EUROPE - MANCHESTER, DAMNATION

In a move akin to giving a chimp a loaded gun, my best friend and old bandmate Joe has lent me his beautiful (read: outrageously expensive) Gibson Thunderbird bass for the tour. Being responsible for it - and certainly not trashing it around the stage as is my style and wont - is causing me no shortage of anxiety. A perennial klutz, I destroy things with preternatural ease. Once, as a guest in a strange house, I merely hovered near some fancy electronic blinds and they came crashing off the window. (Admittedly, I was vibrating with MDMA, and my wife vibrating with rage). 

Get to Damnation feeling like turds out of the toilet bowl but the festival is amazing. A tour manager friend we run into tells us a buddy band that just embarked on a tour, half the length of ours, has already incurred over double our debt. They must be bathing in Oranjeboom. We’re starting off 4K in the hole, but who’s counting. (Simon and Chris, that’s who, the longsuffering yet levelheaded Band Dads). First show of the tour, hard to get into it but a generous crowd, buncha friends present. We had to do merch ourselves while Chris’ train was delayed. I say we, I cowered backstage trying to get drunk and not succeeding. Big shows are weird. Tons of people isn’t a problem, I just hate the flubby bass sound in these places, but I’m too inept to fix it so fuck it. The cacophony is still valid. 

Gave it the usual physical tantrums on stage, already bled on the borrowed bass (sorry Joe). Simon driving tonite so I’m sans a troublemaking partner. We’ll see what we can get into back at the hotel. Hunting down some action now, food tokens be damned. I have a violent, compensating urge to become a terror. I already know I will watch my Instagram stories with despair tomorrow morning in the van, such is my station. But the monkey is out of his cage.