Competition Time!
In fairness, it wasn't a calamitous error, as I spend most of the day wearing contact lenses, it's just the beginning and end of each day... that's the time I miss them most of all.
I shall try and get over it. I just can't believe I could be such an idiot.
So here we are in America for the second time this year, touring Memory Man properly for the first time. It's actually in the shops here! People know the words! It should be a very enjoyable tour, and when you say that it always sounds like you're setting it up to be a hopeless disaster.
Last night in Pittsburgh was a classic first night. It didn't help that it was a Sunday and there was only one cab in the entire city. It also didn't help that we chose to buy a fair amount of new equipment that didn't work properly. I think we played OK though. No one asked for their money back. (It's too late now, Pittsburgers, if you're thinking of asking).
On tour with us, and sharing the bus is the young chanteuse Sara Bareillis and her band. They seem nice, in the way that people do when you meet them for the first time.
Today we're in Washington DC at the excellent 9.30 Club. I've no idea why it's called that. We're on at 10. It's the kind of place you can spend the day in without leaving once, which you're inclined to do because you can't come to DC without someone saying "the highest murder rate in the country". I'm sure that doesn't mean you're certain to be murdered while you're here. I've been here twice and I've hardly been murdered at all. But then I've mostly spent the day inside the 9.30 Club eating salsa and lounging on the curious bunkbeds they have in the dressing room.
I did drop my towel in the toilet, though.
The grand innovation on this tour is that Matt will be performing in not one, but TWO locations on the stage. Not at the same time, obviously. This is not The Prestige. Not only is he playing at the big heavy piano at the back of the stage, he also plays a flimsy home keyboard at the front of the stage! This is to overcome the classic piano player-singer conundrum, which is that you can't dance when you're sitting at the piano, and on low stages no one except the front row can see you.
It's slightly amusing because in our first ever bands Matt used to stand up playing a flimsy home keyboard, which never quite looked right. But in this case, we have the heavy black piano to add Eltonian gravitas.
The Pittsburgh stage wasn't big enough to put this plan into effect, but tonight we've got the width, the depth and the risers to do it properly.
Jim wishes to be quoted so:
"We're fucking awesome! We rule!"
I hope we can look forward to more exclusive insight from Jim in future posts.
