Blog
Last night on the bus…San Diego to Anaheim
5th October 2008 | Juliet
House of Blues San Diego
Great venue full of atmosphere. Loads of art on the walls. Quirky and bright. Art from the deep South. We have a bit of an aftershow in the main hall and I get into looking at the art. Over one of the bars it says “BE NICE OR LEAVE.” I like the painting of the gospel singers doing “Reach out and touch”… and the one of the woman who looks like she could be the mrs of the chef in South Park.
After that we went to Anaheim which took a couple of hours and parked up at Disneyland Sherarton where we eventually stayed and slept and swam and packed and unpacked and ate salad and soup.
We will have travelled 6,801 miles by the time we get to sleep tonight. Twelve bunks all stacked like sharing a room. Monkeys climbing to top bunks in the night…its been like a rolling big brother at times but no one has been evicted. Andy played DJ and Larry was in charge of all-round enthusiasm from toast to partying, Saul was professor of hygiene, Mark was maître D and wine waiter, Magic kept us going by giggling lightly, even in times of crisis, and wearing funny T shirts and thanks to Chris the bear for cracking my back. Our UK driver the Florida cowboy, Paul, drove us safely a long way.Big thanks to Mark Kocourek for his Zen calm and minimalist approach to management and showing us the way forward with socks. The juicer held out with only one attack of burn out, where it started smoking in Denver. The recepie for the most popular juice….PINEAPPLE CHA CHA is…..lots of carrots a small beetroot and two large slices of pineapple…try it and let me know. So its goodbye to the big silver bus…. No more muesli in aluminium dog bowls and no more burnt coffee no more dazed mornings trying to find Jim or Paul or Gym or Pool, or trying to check in or even a shower or even find a light switch. Sixteen nights on the bus, eight nights on land.
Getting out of Disneyland past security was almost as rigorous as getting into America.
And now we sound check at the House of Blues in Anaheim where gospel singers are finishing off their day’s worship…
House of Blues, San Diego CA
3rd October 2008 | Larry
L.A., by guest Dave
2nd October 2008 | Juliet
Jules was tired today so I get to take over for the L.A. blog! Excited for a bit of warm sun, we checked into a fab hotel and then head out to sample some of the delicious Mexican food and healthy organic veggie dishes that L.A. had to offer. On the way to the gig a couple of us ended up in a crazy Russian karaoke cab. We rocked the El Rey Theatre, and had a lot of fun at one of our best performances yet on this tour, if I do say so myself. Later several of us hung out in a mutual love fest with the Unkle Bob boys at a cozy L.A. gathering. Now San Diego is calling our names…
El Rey Theatre, Los Angeles CA
2nd October 2008 | Larry
The Regency, San Francisco
1st October 2008 | Juliet
Long drive through amazing scenes continued infinitely til we eventually saw the Golden Gate Bridge…
Parked up at 2ish. Ate eggs at Mel’s Diner. Like being in the Fonz Happy Days show. Very fifties feel with the music. Go to the Wholefoods and buy more supplies, the usual bread, granola, carrot juice in bottles for emergencies.
Seems that the previous band had left bottles of spirits in our dressing room. Great show. Much partying after, including tequila found in dressing room and in bar. Very late chaos of bus invasion by everyone’s new friends, meant bus left at 2.45am. We horizontal ones pretend to be asleep behind our curtains that don’t actually block out anything except a bit of light. Eventually tour manager gets up and gently asks the party people to get off the bus. This they do once they have found their bags amongst the piles of coats, stage gear, clothes etc in the back lounge. It’s going to be a long night on the bus again up to Los Angeles.
Back behind the bunk curtains sleep follows. The party goes on in the front lounge a bit more..
Bit of a hoo-ha about whether Tim will make it for his interview tomorrow due to the hiccup of traffic.
Next morning Jimmy offers to take the blame for the chaos of leaving a bit late last night. It was the biggest party so far and everyone happy to be in California.
Anyhow Tim gets to his interview and all is well. We have had a campaign to get a hotel as it’s been a long time since beds and we check in eventually to the Farmer’s Daughter hotel…. which is in Los Angeles…it has a farmyard theme…I have a painting of chicken and another of an egg on my wall…
P.S. David got news in San Fran that his dog Bernie had been found. It turned out that a local dog warden had picked him up–yet when David’s wife Alison phoned them, Bernie wasn’t in their records. He’d been taken fifteen miles away to a different compound by a private contractor. David played that night like a man who’d got his dog back!
