Meltdown

After all the NYC promo, we took off for London for a couple of days of rehearsal before doing any shows. First up was - yes - more television! This time it was Jonathan Ross, who devoted his entire program to David. We ended up doing five songs, how many of which were used I don't know (I didn't see the edited show - I rarely see the broadcasts of our appearances!). The songs were set into the longest interview I'd ever seen David do on a talk show. Mr. Ross is a huge Bowie fan, and he used this opportunity to ask David everything under the sun.

Once we finished the taping around 10pm I was off to mix our tunes at Sony Studios in Whitfield St. I'd had a few great experiences there in the '90's, most notably with the Cure and Big Audio Dynamite. I had to mix all the songs by 6am or some such insane hour, so they could lay it back to the video. Why I needed to be finished by that ungodly time was beyond me, given that the show wouldn't air for another week and a half (and who was going to be awake laying back things to video at 6am?). I made it, but barely - the gremlins made their appearance, as they usually do when one faces a ridiculous deadline. Coffee kept me chugging along while the tekkies pondered the misbehavior of the DAT machine which slowed our progress.

Roseland was intended to be a warm-up for our slot at the Meltdown festival, which David was headlining this year. As it was DB's festival he got to select the bands involved, such as the Dandy Warhols and Mercury Rev. The Dandys opened for us on the final night and they played a rambling, jammy set complete with kaleidoscopic visuals and weed hanging heavily in the air. Finally, after nearly a week of waiting, it was our turn. Our show went off incredibly, even better than Roseland. We did the 'Low'/'Heathen' set as before but played 'Low' slightly out of sequence, which seemed to translate a bit better in a live setting. The Dandy Warhols did a raucous version of 'White Light/White Heat' with us for our first encore. It was quite a scene at the aftershow. Bono, Brian Eno, and Robert Smith were all in attendance. I'm told Kylie Minogue was there too, but I haven't a clue what she looks like so I missed that.

I also didn't recognize Brian Eno. Sterling was talking to him, and pulled me over to introduce me. He didn't introduce Brian by name, he said simply 'this is the architect of all this' (meaning 'Low,' I figured out later). Well ... not recognizing him, I could only assume that this guy was an actual architect, and by 'all this' I figured Sterling meant he'd designed Royal Festival Hall. Wondering why Sterling was talking to an architect, and his urgency for me to as well, I simply said something along the lines of 'Nice job.'

We took the Eurostar to Paris the following day. Nice train ... fast. Much better than flying, no airport hassles. The next day we performed at the Olympia, which was recorded and filmed for ARTE. This meant I'd have a mix session in my near future (Brussels), so I had to check up on the truck and make sure all was well. Apparently so, but with a language barrier, you're never quite sure they're understanding you.

The Olympia is a great venue. I'd seen Marianne Faithfull there a couple of years ago and thought it an amazing space. Great catering as well (ahhh ... France). We broke with convention and opened with 'Stay.' It was a good show, but extremely hot - we were dying up there. The audience was ecstatic - they were jumping up and down, making the floor move to a scary degree. There were balconies near the stage, and I spotted somebody fast asleep in a prime seat. This really annoyed me (if you're going to sleep at a show, go home and give up that seat to somebody interested!) so I looked around for something to throw at this person and send that message. I had a nice, clear shot ...

After all, as I'd soon discover, people would throw things at us.

Euro-commuting in the Tub

The European gigs were scattered all over, and not in any logical geographical sequence. Scandinavia, Belgium, England, Germany, France, Italy, and Switzerland all were to be hit, as well as a return to he UK. In order to pull this off sanely, it was decided that instead of bussing it, we'd be chartering a small plane.

They weren't kidding about the 'small' part.

This plane held a maximum of 15 people. It was just tiny - like a flying bathtub. It was tough for some of the taller folk to stand up, and tight as well. Luckily, we're a fit lot. We took off out of Paris into very rough winds, and that little thing shook and dropped like a very bad amusement park ride. I am not the friendliest flier, so I was fairly underwhelmed. Sterling and Gail, on the other hand ... the rougher the better for them. They love it.

Our first stop was Norway, the first in a series of outdoor festival concerts. We landed, drove to the festival, had a little dinner, then watched a few of the other acts such as locals Kaizer (great) and the White Stripes (completely insane). No Doubt was on the other stage, but we missed their show (they showed up backstage for ours, though, bless 'em). Our 11pm start time soon arrived and we hit. No soundcheck in these circumstances, of course - just start playing, and hope. Given the time of year (late June) it was still daylight. We had a great crowd - it was raining and late, yet they packed the venue and surrounding hills. We were to do a runner after the show - pop right into the vans from the stage, drive straight to the airport, and fly off to Denmark.

I was already thinking about how the Tub was going to fare in the weather.

Rocking the Norwegians, 11:30pm.

The Tub was fine that night - the rain was a fine mist by then, and there wasn't a breeze to be had. Still, some rough bumps were to be had on future trips as Europe experienced its worst summer weather in a generation.

