chrisg's Tour Diary

Early start again. Toady is our 'big' drive down from Newcastle (at the top of England) to Colchester (about an hour or so east of London). Funny thing is, our big drive is 6 hours, which is on the low end of our usual drive times in the US. So we're not too daunted.

Colchester is a beautiful town, and reportedly the first recorded town in England. The downtown is a lot of small winding streets with little shoppes. Kind of like Bath, but the town seems larger and perhaps a bit less touristy. I walked around for a little bit trying to get postcards and a new outlet converter (I've already lost mine), but it's after 5:30 and all the shops are closed. I guess I would be incredibly content with this schedule if I were a shop keeper, but as a consumer it is incredibly annoying. It reminds me of when my parents had to go to the bank on Fridays because that was the only day it was open late.

We are playing in the most beautiful venue. The Colchester Arts Centre is a desecrated church, and it even has a cemetery behind it with olden tyme headstones. There's a huge stained glass behind the stage, which I'm sure will be dark by the time we play, but still it's pretty cool.

There's more of a professional feel at this place than anywhere else we've played. It's the first show on this tour where we've had a monitor soundman. And the stage is big, which is quite a contrast from a lot of the places we've been so far. There's a kitchen/green room to the side of the stage, where a long-haired man is cooking our dinner as we speak.

But before I go on any longer, I must talk about Newcastle. I didn't get a chance to look around town much, but there was something about the place I really liked. Maybe it was that everyone we met was so nice, I don't know. But this morning, I felt a little sad to leave it. Maybe I'm just reacting to being on the go for so long, but in any case I'd like to go back.

One thing I learned in Newcastle, however, is not to ask for a Newcastle Brown. Frankly, I'm not much of a brown beer fan in the first place, but I figured that I'd order one for the sake of having done so. Who knows? Maybe they taste fresher here. In any case, I go up to the bartender and order one, and he looks at me and says, 'We don't have Newcastle Brown.' And just in case I didn't completely get the message, he says, 'There are very few places in Newcastle that carry it.' Great. Now I'm like the guy that asks for a burrito in Mexico, or a deep dish pizza in Italy. Thanks. In a perfect world where I'm incredibly quick and witty, I would've said 'Well, then, maybe they should call it 'Everywhere Else but Newcastle Brown'.' But instead, I quickly order a Carling and dart back to my seat.

No matter. The show goes great. We are down to 10 CDs from the 100 that we brought over. I never thought we'd sell all of them, much less before we're even half way through our tour. Thankfully, we'll be getting a new shipment when our merchandise specialist Mai arrives in a few days.

That night, we stay at Colin's place, who has not only offered us his home but makes us chili with rice and ?? TORTILLAS!!! It's funny, but I never thought I'd be so happy to taste a tortilla. Not that the food here has been bad by any stretch, but it was nice to have a little piece of comfort food.

We stay up with everyone watching M2 which, in England, actually plays videos. And good ones to boot.