Here is another myspace blog from Fame tour of 2007. In this one I have a scalp cracked and lumpy by the application of mascara by a man who knows the heavyweight champion of the world.
Oh dear, Wednesday was another hairstyling day. We drove from Manchester to Birmingham and found ourselves in another elegant hotel with even hotter hairdryers.
The mascara had already started making my scalp a sad mess of flaking skin lumps, but Ricky felt my greying temples needed more blackening to cut at least two years off my head. The end result makes me look like Wolverine going through a midlife crisis.
Birmingham NIA is a big place, approximately 5000 seats, but the fear I would have felt a few months back means I only check I have got rid of all the wee in my body at about 7.20. Typically, Ricky charged into my dressing room and started making peculiar yelping noises and hurrying me along, thus paralysing my bladder. It doesn’t matter how many times you go to the bathroom before going on stage, you still imagine striding out, reaching the microphone and saying, “HELLO BIRMINGHAM…oh dear, I think I need to go to the toilet”.
The first night at Birmingham seemed oddly muted, though I presume it may take a while to learn how to play a 5000 seater with aplomb. After all, for four days a week I play great big places, then I pop back to my usual existence of little rooms for solo shows where I can touch the hair of the whole front row, obviously I don’t, that would be weird, disconcerting and possibly viewed as predatory. I remember thinking how odd it was when Ricky played Edinburgh one year during the fringe, that in that evening I would play to more people than all my 30 solo shows during the festival put together (and get better reviews too).
One of my nieces came to see the first night in Birmingham, and she and her friends came backstage pre-show. I imagine many people believe that for a tour of this size, there must be stuffed swans, exotic fish secretions and jeroboams of champagne – actually there is a table of 6 cans of Fosters, some bottles of water and the odd stocking of Satsumas mixed with the odd tinfoil tray betraying the contents of a takeaway masala of some description. We talked today of how strangely non-chalant and laidback it all is. Obviously there is tension and a strong desire to perform well, but there is not too much angsty, spiritualising and channelling before going on. Equally, after the gig, there is no punching the air and screaming “Yeah, nailed it!” , just a calm journey back to the hotel for a glass of wine (or Pink Champagne as, for some reason, it has been decided this is MY drink by Matt and Ricky) and sometimes a little scrutiny over verbal fumbles and possible mistakes.
I told my niece to tell her friends that I don’t normally have my hair laced with mascara and sticking out from a multitude of angles.
Thursday was a regional radio publicity day, so Matt and I tagged along looking like an entourage of some description. I was somewhat shocked when the local TV newsman, once a national star, turned to me after one interview and said, “See that girl there…best tits in the West Midlands”. I think of these people as the last holders of gravitas, I was wrong of course.
I joined in on some of the radio interviews – I particularly liked the one where the DJ began by saying that she had a dream where Ricky and her were having sex and whether he believed it was possible to have dream orgasms. I could see he was a tad disconcerted. She was actually a fun interviewer and gave Ricky a mechanical monkey that he kept insisting I kiss on air. Is that normal?
Thursday at the NIA was a much more fun gig, I think I was a little more used to the acoustics and tried to make my gesturing of a ludicrous enough size to reach the back – I don’t think they’ll ever quite see my bell’s palsy face. I must remember to shrink back tomorrow, as I don’t think my gig at Chesham FC holds quite as many as 5000.
Back at the hotel, an ex-hospital, much of the evening was spent telling Matt that the ghosts of Victorian eyeless children will come to steal his pupils in the night, I think he will be a bit bleary-eyed on the drive home tomorrow…if he has any eyes to be bleary with.
This has been written late at night, so sorry for any typos and poor sentence construction.
2010 tour dates coming up 23/9 Mac, Birmingham, 25/9 Rondo, Bath 27/9 Stand, Glasgow 28/9 Stand , Edinburgh see http://www.robinince.com for more
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“I think of these people as the last holders of gravitas, I was wrong of course.”
AHAHAHAH. Enjoyed that very much. (: