Omens...

A troubadour in the last days of everything...

September 5^th Wiltshire

It's hammering down. Biblical. For two days the rain hasn't stopped. I try not to see omens in everything, but if the rainbow is a sign of God's promise to never drown the world again, he seems to have changed his mind. Maybe I should look to hire a boat for the tour. Or build one. I like to do several things at once, especially when time is short.

I leave in five days. My finger tips are hardening enough to be able to get through an hour-and-a-half or more on stage, but if I have to factor in water damage from swimming to venues, I’ll need to rehearse extra hard. After a long chest infection had me rasping instead of singing for most of the Summer— the post-covid hundred day cough—my voice is finally almost getting there.

But I'm terrified. Not of performing, I love that, and although I get pre-show nerves, I'd characterise it more as excitement, my body sending a shot of adrenaline through me to prime me for action. I'm worried that I won't make it through the tour. The schedule is brutal. Another symptom of music in the internet age, every person and his dog is out touring the pubs, clubs, theatres and arenas in an attempt to make up for the loss of earnings, now that music is free.

Consequently you have to battle for shows, booking far too many in a row, and accepting the fact that you'll spend more time travelling and in cheap hotels than is strictly good for the mental and physical health.

Speaking of which, I'm fifty-five. Things are starting to crumble. I wouldn't call myself old exactly, but things that seemed like nothing when I was first doing this, now take a toll. I've already toured a lot in the past twelve months, in Belgium, Holland and France. Slowly I've developed a combination of tennis elbow and RSI to varying degrees in both arms and wrists. Not very cool-sounding ailments for the still wannabe rock star, and not ideal for someone whose living involves playing instruments. Try not doing the same thing over and over, my physiotherapist says, offering career advice in more ways than one.

If I'm honest, some days it hurts a lot. And when the pain lessens there is numbness and pins and needles to contend with. Now obviously I've googled this, and very clearly I am going to die of MS or MD, or some other equally hideous combination of consonants, which is where my brain goes when I combine hypochondria with a search engine. I'm only ever a hangnail and three clicks away from some terminal disease.

I think I can just about nurse myself through a show, if I switch between piano and guitar. If the picking gets difficult, I'll strum a few instead. I was never the world's greatest musician, I’m more interested in being John Lennon than John Mayer, but I like to think I've worked out a way to present my songs which isn't totally without skill, and I don't want to let myself, the songs, or the audience down.

It's before and after the show I worry about. The loading in, the loading out. The placing of luggage in overhead bins, the wrangling of guitars on and off planes, in and out of taxis. The days of me being able to afford roadies are long gone. On top of the tennis elbow and RSI, I’ve also got Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, whose medical acronym is TOS. Supply your own joke. These various ailments—and they are only minor ailments—aren't deadly, but without proper rest days in an already gruelling travel schedule, I'm fearful the wear and tear may prove too much.

My friend, Elen, uses a wheelchair. Two of my oldest friends have recently been diagnosed with cancer, and another with Parkinson’s. So let's keep some perspective here. I ache and tingle, and sometimes get numb. I can get through this as best I can. I had wanted to enjoy it pain free—my valedictory tour— and if not actually a final farewell, then at least a way to commemorate twenty-five years in the business. If I have to do it in discomfort, then that too, is the privilege of age. After fifty, isn’t everyone carrying some kind of injury, physical or emotional?

This is my twenty-fourth year of touring. Twenty-fifth would sound better, a quarter of a century. Yesterday in The Guardian I saw an advert for Hue And Cry, a Scottish duo celebrating their 40th anniversary. In 1998, the year before I signed my first record deal, my band went on tour opening for them around some local theatres in the north of England. Maybe only three or four shows, but we were four boys in a van, rattling around the countryside, imagining ourselves Led Zeppelin in our customised Starship jet. So in my head that counts—and for the purpose of this diary—it rounds up my years of touring to twenty-five.

Speaking of rounding up, there are forty-nine shows on this tour. And it bugs me that it's not fifty. I want to see if I can add just one more, even though I know it’s already a lot of gigs. I’ve set myself a target of trying to at least complete the first two weeks, if the pain is too much at that point I’ll have a rethink. At this stage, what’s one more? And you know what else doesn’t help the pain? Typing.

I’m fully aware that much of tour life is repetitive, and could easily slip by without remark, but right now there are things I want to document. My world is changing. The music industry is shape-shifting by the hour, and currently stands on the edge of a precipice. Two grassroots venues close a week in the UK, and it’s not much better elsewhere in the world. Covid, Ukraine, the cost of living crisis, and a world in political and climatic turmoil. Now it might just be my last days of touring—or it might be the last days of anyone touring at this level. Either way it feels like the last days of something. It could turn out to be the last days of everything.

As I write, Trump looks as if he may sneak a second term. Him, Putin or Netanyahu could spark a third world war, and if that doesn’t kill us, then climate collapse just might. So…music, capitalism, democracy, civilisation, my body— all falling apart. See? It’s gone dark again. This is why I write this stuff down. And why, inevitably, it works its way into songs. The songs I’ll be attempting to play on this tour, if my body lets me.

Tour diary extract, September 5th, Wiltshire, 2024