Radiohead in 100 (+) gigs

After some frustrating posts in code on the website, which send a segment of the boardies into such turmoil that it makes the news, various faffings about on the Radiohead.TV website and a general feeling that Mr Donwood has a bit too much time on his hands…the Radiohead rumour mill is in overdrive.

An article in Paste Magazine (7/9/2007) suggests that the band have completed an album…. but now they’re out of contract with EMI, what are they going to do with it?

On September 30th I get an email from Tim advising me to look at Radiohead.com if I haven’t already, as I “might be interested.” Suddenly all the slightly frantic texts my phone received after I’d gone to bed make sense.

Having hit a low with my job as well as failing to get anywhere near my dreams of working in radio, this bit of excitement couldn’t have come at a better time.

When the album eventually drops, I have to hurriedly download it before leaving for a long train journey to be at a funeral. Headphones, as always, offer a safe harbour from reality.

In Radiohead-land, everything is clicking into gear. In Oxford a boardie spots Thom out jogging (jogging!) and we speculate that he’s “getting match fit”.

There is a ton of press surrounding the “pay what you want” concept of the In Rainbows release. The music itself hasn’t quite hit yet and the band aren’t doing interviews. There have been none of the usual months of build up, no reviews and then a ton of ill-thought-out spontaneous diatribes from music journalists who feel left out.

Radiohead have “broken the music industry.” A moment to relish for those of us who realised that they’d been trying to do exactly that since as far back as Pop Is Dead.

Tim emails back to ask me if I can take the temperature of the reactions to the release of “my mates and the people on the message boards.” I throw back a few thoughts. £40 for the box set, which basically contains a whole album campaign’s worth of tracks is actually less than you’d pay for an old style album and CD single sets so I’m happy to pay it.

A webcast entitled ‘Thumbs Down’ happens on the evening of 10th November, it’s stuttery but less jerky now I have broadband and a second-hand beige tower PC replacing the temperamental iMac. I’m able to watch it all, until in the last ten minutes, the sound fails. (Later on Max K rescues the missing section and puts it up again). The webcast is over two hours long, filled with performances of the new songs, Adam Buxton video skits and covers of The Smiths’ Headmaster Ritual and New Order’s Ceremony. Radiohead are in charge at last and they seem to be enjoying it.

In Rainbows is the most distilled essence of Radiohead’s sound that they have so far produced. I, inevitably, order the full £40 box set and take my download straightaway. My first listens are filtered through an onslaught of emails from people who are doing exactly the same thing simultaneously.

Safe in the knowledge that the tour won’t follow until next year, there is time to prepare to do it properly. In November I join a large group of boardies at ATP’s Nightmare Before Christmas curated by Portishead. Much of the time in Minehead is spent trying to keep warm, socially lubricating on Holiday Camp lager and hanging about waiting to see if the rumours we’ve heard about Colin turning up to do in an unannounced DJ set are true.

In January of the new year, the band emerge to play what was planned to be an in-store at Rough Trade East in Spittlefields, London and turns into an impromptu gig in tiny venue 93 Feet East. In Glasgow, at work, glued to developments as they unfold on the faithfully Radiohead-obsessed BBC 6 Music, I stand in the corridor swearing down the phone to the few boardies that make it to the show. I don’t like secret shows, I especially don’t like secret shows that I have no chance of being at. As evidence of this gig emerges, my pining for gigs gets worse.

In March the BBC announce that Radiohead will be held captive in Broadcasting House for a whole day. Or rather as the BBC website would have it:

Radiohead: Double Duty

Band to perform two free gigs for the BBC

11 March 2008 – Radiohead are to play two free concerts for the BBC in London on 01 April and 6 Music listeners are in with a double chance of seeing them.

The band will perform at the BBC’s Radio Theatre in Broadcasting House on 01 April for BBC Radio 2 and they will also play a matinee concert at the same venue, on the same day, for BBC 6 Music.

6 Music will record the matinee performance and you’ll be able to hear tracks from it between 4pm and 7pm.

Fans can apply for tickets to see Thom and co at the Radio 2 concert by calling 08700 100 200. Phone lines will close on 13 March and winners will be chosen at random.

Steve Lamacq will announce details of how you can attend the matinee performance on his show on 17 March. Tune in from 4pm for full details.

