Back home after 2016 tour now. I now have time to write
I am now at home and have time to write stuff down. It’s December, almost time to look back at 2016. A calendar year is not really appropriate. I would almost start from end of 2013 when @subsetband line up changed and ‘Please don’t feel’ was recorded with 22 tracks on the list. At the time I knew big changes were on the go.
2014 was a year we used to shred our skins of amateurish drunk over excited musos and all the nonsense accumulated after 120 shows, 2 albums and 4 eps. We wanted a new double album and our first European tour. It took me the whole of 2014 to find the fundings, the logistics and the teams. Forced marching mode again. Maybe we should have cared a bit more about stability and pace. It never crossed our minds. We regrouped a new line up in Feb 2015, rehearsed in March and April, and hit the road again for a month to promote ‘Loverdose’. In July the band’s backbone was broken again. Too much energy, too many miles, too many gigs. We hated staying at home. We hated sitting and reading social medias. In October 2015 we hit the road again. And finally the backbone says ‘no more’. Four shows cancelled in a row. Big lesson learned here: we will now know how to control better the ‘tour withdrawal syndrome’. Another replacement, then on the road again: Worthing, Leamington, Salisbury, Southampton, Manchester, Nottingham, Cambridge. We quickly discover very promising new territories but also learned we weren’t prepared enough on the promo and more saddening cancellations: Exeter, Bristol (one of our big spots), Worthing and Brighton (another HQ for us). Crawling to the finishing line we manage to get good numbers in Paris, London and Venice, and an extra surprise one in Bedford. Loads of lessons learned and people met. But behind my pc right now i can feel this rising feeling of relentlessness. That I struggle to be happy at home, idle, motionless, copying days one onto the next without seeing the difference.
It is so hard to stay at home.
We have big plans for 2017 and 2018