London
Morning coffee. Toast, olive oil, porridge and banana smoothie, side of beans, berries. Rehearsal went well. We are the quartet configuration that is, in actuality as my son says: a power trio with a singer. With our sound and monitor techs Darrell and Pete.
It’s a small set up and everyone takes two or three roles. Getting us from place to place Setting up their own equipment and taking care of me.
As I was just writing, a very young girl, maybe twelve, asked me for an autograph. But not on paper but on an iPad with a stylus. I can’t imagine how this is saved. I offered to write it on paper as well, but she didn’t want it and was happy to have it on the iPad. Then she ran off, literally ran.
It’s always touching when a young person shows interest in you. And then it occurred to me that she is the age of many of the children who were shot dead in Texas by a fellow teenage boy. Eighteen children. Eighteen smiling, mischievous, challenged beings just having shed one cocoon, one skin or another. Cut down completely.
In our British concerts we remember the children, and the 25th anniversary of the passing of the poet and activist Allen Ginsberg and Jeff Buckley.
In Cambridge I visited the wild meadow at Kings and the grave of Ludwig Wittgenstein. The scent of the wild enshrouded the grave of the great philosopher. Fully energized I stepped upon the stage of the Corn Exchange and we had a great night, and in the morning took a train to Brussels.
The first day of June. In the morning I assess my state of being. I still feel the effects of my booster shot that I didn’t want, still bothering me. In fact, I feel the same dreaded transformation as the shots, but more prolonged, insidious. We live in the times we are in. And these times require a booster, if I desire to travel, so i am thrice inoculated, and something added or subtracted from myself.
The morning was bright. The view from my window, a magnificent steeple, loomed. I did my stretches and stumbled downstairs into the breakfast room. I made a plate of cucumbers, small bits, pumpkin seeds, goat cheese, marinated small fish and a small roll.The coffee was strong, so I added hot water and got up again to get a small roll with raisins for my pocket. I sat and contemplated last night. Our first night in Brussels was an erratic flame. The kind that could ignite a forest, that was the energy of the people and I realized that these two and a half years in isolation and semi-isolation displaced me some. I was excited and happy, yet caught in such a swirl of energy, that I struggled to contain it. I missed cues, sputtered in tongues, as if I was channeling the Flemish consciousness, mixed in French, mixed with my own.
My dear friend, the artist and designer, Ann Demeulemeester was standing in the wings. I thought of the first time we played in Brussels. Ann, quite young was there. It was 1977, and Arthur Rimbaud was in the air. We ate crepes and fries in paper cones. Scores of kids followed us in the street, not for selfies or autographs, just to hang out. We recited Rimbaud, drank coffee and raised a ruckus. That was Brussels.
Tour Diary 2