Demand for tickets is obviously huge, even more than for the Maida Vale show a few years ago. I try everything and abandon all dignity, emailing everyone I can think of to try to beg tickets. No BBC contact or Radiohead insider is safe.

A select group of boardies who are either in London (and can therefore drop everything and turn up), are in Europe (and are therefore theoretically able to drop everything, jump on a plane and turn up) or are desperate and dissatisfied enough with their jobs that they can ditch to London for a few days (me) form a cartel and start calling in favours.

We get friends to enter the BBC competitions on the condition that tickets will be surrendered, we register multiple email addresses, we follow every tip off about the number of tickets, about WASTE fanclub ticket lotteries, about BBC staff allocation…

Tim can’t help. Julie is too busy, I don’t feel confident asking Mel…

I find out with moments to spare that I have a pair of tickets from Waste’s allocation. I don’t ask questions, I tell Gabi the spare is hers, book us a cheap hotel in Paddington and get myself to Regent Street.

I’m already in London when I find out that I have a job interview in Ealing the day after the show.

My tickets are for the second gig of the day, so we spend the afternoon hanging around, eating Greek food and having ill advised beers to stave off the nerves.

Mel is on the door with the tickets but no one is saying anything about how these bits of gold dust came to be there, ask no questions, keep your head down and get inside.

I’m actually inside Broadcasting House, this alone is overwhelming. We are herded in and I find that the others have saved me a seat on the front row. From here on everything takes on the texture of a weird dream.

On very little sleep, the added stress of an impending job interview (which turned out to be a total bust). Being so close to the stage in this setting was very weird. It wasn’t like a gig, but a polished performance for radio. Thom seemed tired from doing interviews all day and a gig in the afternoon. The band were very focused. Thom singing with his eyes closed and not making contact with the audience. No release. Thom needs a haircut. I need a proper live show.

Somewhere in all the acres of coverage, a large venue summer tour is announced. I hatch a plan…

 

 

I have big plans. I will take a sabbatical from work and do this tour without flying – the band have been blogging on their new W.A.S.T.E. Central platform about how they’re trying to reduce the carbon footprint of touring. Encouraging people to use public transport to each the shows, offering incentives, publishing a report on the impact of their previous tour.

I will take my laptop and try to write a blog as I go, I will become one of those people who gets called up on the radio and get a book deal and cover all my expenses…

As it turns out, I become an expert in Eurorail-booking sites, Irish Sea ferry crossings and being desperate for a decent cup of tea.

It is entirely possible to follow a tour without flying if you have the time to spare. With foresight and my skills as an online booking ninja, it’s actually marginally cheaper as well. It turns out I’m the only person who is excited about this. Everyone else still has to squeeze the shows in at weekends but I turn my summer over to the Radiohead trail.

Anticipation is part of the adventure. Three months of planning and decision making – to me almost as enjoyable as the actual travel. I keep track of everything, becoming a train-bore. I keep waking up early in a panic. Doing this feels like a momentous decision (but it doesn’t really work out that way).

As always the uncertainties seem important at the time. Will all the tickets turn up in time? Will I be able to blag into the London shows? Will there always be somewhere to sleep? I should be more ready for spontaneity. The internet doesn’t quite work well enough yet. (In a couple more years these things will no longer be problems and I’ll have the internet in my pocket, a smart phone that actually works).

There are no real incidents on the way, apart from the odd missed connection and occasional unscheduled taxi rides (the world is still not designed for the solo non-driver).

In Ireland  wi-fi has yet to become as ubiquitous as it has in the UK and I find myself hunting out old PCs in internet cafes. It is harder than I anticipated to write about the shows coherently. I find myself writing about travel, which now seems mundane. Being a bit sleep deprived and taking a few trains doesn’t read like exploration and there is nothing luxurious or exciting about the Glasgow to Belfast ferry connection.

I have tiny photos from my phone (the main thing I notice looking at this stuff is how far the tech has moved on in a few short years, it would all be straight to social media now and nothing special.)

I rendezvous with Gabi at a B&B in a village near Malahide for the first gig at the Castle. It’s a long slow queue through the woods, we’re going on a Radiohead hunt. Familiar faces are spotted in the trees and eventually, we pour into the huge field where the show will take place as Bat for Lashes takes the stage. They are either going to grow on me or I’m going to be heartily sick of the Bjorkish mannerisms after a couple of shows.

