blog

Eh?

Sorry.

Straight in with a stereotype.

We arrived in Montreal last night, sailing into the city towards the beacon of a glowing blue W, our hotel calling us home. I'm not sure we've been happier to arrive in a city, in recent memory. The first week of tour has left everyone quite tired, so an evening off was something everyone was looking forward to. After crossing the border south of Montreal, we spent an hour driving up to Montreal, enjoying the increasing French influence. It might just be our mental projections of the place, but walking around the beautiful city of Montreal, it feels distinctly European, from the architecture, to the people we've had the pleasure of encountering thus far. 

The band have never headlined in Montreal before, so everyone is looking forward to a great one tonight at La Sala Rossa. 

Our last show in the USA, before crossing into Canada, was in Cambridge MA, as you may recall - After establishing that it's not quite Boston, but is still technically in the city limits, the band got round to the business of rocking a room to its foundations. In this case, the room was the wonderfully-named TT the Bears. Unfortunately for the band, the wonderfully named club, was not quite some wonderfully equipped technically, and the guys essentially had to play a show without being able to hear a fucking thing. Very frustrating all round, but the show was still great, and I doubt those out front would have noticed much of a difference, considering how much the band threw themselves into the show. 

At this point, a special mention to our friend Haley, who not only endured some fairly dubious methods of transport to make it to the shows in the east coast, but who entertained our entire tour party with some phenomenal apple juggling on the snowy streets of Cambridge. We almost fell over when she started taking bites from apples mid-juggle. I think Ben had an attempt at a basic juggle, and I wouldn't like to needlessly speculate, but speculation is that he failed miserably. And if not miserably, it certainly didn't go hugely well. But it's alright, seeing as he's the best drummer you've ever met.

The boys holed up in their hotel that evening, prior to the show, watching the Grammy Awards take place in LA. Congratulations to the boys in MUSE, congratulations to Arcade Fire on an album that we were listening to just yesterday. Congratulations Lady Gaga on your egg, and congratulations to wee Justin Bieber for playing that guitar all by himself.

We were listening to The Suburbs by Arcade Fire on our way into Montreal, as a tip of the hat to the city that spawned such a wonderful band. Spawned perhaps isn't the nicest word to use, but the only word that springs to mind. "Birthed?" "Gifted?" "Established?" " Breathed Life Upon the Concept that was until then merely Conceptual?" Who knows. In any case, they're from here, we're actually here, and it seemed like a good way to fill the hours drive from the border.

Tomorrow, we travel along the lake to Toronto, where we spend a couple of days, doing both a show, and a television appearance, before travelling back into the USA, to get to Columbus OH. After that, it's Chicago, and finally Minneapolis, before the band and i fly to London for a couple of days, before returning to North America, to pick up the tour in Vancouver. Which is of course, a wonderful opportunity to see our friend GGGarth, the production legend who worked his arse off alongside the band to bring Puzzle and Only Revolutions to life. 

After that, we travel down basically the entirety of the west coast of the country, performing in Seattle, San Francisco, and finally ending up in Los Angeles, where we're looking forward to seeing some friends. We're also, rather excitingly, now allowed to talk about the show that the band will be performing on March 2nd, at our old haunt, the Bootleg Theater in Silverlake... 

The band will be performing some songs, in a stripped down manner, and will be accompanied onstage by the immeasurably gifted Mark Z. Danielewski, who will be reading from Only Revolutions. 

It's very much in the planning stages at the moment, but it should be a particularly special occasion, and a really nice way to mark the end of this tour.

So, wish us luck in Canada's sub zero temperatures, and more soon!

TM Neil
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We've been marvelling at the massive snow drifts at the side of almost every road that we've travelled in the North East of the US, the roads themselves have been mercifully clear, with all the snow manfully stacked along the roadsides. Impressive stuff. Though it looks like the flames of the sun itself would struggle to melt these roadside 'bergs.

Since we last spoke, we've been into New York, managed to evade the Holland Tunnel, and made it to Boston, where the band were gifted some bottles of imported Irn Bru. One particular scottish stereotype nobody is afraid to perpetuate. On our way out of New York, we enjoyed a lovely drive up the east side of Manhattan, enjoying the view across the river. We obviously played Empire State of Mind on the stereo on a number of occasions.