We landed in Arhus, Denmark and made our way to the Radisson Center in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere. The Radisson was conveniently located, but really cheesy - the rooms had Pizza Hut on the speed dial. Way too much American culture. Our next stop was a festival in Horsens, Denmark. At this point we were experimenting with the setlist, finding the 'Heathen' and 'Low' numbers which worked best where and when in a regular set. Some interesting pairings transpired, such as opening with 'Warzsawa' followed by 'Space Oddity' in Denmark, and 'Life on Mars' followed by 'Hallo Spaceboy' in Norway. You've got to try these things out, and some great combinations were nailed early on - ending the set with 'Heroes' and 'Heathen,' for example, and performing 'Let's Dance' and then 'Ziggy' as the final encores.

We were off to Brussels next, to our largest gig of the tour - a 50,000+ outdoor extravaganza called the Beach Festival, where we met up again with No Doubt (we actually got to see some of their set this time). Gwen told me I rocked, and I was a happy camper. It was a small city backstage, with meet-and-greets, radio trucks and the lot. I don't know how David does it - he'll have a score of interviews and then have to sing.

The band were off the next day for Manchester, where they'd have a day off. I stayed behind to mix down the Olympia gig in a Brussels studio. Again, crazy hours were kept and tech problems arose, but we got it finished. I have to thank my friend Frank Duchene for arranging the studio, working out a few kinks, and even chauffeuring me to and from the studio. This time the show was recorded on tape as opposed to hard disk, so I had to get used to rewinding all over again. Hard disk can really spoil you - you get used to seeing where things happen, knowing when something will come in, or if there's unexpected noise. Plus, you can do things like clean up the tom tracks or minimize the bleed on vocals a lot quicker than the 'old fashioned' way.

After mixing something like 24 tunes in two days (ouch) I then had to get to Manchester on my own. This involved taking a 7am Eurostar back to London; next, the Underground to Euston Station; finally, a Virgin (!) train to Manchester. Given that I was at the mix until 3am the night before, I was toast. Missing the Manchester train after an Underground delay didn't really help, though there are worse places to wait than Euston Station.

Many times during this odyssey, I was wishing for the Tub, with or without bumps.

Given this state of sleep deprivation, Manchester was an intense show for me. Suede were on before us and there was a cloudburst during their set, which finally gave way just minutes before we hit. Performing 'Heroes' and 'Heathen' in the twilight, with the clouds dispersing in the sunset, was one of the greatest visual images from the tour up until then (a Rolls Royce containing Johnny Rotten that attempted to ram through the backstage gates ranked up there as well). This audience was also intense, singing along with 'Life on Mars' word for word from word one, and not letting up until the final chord of 'Ziggy.' Magic.

We also nailed the setlist at this particular show. Certain songs finally found their natural place in the overall pace of things. Not that we wouldn't be open to varying this, of course ...

It was off to Cologne the next morning for two gigs. Our first responsibility was the Harald Schmidt Show, a talk show that is not too subtly modeled on David Letterman. In fact, it's fair to say it's an outright cop - same type of sets, structure to the show, dynamic with the bandleader, etc. Thankfully, they didn't get the temperature right - you could preserve a corpse in Letterman's arctic climate. We only did one song, and in comparison to the NYC television experience this was quite easy - we were in and out in only a few hours. Harald interviewed David in English, which seemed to go very well ... though I'm told by my German friends that he went rather easy on David because of the language. When he interviews his guests in German, he gets rather sarcastic, cutting, and irreverent.

Kind of like Lettermen, I guess.

Harald Schmidt's bandleader is an old friend of mine called Helmut Zerlett. He's an artist in his own right, and I've done some work with him in the past while doing records in Dusseldorf and Cologne in the early '90's. He's a great guy with a fantastic history. Completely nuts as well (look who's talking). Other friends of mine from Dusseldorf and as far as Berlin came into town for our shows, which was quite a treat for me.

The next night we had a show at E-Werk. For this we took the Manchester setlist and expanded it. Expanded it to include the 'Low' album, in the order we played it at Meltdown. Three sets, nearly three hours. Really hot, dangerously so ... have these guys ever heard of ventilation? Another balcony scene, this time with an added twist: people were throwing things from the balcony onto the stage. Not too big a deal, as the stuffed animals, envelopes, etc., weren't going to inflict any damage. The huge paperback book about punk which landed next to me with a tremendous POW made me think otherwise. This reminded me of a story Earl Slick had told me about getting nailed in the head by a bottle and passing out. I spent the rest of the evening on alert to projectiles.

The show was filmed and recorded for use on the German music channel VIVA, so after the show it was off to the truck to mix. I was pretty much supervising as it was somebody else's gig, but the mixer they had there was more than cool so it was a cinch. Also, it gave some of my friends from Dusseldorf the opportunity to bum a few free beers from the trucks' fridge.

Goin' South

We were finally heading south, to the promise of better weather. Up to this point summer had been marred by rain, clouds, and cooler than average weather. We played many outdoor shows under rain or the threat of it. Flying in this weather in the tiny plane also wasn't such a joy. Our crew - pilots Simon and John, and flight attendant Stephanie - were wonderful, and made it seem like no big deal. Most times I'd head to the front of the plane and watch them land, and listen to air traffic control.

