Cambridge - 18/4/01

Conceptual problem. The tour diary has run its course. A developing teenage girl's soap opera would not be good. But.
It isn't allowed to stop now.

SOLUTION 1: Make it short, as in "today we went to Cambridge", full stop
SOLUTION 2: Make it weird as in "welcome to the wormhole, my friends – now let me introduce you to dimension No. 5 ..... ", no, not really, Robyn maybe,
me no ......
SOLUTION 3: So, just make it .....

Well, it was nearly dead baby soft boy today. Fell asleep at the wheel as I was driving me and my amp up to Cambridge and woke up as I drifted over the rumble strip, heading for the grass. Stopped. Had a rest, opened all the windows, got to soundcheck but late .....

Seems good, maybe not great, but we're happy - Underwater Moonlight is crazy nowadays, and train coming round the bend always seems to work. New set-list has an early sudden town, but we need to find a new song to start with. Maybe Stones? Audience are bubbly, and afterwards loads of friends want to come backstage, but not to say they liked it. Weird. Well, they probably didn't, god knows why. Frank & Co who came to the Irving Plaza are there so they might be able to shed light on this .......

Well, quite a long time afterwards in fact, we get this nice review from adam sweeting ... meanwhile tracy is nearly ready with the subscription area and laura has put up Irving Plaza pictures. Me I'm still coming down from the US tour – the effect of being back in the UK is a gradual re-entry into 'normal' life – Morris has VAT returns to do for his garage and I've got to read the MARCHIONESS report (I represented one of the parties in that case which was a terrible accident on the River Thames in August, 1989 when 52 people, in their 20's mostly, drowned) ... it's all pretty seriously 'other' compared to touring the US with the softs but that's the way it has to be for the time being at least ....

Bristol - 19/4/01

Long drive down to Bristol. More nearly falling asleep at the wheel. More coffee cups in the passenger seat well. We get to the pub and it's a great place, with Jim the Spy having a drink beforehand whilst we watch Liverpool v Barcelona. There's about 300 packed in when we start.

I get good-naturedly heckled by a Sunderland fan and a Southampton fan cos I'm wearing me Fulham shirt but it's OK and I thank them for Lee Clarke and Luis Boa Morte respectively. I expected to have to thank a Bristol Rovers fan for Barry Hayles but none showed. Oh the music. great. Really nice sound, good fun to play. Weird walking backwards and forwards to encores down the length of the bar that runs alongside the room where we play, but good fun anyway.

Try to leave with the bottle of vodka they put in our dressing room but Pat the owner stops me. Long drive home and more coffee.

Brighton - 20/04/01

Hiromi power wife has found a flat in Acton so we put in a bid, whilst speaking on the phone to the bank/estate agent/mortgage broker/Robyn/solicitor/other estate agent. Notice the odd one out in that list. Yes, Robyn phoned up in the middle of all that about the nice review of Cambridge by adam sweeting. So did my Mum. Nice start to the day.

S'fine. But I'm worried about the way I must look when I play. I just get totally lost in my bass and it's heads down, so I'm going to have to do something about that. But gigs in Brighton are always fun because all that sea air = more ozone = they're all a bit high. All the time. Legally. And healthily. Live there is my advice. During the gig someone shouts out who's the barrister so I admit it but that is a different story although anyone good at anagrams might get a clue from Nagaswami Bell who was the evil newsreader in my book I was writing who became President of the Fast Information Bureau simply by announcing he was on the news and who I named after Nagasaki, and indian wise man and the guy who bullied me at school in that order and it was a book about a book that took over its writer .....

Hiromi is here to see the gig with 3 friends and we all go and stay in a weird B&B which has arty space plastic furnishings and we talk about gay weddings at breakfast. Then off (this is next day, now) to see Fuham v Portsmouth in Portsmouth where we scrape a 1-1 draw and meet a couple of people who were at the gig - Joe Cushley and Jenny Branscombe in fact. Jenny's a Fulham fan too, and she's got a nice piccy of Robyn from Cambridge which we'll put on the site when I can get it scanned in. I tell Joe I think it would be brilliant of the Soft Boys could "do a fulham" (i.e come from nowhere to rule the world) ......

Big sign that the tour's nearly over is I have uninstalled Age of Empires because it was hoovering up all my time ...... particularly death match ......

Big sign that it's not is that I successfully leave with a bottle of vodka tonight ......

Further evidence: Morris gives me a CD by jonothan (on the back) or jonathan (on the spine) called 'star' to review which is a sign that the tour is still going on but no grey monsters anywhere is sight is a sign that it isn't.

For UK week 2, which is the last week, I will take pictures. Nothing heard of about the Spanish gigs so I think they might not be happening. As a way of saying 'bye till then I could say "take care" to everybody but when I said that to Morrissey he said "what for" which was a bit of a put down I wouldn't want to repeat ......

— Matthew