This is something I wrote up last year, and never got around to posting. I'm putting it up now because I want other fans in the US and elsewhere to know what it's like to come over to Europe to travel a bit, going from date to date with the band and the following. And also because I'll be back over to the UK in a month for the Nights Of A Thousand Voices.
Short version: Thanks so much to band, crew, Jack, Louise, and Tarje for showing Jeff and myself an unforgettable experience. (Except for the parts I've forgotten.)
Long version: Well, read on.
Day 1: Or flight was delayed for seven hours, due to a flat tire on the plane, and some kind of "security incident" in Iceland. We finally arrive in London at 1:30am, and there is a massive email cockup, meaning we have no gate code for our AirBnB. So we head for the Crobar, as I know it to be open until 3am. Jeff and I get offered a threesome with a very, very drunk and friendly young lady who is a holdover from the earlier Mayhem show at the Electric Ballroom. We decline, obviously, but at my age it's an amusing welcome to England. A billion texts to the landlord are finally answered, and we collapse in our Camden 'gaff.'
Day 2: We hit the British Library for a very economical afternoon of culture. We see the Magna Carta, a Gutenberg bible, and (most important for the music nerds), handwritten Beatles lyrics. We have an evening curry meet-up with Jack Cheung, who doesn't know us from Adam. (I'm very appreciative that I've flown halfway around the world and this fellow is willing to drive us several hundred miles, having never met us, just because we all like the same band.), Then we are off to Shoreditch for a reggae open-mic night at the Troy Bar, which was sensational. Highly recommended. The best reggae singers in London sit in with a shit-hot house band. Really good stuff. We closed that down and returned to the Crobar, again, which was slightly less insane than the night before. We saw closing time again and took a pedicab back through London at 4am with the bike-cabbie blasting Congo Natty and Iron Maiden through his sound system.
Day 3: The NMA Tour properly begins! We took a train to Norwich, and had a good stroll around. We had lunch at some riverside pub. Then pints in a pub, the Adam & Eve, built in 1249AD. Saw the castle. After rejecting several Witherspoon-type pubs, Jeff and I settled at a pub in a college basement cellar that was built in 1100. (Jurnet's Bar.) The gig is at the Waterfront, which is okay. Low ceilings. Several days of drinking and dodgy late-night kebabs in Camden have me unfocused on the show. I've flown halfway around the world to see this tour, and I'm jetlagged and hungover and feeling shitty. To be honest, I'm just waiting for it to be over. It finally is, and I go rid myself of a few of my demons back at the hotel. Manfully, I rally and meet the touring party back over at the same riverside pub where we had lunch, The Compleat Angler. We close that place down, having a good old chat about everything with members of the band, crew, and touring party. Then a local, "Jeremy" convinces us to go out for "just a couple" more drinks, so we end up at some appalling student disco. (The only place that will let us in because Maggi Dave is wearing shorts on a Friday night.) It's terrible. The kind of place that has seven varieties of "Jaeger Bombs" for $3.50. They see the NMA fans roll in, and the DJ cues up a set of old-person music. We cut a mean rug to Madness' "One Step Beyond" and britpop hits of the 90s. Jaegar bombs are, in fact, consumed. Jeff and I have our only real row of the entire trip, as we only have one key for the B&B, and we can't both decide we want to return to the hotel at the same time.
Day 4: It's our first day in JC's car. It is a rocket. Me, Jeff, Louise and Jack's lead-foot. Jack was a fantastic host. He could have just bombed straight to the next town, and left us to wander on our own for six or seven hours before the gig. But he wanted to make sure we saw some proper English culture, so we stopped by Burghley Park to walk around the great house grounds a bit (and buy my wife a tea-towel, Louise's suggestion for the perfect English gift). Then it was off to the medieval village of Stamford, where Jack happened to grow up, for a surreal wander through the ancient cobbled alleys, all while a fun-fair was going full-blast in the middle of almost all the streets and lanes. It was a very odd juxtaposition. Coupled with the jetlag, the fun-fair had an almost hallucinatory quality. Then back into the BMW rocket-sled to Wolverhampton, and the somewhat seedy Britannia Hotel. Whatever, it was cheap. We tried to meet people for a pre-gig meet-up at the Lych Gate Tavern, but there was a home Wolves game, and the place was mobbed. Jack drove us in to Bilston, where folks did meet up at The Trumpet ("Slade's home bar," interestingly enough.) The gig was at the Robin 2, and it was blinding. Jack sensibly suggested I should go down into the pit, where all the touring people I'd already met would be. I was so much more involved and engaged with the music this night, largely thanks to that suggestion (and also not being nearly so jet-lagged and hungover). Great show, sold out, in a proper sweaty venue. This show underscored for me why I had gone through all this effort to fly over here to see THIS band. An awesome gig.
