Today’s run – across the Mississippi!

Here in Minneapolis, got in from Chicago this morning…too hot and stuffy on the bus. Headache. Ran across the mighty Mississippi by St Anthony’s Falls…the water looked like slate as it fell,  veins of white froth. Round and back through the University campus. Love this part of town, and the most righteous Varsity Theatre. p

Went for run this morning on Lakeshore Drive here in Chicago…Jesus this city likes to run.

Had to slot into the running traffic, keep up a decent pace, and just follow the crowd. No idea where I was going. Fog on the lake, so couldn’t really see much of that. Dudes fishing. Anxious about going the wrong way, running on the cycle-track, going to far on the other side of the highway, there being no bridge for miles and having to double back…too much anxiety.

Should just enjoy it, or at least think of it as a licence to have the Guadalejara Chorizo Skillet in the Golden Nugget when I get back…

Morgantown, West Virginia. Dom’s got the key, he’s got the secret…

with The Blind Boys of Alabama for “”I Saw the Light” at Mountain Stage in West Virginia last night

Rock n Roll Hotel, Washington DC. Thanks for toggin’ out, especially those who came from far and wide…

Photos from Philly

Dressing room was the actual First Unitarian Church, and Breakfast of the Tour so far in Sabrina’s…

Fame, I’m gonna learn how to fly

We met Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook last week.
Seemed like a lovely lad, but it was one of those kinda forced situations where we end up being corralled into posing for photos and making the chat while we huddle up (Must get the pic with Mark!!). Arms around strangers for the cameras.
Must have been a bit mad for him. He’d just arrived form the G8 summit in Paris, had never been to Ireland before, and he’s on the blustery rooftop with a band he doesn’t know waffling about the great lineage of bands playing on rooftops that we were now part of…he was confused by The Beatles on the roof of the Apple building – no, it was indeed a different Apple…which was before that again a fruit.
He was polite and interested in our album and tour, understandably spacing off as the attention swirled around him….I was tempted to ask him how much he had in his pocket, or, to see if he was paying attention, if he’d ever seen his Mammy in the bath…

At the Late Late show on Friday Dom and Dave met Gabriel Byrne on the way back from make-up and were having the chat. Turns out we have some mutual friends in Brooklyn. Dom felt a presence at his side and heard a voice “step aside please”, looked to see a Big Guard in Hi-Vis and An Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s hand thrust towards Gabriel…”I really enjoyed our chat” he said to Gabriel, leaning in with gravitas, looking at the boys in a “who the fuck are you” kind of way.

We queued for fucking ages to go through immigration in Dublin Airport yesterday morning. When we finally got through, a member of staff came up and said ” I only just realized who you are – Bell X1. Next time, say it to someone wen you come in and we’ll fast-track you as VIPs. Very sorry.”
Now, I know this sort of hierarchy exists in many ways, but why should some people be able to bypass this sort of ballache on account of their fame?
I would have thought US immigration would be one of the great levelers, especially having heard stories of folks more famous than us or Jesus having to go to the pharmacy in Ballsbridge near the embassy to have their visa photos retaken as their head was too big in the ones submitted…
Having said this, if we were to encounter another queue like Monday’s and someone said “this way, Gentlemen”, unclipping one of those recoiling belt yokes…
The problem with our kinda-sorta fame, is if we were to muster up the courage to say “Eh, we’re, like, Bell X1” a likely response would be “Yea, so wha?”

Berlin to Dublin – after the party, it’s the afterparty

The two-day drive from Berlin to Dublin last week gave us an intense overview of the differences in motorway services across the continent.

The German ones are pretty consistent, though don’t really do breakfast. Easy to rob condiments and butter that you shouldn’t have to pay for and feel like you’re sticking it to the man a little. Good for emergency, though shit quality, trucker-wear – jocks and t-shirts and the like. The Belgian ones are often independent one-off truck stops, which are great on paper but really are grease-fests selling various battered and deep fried lips&arsehole meat products. Often with a hard looking she-pirate at the helm. (We only stopped at one, which of course gives us licence to tar them all…)

The Dutch ones seem to be a franchise, everything overpriced but nicely faced-off. And those fucking coffee machines with the small brown plastic cups… We tried to make the French “just get some bread and ham and cheese” thing happen by shopping in the services there, which was a bit half arsed – standing by a motorway in the stink of petrochemicals making sangwiches is not a good look. And the English ones – well, the sight of a Ginsters pasty has me all sentimental at this stage, and a lot of them have M&S food now which is a good thing. Dominic had flown home so no time to feed his compulsion to buy shit in these places like a fold-up chair, 50-piece tool kit, or USB numerical keypad…

We were however visited by no less than three roadside-assistant men in hi-vis jackets at the Toddington Services (Southbound) on the M1. The van had developed a condition known as “limping”, meaning any hills were a real struggle and we feared being stuck somewhere not nice. They couldn’t sort it and we limped on to Holyhead. Diversions through the last leg of the journey meant that “20 minutes left” on the GPS turned into an hour and a half and had us following a convoy of 40-foot trucks through the windy Welsh countryside. We were for a while behind a Kingspan truck whose frame had collapsed, and from which a strap had come loose, swinging a metal buckle around, into the path of oncoming traffic. Mad bastard.

Gig on the Roof of Facebook

today, Friday May 27th at 8pm GMT

Live stream here

Berlin Venue Change – Monday

The venue for our show in Berlin on Monday has  changed.

The show is now @ The Privat Club – which is located on PucklerStrasse # 34.

http://www.fkpscorpio.com/kuenstler.asp?nummer=187892