The weather held until just before Radiohead came on stage then light showers split the sky. Time to pull out my rain hood (pocket size, like old ladies wear, given to me as a joke, but actually quite handy as it means I can keep relatively dry, yet still see the stage. And what would you know, a rainbow and then a double rainbow… if it had been planned it would have been cheesy.

For such a big show, it is a really polite crowd, everyone in a great mood, being considerate but also getting into it. I spend the whole show with an enormous grin on my face (apart from Pyramid Song which reduces me to tears). The band are in extremely good spirits, it doesn’t get dark until gone 10pm, so for most of the show the band were responding to waves from the crowd and it looked liked there were able to spot of lot of the familiar faces.

 

They play mostly In Rainbows stuff and a few oldies in the encores.. they barely touch OK Computer but still manage to play 29 songs.

I felt really connected in this show, it doesn’t always happen, but when it does I know this is the reason I keep on coming to see them. It was a joy pretty much all the way through, a great view. A couple of guys behind me had come all the way from Israel for their first show. I was surrounded by a plethora of different European accents.

When I finally give in and clamber out to go to the toilet in the encore break, the crowd let me back in and I join some friends a bit nearer the front.

There was a new song, a sketch at the moment called Super Collider (you might want to tweak that one Thom, I think to myself, it’s a bit Stereolab.)
A thoroughly satisfying experience and we get to do it all again tomorrow.

Getting back to the B&B was a bit of a challenge but we eventually got a cab and shared with a French couple who were going in vaguely the same direction.

The next morning the breakfast room is full of people sporting their new recycled Radiohead T shirts.

Night two in Dublin is Keiko’s 100th Radiohead gig. The band play Lurgee (her favourite) for her during the show. To celebrate this auspicious moment, we’re allowed access to the sprawling aftershow. It’s a warm night and everyone is mulling about outside. Tonight is for Keiko and there is champagne, she’s known to all and they make it as special as she needs it to be.  We’re all sitting at a table, making a bit of a party of it. I realise Clara has been talking rather intensely to woman about state versus private schooling, it takes a while for the penny to drop but this woman turns out to be Thom’s Rachel…

Thom comes and goes, opens a Guinness and spills it on his trousers, he disappears fetching more Guinness, and possibly more trousers.

The booze flows, at Keiko’s table we’re more relaxed than usual, things are going our way. Like she says, she’s “the most fan” and I’m “the longest fan”. Clara is my plus one and she is a good person to lig with, maybe because she’s a bit of rock star in her own way…

*

I remember feeling very happy after these shows, something about the vibe was more positive than ever before. I had Europe waiting for me, a whole summer on the move, looking for adventures with friends waiting in every place. I’d been stuck in Scotland, hating my job for so long that to have a stretch of freedom, with gigs in some outstanding places to look forward to, was liberating in the extreme.

Writing about it as I went along gave me a sense of achievement. It didn’t matter that most of my blogs were about trains, that finding wi-fi was sometimes a complete pain the arse, that my laptop was heavy. Being able to write and having something to write about (after being stuck in a job where I could never quite become a “proper journalist”) was utterly freeing.

For a while that year I’d been hosting my own show on student radio, and I continued to harbour ambitions to break into BBC 6Music (the radio station I’d been waiting for all my life). I’d called in to the Steve Lamacq show about my Radiohead adventures and the producer had got back in touch to see if I could call in from one of these gigs… I tried not to be too excited about this, but the thought of being an honorary BBC correspondent filled me with a sense of purpose.  I spent the build up to the first show on tenterhooks in case they called… but nothing happened and once the show started, my phone was forgotten about…

Rather than go straight to Paris for the indoor gigs, I spend a few days in London catching up with sleep and exploring. I take the Eurostar to Paris, a nicer experience than any airports I’ve been through recently.

In Paris I had a look around the Patti Smith exhibition at the Foundation Cartier. It was a mix of photos and objects that commemorate Rimbaud and Robert Mapplethorpe. Apparently she was here earlier in the week and played a small gig. For sale in the shop, she had selected books, films and music. French editions of the works of Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf, Rimbaud and her own CDs… The only remotely contemporary discs were Pablo Honey, The Bends and OK Computer… Wonder if she went to see Radiohead while she was here.

 

I stay a night with Naz then take the train to Nimes… here’s what I wrote the morning after the show:

Seriously, how? How do I write this? How do you write up something… I mean, I knew this would be a good one, with that venue… but… as soon as we got inside it was gonna be pretty special.