The audiences at these shows have been great so far - the band have had a blast, and everyone present has been impressed with how loud some of the audiences have been. Nice work, pats on the back, full marks, etc etc.  Today we are in Cambridge MA, home to Harvard University, and M.I.T. In the coffee place on the corner, I had the pleasure of standing behind a Future Leader of America. You could just tell.  It seems like a lovely town, and has a particularly nice line in subtle street lighting. The snow helps lend it a slightly pretty air as well. We discovered that some of the roadside snow drifts are actually hiding buried cars, encased Han Solo - style, in an icy stasis. 

New York was a fun day, the venue was lovely, and the guys played a great show. All of the shows have so far been sold out, which has been massively exciting. We travel to Montreal next, followed by a couple of days in Toronto. We are warned that it's even snowier and colder up there. It's a good job that we happen to thoroughly enjoy the snow. A year or so ago, the band and I looked out of the window of the dressing room, to see the entire crew stripped to the waist, loading the equipment in a near-blizzard condition, in a wintery Rotterdam. We later realised it had been a flippant remark that led to a mass de-shirting, but on first glance, it just looked perplexing.

Will see if we can persuade any of them to do a similar manoeuvre this time around, for some lucky Canadians.

We'll let you know how things go in Cambridge and Canada very soon, and stand by for some pictures from the first few days of the tour!

tour manager neil.
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You join us in DC, where we are approximately 1 mile from the US Capitol building, and a skip more than that from the White house. All in all, a great place to begin a North American tour.

We arrived a day or so ago, having all flown in from different nooks and corners of the globe. In the 36 hours since we arrived, we have destroyed a cheesecake factory (destroyed in the sense that we ordered and ate a terribly impressive amount of food) , and taken the tentative first steps down the dark, but familiar parallel paths of Starbucks and Subway.

I'm toying with keeping a running tab on cups of coffee, and total length of subway sandwiches. We also hear that your fair nation is bringing a new size of Starbucks cup, the trenta (or something along those lines?)... A cup so large you could fit a full bottle of wine inside apparently. Impressive.

Everyone is in good spirits, having enjoyed a few weeks at home, maxing out relaxing. At the tail end of last year, it's probably fair to say everyone was rather exhausted. After our US tour, we went back to mainland Europe, where we visited lots of lovely, beautiful places, and met lots of lovely, beautiful people. Following that, we spent a couple of weeks enjoying the facilities of some of the UK's arenas, culminating at London's Wembley arena. Literally the following afternoon, we flew to Australia, where we spent a couple of fun weeks, playing both Biffy headline shows, and some support slots with the wonderful Muse. We made it home a day prior to Christmas, at which point everyone went into hibernation, surfacing only to bring in the New Year in Edinburgh (which was lovely, since you ask)

And so, here we are. Back in the USA. And we're thoroughly excited to be here. The band are looking forward to blowing the doors off the venues we'll be visiting.

So, day one, and no significant dramas to report. After the show tonight, we travel to Philadelphia tomorrow, and then on to New York on Saturday. In tow, we have Moving Mountains, who we met earlier today, and seem like stand up young gentlemen, possessed of some great songs, and killer stage manoeuvres.

So, we will hopefully see you over the next few weeks. And if we don't, I'll attempt to keep things up to date in diary-land, without offending anyone, or at the very least, without giving the band's management any reason to, as you say here, lose their shit.

So more soon, and stay warm, since it's fucking freezing here.

Tour manager Neil.

Ps. We are so far, on three feet, and 15 cups. Just so you know.
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Hello. Welcome to historic Belfort, where you join a jetlagged and tired touring party, prior to the first show of our European Tour. This tour has come so closely on the heels of the US Tour, that we might as well still be eating pulled pork and ribs. Instead, we are in France, where the band and crew are delighting in the in-house lasagne, whilst the non-dairy eating tour manager, and vegan monitor engineer languish in a pasteurised hell.

We are excited to be back in Europe. Our body clocks aren't quite so excited to be waking up at what feels like 3am, but I'm sure we'll get used to it. We've got a day off in a few days. Oh, no wait, we don't. We're doing a Dutch TV Show instead. Marvellous.

Tomorrow, the fantastic AIRSHIP join the tour, and will be with us for the majority of these European dates. Everyone is looking forward to seeing them.

that's all to report so far... it's only been an hour or so after all... Oh, special mention to guitar tech richard, who has spent all of his time between the USA and Europe setting up and making sense of Simon's massive (behemoth-massive) new guitar system, all of which looks and sounds very exciting. And incredibly complicated. Nice one.
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