tour news

Howdy ya'lll
Im sitting in the receptiion of a dublin travelodge having just played our first of two shows in the ambassador theatre last night. The last week has been good, Bristol and Cambridge were both good shows in very impressive buildings. Belle ands Sebastian sure know how to pick a good venue. Only downer was that i broke a string in cambridge during disco party, need to play a little softer perhaps. We then returned to Brighton to play the dome, it was a fairly surreal experience. The gig itself was good, the brighton crowd looked pleased to see us and somebody threw some rather large pants at us adorned with various brakes and b'n's felt tip pen grafitti. I kept spotting people i know in the audience and recognising people i went to school with. Straight after our slot we popped over to the centre to see the strokes, having not seen them before i was quite interested to see how they do live. The had a big light show and they were quite loud, couldn't quite hear his vocals well enough a lot of the time but they sounded good generally. We headed straight back to the dome afterwards and had to drive to stafford where we'd be staying for the night. A smart bit of planning on tour manager waynne's behalf, there was no way we'd have made it to holyhead, north wales for the 1:30 ferry check in if we'd stayed in brighton that night. So we were all a bit sleepy when we got to dublin, didn't stop us from hitting the city. Had a good meal but steered clear of temple bar on a saturday night, it can be pretty rough. The ambassador is an old cinema in a bit of disrepair, peeling wall paper and thread bare carpets, but it has a very grand design. The crowd reaction last night was a familiar mix of bemusment and confusion with a couple of hard fans singing along all the way down the front. Having outdoor fags afterwards (failure in being outside would lead to a 3000 euro fine), we were congratulated and thanked by a whole lot of nice people. That was nice. Any dublin herald readers should look out for us in the society section. Eamon, Alex and myself were photographed by their man on the streets.
marc