A slight sensation of “the day after…” for me, having got my celebrating in before we actually play the gig. I see this as another example of my efficiency. It’s not the mindset to be working through various sample problems with Iain in his hotel room but 2 hours of furious laptop wrangling and we’re now, finally, fairly confident about the sampling aspect of the show tonight. Simultaneously Tony’s been frantically revising his cues for the sequencer based songs.
Festival rarely grant bands a soundcheck (which is why most acts sound like crap for the first song and are dimly illuminated) but we get to set up and check everything in advance.
The site is fantastic, set in the eucalyptus covered mountains that rise from the Atlantic, a few kilometres from the Spanish border.
At 7pm there isn’t an audience and the first, local band get to play to the stall holders. Echo and the Bunnymen are very late as, we later hear, the airline gave away their tickets leaving them no choice but to hire a private jet. Because of this our set is cut down to the length we first asked to play for, and they do a fine greatest hits set to a burgeoning crowd.
By the time we start there’s a crowd of around 4 thousand. The opening song is the soundcheck and squalls of every sound but the ones I need to hear blast across the stage. Out front, apparently, it’s a snare drum solo.
At the end we reckon we get away with it. Horribly rough around the edges and even to the core but we go down far better than we deserve playing a bunch of old songs in a country where we never had a hit. And to a man we loved the show. It has, just about, all come together.
A long, stress free sleep, at last.

Wake up without the alarm for the first time this week although my greeting the girlfriend’s parents first thing is spectacularly bleary.
Drive to Gatwick airport, refusing to be stressed when the road is blocked by a fallen tree and ensuing traffic chaos.
Everyone’s on time at the airport even though Alan and Tony are actually at a different airport - Alan’s ID details came through so late he had to be booked (with his accompanying responsible adult) on a separate flight.
At Porto we’re greeted by our festival driver and plenty of rain. A year long drought has just broken and is making up for lost time. Ticket sales for the festival have reacted correspondingly.
It’s over an hours drive to the town of Caminha and our hotel, with its alarmingly titled “Prozac” disco next door.
Our new agent and guardian angel responsible for this junket, Charlie, has come out well in advance and we meet up in the picturesque, historic town square for the evening. Day by day the stress is easing as we get closer to the tour dates.

Funny how 4 hours sleep seems like a lie in after 2 the day before. A day of huge stress involving reprogramming of the sequencer, preparing and packing, sorting out final details and all the other intrusions - day to day and tour managing stuff - that drag me away from being just the singer and guitarist in the band.
Get to rehearsal 30 minutes late. Run through the most problematic songs. Attempt a run through of the set but get 5 songs from the end before we run out of time.
In order to be closer to the airport tomorrow morning I’m staying in Surrey which is about 30 minutes less drive. Get to bed after 2am.

2 hours sleep and a long day ahead. Loads to organise before we leave. Because the band want to save money this trip it’s down to Tony and I to do the tour managing. I mix this with more sequencing work and trying to get Iain up to speed. The pace of all this means that I don’t get time to feel tired, which is handy.
Rehearsals are now 2 hours drive from where I live - plenty of opportunity to practise singing before we rehearse. Get there late and set the sequencer up, guide Iain through today’s differences, set the PA up and, eventually, get my guitar plugged in and working. There are so many little niggles in the set, mostly Iain’s stuff, that we get to run through just five songs, despite it being Alan’s first appearance and half of his rehearsals with us. This is less than perfect and to be honest, it seems almost impossible that we’ll be able to get through the set without suffering complete disaster. Keep awake on the drive home by making my way through two bags of crisps, very slowly.

I can’t even remember this day. It was 22 hours long, or at least my version was. massive stress and panic - will the sequencing work and will we play along with it OK if it does ? Will Iain remember any samples, will they even load up properly ? And the tour managing ; invoices, witholding tax, itineraries, set lists, flight details, paying people, getting us all in the right place at the right time with the right equipment. Remembering the words to the songs. And the chords. And then renewing the car tax, paying the credit card bill on time, booking my train to the Manchester gig, returning phone calls, emails, texts.
You get the idea…

If I’m knackered now things are going to get a lot worse very soon. Got a couple of 21 hour days lined up, trying to fit everything in before Thursday’s flight.

So rehearsals had better pick up PDQ. We managed about 8 songs today in our 4 hour session. Most of the time seemed to be spent sorting Iain’s samples, Tony’s monitoring and Jerry’s largely forgotten guitar parts. Leaving rehearsal Tony says “It’s your own fault, you brought them up wrong”.

On the plus side the sequencing element is looking better. Started today on a low when I discovered that the system I’ve been working on for 3 weeks wouldn’t work. Thankfully my cupboards see to contain enough odd and old equipment that I’ve hurriedly cobbled together a workable, decent sounding set up, even if it does look a bit car boot sale. Necessity is the mother of invention and in our case desperation appears on the birth certificate as father. There’s not quite enough time to get it all ready but it just has to be anyway, kind of like “That’s 30 minutes away. I’ll be there in 10”.

Tony’s fed up with “the Indie beat”, that imitation of funky drumming that rock drummers can’t manage and which blighted many early 90s records - including our own, if I’m honest. Trying to eliminate that where we can but still make the songs recognisable.

Already started cutting the set down (so we might one day rehearse all of them in one go). One newer song out, a couple of others trying not to catch our eyes. “Real X 3” is made to walk the plank but runs back on board. Likewise “Never enough”. Dear God ! We’ve been playing that for nearly 20 years ! Inevitably we’ll all choose a song for the chop and then Alan will arrive and threaten to leave the band if we don’t play it.

Summoning my energies for the next few days. Things could get tricky from here on in.

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