Yesterday i arrived home from touring. To fill you in, i went around the country as the support for Lisa Mitchell ("Neopolitan Dreams", "Coin Laundry" etc). We played 20-something shows at venues in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia. At the beginning of the tour i came along with the purpose simply of performing as the support act.

 Before the third show, however, Lisa cut her finger pretty badly with a sharp knife while attempting to cut some bread. Sounds like a silly way to go cutting yourself up, but poor Lisa managed to take off a fair chunk of her pointer finger on the left hand; a digit you might call essential in the act of playing guitar. So before the show, Jan (thats pronounced Yarn), her bassist, wrote out the chord charts for me and asked me to join the band, because Lisa wasnt able to play the guitar, and piano would have to substitute. So thats what i did. With chord charts resting on the keyboard, i played the set without too much fuss, just the odd look over my shoulder to Jan, and Rob (the drummer) for some queues. By the next night, i was well into the swing of it. There is a nice economy in the way Lisa's songs work; simple chords, simple structures, simple time signatures; its what makes the songs work the way they do; and it also makes them a breeze to perform, even on first reading.

Realizing that Lisa's finger was temporarily de-commissioned, i was asked by her band to play each night until her finger was better. From there on in, i was the piano player for the rest of the tour.

So each night i would play my own set, do my songs and tell a story or two, then step off stage for long enough to open a bottle of beer, confer with the others about the night's set list, and to give them a run down on the kind of crowd it was. And then i would get back up on stage again to play in Lisa's band. It was a double barrel night for me then, and it was a very pleasant way to experience playing live in two ways; as a solo act playing my own music and as the player in a band, playing somebody else's. 

I had a terrific time. Generally the audiences were very generous and enthusiastic, and quite often, packed to capacity in the venues... with the exception of one pub, where the crickets could be heard chirping, and another where the top 40 rock cover band in the next room drowned us out with, ironically, Nickelback covers, a la "Small Town Asshole".... its poetic ain't it?

Other than that was the usual touring fare - late nights and early rising, long van trips, bunk beds in cheap motels, late night drive-through (yuuuuck), check ins, check outs, load-ins, sound-checks, loud-outs, one set of clothes, washing underwear in sinks, the search for a morning coffee in every town across the country, Berocca, fans, hecklers, mutilated drunken fans with streams of word vomit to unload on any willing ear, lovely people, set lists, guest lists, red wine, coopers green, sticky floors, skanky band rooms, morning telephone calls to girlfriends, service station stops, beef jerky, photographs, bad sound, good sound, feedback, technical difficulties, sound guys, no sound guys, no sleep, bad food, no food, no money, room keys, "blend 42; international roast", tiny packets of milk, and the inevitable crossing of paths with a stream of other musicians at airports all around the country doing the exact same thing you are.... days on end, the cycle of life continues in this manner!

And now i am home again.

If you came along to see a show, thank you. I hope that you enjoyed the music. If you came up to say hello, then it was lovely to meet you. If you would like to hear more music, well i am happy to tell you that more is coming. The album has been finished.

Just putting the finishing touches on artwork and that sort of thing now.

In the meantime, i will be playing three shows in Sydney at Spectrum on Oxford St. Each wednesday for three wednesdays, starting on the 20th of May. Three of my favourite Sydney bands will be playing before me on each night, Sherlock's Daughter, Deep Sea Arcade (with whom i share a drummer, Carlos Adura) and Wim.

I will tell you more about it soon.

Hope to see you there.

Andy