Roadie #42 – Blog #107

Which cliché to chose in describing the experience of finishing a tour?

"It’s like stepping off a fast moving train"?
"Like being fired out of a cannon at a brick wall"?
"The kind of dis-orientation you get when shaken awake from a deep sleep"?

All handy phrases I’ve used in the past to romanticise "life on the road". In reality, the experience is a little more subtle.

I’m writing this from my sofa at 42 Towers, some two weeks after the Wembley shows. It’s only really in the past couple of days that I’ve really come out of hibernation. You don’t really learn how exhaustion has affected you until you begin to recover. It’s like being in a room with the heating on way too high. You just feel a bit worn out, but you’re too tired to actually work out why, or open a window and get a glass of water.

So, the tour has finished, the window has been cracked and gradually, I’ve returned to feeling something approaching human. Somewhat predictably, finally accepting that the tour is at an end and escaping the feeling that we were all going to be back at the airport in a few days, was accompanied by a new set of dates appearing on the website. This is pretty much the roadie equivalent of the bat-symbol appearing in the skies. Dates in Latin America have been on the cards for a long time now, but nobody knew whether it would definitely happen, or more importantly when. Never believe anything until it comes from Anchorman…

The band are also returning to work in the studio after scattering to the four winds for a spell of "not being Coldplay". (Well let’s face it: as I type, Chris will be sitting somewhere with a furrowed brow and an acoustic guitar but you know what I mean…) Exciting news is that the band have found a new space in which to work on the new material. Just as the Bakery was at its birth, this place is currently no more than a broken down shell, which will become a warm womb in which to grow the next little member of the album family.

I’m told that my services will be required this time during the recording process. This means that once the break is over, I will indeed be back to work. No rest for the wicked, indeed…

I had started writing a blog to wrap up the Wembley shows, but the sofa won by two falls and a submission, so it never got finished. If you’ll forgive me the fact that it refers to events from what in internet terms, is ancient history (i.e. two weeks ago) I’ll give it a spruce and post it tomorrow.

R#42