Oh, Palacial HoardsCome room with me not
For far away, a distant
rumble of thunder,
Concerns me thus.
And so we went on tour with LOVELY HOCKEY (from Portland, OR) and EXCITABLE DEASTRO (from Detroit, MI).
In cumulative form:
"Our aspirations weren't great. We thought we'd get ostracised by the-AMERICANS Aaaaaaargh and also end up killing each other as me and Mark have 'differences'" said Rob. WRONG WRONG WRONG.
But we set off anyway, our newish van resplendent in tack, cavorting along a succession of arid motorways to BRISTOL to play on a BOAT. The owner loves alliteration as all articles appeared alike and we could only order B-items from the canteen. LUCKILY, Matt regaled us with stories of when him and Ben Ainslie used to go yachting on Bents Park. TOSSERS.
Despite screaming expletives and hoards of angst we played a gig and slightly-met Hockey: they seemed caloof (our new word) but then we probably seemed like doom-personified ("my furrowed brow could build cathedrals"),,,,, so fair-is-fair-is-fair after only a night...... THEN THINGS GOT INTERESTING:::::::::::
Randy (off of DEASTRO, off of a plane) used to be a band but 10-hours before he flew across the world, his musical world (in a live sense) disintegrated BUT He-still-decided-to-come-and-play-solo-as-a-cyborg...... plus: despite having never met he became part of our travelling system - immediately attached across the entirety of us for the next 14 days. It was good though as he gave us information on how to speak to 'Americans' so from now on, with our intermerging vocabularies and new-found social awareness we became able to mesh-with-Hockey YEEEEEAAAAAAH RAD! (and they started saying "canny lad" and "mint"..... and "twat" and "knob" and "bell end" [Mickey's influence])....
LIVERPOOL and LEEDS (Tony off of Hockey killed the world at ball-juggling) passed without incident although we discovered that although people from Newcastle sound daft when they say Hockey (massive ending inflexion ho-eeeeeeeeeee), Scousers win hands down ---- hhhhhhhokkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkki. Plus you get washed....
We zoomed home full of abashment, looking up to a day off before Newcastle..... fixing bikes, fish and chips, Italian Opera..... also with RANDEASTRO ensconced in our house, we became transfixed by his story-telling acumen..... children-stealing-penguins-from-zoos etc.
Then after failing to save Hockey from TupTupsPalaceofNOclass we watched people get submerged and left in preparation for SCOTLAND.....
Edinburgh: Hockey were on formmmmm and as sweat dripped from the ceiling we realised that they had some grapes left on their rider so we had a munch ;) hahaha. Normal people in bands steal beer, we covet fruit and vegetation!
Onto Glasgow: last time we came here Mark climbed a car in a feat of garrulous determinance but today a more suave Harle surveyed the city beneath his tepid fingers like a prominent hawk: "tonight this place shall heel to me" he whispered. Little did he know....
So after (and this like everything else, except the Ben Ainslie bit, is TRUE) we witnessed the filming of the new Ewan MacGregor film (screeching cars, explosions, puzzled pedestrians, shit littering the streets - or maybe this is just a new government scheme to explain crime in Glasgow...) we went to the exclusively named venue and played!!!!!
BOOM, CRACK, LOOK AT ME: after the gig Mark can't move his finger:::::::: off to hospital in a taxi, is it broken? strapped up and x-rayed: turns out ok, ask me, back to the van and then we went and scallied with Hockey! Yeah: ice-firmly smashed but at two o'clock we had to drive to Stranraer in preparation for the next bit......
OK, THIS IS PROBABLY BORING.... SORRY.
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