Rooms Is Rooms

It's not quite Trip Advisor, not quite a tour diary

The Ibis Economy -

I feel like we’re on a backpacking trip. The shower is essentially in the room along with the bed and nightstand and a sink. The pillows, one each, are so meager, I roll my jacket up beneath mine, bringing back memories of a room in Strasbourg where I was convinced someone crept in during the night to steal my leather jacket. It was only as I was calling the front desk to tell them to alert the police about a thief in the hotel that I remembered I’d rolled up my jacket to bolster my head. “Ah, right,” i think. “Ibis is European.”

The room smells of sweet room deodorizer, so strong I find it hard to sleep. Maybe it’s also Trump’s resounding victory in the election that keeps me awake most of the night. I want to call loved ones, I want to talk to my daughter. Finally I just pass out and don’t wake up til nearly 10 AM which is late for me. The one thing Ibis Economy doesn’t skimp on is blackout shades. It could be ten or two, there’s a feeling in England beginning around this time of the year that it never gets fully light out, or if it did you weren’t paying attention for that hour and a half.

We came to this Ibis after a long day, driving from Norfolk to the BBC studios in Salford Quay where we recorded a session to be played on the radio later in the evening. It was good to have an all-consuming job to do for a few hours so I couldn’t keep looking at my phone and the election results that made me sick to my stomach. In the studio recording I could forget about it, keep my head down and try to do my best. Even though we were recording live there was the chance to redo songs that fell short, fell apart etc - it’s actually easier in a way when there’s no choice at all but it was good to be able to feel our way as this was our first performance with Ian Button on drums. I’d toured with Eric on bass and Ian on drums back in 2018 for The Old Guys but this was a whole different set of songs…could it really be six years later?

Working to get it right in the 6 Music studio

Proud of my Ian Hunter t

We’d finished and gone out to eat dinner, then came back to draw t-shirts (a 6 Music tradition) and be on the air for a little bit with Marc Riley and Gideon Coe. I got a little emotional, thanking them for playing tracks from my new album so consistently over the last several months - struggling to sell tickets for gigs in the UK makes me wonder whether I’ll find any audience here at all beyond my few faithful, so it’s a huge vote of confidence to have these guys believe in me. I’m not going to go into all that stuff here though, just talk about the hotel rooms!

Premier Inn Glasgow Bellshill

A standard Prem, just off the motorway outside of the city. Parking is always a concern on tour with a van full of equipment - there needs to be a parking lot. I wake up early enough to creep down to the adjoining restaurant for breakfast. First I check the van is okay. My pockets are full of cash from selling merch after the gig the night before. I’m alone at the breakfast buffet until a woman comes in with her young son, both of them wearing pajamas. She asks if she can take some coffee. “Have you paid for breakfast?” a restaurant employee asks. The lady charges her for a coffee, unleashing a string of abuse from the woman while her son plays on an iPad.

I look at my phone and see some vivid photos of us playing in the Doublet pub the night before. I remember how my boots felt on the pub carpet, with the audience just a few feet in front and to either side of us, my knapsack stowed behind my amp. Nowhere to hide out before or after, and the bar just to my right where I set my book and glasses. But how the sound seemed to pummel and then float out from us and swirl around, ensorcing the crowd like a cartoon aroma in Roadrunner cartoon.

Courtyard Edinburgh West

A very leafy area of Edinburgh, the hotel sits in the campus of the James Herriott University. It has an academic conference feel, like we should all be getting ready to present papers instead of suiting up for a rock show in a goth basement. I remember earlier trips to Scotland, traipsing around near Edinburgh castle before the gig, hitting vintage shops and even the beautiful old department store with the throngs of tourists. Those days are long gone for me, I’ve been here a dozen times or more and need to conserve my energy.

We load down some steep winding steps into a dungeon like club. I change from boots to sneakers - maybe this is another age and experience kind of thing, why risk twisting an ankle or worse on the cobbled street?

It dawns on us the soundman is a fascist. He has many rules and preconceptions for how bands should set up and sound in his club. We keep our heads down, battle through. I have learned so much all my years of playing with Eric and the main (or one of the main things) is stand firm when it comes to your equipment and how you set it up. Don’t be railroaded into doing what’s convenient for this person who’s never seen or heard you before and who you’ll never see again. You’re the one who has to stand up alone and vulnerable in front of a crowd or handful of people who’ve paid to see you, and give them your best - you need to feel as alright as possible. Part of that is knowing where your amp sits, how you sound coming out of the monitors and front of house.

