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San Francisco - 7/4/01

As I am leaving Portland, the following e-mail from Hiromi arrives: "I'm going to see that house tomorrow morning. and probably will buy it....". Later tonight, when people ask me where in London I live, I have to say I don't know.

Stuff like this, together with fluffy clouds, dynosaur remains and air traffic control on channel 9 skims past me as I plane hop down to SF. It is not so good for the others down below, who have to get past snow, rain and a chemical spill. Some of them don't get in until 5.30 next morning which will not be good for their voices. At the airport, a stranger finds me looking puzzled at the map and offers me a lift to Sausalito where I am meeting friends for dinner. This travel angel saves me $60 in a taxi. At the meal my friends have that particlarly Californina way about them, and say things like "Seaweed rocks", with rocks as a verb. Later, when it's home time, Katherine does put me in a cab despite the fact that I have developed the opinion, which I share with her, that the driver is about to murder me. She's right, however. He doesn't. He's quite a nice German guy in fact and I get back to the hotel before the others, who are still on the way.

The hotel is great. If there was to be a hotel in a rock and roll film it would have to be here. Gig likewise. It would have to be, it's called the Fillmore. They are really friendly and they've done a fab poster, which is by Amacker Bullwinkle. So far, the West Coast seems to be much more into posters.

It's an early soundcheck because it's being recorded and before I leave Robyn phones up from the lobby. He was in the 5.30 am arrival car. We go over which songs Tom should play on. Should he play on any! Yeah, we'll give it a go, live album or not. Plus Robyn's got a new setlist which starts with Kingdom of Love just like in Maxwells all those years ago. Nice move. We all get to soundcheck except Kimberley who didn't know it was early and turned up at the usual time, that is, 2 or 3 hours later. We worry, me the most, and get the hotel to open his room but he's not there. Kim turns up eventually and shortly after that Thomas Dolby and we go through the numbers he's playing on - Sideways, Evil Guy and Astronomy Domine. Robyn's wearing a scarf to nurse his throat through to LA, after which it will get a week off to recover.

On the way out after soundcheck to get some food before the gig, we notice a huge crab festooned on the other side of the freeway, opposite the gig. I declare an immediate state of photo-opportunity and fish Morris out of the hall and we all pose about on the fire escape.

Tom almost blocks out the crab (you can just see it behind his specs) but Morris allows it to lurk broodily over his left shoulder.

The YFF are as usual (although nothing is usual with them) great tonight, and once again Kimberley gets up to do his song.

Well, it's OK, but maybe not quite brilliant for us, to start with anyway. The monitors aren't that great. They get Kimberley and Morris mixed up so Kimberley has Morris's mix and vice versa. They both get a lot of each other, but not much of themselves. I'm battling with new bass strings which I don't like because they're too 'zingly', whilst Robyn is good-naturedly trying to hold it all together. Once we get out there, however, the audience kind of pull us together. They are great tonight, a really nice crowd, and more and more faces we recognise every night. Our youngest audience person for the tour so far, she's 8, is there and we meet her afterwards. The set goes well, Jealous is good, and so was Destroy You with a moment of lights whiteout at the begining, which we arranged with the lighting guy at soundcheck. Underwater Moonlight is pretty fun at the moment too, because it's got a bit heavier...."In the beginning was the excuse......" is Robyn's rap tonight. Thomas Dolby comes on for his 3 numbers, the first two of which are totally great and he gets a nice hello from the crowd too, but maybe Astronomy Domine misfires slightly although TD's fx at the begining are stunning. Maybe also we went over the top with the glitterball on that one too. Perhaps people are not following us all over the US to see us use a glitterball on Astronomy Domine, but on the other hand, it's hilarious isn't it? We could have a very spinal tap argument about that. Afterwards I hold my bass in the air as I walk off the stage which I like doing because it's sort of triumphant, but I get it slightly wrong and the strap slips down around me so I end up having to sort of step out of it to get away from the bass as I escape offstage. Not for long, anyway, cos we have to come back and play some more. Loads of songs later (I think this was in the third encore set) Robyn gets the YFF back on stage to do Give it To the Soft Boys with all of us and we loon out and that's the end.

This is quite relaxing because I've decided not to do mp3's cos we're recording this (and maybe LA) for a potential live album. Katherine's there plus a friend of Robyn and Michèle's called Linda. And Chris, our old friend from London who's a teacher here now. On the way out, we see Barbara, Paul and Ayala who've been waiting completely hours so I promise them a name-check and I hope I've remembered it right. Also, I get a really nice t-shirt and CD from a band called Peppermint and I've got such a big backlog of stuff to listen to. I haven't even finished listening to Elevator from Toronto yet, then there's Laura's band the Novellas and now Peppermint, and Anton Barbeau gave me a nice looking CD at the Fillmore too.

So yes anyway, where was I? Ah yes, here again......oh, I think the link just below and to the right says it all really......

— Matthew