But.

When the Mexican Waves started and the guy throwing the nuts into the crowd and catching the money got cheers from the whole arena, you knew there was gonna be a bit of atmosphere.

After about the twentieth Mexican Wave my arms started to hurt.

We were in the best tier of seating (one up from the floor level, good view), right on the front row, so had a completely un-obscured view of the stage. Far enough back to see everything and really appreciate the lights for the first time. The beer kept coming – at one point, the guy selling the beer actually came up to the seats to sell us MORE beer, that did my head in! Just before they came on!?

After telling me there were only two starting songs for the setlist, they promptly played Reckoner and went on… well, I’ll put a picture of the setlist in there.

Safe to say they played all the good In Rainbows stuff, Where I End and You Begin, which for some reason sounded better – well, all the HTTT stuff sounds better live anyway. Everything In Its Right Place in the middle… which was so good Thom had to have a lie down in front of the monitors at the end. Is it 15 step where Thom goes mad dancing in the middle? or is that Bodysnatchers… nope, not Bodysnatchers… I think we MAY have mastered the 15 Step hand clap intro.

For the encore we were sitting taking bets as to what they would play next. Clara was praying for Planet Telex and got it… it really works with the rainbow lights. I mean, how do you do a set that good without playing Just? My Iron Lung? Fake Plastic Trees? But they managed it.

By the time the gig had finished, I just had to sit down and take it all in for a few minutes and put up with the usual glut of people asking me if I’m alright. Beer fuelled mayhem ensued later. It’s very strange emerging from an aftershow to a crowd of screaming French people who were all hoping you were going to be one of the band and that you’d come and sign their arms, or tickets, or something. It’s weird being on the other side, but good. Aftershows aren’t the glamorous things people think they’re going to be. There’s some beer in a bucket in a corridor and some very bad toilets. Immaculately drunk Japanese women, professional liggers, band members chilling out (with notable exceptions) Where did all these people come from? I wonder what they all do.

What I wrote at the time: It’s Monday now and Nimes seems closed until this afternoon.. and now it’s started raining heavily. I’ve a while until my train so I’ve dashed into the first place with wi-fi and a very grumpy waiter. Might see if I can get something that isn’t Steak Tartare in a moment… but first, last night’s show. After Saturday I didn’t think they’d top it… but you know this band are full of surprises.

A completely different set list with some highlights including Dollars & Cents, Fake Plastic Trees (with the swooping vocal), Bangers & Mash and Paranoid Android. Then an encore of Thom on his own playing Cymbal Rush (followed by a hug from Colin, who must be putting something in his tea judging by some of his interpretive dance moves earlier on). Bloody great, I even forgave him those red trousers after a couple of songs.

We sat in the same place as last night, fantastic view as long as you don’t topple over into the tier below (which was a bit touch and go when I was shaking it to Bangers & Mash). The band were definitely really into it, Thom giving us his lesser spotted “warming his hands on the audience” gesture. And for You And Whose Army some great eyebrow action on the “nose cam” then straight into a manic version of Idioteque. I’ve got a little note pad I keep in my pocket and I’ve just written ‘Wow”.

I apologised to the security guy from the night before for freaking out on him and this time he let me keep my pass. And various crew members were modelling their fab rainbow coloured t shirts (they’re in colour coded teams). I also briefly met Hannah from Friends of the Earth who is blogging the tour too…

About 3am, I’m sitting with the London gang of boardies, eating merguez by the food vans at the far side of the square.(Merguez – Spicy local sausage and chips in a baguette and after nothing all day, the best food I’ve had in I don’t know how long). It hits me hard then that this band don’t need me anymore. I know how weird that sounds, but it used to be that there weren’t many friends around after shows, that there weren’t many people to talk to. These shows have hundreds of folk hanging around and I’m just another ligger. It’s late and I’m tired and emotional, bowled over by some of the best gig experiences of a long career…

The journey from Nimes to Milan was complicated by a cancelled train, a diversion to Dijon and a sleeper into Italy. A few other fans were in the same compartment – Laurence, who being French, was able to translate all the instructions and Japanese fan “Curly” whose presence caused the border guard to wake us at an ungodly hour for a non-European Union passport check. I find myself in Milan very early in the morning and gratefully take refuge in the lobby of Laurence’s hotel.

