Thursday afternoon:
Just got home from college. The original plan
was to drive directly to CXHQ and try to get a quick rehearsal in this
evening, since we missed rehearsing last weekend because of my
horrendous gastroenteritis. However it now seems Andy can't make it
this eve, and I'm incredibly far behind in stuff, so I decide to go up
later and get some things done at home. Just as well, because it
appears my gastroenteritis is having a mild return. Eeek! So I go to
bed at 19.00 and sleep for an hour. Get up feeling crap and putter round
the house. Finally get on the highway to Manchester at about 23.30.

Friday morning:
Get
to CXHQ around 2.30 in the morning. Paul is still up packing. We have a
cup of tea then I go to bed to catch another hour's fitful sleep while
he finishes packing. At 4.30 we head for the airport to meet Andy and
fly to Duesseldorf. Arrive there at about 9.30 and pick up the car. I
roll myself up on the back seat, pillow my head on my leather jacket
(now you know why I always wear that on tour) and doze a little while
Andy drives and Paul navigates.

We get to Heerlen about 11.30 and find that the hotel we are staying in has no staff. No-one. Apparently we have to check in at another
hotel and then come back to this one with the keys. We find the other
hotel and have a Spinal Tap-esque argument about rooms. The
receptionist has our rooms and our keys but keeps insisting that she
won't give Paul a double room since he's only one person, even though
we have booked double rooms, and she has keys to our double rooms in
her hand. I lose it and insist on seeing the Manager, but she won't
tell us where she is or what her name is. I grab the keys and tell her
I'll be back later to talk to her boss.

On the way back to the
hotel we encounter a couple of lovely ladies opening their rather
elegant and pretty cafe. We ask them if their food is good and they nod
vigourously. They aren't lying... We get served some of the best tapas
I have ever had the priviledge of eating. We invite them to the show
later and put them on the guest list. They say if we're hungry after
the show they will open the cafe specially for us and serve us anything
we like. These are the moments when I love being a rock star.

Finally
make it to the hotel. We have two hours to go until soundcheck. I crash
into bed for some blissful sleep... and an hour later am woken by
several frantic phone calls from the German CX contingent who can't
find the place. I reluctantly get out of bed again and sort it out...
Sigh.

Soundcheck is pretty damn good. Martin, our lighting guy
extraordinaire (and apparently now Germany's 2009 "Lighting Designer of
the Year" or some such nonsense) has brought some awesome LEDs again.
If you were at Leipzig you'll know what I mean. The PA is great, crew
are good, and they've already sold 150 advance tickets, which is
amazing for a little club in the middle of nowhere. The place only
holds 400 max, and that's if you pile them to the ceiling, so it looks
like it'll be an intimate show tonight. The venue also have great food
- this time a smashing veggie curry, so we pig out on that and head
back to the hotel to try to catch another couple of hours sleep while
we can.

20.30: I'm back at the hotel, I'm very tired, and I
reckon we won't be on stage until around 22.30, so set my alarm for
22.00 and hit the sack for another hour's sleep. Am woken up at 21.45
by a call from Volker wondering where I am. Apparently we were supposed
to be on stage at 21.30! I leap out of bed, rush to the bathroom to
shave off the three days worth of beard I'm sporting, and dash to the
venue arriving there at 22.00. Am met at the door by a rather nervous
promoter saying "I don't want to rush you, but can you be on stage in
five minutes?" I assure him that it's not a problem, toss my jacket
into the backstage area and grab some towels and bottles of water.

At
the last show at BIMFest we had only a 45 minute slot, so we had played
one of our classic blitzkrieg gigs, where we just kicked ass from the
first moment we hit the stage - I don't think I stood still once during
that entire show. Unfortunately by 40 minutes into that show we
realised that we were seriously running out of stamina and we were
pushing ourselves just a little too hard. For this show in
Heerlen we knew we wanted to play longer than an hour, so we decided to
pace ourselves a bit. It worked out so well that in the end we played
an hour and a half, and only stopped because we literally had run out
of backing tracks on the computer! The audience seemed to love it, even
after 90 minutes they were still asking for more - and requesting
several songs by name. I would have been happy to do another half hour,
but that was all we had with us; we really never thought we'd do more
than that. I guess next time Paul & I have a little time at CXHQ
we'll be adding some more backing tracks to the live set :-)

After
the show there is a very good DJ set going on, so Paul and I hit the
dancefloor and bop around to Joy Division, The Cult, Virgin Prunes,
Young Gods, T. Rex etc. Paul turns to me halfway through and says "This
is just like being back at the Phono!" and indeed it is remarkably
like the kind of set list we would dance to at Leeds' legendary
proto-Goth club at Le Phonographique, lo these 25 years ago... (the
place where Moscow Idaho was actually written, CX trivia fans).

Lots
of people come up to us and congratulate us on the show. Many of them
tell us they saw us first 20 years ago... and that we're even better
now. Which is actually true. It's weird cause when we first started we
made our reputation playing shows at small out-of-the-way clubas in
Holland, and this feels exactly like it did back then.

Anyhow,
it's now 2.30 in the morning, and I'm back at the hotel drinking
Tropical Fruit tea while sitting in bed typing this entry. Rock &
role, eh? Unfortunately there's no Internet access here (what kind of
hotel doesn't have Net access these days?!?!) so I can't post it until
I get back to CXHQ. So I think it's time for sleep. Tomorrow morning
it's back to Duesseldorf and then "Hello Manchester!"

Saturday morning:
We're
having breakfast in an "Irish" pub. No matter where you are in the
world, there's always an "Irish" pub. Note to non-Irish people: none of
them are even vaguely "Irish". This one even has a dictionary of Irish
slang posted on the wall. I've never heard of any of the slang terms
listed and I'm fooking Irish! I hate, hate, hate
Irish pubs. We only went to this one because the breakfast (a very
non-Irish contintental breakfast I might add) is free. Even so, I think
in future I'd rather pay to eat anywhere but a damn Irish pub.

11.30.
We're back in the car on the way to airport, discussing the European
financial sector and various other geopolitical issues. This is the
kind of thing we intellectual rock stars talk about on the road
y'know... And then it'll be the plane and back to CXHQ for some
well-deserved rest. Good night Heerlen.