18th January Auckland NZ
Friday, January 25th, 2008 Posted in Road Blog | No Comments »The BDO tour kicks off in the Mount Smart Stadium in Auckland. All the dates take place in built environments, either sporting venues or agricultural showgrounds. This makes it a lot easier to get out of the fierce sunlight and ...
17th January Auckland NZ
Friday, January 25th, 2008 Posted in Road Blog | 3 Comments »After a rejuvenating stop-over in Sydney, my body clock woke me up for the final leg of the trip, three hours across the Tasman into Auckland allowing me to make real progress with Bill Bryson’s ‘A Short History of Nearly ...
12th/13th/14th January Limbo
Friday, January 25th, 2008 Posted in Road Blog | No Comments »The Timor Sea goes on forever, or so it seems. Three hours into the third leg of a 30 hour flight that will see us touch down in Dubai, Bangkok and Sydney before arriving in our destination, Auckland, New Zealand. ...
12th December - Bristol
Thursday, December 21st, 2006 Posted in Road Blog | 8 Comments »Returning to Hackney Empire after a dozen or so years was a revelation. The theatre was built in 1901 and some of the great music hall acts played there, among them Charlie Chaplin and Marie Lloyd. By the time I ...
8th December - Scotland
Sunday, December 17th, 2006 Posted in Road Blog | 3 Comments »Stung into action by a comment left here, I realised that I’m almost a week behind with my tour blog. Apologies all round but I am a firm believer that this shouldn’t be like homework, rather something done in idle ...
5th December - Glasgow
Thursday, December 7th, 2006 Posted in Road Blog | 2 Comments »In among all the dashing about, there were one or two moments that do bear recounting. The Electric Proms gig at the Roundhouse in London on 26th October was memorable for the fact that, called upon to make a sudden ...
December already?
Saturday, December 2nd, 2006 Posted in Road Blog | 1 Comment »Avid readers of this blog may wonder where November went and frankly, I share your sense of bafflement. The six weeks which have passed since I last posted here have been a blur of activity which has left me scarce ...
13th October - On the road again
Sunday, October 15th, 2006 Posted in Road Blog | 2 Comments »Arriving home on Monday afternoon, I had just enough time to kiss the missus, hug the boy, walk the dog and change my underwear before heading out on the road again. As I was whisked off to Birmingham to start ...
8th/9th October - Flying Home
Tuesday, October 10th, 2006 Posted in Road Blog | 15 Comments »Hit the ground running in Los Angeles – straight from the airport to the CBS TV studios to record a couple of songs on the Late Late Show hosted by Craig Ferguson which goes out at half past midnight on ...
3 October - Los Angeles
Friday, October 6th, 2006 Posted in Road Blog | 4 Comments »Flying over the Hollywood Hills into Los Angeles, what better music to be listening to than that of local boys Little Feat? Lowell George’s classic road ballad Willin’ is playing on my headphones as we swoop low over a sprawling ...
29 September - Vancouver
Friday, September 29th, 2006 Posted in Road Blog | 8 Comments »Despite the inauspicious start, Ottawa turned out to be a cracking gig, a small club with a sold out, mostly stand-up audience. I somehow got on to regaling them with tales from my goat-herding days, specifically details of how the ...
26 September - Winnipeg
Thursday, September 28th, 2006 Posted in Road Blog | 2 Comments »How hard is it to start a show? Artist appears in the wings, gives nod to back-line tech who flashes his torch at the soundman who puts on the intro music from which the lighting man takes his cue to ...
23 September - Ottawa, Canada
Monday, September 25th, 2006 Posted in Road Blog | 15 Comments »The Chateau Fairmont is one of those grand turn of the century hotels that were built at railheads across the British Empire. Its opening in 1912 was delayed for several months after its owner, the general manager of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway ...
