartening to meet all these people from so far away, who've bought our records as imports, made their own t-shirts and even know our names. Then, all too soon, we find ourselves in L.A.

This place has so many terrible memories for us from years past. It was always the place that saw us at our most debauched or unhappy or psychotic. Maybe it's the simple fact that most tours we do end in L.A. that we get so trashed or we argue so much there. One of our abiding memories of past tours is approaching L.A. by plane, Chris and I shuddering as the pilot calmly tells us "we are about to DESCEND..."

We are determined not to make the same mistakes all over again so we settle into the hotel and relax by the pool, playing backgammon and talking about cookery. There's no danger of debauchery if we busy ourselves with such respectable pursuits. Whispering Dave Cooper is an obsessive chef so, today being his birthday, we present him with the culinary bible, Escoffier. As we laze about in the sun the afternoon is punctuated by Cooper murmuring "Ooh, you blanche the tarragon..." and smiling knowingly to himself.

The gig is fine. It takes place at the Roxy, and we are quietly impressed by the fact that it appears to be like a normal gig for a change and the building isn't falling down, the PA isn't buzzing like a geiger counter and the rider is edible. What's more, we're feeling like human beings again, having visited earlier a (slightly belligerent) dry cleaner. We take to the stage clean and fragrant and play songs. Afterwards we experiment further with drunkenness at an aftershow party. Nothing much to report there. Old friends, new friends, the idea that feeling drunk is a novelty. We successfully avoid some of the more suspect chemicals and people and are each presented with a bouquet of flowers, the first time this has happened at a show. And then, before we know it we are off, flying out, leaving the new world and Geoff, the pup, behind.

This is to be one of those awful journeys that make your eyes bleed. We are flying ten hours to Heathrow, then taking a two hour bus to Dover, then an hour long ferry crossing, then a six hour drive to Wiessen, Germany. We are last on to the plane and are all seated separately, the films are identical to the ones we already watched on the way out, and the food is grim. Hooray. At Heathrow we are met by the suave, sophisticated Giles, our new tour manager. He instantly brings a sense of decorum to proceedings. While he doesn't appear to have the regulation puppy-dog eyes this is more than made up for by his smooth, effortless, old-school Englishness.

We are in a state of auto-pilot. Without really knowing it we play a gig in Wiessen, (a jazz festival!) and then we find ourselves in checking in to a hotel in Trencin, Slovakia. It is 2 am and we're really beginning to wonder where the hell we are. Jet lag is still with us along with day after day of compounded hangovers, each one built on the last. We are turned away from the bar.

The next day is very humid and we are feeling decidedly strange as we embark on a session of press. Our bodies are rebelling and we are drenched in sweat, feeling as if we are about to collapse. As we are driven through the festival we see the crowds of mud people, walking smudges from whom smiles suddenly appear. Our hosts tell us just how much these people have been looking forward to this festival, how important it is to them, how grateful they are that all the bands came. We stare out at the people partying and it looks like war.

The interviewers eye us with a degree of suspicion, our hair all mangled and dripping with sweat. Why did we decide to come to Slovakia? Is it just for the money? It feels like an accusation. It's a difficult one to answer. We don't really decide to go anywhere. We just go wherever we can. As we answer they can hear us clunking and grating and failing to get into gear. It feels like we've finally made all the answers we can. There's nothing left to say.

Later, the gig works. But speaking doesn't. We have exhausted our supplies of energy and we're on a twenty-four hour drive back home, staring into space. As I drift in and out of sleep on my bunk there hovers above me a vast map with a red laser dot moving slowly along its route back to London. As I focus in on it I realise the dot is perfectly still and it's the map that's moving, small towns and villages we'll never visit silently passing by. The place names are all the same size, villages are the same as capital cities. Geography falls apart and New York suddenly appears next to Berlin, Lausanne is near San Francisco. The map is meaningless. We're just here in the glow of the red dot, the sound of the road putting us to sleep. This is what we do, we travel around and play songs. Travelling this much depersonalises every town we see. Whether it's Los Angeles, Glasgow or Paris the streets and the buildings are indistinguishable. Joe and I tend to try out the metro or subway in every city we visit, to take in a bit of the atmosphere, get an idea of the civic umm...vibe. You know what? It's the same EVERYWHERE. The shops are the same, maybe not the same names but the same stuff for sale, same clothes, same records, same, same, same. Forget travel, it will teach you nothing and it will make you tired and grumpy.

