This story starts very early one morning. Marc is first to rendezvous with our driver. From his folks' house, they bomb down to ours in Seven Dials. What with Eamon now living in Brooklyn, there's no Kemptown pick-up, so straight up the motorway. At Heathrow there's no usual sillyness. Instead, a totally personable, reasonable lady. She does her utmost to find us desirable seats - being the knobs we are, there are various requests - window for me, aisle for Marc and as far forward for Alex. As flights go, it's as perfectly still as they get. But for the pricey drinks, and frankly awful food, it's as calm and beautiful as flying gets. 

We land in Raleigh five hours in our favour. Eamon came down from New York almost simultaneously, and is already waiting at arrivals. As is the case with long-haul flights, the next day or two start to blur - I can remember a lovely moment where we all meet up, perhaps an hour after arriving at the hotel, in the hotel sports' bar. Over warming pints of beer, all of us a little frazzled by travel, we share tales and generally catch up. On the first night we went all out on a slap-up barbeque, just over the freeway from the Holiday Inn. Disgusting, satisfying and completely neccessary. At this point, 9pm feels like 12, so time for bed. What follows is, at least for me, a fitful night of unrest and vivid, horrid dreams. After the general unease and restlessness of the night, I wake the next morning to a fuller, rejuvenated world - blinding, and suddenly full of possibility. We are a million miles from home, after all.  

Our first day proper in the States goes something like this: after waking, me and Alex decide a breakfast is in order. A quick chat with the receptionist in the hotel, and we have our destination - some diner over the freeway from the hotel. Apparently the best Blueberry pancakes in town, and I can't disagree. We scoff, and get back to the hotel to meet Eamon and Marc, who are counting merch in their room. Once at the venue in town, we have an hour or two's wait for the bus (containing The Twilight Sad and We were Promised Jetpacks) to arrive. The venue's a place called Local 506, and much as I'd love to sing its' praises, I was however many sheets-to-the-wind it is when you're really fucked, and the venue wasn't in much better shape. It'd be safe to say it was a bit of a jet-lagged mess for all of us. A less than brilliant first night of the tour for Brakes, and possibly rather harrowing for The Twilight Sad, too. Best forgotten. Back on the bus as quick as you like.