Our next stop were the towns of Arles & Nimes in Provence, in the South of France. It was quite a relief to be there, as it indeed finally felt like summer. We were staying in Arles at a hotel over four hundred years old - it was a convent at one point - and playing at the Nimes Amphitheater, which, along with both towns, was built by the Romans.

No Pizza Hut on the speed dial in this place.

This was probably the coolest gig in Europe ... at least for us. We were all stoked to be playing in a Roman amphitheater. We took the stage the moment darkness really hit, and it was eerie - as there weren't house lights to speak of, after the first hundred feet or so all you could make out was the outline of the arena against the night sky. We were performing inside a genuine piece of history, and it felt like it ... one couldn't help but wonder how many people died in this place for the sake of sport, or were eaten by lions ... both were entertainment in another not-too-long-ago era. It definitely gave our performance an edge.

The next morning we took an extremely bumpy ride to Italy from the small airport at Arles. This was the ride of rides. We shot through a few cumulonimbus clouds head on, and the plane dropped and shook violently. It was enough for me to go up to the cockpit and ask the guys what the deal was. Of course, they were completely unfazed. 'Oh, you get used to that stuff, mate,' was their reply. They then had me don the headphones to listen to air traffic control, and tell me (admittedly bad) dirty jokes.

However, the rough flight was more than worth what was in store. We flew into Florence airport and, having never been there, I was amazed to see things I'd only read about. We made our way to the hotel, located in a town midway between Florence and Lucca, where the gig was. It was a monolith of epic proportions built in Mussolini's time. Another one of those 'Shining' hotels with long, wide hallways, an ever-present deathly quiet, and a seeming lack of human activity. It felt like we were the only guests.

The gig was in the town square in Lucca, some twenty or so miles away. We drove into the walled city and grimaced as our driver struggled to navigate through the tiny ancient streets at top speed, which also happened to be clogged with pedestrians. We were all looking forward to the catering, knowing how seriously Italians take culinary matters. It did not disappoint. The gig itself was filled with rabid fans, most of them local, who were incredibly happy to have us there. They were bonkers from the first tune until the end. They were genuinely appreciative. The following day Slick, Gerry and I took a day trip to Lucca, and people on the street kept stopping and thanking us for coming to play such great music for them.

The trip to Lucca merits mention, given that we weren't even trying to go there in the first place.

When we were in Milan in '99, I stayed behind while the band had two days off in London. I had grandiose ideas about taking the train to Florence, inundating myself with fifteen century art and architecture, and then cycling in the foothills of Toscana. I never got there. The Italian train system was too hopelessly complex and unorganized to an outsider, though I saw plenty of native speakers as befuddled and outraged as me. Apparently, my Florence ticket didn't allow me on any of the Florence trains - I kept getting booted off - and any attempt to modify/change/start over was greeted with similar difficulty (I was also becoming concerned that, on the odd chance I made it to Florence, I'd never make it back to Milan). I was sent to a half dozen windows before the last guy held up his hands in dismay ... a gesture I understand all too well.

This time, I was not to be deterred. Slick, Gerry and I set out for a Florence odyssey on our day off before traveling to Montreux. We bought tickets, validated them (with some assistance from some English speaking tourists) and took our place on the platform to wait. There was a local girl waiting near us, who I thought was listening in on our conversation. After a while we started talking to her, and as it turned out she was from Queens, NY. She had lived in Italy for the past few years, knew the language, and was also going to Florence. I was relieved to be allied with a bilingual fellow traveler.

The train was over fifteen minutes late. After another fifteen minutes the conductor came around, looked at our tickets, and started babbling in Italian. Then he held his hands up ... at which point I knew we were sunk. Our new friend stepped up to the plate and went at it with the conductor. Shortly, we all discovered that we were on a train bound for Lucca - the Florence train had simply never shown up.

We decided to go with fate, and stay on the train to Lucca. As it turned out it was the move to make. It rained in Florence, but we had supreme summer weather. We had the Italian meal of our lives at a small trattoria tucked away in an alley - the most amazing mozzarella ever made, in my opinion (Slick will back me up). The people on the street were earthy and warm and friendly, many of them remembering us from the night before. We stocked up on Italian groceries and clothes, cappuccinos and presents. The evening ended when we met several of our cohorts on a mountaintop for a meal. Of course it took nearly an hour to find a taxi, but we were used to such things by then.

The next day we took off for Switzerland, and landed at Geneva. Though the weather was dreadful, the final flight in the tiny plane was OK. Lake Geneva was a beautiful sight, even in horrible weather. Our performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival was the final gig of the European dates, and we made it a big one - a long set, plus encores, PLUS the entire 'Low' album ... all in a music hall which was WAY too hot and stuffy to be healthy. I think we did well, but I barely remember as I was lightheaded by a few numbers into the set. My lasting memory is of the end of the show when Claude Nobs, the promoter of the festival since it began, presenting David with a huge Swiss cowbell as a token of appreciation.