Workin' Day And Night...

I got in quite late, about half three…the previous times I’ve stormed the stairs of her house she’s been kind of awake, but this particular night I knew as soon as I touched her that I was waking her from an unmemorably deep sleep…exhausted from a week’s touring I curled up beside her and watched as she sank back into the realm…

My walk to the tube later in the morning was marked by the growing realisation that the English summer is definitely on its way. It gets in under your clothes, stays with your every thought like an old joke you can’t quite remember. For after the English lion of a nine-month winter, one's memories of the warmer times almost vanish into the drizzle until sure enough the thaw comes around. A concept such as drawing heat AND warmth from the sun simultaneously (usually mutually exclusive in this country) becomes a frightening possibility.

My second day ‘off’ from touring was spent at the Pineapple studios on Langley Street in Covent Garden, a day of auditions and recalls for JM’s other show for which I attended as faithful organ grinder monkey piano player for willing contestants. Last week we were at the top, today in the basement, under absurd conditions. Intimate bedroom scenes played out before us were accompanied from the room to our left by rehearsals for the new production of ‘Chess’, then at times from the rehearsal above of the new production of ‘A Chorus Line’. Then of course the Chess people wanted air conditioning, which in a typically absurd English building kind of way set off the air conditioning in our room as well, noisy and cold. What were we to have next, burst Victorian water mains from the floor as well?!

So I didn’t play much but got to watch some stellar acting and great singing…
In the afternoon I called a good friend of mine who was at a bit of a loose end with hemispheres and freelance music career and relationships and stuff. Having had some experience with these matters, a stir-fry led to a bottle of wine led to another excursion into Henry VIII's old hunting fields of Soho to meet up with PR for another night on the lash (is that the expression?) at Gerry’s. This was meant to be my off night, nice takeaway curry with Medusa at her house, quiet movie, but no, it’s back into the den of iniquity on Dean Street….
We flew to Amsterdam today for Thriller’s Dutch leg…it’s so nice to be back in the continent, little things like people being happy and stuff working and looking nice…I didn’t hit the nightlife of the northern town of Zwolle like most of the rest of the guys, instead sitting in at the hotel bar with the band boys and some solid scotch…