It’s presently 5:46 AM in London. I am finally getting around to another recollection of recent events after putting it off for a week. Well, I guess that I needed the week for those events to actually unfold, but the way things have been happening on this tour, maybe I didn’t.

Adam Schlesinger called me about two months ago with another golden touring opportunity. The Fountains of Wayne were heading off to Europe. Apparently I had passed the litmus test last year in Japan, so he was asking me along. Feeling very grateful and ready to get to rocking again, I packed my bags and headed East.

I arrived in Dublin in much better shape than usual. After checking in to the Camden Deluxe, napping off some jet lag and polishing off a bottle of white wine, I hooked up with the fellows at a restaurant on the River Liffey for some dinner. Afterwards, we went to the Late Late Show, on which they were performing. I enjoyed staring at a chimpanzee guesting on the show before Fountains. Everyone had begun to drink seriously by this point, which helped the lip-synching along considerably. After the show, Adam, Jody Porter and I were taken to the Irish Music Awards. Despite being horribly underdressed for the occasion we sauntered in and made the best of things. Jody was asked to leave fairly quickly. My jet lag and drunkenness collided an hour or two later and I was forced to exit the building and stumble to a cab.

Hangovers in hotels can be downright overwhelming. Awakening to various stages of pain and sickness in a room without purified water and comfort food (not to mention an empathetic wife) is a goddamn drag. I shivered through it and finally pulled myself out of bed around 4:30. Another cab to the Ambassador Theater and the sinking sensation that I was supposed to be performing in a few hours.

It was awfully cold in Dublin already, and the Edwardian confines of the Ambassador were unbelievably frigid. I sat in the dressing room and watched my breath come out of my mouth until the boys were done with their sound check. My sound check felt remarkably good, all things considered. I was coming back up and getting excited about the show.

My excitement turned to dread after the first few measures of ‘Nashville.’ It requires some fairly nimble finger picking on the guitar, and my frozen fingers were not up to the task. I almost began laughing in the middle of it, it was so bad. The rest of the night was spent trying to recover. The crowd was exceptionally accommodating and everyone felt very friendly by the end of the show. Fountains came out swinging and never let them up for air. A successful night on most accounts.

The next day brought a very early flight to Manchester. I arrived at the hotel too early to check in, so I blew an hour or two walking around. I bought a book (which I would later leave in the hotel in Glasgow with 37 pages to go) and got to drinking in the hotel pub. Well, a solitary pint, anyway. I still felt discombobulated and was happy to finally check in and grab a quick nap before sound check. The gig was excellent. Manchester was far more receptive than usual and my voice and fingers were back in shape.

The next day I met up with the crew and rode in the splitter cargo van to Glasgow. After another nap in the hotel, I went over to The Garage for sound check. The gig itself was kind of shitty, to be frank. I can’t explain why. The crowd seemed bored and I found myself feeling bitter onstage. I offered very little love and received none in return. I have played Glasgow so many times now that I expected something resembling a warm response. Maybe I was just not very good. Or maybe the constant effort of having to win a crowd over instead of just having them enjoy the music was wearing on me. Either way, the night remained very cold and very dirty and nothing could really alter the sensation. Boo Hoo.

I had an easy flight to Heathrow the next day. I was delighted to arrive at the Nettwerk flat in Primrose Hill, a cute little one bedroom number on the third floor that I immediately felt comfortable in. I took a stroll around the neighborhood and settled into the pub on the corner. I eavesdropped on various conversations and read my book for two pints, then came back to the apartment. Someone had left the entire second season of The Sopranos on video, so I started watching and didn’t stop for quite awhile. 6:00 or so in the morning, to be exact...

Which made getting up for a lunch appointment the next day a little harder than it should have been. I did make it to Kensington in time to have a very satisfying meal with my manager and the head of marketing at my new label over here, Mike McNally. I ordered a vegetarian pot pie that was really something.

Afterwards, I went straight to the gig to change my guitar strings and check out the venue. The Astoria is a 2,000 capacity venue in Soho, although its tiered balcony made it feel smaller. After sound check I went across the street to meet my good friend Alan McBlaine for a pint. We caught up for an hour or so and then went back to the gig.

The floor was pretty full by the time I took the stage. The audience seemed fairly responsive, especially after ‘Comfort’ and ‘Girl on the Roof.’ I think I played fairly well, although I wish I had done certain things better. Next time I’ll be back with a little bit more direction and I’ll get it sorted out.