Jack had arranged a post-show curry at the India Gates, just a few doors down from the venue. So they stayed open just for the Army post-show party, which was three huge tables of random fans, crew, and musicians. I decided to catch a ride back to the hotel with a lovely couple I was seated near, just to give Jack a break from my company, and to change things up a bit. This turned out to be one of my best and worst random decisions. Because we were also giving a very drunk Italian dude a ride, we were some of the last people out of the restaurant, as he was talking at some length to Justin Sullivan. So as we were finally all walking out, JS and I got to chatting, and he realized I was Jeff's friend from America. We had a lovely discussion about, among other things, working with Glyn Johns, whose autobiography I happened to be reading on the plane, completely by chance. (He told a nice story which is, I guess, in the documentary, about he and Johns arguing and Johns taking him into the hallway to show him the rows and rows of platinum records he had made, asking "how many of these do you have?") We also talked about "Get Me Out." Jeff and I both have pirate radio shows on
www.radiovalencia.fm, and for a great while I was playing "Get Me Out" every time there was a mass shooting in America. But I had to stop and save it for the particularly egregious ones, lest I end up playing it every goddamn week. Anyway, I did not *request* it, I merely discussed the song's importance to me. Walking down a dark and quiet street in smalltown England with the lead singer of New Model Army. As you do.
We dropped off our drunk Italian friend, which took almost an hour of dicking about with Google maps, and finally rendezvoused with people at the Giffard Arms. I remember very little about this, aside from my lovely hosts (whose names, I'm sorry, escape me [edit: BEARD]) and me sitting in the venue's Game-of-Thrones-type Iron Throne. Then a short walk back to our crappy hotel.
Day 5: (It must be admitted that here I fell into a jet-lagged sleep and left this diary alone for more than a week. So details, at this point, become somewhat fuzzier.)
Another afternoon in Jack's rocket-sled, and we were in Northampton. Wait, no, today Jack's cultural-tour took us first to Warwick Castle, which was a bit Disney compared to the solemn dignity of Burghley Park, but still very worth your time. By this point Louise had left the party, but we had picked up Tarje, who shares a fascination with earthquake-science with my wife. (I do hope to see him on the West Coast of the USA for some of his earthquake science conferences.) We hit the Queen and Castle in Castle Green and had a proper Sunday Roast. (The best Sunday Roast I've had in England, to be honest.) Jeff and I were surprised with the amount of roast beef we were offered, and were able to consume. Then we were off to the Ibis. As an aside, I've stayed in Ibis hotels from Tokyo to Northampton, and they are consistently generic, boring, functional, and clean. They offer no surprises. When traveling, that's usually all I want from my hotel. A quick march up the main road in Northampton on a Sunday afternoon, and we met folks at a pub I've forgotten the name of, (The Bear?) and whose proprietor was unhappy about, and unmoved by, a crowd of thirsty Army fans. The show at the Roadmender was less memorable than the night before, but still brilliant. Moreover, the band played "Get Me Out" which found me going absolutely mental in the pit. (Sorry, everyone.) The fact JS and I had talked about it the night previous, and then they threw it into the set tonight, well, let's just say it had a big impact on me, and my enjoyment of the entire tour. I know MD said they used to overplay that track, but for me coming from the other side of the world, and talking about why it mattered to me...for them to give it the only live airing of this run of dates...it just really moved me. Thank you.
After the gig we went to a shit Wetherspoon's pub called the Cordwainer, where the barman spent as much time griping about being busy as he did serving drinks. (This was actually fairly amusing. After I finally had my pint.) For the first time, the band didn't appear at the after-show, presumably because they were within striking distance of their real homes and beds. Then the Cordwanker closed up and we all decamped the The Boston. My notes here say "apparently when in Northampton in search of late night drink, one goes to the gay bar." So 20 drunk New Model Army fans "of a certain age" descend on the gay bar. The local fit-and-20-something-gay-fellows are not amused, but the karaoke DJ is. She plays us all manner of gothy 80s and 90s jams, a particular highlight being "This Corrosion" in all its 10-minute glory. There is much drunken stomping about and goth-dancing. We're told they have NMA on the karaoke machine, but somehow it never comes up. At this point there are many drunken promises that we're going to fly up to the Glasgow gig after Monday, the random day-off laundry day.
Day 6: Jack has (sensibly?) returned to London for work, and we've (sensibly?) slept-in a bit at the Ibis. I make sure Jeff is paying attention by leaving it until literally the last second before I arrive on the train platform. (I took a wrong turn thanks to google maps, and had to sprint my not-particularly-cardio-toned carcass to the station, arriving after the conductor had thrown the switch to close the train doors, but in the nano-second before the doors actually closed. Good times.)
I listened to a lot of Congo Natty on the way to Cambridge. His "Jungle Revolution in Dub" record was the soundtrack for all my train journeys on this trip.