​

'The Germ Of Panic' - Date Unknown

HAMBURG. I wake from my sleep and drowsily poke my head out from behind the curtain. It is very high up and I take my time assessing the task of clambering down ten feet from my bunk. Yet again I am the exception in the band in that I enjoy sleeping on a moving bus and find the bunks that others refer to as coffins rather cosy. They have something of the cradle about them. Every night, after playing our songs we draw our curtains and are rocked gently to sleep by a middle aged driver from the north of England. He holds our lives in his hands. We wouldn't know if he had had that extra drink before setting off, or if he is bent on suicide, but somehow, once the curtain is drawn I feel perfectly safe. It is an extension of the mistaken belief of the child who, when afraid of monsters will bury his head under the covers for protection.

I stare down into the aisle where Chris is just stirring. We had been drinking the night before. What else is there to do on a fifteen hour journey? We had started at the pub near our studio at 5pm, drank through to Dover where we boarded a ferry (the worst mode of transport, we all agree), then drank through France, Belgium and Holland. The whole time Chris was mute, scribbling occasional comments on scraps of paper as his voice had collapsed into a husky nothingness during rehearsals. (He has been placed on the same antibiotics as are being prescribed in America for anthrax cases and is quietly pleased with how zeitgeisty even his medicine is). He kept a resolute silence throughout the whole journey but had the air of someone who was judging our every action. When someone is unable to speak it changes the way you perceive them quite profoundly. He¹s been like this for a couple of days now and he appears aloof and miserable until you read his scribblings and they are all pithy one liners and jokes. No time to waste, I might as well get up. Swinging my legs out from my bunk I lazily say,

"Hey , I slept really well"

His reply is short and furious but marks the return of his voice. "WELL I DIDN'T GET ANY SLEEP COS YOU WERE SNORING LIKE A CUNT ALL NIGHT."

This trip is unlike any other that we have undertaken as Liam is absent, preparing for the imminent birth of his first child, and we are working with a whole new crew. There is an underlying sense of everyone on the bus trying to get a measure of one another: sound engineers, drivers, roadies, band, management etc. Taking Liam¹s place is an old friend and collaborator Chris Tate, a.k.a. HUNCH. We've known him since college days and are excited to have him along. To avoid confusion we have taken to calling him "Tatey" or sometimes "Taters" or sometimes "Potaters". He is expecting some rock¹n¹roll thrills from this trip but stepping out of the bus he is hit by the stark reality of a freezing cold car park in Hamburg. The air is white with fog and the town appears deserted. Looking down from on high is an enormous stone bull, half collapsed on to its front legs, its head scarred by a gash of red paint left by a vandal. Such a bizarre thing to see on such a scale. We have been using bull imagery in the music and the visuals for a year or so now and the presence of this one seems almost inevitable, as if it was just meant to be somehow. (Our manager, Caroline has been trying to indoctrinate us with all things psychic and astrological of late and she is leaping about the car park in spasms of excitement at this supposed omen).

There is no time to waste for we are behind schedule already. We are to rush to a nearby hotel for a day of promo, starting with a photo session. Look at us here, shivering in this icy cold car park, hungover, our faces still creased and dimpled from sleeping. We have just minutes in which to become pop stars. We shave and drink coffee simultaneously before being introduced to our photographer who turns out to be almost criminally strange. It¹s like we¹ve been spiked with acid. The three available pimps in a hotel in Germany, minutes after waking up, wrapped in a densely patterned duvet cover, with a madman making growling, slurping noises into his camera. Things don't bode well. This duvet idea of his isn¹t really working, we look not only ridiculous but uncomfortable too. He senses our displeasure and slurps all the more worryingly, panting and coughing as he manhandles his tripod into place, trying to find his shot. I'm not sure that he got it, so I guess our faces are plastered uncomfortably across a German magazine somewhere.

The rest of the day is taken up with interviews. Chris is resting his newly regained voice so it's Joe and I answering the questions. Interviews can become repetitive very quickly and over these four days in Germany we found ourselves finishing each others sentences or adopting each others answers as our own. There were few surprises.

Then we played a gig. And it was good.

COLOGNE. We wake up in Cologne. I am now quite sensitive about the possibility that I may be snoring so I sleep fitfully and inefficiently. Straight to press. Couple of interviews and another photo shoot. Too much caffeine again. Rabbiting on about any kind of nonsense that springs to mind. Making excuses, thinking up meanings to things we hadn't fully considered. It's strange but you know, we don't always know the answers to most of the questions we are asked. Why did you call your album "Bloodsport"?

"Whim."

Whim is the real answer but journalists don't really want to hear that.

"We just thought it sounded okay as it was the only thing we could all agree on."

That's not a good enough answer. Try again.

"Don't know. Stop it with all these questions."

