The World Cup

This time 4 years ago, I was about to spend the month travelling the globe, a road trip through Europe, hitting Paris, Berlin, Brussels and Amsterdam - then over to play 3 shows in America (New York, San Fransisco, LA), back to Berlin for a holiday, before heading off on what was probably Forward Russia's funnest tour with Youthmovies and The Scare

I'll always remember that time and the World Cup. I watched England vs Trinidad & Tobago midair over the Atlantic on a flight from New York to San Fransisco. I watched England vs Equador in a beer garden in Germany before playing a show to 5 people (including the brothers Foulger of Duels)

The defeat to Portugal was the strangest, that was watched in the departure lounge of East Midlands airport, a strange amend-um I headed on holiday to Berlin for a few days. We boarded the plan a Carragher took his first spot kick. No one really knew what had happened until we landed, but we everyone assumed we lost

In Berlin there were no games in the city, but Germany were playing Italy in the semi-finals - we watched the game in the fanzone in the Tiergarten infront of the Bradenburg Tor - part of an estimated crowd of 1 million people. Truely amazing

And we were pretty much on stage during the final at Oxygen Festival in Dublin. When we heard it was penalties we raced accross the site to see the final moments where everyone was crowded around a little TV set

This year, I'm immensely looking forward to watching as much of the World Cup at home with my friends, mostly I hope around the corner at Headingley Stadium, which boasts the largest outside screen in the UK.

Excitement has been increased and spurred on by a weekend recording again with Arthur Rigby & The Baskervylles talking almost non-stop football, football stickers and fantasy football. I make little apologies for the dominance the football will have on my twitter the next month.

Soundtrack to this post: Wu Lyf, Gayngs, Laura Marling

Honour Before Glory in Germany - Day 5/6

This report feels pretty hard to write, as we've just driven 9 hours to Vienna, which has been pretty hardcore. We have to drive back north after the show tonight as well, so it's a long day ahead still

Frankfurt was a mixed bag for us, upon arriving on Tuesday, we didn't really do anything good with our time. We did get some good grub though (although it was probably the most garlic I've ever tasted in a meal), and then found a "traditional" Irish Pub to watch Man Utd vs Barnsley. It all could've been so much better...

Had a walk around Frankfurt on Wednesday, and got to the venue nice an early. It was in the middle of an industrial area, and part of a strange media complex, that was more than a little bit weird, so it really took us a while to get into the feel of the night

The crowd, were great though and I had my best gig - although the amount of crap I talked would have made a Forward Russia crowd cringe. Sometree again rocked hard, and demolished their way through numerous bottles of red wine in the process. I'm the only beer drinker on the tour, so it's always slightly depressing at the end of the night as I can see how much I've consumed in exacting detail. At least when there are numerous empty wine bottles around 4/5 people are responsible, but with the empty beer bottles it's all down to me

Anyway, a question came up. Why do the English call Bayern Munich so? Munich is the English word for Munchen, but Bayern is the German work for Baveria. And yes, I pretty much have talked football all time on the tour - with brief respites to mention the Yankee's reach the world series, the Celtics beat the Cavs and the Wembley NFL game (a good week for Boston-born "5th member" of Sometree, Sean). Oh yeah, and the obligatory attempt to explain cricket.

Honour Before Glory in Germany - Day 1/2

After my nice holiday, I only had a few days to get ready for the Honour Before Glory tour supporting Sometree in Germany. The joke was I had to burn CDs to sell, do my washing and even finish a couple of new songs. This was a bit of exaggeration, but I was hoping to play Lions and a cover that I hadn't played previously.

The first gig was Friday night in Berlin, and to make things easier I flew in the night before - as with everything on this tour flying over on my own with just a guitar was a strange and new experience! Everything went fine though, even though I was especially worried about the safety of my guitar!

In Berlin, I stayed with Sebastian, the guitarist of Sometree, and we spent more of Thursday night and Friday catching up on all the goings on since they came over to support Forward Russia in early 2007.

While Sometree went off to do a radio session in the afternoon, I wandered to some familiar parts of Berlin, in search of Wurst & Kraut, before catching up with them at Lido later on.

There was the usual big city anticipation for the gig, with Sometree playing their home town, the capital city, at the big club with an early start for the early finish.

In true whiskas fashion, I felt suitably awkward onstage - I'm especially paranoid about my lack of German - I just feel rude. Still the gig went well, though it was probably the hardest for me to start with as it was so early and to such a big city crowd. I didn't brave Lions, but Mazzy Star's Fade Into You slipped in just perfectly

Sometree were awesome, playing the perfect Berlin set - so so good to hear the new songs, and worked extra well with help from old friend Sean on extra keys and guitar. No crazyness after the gig, as we had an 8am start the next day, with Munich our goal (a looooong drive), after Sometree stopped to at Restgeräusch studio to record an internet session.

During the session, I was total spare part and gourged myself entirely on chocolate and crisps while trying to keep up with the UK football scores. Like most Saturday in England really!

There is vague hope of using he time on this tour to write some more songs and work on how I'm going to record others. Maybe this will prove easier when there aren't football matches to get distracted by!!

It's been a beautiful day in Munich today, and we've mosty just chilled out in the sun while waiting to soundcheck. I did manage to watch Man Utd v Liverpool, so all is not lost. The gig tonight should be good, and then a short-ish drive to Stuttgart tomorrow, and hopefully the tour really gets going