GUIDED BY LIGHTS
So it goes, I’m back on the bus where we sleep, eat, chat, drink and watch bad horror movies.
Archive were in Berlin to play a show for the Radio 1’s ten-year anniversary. Changes and re-arrangements were made at short notice to our show but we managed to pull it off. My first time playing the new material went good and playing the “other drums” alongside Smiley was a new and intense experience for me. I wished the tour had started here and it will be good to ground in the new tunes once we start the wheels rolling along the fuzz filled tracks on the Archive super sonic highway.
I stayed on in Berlin alongside fellow band members Pollard, Darius, Danny and Steve for some Acoustic performances. Some TV was to be filmed which is always a bit nerve racking but the new tunes transfer well on keys and acoustic guitar. We then played a full set to launch the album in Germany in the Hotel Michelberger where we were staying. A huge crowd turned out for the intermit show and we had to perform with only one monitor for the whole band as the other monitor decided to head to the light and flash a white death through the sub hole in front of me. The show was intense and a huge thanks to everyone who came, we were overwhelmed at how many of you there were and sorry to all the people that couldn’t get in. The Hotel was very “rock n roll” and any establishment that screens the movie The Big Lebowski 24 hours a day in every room and along the corridors is damn OK in my book.
I stayed awake and got a cab at 5.15 am to go to the airport, by this time everything around me wasn’t quite focused and a bubble of some sort had formed around every breath and movement I made. I queued up for 35 minutes at the wrong check-in desk then had to move quickly to make sure I made my first flight. I ate a Snickers bar in the line as I was boarding as the hole in my stomach started to feel bottomless. As soon as I sat in my seat towards the back of the plane I immediately fell asleep and awoke with a bump as we landed. I then ran a maze of trying to find Gate 2G, delayed shuttle bus after delayed shuttle bus meant again I only just made the flight. I thought the businessman alongside me on the bus was gonna explode due to the slowness of the shuttle buses. I boarded my plane and was seated at the very back; I fell asleep before we even started to taxi for the runway. I awoke when we landed.
Now in Brest France I was here for a show on an island called Ouessant with Robin Foster. We drove to the port of Camaret then boarded a boat to the island, my mind was back with my body after some nice healthy lunch and the sun was shining, summer decided it didn’t want to leave us just yet after all the delays it had had this year.
The evening was spent with mellow beers and some photographs of us jumping from a small wall. How very grown up we are.
The show was played to many a drunken islander and the fog rolled in. I walked back to the house guided by the circling light of the huge lighthouse on the island. I could hear the waves of the sea and the salty breeze against my face as I stepped along the winding paths near the beach in the deep black of the night.
I awoke after only a few hours sleep to make my way home. A boat had been hired for myself, Robin’s manager Charlie and guitar technician Cyril. We boarded in the haze of the dawn light and after around 20 minutes the captain of the boat asked me if I’d like to drive it, of course I said yes so cruised the boat along watching the radar and the GPS to see our destination. Not far from the end I noticed something grey in the corner of my eye jump from the water, I looked to my left and there were around 8 Dolphins about 10 metres from the boat swimming alongside us jumping in and out of the water. It was a fantastic and beautiful sight to see and a great way to round of the hectic few weeks I’d had rehearsing and playing shows with Archive and then alongside Robin and his band.
I slept all the way home on the plane.
I am Dave Pen
Dave Pen's Blog 