My plans have been knocked a little off course. I reluctantly purchase an hour of wi-fi so I can look busy and wait for my B&B to open. I’m at a low ebb. A run of late nights spent outdoors have left me with a cold, I’m tired and in need of a hot meal.

I catch up on a little sleep and briefly explore central Milan and the spectacular Piazza del Duomo. I wander in a trance around an exhibition of photos of Italian film stars, dazed by the glamour of it all.

The following day, having discovered the venue is near the Castello, I do a little more wandering (but omit the main attraction of Da Vinci’s Last Supper) before I find the faithful already installed in a queue in the rain.

In an array of improvised waterproofs, I stand by the sound desk with some of the chaps. We go for sound quality over view, a vista of umbrellas before us. Nothing quite works tonight. It might have been the late night pizza, but here’s what I wrote when I got to bed afterwards:

This is the dip. The one in the middle after the ones at the fabulous venue. When you think you’ve had the best they can give you and it’s never going to be topped. This the one where you start to feel tired and wonder if you’ll hit the heights again, have they peaked? Have you? Are you just going through the motions? Does that set list bare any relation to the songs they actually played? Was that Ed reading the football results or Thom? Was it because it rained and you were at the back and you couldn’t see? Should you queue up tomorrow after everything you said about not queuing? Maybe it’s your last chance

Maybe it won’t rain tomorrow? Maybe it was all those people singing along to Karma Police yet again. Or the way those Italian guys behind you were humming the guitar parts off key. Shouldn’t you be asleep by now instead of staying out with your gig friends? Don’t worry. This is the dip.

The first rule of Radiohead club is no one talks about Radiohead club… Edward Norton and Brad Pitt (wearing ostentatious sunglass and a hat respectively – so you know they must be conspicuously famous) were watching tonight’s show from behind the sound desk (which I was standing in front of).

Best sound of the tour so far (well best spot for it, directly in front of unsung genius Jim Warren and all his magical kit). This tour has had AMAZING sound so far – everything is really clear and even a cloth ears like me can almost detect the separate instruments.

I ended up not queuing. It was really, really hot and the thought of sun stroke rather put me off. I took myself off to have look around some of the galleries in the Castle, including an impressive collection of historic musical instruments. I ate some very good gelato and discovered the cooling effects of granita.

It was a varied set with Wolf At The Door and Go Slowly making an appearance. Much better conditions than last night. At the end of the show, a rope was dragged through the arena to keep the Italians calling out for “Brad! Brad!” away from the chosen few still allowed close to the stage. I lost sight of Keiko who somehow had a pass and spend the latter part of the evening wandering the area with Astral Chris, looking for food and taxis.

*

The following day I meet up with fellow tourist Ricci and we climb to the roof of the Duomo, Milan really knows how to do a cathedral. The sun is shining and being here makes sense again.In the FNAC record shop, there is a small exhibition of Radiohead photos – and the Italian edition of a book of “the stories behind the songs”.

Later I head to Saronno to stay with super-fan Georgia for a couple of nights, after a day sacked out in front of her TV, I take an excursion to Lake Como and get bitten by mosquitos.

Back to Milan to catch another train (sharing a compartment with a nun), this time to Turin, my detour while the band are in Spain playing festivals. Some of the others have gone to see all the shows, but this time I want to see something of Italy, spend some time by myself.  I have a hectic 48 hours in the city – I visit the Mole (for the view and for the cinema museum which I’d seen in a film called Doppo Mezzonotte), eat some Nutella-flavoured ice cream and frantically search for a pharmacy to get some hydrocortisone for unbearable mozzie bites – I feel like I should  do all the tourist stuff, but really what I’d like to do is sleep.

Another train back to Paris again, then a small panic attack negotiating the Metro. Heavily laden with luggage, I decide to visit the Louvre (cloakrooms! air con!). I wander the huge rooms, dodging tourists on the Da Vinci Code trail, enraged as they pop photos in front of the eternal masterpieces. I despaired as I came into a room to discover David’s magnificent Oath of the Horacii, in a room full of over blown history paintings to overhear a woman say “Oh it’s that David Jack Louie guy” and another points out the “people fighting naked,” in the Grecian scene hung on the opposite wall.

Tiring of the underground ambience of the gallery, I go out to the arcades. I spent a fantastic day here last year just wandering about, but it’s hard to be a flaneusse with a backpack and a wheelie suitcase weighing you down.

