The Fray
Verizon Wireless Music Centre, Birmingham
We're spending the next few nights opening for The Fray, who by now qualify for 'old friend' status. They're doing a short tour of enormous arenas, and they invited us to come and play with them.
Their success has really been prodigious. We first met them at the end of 2005 when they were driving around in a small van, first on the bill for a few end-of-year radio shows. To go within eighteen months from 500 capacity clubs to 7000 seater arenas is phenomenal. You could be jealous of a band doing twice as well as you. With success on their scale, you just have to enjoy it from a distance like an electric storm.
It's also a bit like being in prison because there's nowhere to go and nothing to do, apart from escalate tensions with the Sanchez gang.
The gig is very strange. The stage feels very disconnected from the audience. And the band feels very disconnected from the PA. There certainly were a lot of people there, though, and the stars came out very prettily over the course of our set.
