Diary Archives
08.23.2006
Final Diary Entry
Our final leg of the year long Life in Slow Motion tour started with our bass player Robbie's Dad being hospitalized for what the doctors said would be his final time.
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06.15.2006
European Festivals/South Africa
We got back together to rehearse and perform a radio show at the Church at the end of May, but our bass player and his wife had their first child, Finn Malone, on the 21st and Robbie needed to stay home.
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05.08.2006
Byron Bay/New Zealand
Our first show in Australia was the Byron Bay Blues and Roots Festival - a really cool hippie festival held over five days in this amazing part of the country.
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03.11.2006
USA Tour
We started March 1st at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta. We've played here before and remembered it fondly. Like the Fox in Detroit, this is an amazing looking and sounding venue.
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02.07.2006
European Tour
2006 began for the band with a couple days rehearsal in the Church where we learned a few new songs and ran over the others. Everyone was in top form and looking forward to our European tour.
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12.13.2005
UK Tour
Manchester Evening News Arena...we got in to Manchester on the Saturday of George Best's funeral. Robbie threw his bag in his room and got a taxi to Man United game...
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12.05.2005
Start of the UK Tour
Dave's larangytis brought our American tour to a screeching halt back in October and the healing process was slow.
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10.16.2005
Toronto, Washington D.C. and New York City
We started our latest tour in Toronto, two months to the day after our last show in Toronto.
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09.26.2005
UK Tour
So this has to be the shortest tour I've ever been on. It lasted six days! Can you really call it a tour if it's less than a week? Maybe it should be called a leg.
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09.16.2005
Promo, TV Tapings and the Record's Release
We have been taping a lot of television shows since getting back from America last month.
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08.30.2005
Promo Tour Wrap Up
From Boulder Colorado we flew in to Seattle for a day off which also happened to be Clune's Birthday. Dave had something special planned, we were told to meet at the pier at two in the afternoon.
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08.16.2005
Boulder Colorado
Boulder Colorado is the site of the long running, annual "Triple A" Radio Convention. This was the original show that this tour was built around.
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08.05.2005
The Tour Begins
So I am in the back lounge of our bus, driving from Boston to Philladelphia overnight. Our show at the Avalon tonight went really well, for everyone except Dave.
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07.13.2005
Rehearsals in North London
My name is David Nolte and I'm the guitar player in David Gray's band. Dave has asked me to update his website weekly in the form of a tour journal which will start today.
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Diary Entry
European Festivals/South Africa
Thursday, June 15, 2006
We got back together to rehearse and perform a radio show at the Church at the end of May, but our bass player and his wife had their first child, Finn Malone, on the 21st and Robbie needed to stay home. Luckily Tony Shanahan was in London and available to sit in for a few shows. He's the bass player for Patti Smith and he's known Dave and Clune for a number of years, played live with them in the past and sang on the New Day at Midnight CD.
We only had one rehearsal with Tony and he did an amazing job...like he'd been with us for years. He was also American and for a brief moment the demographic of the band shifted in my favor. So we rehearsed one day, played a 45 min set the next day for Virgin Radio then left for Germany and the Rock Im Ring festival in Nurberg, Germany.
This festival had three stages in the middle of a raceway. Ours was the Alterna-Stage. Facing ours was the full on rock stage and the wind would carry their sound over to our area so you would get these occasional blasts of loud guitars and screaming vocals throughout the day. The place was fairly empty except around the rock stage. It was also very cold and muddy from an earlier rain so the faces that greeted us weren't exactly happy ones. Not that they were unhappy either...it just wasn't the fun in the sun everyone hoped it would be.
Babyshambles and Richard Ashcroft were both no-shows so we went on an hour later than planned and that was cool. We had a short but sweet set and then hung around to watch a little of Morrisey before leaving for the next city.
Next was Rock Am Ring in Nuremberg, Germany at another raceway. This time the stages were more spread out, there were more people and the weather was much warmer. Babyshambles showed up this time and lived up to every expectation with Pete Doherty stumbling off to the bathroom as we arrived and then stumbling on to the stage.
The backstage was just cubicles without roofs, one next to the other so you could hear everything from everywhere. We had Paul Weller on one side and Nelly Furtado on the other. We got to hear Nelly rehearse, talk about her childhood and pal around with her entourage. It all sounded a bit weird from where I was sitting. I found out why later when she was walking around and there was a guy filming everything she did. She even went on stage during our set and had the guy filming her watching us and commenting (I wonder what she said) So I guess she is shooting the inevitable pilot for her reality TV show. That's why everything she said and did seemed so 'natural'. Paul Weller was as cool as could be. No airs, entourage, funny vibes, etc. Him and his band just came in, did their thing and took off. They were really good as well.
Next we played the Pink Pop festival in Holland. We played at 2 in the afternoon and got a great response. We were tucked in the middle of bands like the Deftones but it didn't seem to matter. That was it for Tony Shanahan. We flew to London that night and said our thank yous and goodbyes to Tony.
After a day off we reunited with Father Robbie and flew to Cape Town, South Africa. The show went great. It was Dave's first time playing there and the audience were very appreciative. They were one of the warmest crowds we've played to. On the van ride back to the hotel everyone was in a good mood. Robbie and Dave started singing Donna Summer's 'I Feel Love' with Robbie doing the bass line and Dave singing "What'll it be, what'll it be, what'll it be" I should have filmed it
We then played Johannesburg in a really big arena. The roof inside looked like a space ship. There was a massive echo in the room that made playing together tougher than usual and, right at the beginning, the piano started playing random notes all by itself.. Despite all the distractions, it was a great show and, again, a really warm audience.
The day after the show, Dave, Clune & Caroline went to a lion rehab center and pet baby lions. It was really cool apparently because they couldn't stop talking about it. Dave was happy to be getting out of the 'five-star prison' as he had named our hotel. We flew overnight to London and landed the morning of Dave's birthday...Happy Birthday Dave!