I need a proper cup of tea, a hot bath, some food that doesn’t have any cheese in it. I spend another night at Nazare’s then it’s back to London on the Eurostar. I drag myself to Hammersmith (to Clara’s) and feel my first cup of tea hit every nerve ending.

Thus refreshed, I meet up with the others at a pub near Liverpool Street and get ready to face the crush of people heading to Victoria Park…

After fifteen minutes walk from Mile End tube station, we finally get onto the site. It was laid out like a mini-Glastonbury with more food stalls than you could shake a burger at (even in the middle behind the sound desk).

There were at least 40,000 people in the arena. We milled around near the back for a while then discovered that if you went down to the side near the bar you could at least get a view of the band on the stage.

The disadvantage of being near the bar (and it being still light) is the crowd all keep talking like they are in a pub watching the gig on TV. Even the hardcore fans have given up and started talking. I try going in a bit nearer the stage for a couple of songs but there wasn’t much improvement. Nights like this make me resigned to the fact that most people don’t experience these gigs in the same way I do. I remind myself that London crowds always SUCK.

At one point, when Bat for Lashes were on, we realised we were standing in front of Steve Lamacq. In a break between songs I introduced myself. Turns out the researcher who had been teasing me with the idea that I could send in something to his show about the tour had been away for the last week. My dreams of a radio career melt before my eyes.

Mr Lamacq did note that we were in the “Prawn Sandwich” section of the crowd, where people can afford to spend £50 on a ticket and then just socialise, drink and chat without being all that bothered about the gig. I drawn the line at a Radiohead gig becoming an exercise in corporate hospitality.

Once it got dark and the light show was in full effect, things improved. The band are enjoying Bangers & Mash and still doing the You And Whose Army/ Idioteque segue.

Thom came back on and played Cymbal Rush. They finished as a band with Planet Telex , which sounded a bit all over the place, the mix at the sides of the field wasn’t very balanced.

There was some ligging action to be had later. This being London, it was in a proper festival-style bar tent with picnic tables and bowls of sweets. (Parma Violets anyone?)

All a bit surreal. I’m introduced to an American called “Beetle” who has been to forty shows and compares the whole experience to following The Grateful Dead, only with less drugs and better music. I guess I’m part of that whole scene but it doesn’t feel like my experience.

People who know better than me reckoned the gig was pretty good (but they don’t have the problems us punters have to put up with).

I get down a lot earlier today to meet my contact to get my ticket. The weather was pretty much perfect by the time I got to Victoria Park and there were some fairly relaxed queues at about 3pm. I casually joined the one that was due to open last and by the time the gates opened at 4pm it was relatively easy to find a good spot. I joined a couple of boardies just on the barrier at the front, far Jonny-side (as opposed to Ed-wards).

It would seem to be the rule that the second night in a venue is always better. The weather held. The crowd behaved. The band stormed it with a slightly more crowd friendly set than last night. From my point of view it couldn’t have been better, decent view, excellent sound, human security personnel and minimal pushing from behind. Even a light breeze to keep us cool. I go on about how I don’t like to queue and I can’t stand the tension, that I’m not that bothered about being at the front, but it all gets shown up as hubris when you get your ribs near the rail. It was just 100 times better than the night before.

Radiohead rip straight into Idioteque out of Everything In Its Right Place and encored with Karma Police, The Bends and 2+2=5. The crowd carried on singing Karma Police after the band had left the stage (after Thom had done an extra chorus on his own).

The band were FEELING it tonight. Thom even invited EVERYONE to the aftershow party (and judging by the amount of people trying to get in, some took him literally at his word).

Liggers included Jude Law and his kids, a skinny red haired model, various people with “I’m in a Band” haircuts (I stopped reading NME so I couldn’t identify them) and a few more likely celebs (blah blah blah).

We were too busy tearing a hole in the space-time continuum…(Clara’s b’f has more than a passing resemblance to Ed and having them in the same tent at the same time could cause a rift!)

That orange cider should have a health warning on it though, nothing that colour should be fit for human consumption. Apparently more than 90 shows is too many… I think that means I’ve been around so long I make certain people feel old!

We pile into a mini cab in the early hours and attempt to reach Hammersmith, getting pulled over by the police on a flyover (the cab driver’s fault not ours) turning the journey into a continuation of the unreality of the previous few hours.