DENMARK. ODENSE – ODEON. DEC 4TH.

December 5, 2017

Good and bad points of the morning.
I slept well.
Hurrah!
My alarm didn’t go off.
Bollocks.
Where’s the cat when you need it?

I was just leaving my room when Vinny appeared to rouse me to the hour.
We walked to the airport – he, I and G, and we still hung around longer in the terminal than our journey would take.
Such is flight.

I am bone tired and mildly concerned about yesterday only being the first in a run of three.

My voice feels compromised.
Like it needs more air to muster any useful volume.

I determine to be silent and straw blow at my earliest convenience.

We have hired a car and Vinny is back in the driving seat.
I have the back seats to myself.
These are The Turn perks I best enjoy.

It’s like having a camp on Mud Hill.
Basildon’s Mud Hill, that is, which was in fact a mild swampy rise on the fringing of a housing estate, as opposed to an infamous war location.
This is not a dirty train.
I just liked camps.

I have half a splendid sandwich and my ruck sack is Wilson.
Everyone knows not to engage me in unnecessary conversation.
I’m getting very good at alone in a crowd.

We drive 2 hours. Straight to the venue.
The Odeon in Odense is a new build and very fine it is too.
It makes me think, visually, of a larger Round House, only square and bigger, and with a different look entirely.

It has a large standing floor and then two evenly separated tiers of sage coloured seating, reaching up very high at the back.
It is a magnificent beauty. A well considered performance space.
Plain, but with delightful proportions.
The sound, when we check it, is very cooperative.
It is a top notch facility.

I have straw blown the whole drive.
G and Vinny don’t even comment. They are like well experienced friends of a Tourette’s sufferer.
It doesn’t even register.
Them being regular.
Me in the back going ‘eeeeeh’ up a straw.
Incessantly.

James and John are both fighting illnesses of a cold nature.

Warm hearted as I am,
and I certainly am,
I shun the diseased shits.

That’s how it is.

Poorly bones or failing Internal organs and I, Jesus motherly, will tender you with all kind heart.

Fetching to and fro.

Soft words.

The lot.

Colds and you can fuck right off.

Don’t infect my lungs, arse cake.

Colds are shitting leprosy to me.
The type where body bits fall off.
That much of a violence to my self.
Close proximity? Be damned.
Back off, Zombie freak boy.

My room is perfect.
The wardrobe can be accommodated within.
Weaveworld is close to climaxing.
G is editing pictures.
I am ready.

We warm up with scales and our ever increasing Beatles repertoire. Currently we are best at ‘She Said She Said’, ‘I’m only sleeping’ and ‘We can work it out’.
And then Dougie comes to fetch us.

I am primed.
Sound check has indicated that I work.
My regime has paid dividends.

On stage tonight the sound is great.
We aren’t travelling with our own desks, but here they have one that I think James said we use at home.
So it’s all dialled up.
That’s an approximation of what James said.
I nod my full understanding when really my expertise on the matter is at the level that I had in my short-lived hair dressing apprenticeship career.
6 weeks.
Aged 16.
Before I got sacked for bunking off to see a Tom Robinson gig that I never even made it to.

When I left that poxy establishment, I was pretty proficient at neutralising a perm.

It’s lucky I got out of that game.

As with coal mining, perming is not a high demand service down south these days.
I’d have struggled.

I am having a really great gig.
My voice is utterly biddable.
The audience are attentive and engaged and again, diverse.
A gigging audience.
I still love that.

About 10 rows of bodies deep though, I see that tell tale sign.
One face illuminated in the dark.
Looking down.
Focussing hard.
Web browsing.
I sing most of Beautiful Gun at him.
Direct.
Half bent.
Unblinking.
Dead eyed Mo stare.
The one that strips paint.

He doesn’t look up at any point to clock it.

At the end of the song I announce for his benefit that this is not a hits set.
If you’re going to spend every song you don’t know on the internet, go to the back and I’ll let you know when a pop-tastic is coming up.

The crowd cheer.
He doesn’t notice.
So engrossed is he.
His face a moon in a night sky for all to navigate by.
He probably found a splendid Dogs Do Tricks compilation.
Oblivious.
The middle-aged of today, eh?
No manners.

In the bare expression of Other, the quiet was profound, but for, oddly, a couple of people talking baldly in ear shot.
G said later it was the bar staff having a catch up.
She hates that, she says.
I’m not fond either, but the audience proper were impeccable.
This was not a crowd to be named by one man and a brace of bar girls though.
Here I was met by a sea of heart, concentration and acceptance.
It was a brilliant time we shared and it ranks among my favourites.
I left the stage feeling very good indeed.
Straight from my riser into the car.
Dusted by snow.
We begin out drive back to Copenhagen.