Lunch break. Good food in an Italian restaurant, a few glasses of wine, feeling better. Oooh, let's have a snooze, mmm. No! More press, go on, talk gibberish for another four hours. Then let's do some shopping, I have nothing to wear on stage tonight, some kind of shirt would be a useful thing. I lost one of my favourite old shirts at the gig last night and I need a replacement. Our guide, Steiney, takes us to the shops. En route we notice all the posters advertising our gig. This looks good. In Britain our erstwhile record company had been useless at poster campaigns so it's exciting to see our faces stuck on bus shelters and derelict buildings. Time for Steiney's test. It's his job to look after Chris, Tatey and myself while we shop, to show us the best places but also get us to the soundcheck within forty five minutes. He doesn't stand a chance. We have become kids on a school trip trying to escape. All these shops, all these clothes? Forty five minutes? I don't think so.

We head off in three separate directions leaving Steiney floundering, his voice lost in the mass of people. "Guys, just forty minutes, okay?"

I make a purchase within minutes. Any hesitation and I would have been dragged into the retail guilt vortex, dithering and ending up empty handed. Corner strolls in and sees me making my purchase.

"Have you found something already"

"Mm hmm"

I show him the shirt.

"Nice. What shall I get?"

I can see the germ of panic in his eyes. Shopper¹s panic.

"Okay, twenty minutes guys."

It's Steiney, he's found us. Corner is off like a shot, he's seen a vintage store. I follow. Steiney glances heavenwards checking his watch. This place is huge and Corner is in the midst of it all, scanning the rails like a pro, stopping for the occasional item, a micro second of thought before discarding it. He's getting more tense as the seconds tick away.

"Five minutes guys."

Steiney has found Tatey and is practically holding his hand to prevent his escape. He too has made a purchase. Corner is frothing with anxiety. He dives into an accessories bucket, throwing a splash of gloves and scarves.

"Okay guys, time to move."

Corner grabs semi randomly and leaves with a bag of belts and leather gloves. Not what he wanted but the urge to shop has been satisfied.

At the gig we do one of the worst TV appearances ever. We are asked to tell anecdotes direct into camera. I cannot look directly into a video camera, I have a supernatural fear. I can't remember what I came out with, suffice to say it was neither amusing nor insightful. And doubtless accompanied by the silent scream of panic in my eyes. Jeurgen, our record company boss sits and listens as we try to sputter out interesting stories. His presence makes us uneasy.

After the show we drink in the venue. The staff of Gebaude 9 are very friendly and acommodating, and we meet a lot of people who had seen us last time we were in Germany when we were supporting Placebo. Alcohol flows and we end up back at our hotel drinking whiskey till 6 am.

Three hours later, almost hallucinating through lack of sleep, Joe and I conduct another interview where the poor guy cannot stop us talking. We are drinking coffee like maniacs and spewing nonsense into his microphone. Some of it is useful.

The day is taken up driving from Cologne to Berlin. We stock up on booze, get our duvets off our bunks and settle in the lounge to watch some videos. We start with "Logan's Run" which is easily one of the best films ever made. Except it goes a bit rubbish towards the end when Peter Ustinov appears and the young folk start feeling his craggy face in awe and wonderment. It¹s like me signing autographs, the fans reaching out in disbelief at my tired, careworn face.

Then we watch "Caligula" starring Malcolm McDowell, which was fantastic. Especially the field of heads/monstrous lawnmower scene.

We arrive in Berlin at about 1 am and have a few nightcaps before going to bed. I share a double bed with Taters and, despite all my best efforts, snore all night.

The next day is the same again. Press all day, the same questions. We are beginning to feel unwell. We sit drinking our coffees while a succession of journalists is brought to us. Our only opportunity for some sightseeing is when Chris and I are driven out to Potsdam to do some radio interviews. Jeurgen becomes a tour guide for half an hour as Berlin shoots by the window. It's a shame to be so busy when you¹re in such a great city, but such is our lot. The bars can wait till next time.

At the gig we have friends from home visiting and they get to see the slightly unenthusiastic Berlin crowd who, like London, Paris or New York crowds, show you little sign that they are enjoying themselves. They stare curiously for the duration and we leave the stage a little deflated, then they go nuts and we come back on feeling a little better. Our reception in Hamburg and Cologne had been more rapturous than this, but it is still a good gig. Then after a few drinks (unwittingly drinking the non-alcoholic beer from the fridge) we are forced to commence our 18 hour drive back to London. It¹s been a successful trip, we've made good friends here, Jeurgen and Steiney being the perfect hosts, and already they are hatching plans for us to return.