Rocking in Edinburgh, pic by Lindsay Hutton

Colin the promoter runs interference, makes sure we have what we need and a place to stow the guitar and drum cases. Our pal Lindsay comes and escorts us to an Italian restaurant up the street - turns out it’s Gordon’s Trattoria, the place Eric and I had our first date nineteen years ago. It’s been spruced up a bit since those days but the food’s still good. My cousin Joe who lives in Switzerland is over for work and has met up with us too - the Italian side of my family represents at nearly every gig I play across the US and thanks to Joe in the UK too. It’s great having a lot of cousins: on this tour I’ve seen Lisa, Maria, Joe, Tom, Andrew (first cousins) as well as a couple cousins’ kids and some of my brothers and a sister in law too. It can be a little overwhelming for Eric but he and Joe hit it off.

Something about playing in Scotland always brings me to tears onstage - especially during Don’t Ever Change. It’s the first place I ever played the song and I can hear people singing along during the gig in Edinburgh. We finish and I sell merch while Eric and Ian pack up, then we load out in a flurry, onto a street full of students cavorting on a Friday night. It’s a relief to get back to our leafy hotel where Eric, Ian and I have a quiet drink in the bar. I realize I only arrived back in the UK a week ago and since then have rehearsed for two days, rented a vehicle, played a radio session in Manchester and two gigs in Scotland. And the election happened. It makes sense that I feel completely exhausted. Thank God Eric is happy to do the driving on this tour.

Tired as I am I’m up bright and early next morning for the breakfast. This one has a European aspect with hearty bread, cheese and cold meats alongside the UK standards: bacon, sausages, fried eggs, baked beans and tomatoes. I get a kick out of the scientist types conversing around me, networking furiously “let me know if you come to Dubai next year…”  Hey guys it’s eight in the morning! But people watching is my real reason for hotel breakfasts, along with the fact that I’m usually starving after burning off whatever dinner with playing for an hour and a half and then loading equipment. I’m happy to see Eric making his way uncertainly down the corridor to the breakfast section of the lobby, it’s not usually his thing. I guide him to the warm rolls, it’s the least I can do for all his hard work playing the bass, driving and not thumping last night’s bratty soundperson upside the head. Although maybe that’s a sign of affection in certain parts of Edinburgh?

Purdy Lodge Northumberland

We’re without a gig this Saturday night, not really by design but need to be on Lindisfarne Island at 11 AM next morning, so we drive into Northumberland. First stop is Berwick Upon Tweed, a place I’ve passed through via train and car but never stopped. There used to be a gig here that singer songwriters played but I never managed to set one up, now I’ve forgotten the name of the place. It’s very picturesque with a wall you have to drive through to enter the city via an arched entryway. Parking isn’t easy, especially with our oversized van. Apparently a parking disc is required, but the pay station is out of order. I ask a man walking by where I can pay for parking - he literally laughs in my face, or rather chuckles, amused - it must be some big joke amongst the locals. He directs me to the cultural center where a pound buys a cardboard disc that you rotate to show what time you arrived and then place on the dashboard of your car.

I’m really glad we parked up the hill as the road down to the restaurant I want to try is steep, cobbled and very narrow. Eric and Ian entertain me and a couple passersby with their exaggerated walk down the hill. We eat a great lunch in a tapas-type place I want to move into permanently and then make our way back UP the very steep hill to the van.

Our hotel for the night is just a few miles further down the road, a no-nonsense lodge that was probably cold and dismal at one point in its life but is clean and warm with newly renovated bathrooms and a restaurant that isn’t bad at all. The sign as we enter says “Please remove work boots so as not to track mud into rooms” and I imagine farmhands and workmen piling in after a hard day in the muddy fields and pissing into a sink in the corner , but this isn’t that kind of place at all, it’s super-restful and cheery although our room does look out directly onto…a muddy field. I find this very calming and restful. No pressure to do anything but take a bath, have a nap, eat dinner and wait for Lindisfarne the next morning.

There’s a lot of attention paid to the tide tables and getting across the road to Lindisfarne at just the right time. My second to last slot on this day of the festival has been changed to first up, for reasons diplomacy doesn’t allow me to go into here. We rocked out at 12:30 PM after just glimpsing the glory of Lindisfarne - it’s hard to fully feel the magic of a place when you’re worried about finding the venue, how to park and load in , will there be anything decent to eat etc. I can say I’ve stood on the Holy Island but have I really been there? Yet hours later when we’d arrived back in Norfolk, kind of like the carpet in the pub we played in Glasgow, I held the impression of the sand and rock of the island beneath my feet, and a sense of space all around me - not while we played in a village hall that could’ve been anywhere, for people from around the UK , but from this brief moment when we got out of the van, saw a man with a large camera set up on a tripod pointed towards the castle and felt the same wind and sea air the Vikings felt when they invaded a long long time ago. We’d joked about driving on and off the island between tides, or Ian facing backwards in the van, as indication we’d be back this way again— like a caramel log in Glasgow and dinner at Gordon’s in Edinburgh, or a cardboard Northumberland District Council parking disc, I like to think that’s true.

to be continued…

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