There was a more extensive dressing room hang than usual, which was fun, but only meant that I had to share the hummus with a lot of other people. After that we went to a very trendy club that was somewhat overpriced and fairly boring. I went back to the Fountains’ hotel with Brian and Chris after standing in the rain for a half an hour trying to get a cab. We kept drinking until about 4:00. I remember Chris correcting my usage of the word ‘penultimate’ at some point.

Today I awoke at noon and called my good friend Chuck Norman. readers of these pages may recall that Chuck did a lot of programming on Wherever You Are, my unreleased third album. We had coffees outside a cafe and caught up. Chuck’s life is going so well you can almost smell it, which made me very happy. We took a nice stroll up Primrose Hill and talked about our mothers. Then we went to the pub and talked some more.

I met most of the Fountains boys in Islington to go to a Stereolab gig. The show was pretty good but the crowd was somewhat unmanageable. I decided to leave after seven or eight songs. I took the tube home and settled in to watch some BBC before hitting the sack for the 8:00 bus call the next day...

Which brings us to now. I don’t know if I am having some sort of depressive insomnia or if I just haven’t been able to kick my jet lag, but getting to bed at a reasonable hour has been a real chore on this tour. I continued watching TV, listened to music, watched more TV... and here we are. I am leaving to go to Paris on a tour bus in an hour and a half. Wish me luck....

HOME AGAIN

I made it to the bus by 8:00 the next morning with no problems. It turned out that everyone else was late, anyway, so I was able to secure a bunk and get down to some serious sleep. I woke up outside of Paris. Adam and I listened to my new record on the way into town, which was an interesting experience. (‘goin back to Nashville’ while staring down French industrial neighborhoods)
After narrowly avoiding death while getting our bags out of the bus on a narrow Parisian street, we checked into the hotel. A French EMI representative took us to dinner in the Bastille district. It was far and away the best meal I would have for the entire tour. Everyone stuffed themselves drank a lot of red wine. Jody Porter talked loudly. I smoked between every course. Chris Collingswood was not amused.

A ‘Big Night In Paris’ seemed to be brewing, but it quickly dissolved into ten fellows walking around in no particular direction with no purpose. I ended up sitting in a bar near the hotel with Jody and Arjun, FOW stage tech. We drank a ridiculous amount of Belgian beer and talked about deep things while a Frenchman crooned Oasis covers behind a piano. I went back to the hotel and took a bubble bath, then called my wife several times before she threatened to leave me if I didn’t shut up and go to bed.

The show the next night was a new experience in that it was my first in Paris. The gig was very well lit and the audience was incredibly attentive and reverent. They made me feel relevant and kind of interesting, a rare occurrence. My lack of French prevented me from saying much, which was probably a good thing. I am looking forward to returning very soon.

Everyone made the rounds of a few different bars after the show. I heard some stunning African music in a tiny basement place. Unfortunately, we arrived during the last song. We went to another bar that looked like an old Metropolitain station. People talked, people hung out. I found it difficult to get into any sort of rhythm with anyone besides Adam, who had secretly (and uncharacteristically) consumed quite a bit of Jamieson’s, leaving himself unable to converse in anything other than a bad French accent. Everyone was tired and fairly relieved when the bus finally pulled up in front of the opera house around 3:00. I was in my bunk before Adam could say ‘I teenk dees ees dee best tour boos I have neveer seen.’

It was awfully cool to wake up in the middle of Amsterdam, as if the cobblestones and canals had magically materialized around the bus in the middle of the night. I had a very quieting stroll through the center of town where I bought a few gifts and ate a great big Panakouken with ham, apples and cheese. An aborted nap at the hotel made me late for sound check, but the engineers were very laid back about it and no one’s feelings were hurt.

The gig was the noisiest of the tour, probably due to the overwhelming amount of stoned Americans there to rock. Dude. But I was highly aware that this was my last show and was determined to not let a few cocksuckers ruin it for me. So I gathered my remaining cajones and pushed through it. The Fountains rocked, easily fulfilling every collegiate druggie’s fantasy and more. Later, I joined them for a duet rendition of their song ‘Fine Day for a Parade.’ It was a good way to tie things up, I thought; a fine tour with fine fellows.

24 hours later I was back in Nashville. It looked and felt remarkably normal. Good. I like it here more and more. Nat and I went for Mexican; she told me that a friend of a friend is doing a movie about simultaneous events occurring all over the world during a three minute period in April. Uh-Huh. Don’t I know it.