Day One: Columbus, Ohio
delsIt seems appropriate that we are back in Ohio where the we played the final show of last year’s US tour—Columbus this time. But it was touch and go getting here. A catalogue of mishaps on the journey—phantom bags; lost (and, thankfully, found) passports; a two and a half hour delay at Heathrow airport that left us stranded in Philadelphia; a disagreement with US Customs that almost resulted in us having all of our guitars impounded. But we made it to the show with an hour to spare, a little frayed around the edges but in one piece and with the guitars.
The scene at Kemba Live was one of developing chaos. Hundreds of cases (including two containing pinball machines) had spewed forth from three forty foot semis and filled the huge backstage. Backline for us and Semisonic (the second support for the first half of the tour) along with hundreds of boxes of merchandise were added to this mountain of stuff as the day unfolded.
It was stupidly hot for early June, but a veneer of calm and politeness remained intact among the fifty odd people employed to deal with this mess. Whether the weather aided or hindered the mood backstage is hard to say but whoever designed the venue had made no concessions for any performance on the stage before sun down on such a day. The fierce mid-west sun beat down on us during the sound check and by show time it was directly in our faces.
Dan from Semisonic described being on stage in the sunshine to me as “mysteryless”, but it was so freaking hot our concern turned out not to be the lack of mystery but avoiding heat exhaustion. Kris, who has pretty strict conception of what can and can’t be worn on a rock-and-roll stage, was reduced to wearing a bucket hat and at one point during the set sought relief crouched behind his amp in the only shade he could find. In these conditions everything had the potential to feel like nasty hard work. But people work hard to make a living. And no matter how much grief comes your way on tour, playing music every night isn’t really work. We are, as our tour comedian Buddy never tires of telling us and anyone else who enquires about the state of things, living inside the rainbow.