We headed to Cambridge via London (making a 60 mile journey into a 120 mile journey) and arrived at a YHA hostel. I hit a shop called Black Barn Records, and ended up buying so many reggae represses than I had to then find a post office and ship myself a package home, lest I exceed my baggage allowance. Jeff and I saw The Jesus and Mary Chain at the Cambridge Junction, which was okay. The band weren't as punishingly loud as advertised, but had a shrill component that made ear-plugs essential. After three days of passionate NMA performances, the J&MC's cool detachment was, well, very different. I enjoyed the tunes immensely. Did they speak to me on a deeply emotional level? Nope. Jeff and I then passed a pleasant evening at the Earl of Derby after the gig. We had addresses for after parties and late-night pubs, but we had a few quiet pints and went to bed at a reasonable hour. For once.
Day 7: Today was a weird one. We got in to London and I had an invitation to Claridge's from some friends from San Francisco. They were taking their adopted daughter back to Ethiopia for a visit, so she could get a sense of where she was from, and they booked into the ******* penthouse at Claridge's. The place the Queen of Spain stays, apparently, when she's in London. (Does Spain still have a queen?) Anyway, I was not planning on being in Claridge's, so hadn't exactly packed the evening dress one would expect. So there's me at the bar at Claridge's, wearing the same ******* anarcho-punk hoodie I'd been wearing for seven straight days, ordering a Lagavulin, because **** you. The Claridge's staff could not have been more friendly and pleasant. The bartender, noting I enjoyed Lagavulin, poured me a free full measure of some other Lagavulin single malt that was nurtured in sherry casks or something, that he had as a promotional item. We had a nice chat about oak in scotch casking. Like you ******* do. Anyway, my friend turns up and we have a lovely hang in the (holy ******* hell) penthouse at Claridge's, with a view of Big Ben and whatnot. After a week on a folk-punk rock tour, this was a significant change in scenery. (But I was visiting my friend Mitch, with whom I share a love of reggae, and we spent much of the time talking about those reggae reissues I bought in Cambridge.) Anyway, his family went off to a museum, and Mitch and I had lunch at the Claridge's restaurant. Best roast beef sandwich ever, and a fine, fine bottle of wine.
I reconvened with Jeff, and we agreed that going to the Crobar a third time this visit would border on the pathetic. So we met up at the Devonshire Arms. (The Dev, to its friends.) Many pints were sank, the bartender (CJ) was befriended, and we ended up going for our only fish and chips of this visit, at Poppies. (A bit shit for atmosphere really, but the fish was good.)
Day 8?: Jeff left for the airport before me, knowing my penchant for leisure in regard to airplanes and trains and timetables and promptness. I got on the slow-as-shit non-express to the airport, but still managed to appear in time for my flight. Just.
So then we flew to Iceland. Here I feel like I need to offer my readers some word of warning. Do NOT do Iceland like I did. Iceland is renowned for its natural wonders and the beauty of its scenic landscapes. I didn't have time to explore these landscapes, but I assumed Reykjavik would provide an interesting layover. Do Not DO this. Either give yourself enough time in Iceland to rent a car and go see the natural wonders, or give yourself as short a layover in Iceland as you can book. I had the option of four hours or 28 hours. I wish I'd taken four.
Reykjavik is not cool or interesting or picturesque. It's a mediocre fishing village of 130,000 people, with nothing charming or pretty about it. The people are friendly. The town is muddy and boring, and eye-wateringly expensive. I had a bowl of chowder and a bottle of beer at a local fisherman's cafe, and it was $50 US. I had a pint of beer at a bar and it was $18.50. A can of lager at the bus station is $13. The people are great, but **** that place. Jeff and I ended up drinking our bottle of duty-free gin back at our B&B just because then we weren't hemorrhaging money. (If you do find yourself in Iceland, and in need of a drink, I can recommend Dillon's Whiskey Bar. It's rapaciously expensive, but you can order strategically, and a Jameson is only $13, or about the same price as a hotel bar back home. And some good quality Campbeltown scotches are only $20. They don't have to ship those items as far as we do in the US.)
Jeff and I checked out a record store, "Lucky Records", where a used record went for $37. We bailed before I found anything that I "had" to buy. I had two cans of lager at the bus station cafe, (still $13 each), on the way out. **** Iceland.
We flew home into a gale. 68mph winds were reported near the airport. A bottle of duty-free gin was demolished on the way to the ground because there's no point in dying whilst also being terrified.
And then I was home.
Epilogue: What's interesting (to me) is that I thought this was a one-off. That this was something I should have done 20 years ago, when I was super-obsessed with New Model Army. What I didn't realize was that I was going to be welcomed into a subculture I was already a part of, and I was just unaware of it. People who were obsessed with this band back then remain obsessed with this band a number of years later. I appear to be one of them. I thought I might do this once. Now I think it's very likely I'll do this again. Surely for the 40th anniversary, if not before. Probably as often as I can find the time or afford the airfare. You bastards. Thank you, everyone. Wake me in a thousand years.
