This is the start of a bit of an experiment. We want to try and get to the UK and Europe a lot more often over the next few years, but it is a very expensive place to get to and travel through, especially with eight or nine people and a truck full of equipment. So in a cost cutting measure we decided to try a full-on acoustic tour with just me, Margo and Jeff. It also gives us the opportunity to reinvent our catalogue and to work up a couple of things that we wouldn’t normally do with the full band. We shall see how it all goes.

*****

Our first show is in Wolverhampton which is basically a suburb of Birmingham. We played this town and venue in 2004 and apparently I savaged the town, venue and audience in the tour diary: so much so that a few people commented to Margo that they were surprised that we came back. Sorry about that, but don’t take it personally You have to realize that I try and keep this diary as honest as I can (otherwise there wouldn’t be much point to it) and each entry is purely subjective and depends (far too much) on my mental and physical state at the time of writing. If I happen to come in to your town on a particularly bad day then chances are I’m not going to particularly like it. This time through it’s our first show so I’m in a slightly better mood.

Same old venue, though, and not a very inspiring place, but the audience transformation from the last visit to this one was incredible. In 2004 the reception was as tired and listless as we felt: tonight the audience was intense, vocal and unbelievably supportive. They gave us a much needed boost of confidence. This could be a fun little tour.

*****

This is our first time through Nottingham and arriving on an unseasonably warm, early Spring day gave the town a certain shine. Unfortunately we had to spend most of the day in the club (the Rescue Room): a disgustingly dirty shit-hole. Not the sort of place that you would expect to find yourself on an acoustic tour (or any kind of tour, for that matter). A real dive. Before we loaded in we had to sweep off the stage to get rid of the garbage and broken glass. Lovely. Despite the venue we had a full house and, once again, a superb (that’s an English word) audience. They were locked in and very willing to follow us on any obscure path that we happened to journey down. I had a difficult night, dealing with sound and technical problems, but the audience enthusiasm helped bring me through.

After the show I decided to walk back to the hotel through the center of Nottingham. The quaint, bustling town that I had explored earlier that day had been transformed into a vomit splattered Bacchanalian scene teaming with drunk and getting drunker twenty-somethings, stumbling from discotheque to discotheque in search of …what? I’m not quite sure. All of the girls dressed in skimpy black, cocktail dresses, showing too much skin in the 40 degree air and all the boys in their casual slacks and collared shirts, displaying their alcohol bolstered machismo selves. Quite a scene. Very zombie-like. More than a little depressing. Robin and the Sheriff would not be impressed.