Still on the way to San Francisco
1st October 2008 | Juliet
1st October Wednesday
We are driving through the mountainous desert type landscapes. Sometimes Xmas trees, sometimes lakes, like giant Scotland. The light is beautiful, bright and every scene is National Geographic for a good few hours.
The time has changed and it’s now earlier in the day than we thought. We are watching the CNN news and drinking coffee. The granola has run out so we have to add bits of almonds and things in the cupboard to breakfast.
Larry woke up with a nose bleed which is due to the altitude we think or general over-excitement. We suggest he lies down and gets his feet up. Larry reports he saw some lovely clouds yesterday in Salt Lake which were like giant fluffy cotton wool balls.
In Salt Lake we stayed in a day room hotel situation which was great. Fell asleep as soon as I lay on the bed. Then at 4pm went to lie by the pool, but it was scorching and the piped pop music was quite different. Back in air-con hotel foyer bumped into Stuart from Unkle Bob and we had a macchiato at the hotel cafe and sat on a velvet sofa.
Later some of us went and had a bad Thai meal which had hair in the curry and no prawns in the prawn tom yum. Checking the bill, ask who had the pa le ale? (sic) (Stuart’s beer badly punctuated) But that was yesterday. We are back on board at midnight to go to San Fran.
Bad news of the day is that one of Dave’s dogs has gone missing. Dave is wearing his James dog T-shirt and is sad.
We got over the border into California bearing a pineapple and several lemons in a basket. We shared the last banana earlier.
Jim says we will have been on the bus 10 nights by the next time we will get a stationary bed. The Chicago hotel does seem like a very long time ago.
The Regency Centre, San Francisco CA
1st October 2008 | Larry
Denver Ogden Theatre: Monday. Laundry at Smiley’s and Tina Turner’s friend
29th September 2008 | Juliet
We drove through the night from Omaha. There was a bit of singing of “Omaha” to the tune of ”Oh My Heart” as we set off in the rainstorm and a few lines of ‘A boy leaning against a wall of rain calling come on thunder’…and it came on…first storm of the tour…Long night drive down to Denver..
Denver parked up outside Smiley’s. Perfect. Huge Laundromat with all the locals doing their thing. It has a black and white checked floor which adds to the scene and very helpful staff who help work the old machines and help choose what settings. I shrink Tim’s checked trousers by mistake. They went in with all the rest in his bag clearly marked laundry. I break it to him gently when he flies in to Denver from Minneapolis…
The Ogden Theatre has had a lot of famous people performing there. Nick Cave last week. Houdini had performed there. Because Denver is one mile high, and the air is a bit thin, the venue lay on an oxygen cylinder for performers. Dave had a go on it, as did Andy so he could blow his trumpet.
Jim is ready to go home now. He says the tour is too long and he wants more days off and doesn’t like being surrounded by this many people.
Larry is loving it all. Last night he went dancing with a stripper who dances in a lesbian bar in New York. They went to Charlie’s, a gay bar across the road, where beer was 25 pence a pint. Later he was befriended by a toothless old black guy who had been a friend of Tina Turner back in the day.
Mark the tour manager dazzled us this morning in his brightly coloured new harlequin socks as we drove over the high desert plains towards Salt Lake City. The light was stunning. There were incredible flat top giant sandcastles on the horizons. I bought some bread at the truckstop from Walmart. Pumpernickel and Italian rosemary…
Tim and Andy Diagram have flown to the west coast today to see relatives. We will all meet again in San Francisco…
Ogden Theatre, Denver, CO, and Salt Lake City
29th September 2008 | Larry
OMAHA a day off one Sunday in September
28th September 2008 | Juliet
We pulled in to the Comfort Inn at around 10am… Rooms ready, a miracle, hooray, but then this is the bible belt… We have the day off here on the way to Denver. Paul our driver has to sleep. We are to reconvene at 1am in the night…
We sleep and wash our handwash only… and I do some yoga after sleeping for 3 hours. More on yoga later, there’s a cosmetic surgery outside the hotel…
8pm-ish we go to the Cheesecake Factory and eat nice food. Me and Larry go to Wholefoods across the motorway and buy exciting olives and good rye bread and cheese, blue and smoked and soft and Jarlsberg and little tomatoes. Mark and Saul and Stewart from Unkle Bob (who took the spare bunk last night) have an aperitif while we are gone.
Back to hotel. There’s a thunderstorm. We get on the bus. The cheese and wine has been postponed til the desert crossing.
We are going overnight to Denver. Chris says it will be great to see the mountains into Colorado in the morning… I am looking forward to that.
Good night.
