Blast

A Touring Low Point

On Thursday I cracked the touring myth: the one where every gig is a frolicking good time and the tour path a straightforward, no hitch, golden highway. 

In its place, a fifty second warm up introduction about Laurence Llewelyen Bowen.

The day continues in the same horrifying haze.

A reporters' bad trip is nowhere near as glamorous as taking too many pills or being booed off the stage, but it's probably as depressing. 

Waiting

I sit in Gloucester Library waiting for the pub to open feeling freaked out by what my tongue is really telling me according to a vicious little book I happened upon entitled, 'You are What You Eat'.

Almost every sentence begins 'I'm not saying you shouldn't eat it but…'. 

Under a list entitled 'Nasties' is written chocolate, cheese, bread...the staples my life. I slam it shut. 

This gives an invisible cue to the lady next to me to un-wrap her latest charity shop purchases; Chinese imitation saucers with beige edges. 

I try hard to convey that £1.49 per plate is a positive bargain but my voice falters and I drop my chin and consciousness into Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World". 

My sofa partner switches to an emaciated lady who begins to tell me about her serious medical condition. I decide that it is time to go.

Thursday's child has far to go

The light on the Gloucester high street dims. On my right, chavs are playing catch with traffic cones. I wonder why I came alone.

My arrival at the pub confirms my anxieties. A man in a lumberjack shirt and a builder's beanie asks if I'm waiting for a young man.

I reply, feeling foolish, that I'm here for the music. He asks me rather bizarrely if I like Bob Dylan.

He wants to pay for some gin in my tonic. I say disconnectedly that I play the trumpet and flee to the garden. 

Behind the buddleia bush, Brave New World comes out again to give me strength and a reporting distraction.

After a hundred pages my strength has ebbed beyond retrieval.

Unable to fish out my reporting capabilities from the depths of a weary, intimidated cloud and bounce back from the fire exit into the bar; I dash out the back gate, past the chippy, without a bluesy rocker in sight. 

Gordon played on as I shuffled back to Stroud on the next available train.

Miriam with Mr Fuller

The Landlords perception of the Gordon Wood Duo

As a child I have always learnt that disasters can, and should, be rectified. The horse stands patiently for us to get back on it again. In touring terms the show must go on.

So I go along to the Cross Keys and ask the Land Lord, Mr Fuller, what he made of the Gordon Wood Duo.

He tells me that Gordon looks and sounds like Bob Dylan. Mr Wood successfully roused his audience (bar perhaps one who was stuck in a buddleia bush!). 

The Cross Keys puts on live music every Thursday and the Gordon Wood Duo is down on the list again for November. Gordon, bring it on!