BRISTOL – 23rd November, 2016
‘What happens when you lose everything? You start again. You start all over again.’ – Maximo Park – Apply Some Pressure
… And then everything changed. I aren’t a person that particularly likes to broadcast their private life to the world, but to cut a long story short, completely out of the blue, I find myself single and possibly without home. I’ll go as far as saying it wasn’t my choice and it wasn’t what I wanted, and it was also utterly and 100% unexpected. A fairly sizeable rug has been pulled from under my feet, and I don’t really know what I’m going to do.
Fortunately for me, I find myself back out on the road with some of the finer people I know, on a (very) quick Sisters tour which was based around the very excellent Sinner’s Day festival in Hasselt, Belgium. It makes sense to put everyone together for a week of gigs rather than a one-off, so we had decided to do the rounds of a few places the band hasn’t been for a long time.
I don’t want to go into it all too much, but this has been a completely shitty time for me, and not just because of this. As mentioned before, I lost one of my best friends less than two months ago (ironically, not that it’s ironic, but when the news was imparted of my impending singledom, the first thing I thought was that I could go and stay with my departed pal Chris for a bit).
Fortunately, I couldn’t ask to be in the company of better pals, really. Some of the people here with me have been incredibly sympathetic, as well as offering a very large and much-needed dose of pragmatism, is rapidly becoming my best friend.
I’ve got lots to be grateful for, and I need to focus on that. Friendship and camaraderie will bring me through the worst first bit of this, and then a hearty thud of Yorkshire stoicism will guide me through the coming months, and probably years. No part of me chose this, but here I am, and I’m not going anywhere, so I’ve got to suss it out.
On a more positive note, the gigs have been going really well. I always love going to Norwich – it gets a bad press, but that is a beautiful city and the venues are all really good.
Belgium is the Sisters’ second home, and the festival is amazing – we’re topping the bill, with OMD, Tricky and Public Image Ltd on before us and ALL putting in amazing shows, particularly Tricky, who I’ve loved since I was a kid. I worked for OMD last year all Summer, doing a festival run around Europe, so it is absolutely brilliant to see Andy and Paul, as well as the fantastic crew, who I had really hit it off with. Obviously they are taking the piss massively as they’re used to seeing me in a different kind of role and, as I always hope to rely on good friends to do, they do their utmost to knock me down a peg or six when they see me in my leather jacket with sunglasses on my head.
The gig is great and we retire to the hotel bar, where we have a hilarious and occasionally terrifying evening with Tricky and his band, who he appears to have only met that weekend. These amazing times occur occasionally and I pinch myself that I get to have these experiences with people I’ve paid to go and see maybe a dozen times over my lifetime of being a music fan.
Birmingham last night was a stormer despite some technical problems, and I’m really looking forward to tonight’s gig at Bristol Academy. The last one here was at the end of a looooong tour and I don’t have the fondest of memories of that, so it’ll be good to get up and right some wrongs. I’m playing every gig like it’s my last at the minute… I guess I’m channelling my fallen friend, who was an amazing musician as well as being a generally brilliant person. I hope it’s not too trite to say that I’m doing it for him.
I’m in the studio tomorrow for an afternoon while I’m passing as I want to do a load of bits to fill in the gaps between songs. To be honest I just want an excuse to see the brilliant Dave Draper again. Since ‘it’ all happened, I’ve actually re-written two of the songs for the solo album more or less start to end. One is pretty savage and I don’t think I’ll change the original… it would be the wrong kind of evisceration. The other actually lets the words flow a lot better and it all makes more sense now, so I’ll go re-do that when I get home.
It’s weird, I’ve said for years that sometimes the real meaning of a song might only reveal itself six months after you’ve written it. You’ve got to allow it to breathe so that it can take on its own meaning; it’s why I like ambiguity and wordplay in lyrics. Anyway less of that bollocks.
I’m off for a drink. Actually that’s not true, I’m trying to limit my drinking, as booze is just making me feel worse and think… worser. But a trip to Bristol Academy without a trip to The Hatchet wouldn’t be right, even if I’ll be on lime and soda.
Onwards and upwards, eh?
Chris X
Hope things get better for you, much love, Paul and Fleur
You’ve got a brilliant bunch of supporters chris (fans i guess is a wrong word, makes us seem a bit ‘weird’), we’re all here for you. Cant wait to support you by buying the new work you put out and look forward to hearing it. See you on the 11th Feb and the Brudenell.
Chris and Alison.