Where on earth is the hotel? The Handsome Family at large in England
Photograph: Mark Owen
Violence! Plague! Traffic congestion! Rennie Sparks of The Handsome Family continues her tour diary
Exeter, Phoenix A beautiful drive west from London, stopping briefly at Stonehenge to be among our fellow Americans milling about the old bits. I'm on the lookout for crop circles, but the locals tell me it's out of season. A lovely show in Exeter with a nice audience who are just the right mix of happy drunks and quiet listeners. After the show two things happen that every touring musician dreads: 1. We can't find the hotel 2. I feel the first twinges of a sore throat
We circle the M6 for an hour, doubling back again and again around the roundabouts. My sore throat begins to throb. By the time we spot our Travelodge it is almost 2am and I fully in the grips of a bad cold.
Brighton Dome The Dome is one of those places everyone dreams of playing. Huge and grand, but at the same time intimate with great sound. It's also a place to make you feel like you're suddenly Spinal Tap: I get lost going from the dressing room to the stage, from the back entrance to the stage, from the catering to the stage, etc. I meet other musicians, also lost, wandering around the corridors below the theatre. Who knows how long some of them have been down here?
All day as we drove I spotted foxes and rabbits sleeping on the side of the road and now, at last on stage, drifting in the dreamy state of cold medicine and low-grade fever I begin to see the little creatures hopping about in the audience.
Derby, Guildhall I am sick. Fuzzy-headed, hoarse, congested. The rest of the band are shunning me in fear of catching what I've got. I feel like a leper, shaking my clapper so that others can move away as I walk through town. I am somewhat delirious from a mix of cough syrup, decongestant, Night Nurse and whisky. I tell the audience I have "badger fever" and that our songs will summon a thousand badgers from the surrounding countryside. An old man in the front row looks about in nervous panic.
Leicester, The Musician I can barely speak tonight and what little voice I have has descended into Bea Arthur territory. I tell the audience that I was viciously bitten by a hedgehog and have come down with rabies. Luckily a double whisky takes away the pain and we play for almost two hours. It's a sweet crowd and I feel bad that every time I sign an autograph I am spreading my cold to my most eager fans.
Wolverhampton, Little Civic I have no voice at all tonight. This is a rough club with an actual barrier fence placed between the stage and the audience as if we are the Sex Pistols and I am preparing to blow snot on the audience. The sound man is inexplicably furious with us and the sound reflects it: the banjo is turned off, the lap steel is ear-splittingly loud and the bass is so deep and booming I feel buffeted by vibrations each time I play a note. Afterwards the soundman throws our equipment around the stage and storms off. We stand in the rain with our guitars and try to hail a cab back to the hotel. I can barely stand.
London, Scala There is absolutely nowhere to pull over near the Scala. To unload our equipment we must cut off a double-decker bus, drive into a cab stand, hop the curb and drive several yards along the sidewalk sending pedestrians scattering.
Still, sidewalk driving is wonderful! After crawling through King's Cross traffic for two hours the freedom and space of driving on the sidewalk is exhilarating. I don't want to stop at the stage entrance. I want to continue on driving the sidewalks of London.
Alas, we have work to do. This is a strange show, with a lot of people yelling things between songs. Unfortunately, although my voice is back, my ears are completely stopped up and I can't hear a thing anyone says except for one guy who keeps screaming for us to play My Sister's Tiny Hands as soon as we finish the final note of each song.
Does he hate all our other songs? Why come to a concert only for one song? He is distracting and slightly infuriating. I am tempted to offer him £20 to leave. Instead we keep on playing.
Someone throws a shot glass at Steve [Dorocke, guesting on pedal steel]. Another guy wants to know why we are playing with a laptop computer. Still, when we play So Much Wine I look around the room and see that there are people singing along with us in every direction. These are the people I am here for. These people are my friends.
