Portsmouth

The illness I mentioned previously seems like it is catching up with everyone. When we arrive in a rainy Portsmouth, Marina is hardly with us and members of all four bands are coughing and whining. It's all Lemsip and Berocca backstage today. We've got some fond memories from the Wedgewood rooms from past tours, we celebrated Henry's (mystery jets) birthday here on one of our early tours and just recently played here with Jack Penate. Unfortunately, Marina is forced to run off stage mid set with sickness leaving a slightly strange atmosphere in the room.  We tried our best to lift the spirits and the show goes down well. We left Portsmouth hoping Marina is okay and wondering if we've all got swine flu…

Bronze Box

Panda Bear    Person Pitch
Richard Hawley    True Loves Gutter
Washed Out     Life of Leasure

Bristol

The tour rolls into Bristol one band down….Rumours of swine flu are flying around but it seems like everyone else is in a better way than the absent Marina. We are eagerly anticipating what is looking to be one of the busiest shows of the tour so far. The venue in Bristol is actually an old moored boat which is strangely warm at the top and cold towards the bottom where it's in the water. It's the first time I've played on a boat since playing at the river rat pack tour last summer where we played on barges up and down the Thames. We got some new arrangements together to play at our third in-store at Rise records which is a great shop. It's encouraging to see an independent record store doing so well.  We brought a few records to play in the van later. Bristol is good to us as usual. There was a charming crowd at the Thekla and we ended up doing a two song encore for the first time. The others stayed on at the club for a dance and I headed back to the Travelodge where I finished reading Nick Cave's "The Death of Bunny Monroe," a good read.

Bronze Box
Hot Chip Bugged out mix
Jay Z Black Album
Nick Cave   From her to eternity