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
UK Tour
Monday, September 26, 2005
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. We started last Sunday in Dublin at the Olympia Theatre. It's a beautiful theatre in Temple Bar. The show went down well, the crowd was really enthusiastic, as you'd expect from Dublin. It was perfect place to start our touring. The next day we played Birmingham but because of the abscence of a ferry the night before we almost didn't make it. We had a rushed setup and no sound check and three songs in, things started going wrong. We tried to play Please Forgive Me a couple times before the keyboard rig decided to behave itself. The technical difficulties were the final insult to our crew who had just been through one long 48 hour day. Dave's guitar tech Duncan setup for the song listed as our encore and then Dave changed his mind about what he wanted to play. When Duncan went out to change guitars again the crowd chanted "YOU F***ED UP!!!, YOU F***ED UP!!!, YOU F***ED UP!!!" Good thing he's got a sense of humour. The technical problems defintely made the show a lot more interesting for everyone.
We went to Glascow the next night and that was unbelievable. A total moment. The audience was so loud in their screams after certain songs that it hurt my ears. They sang to everything, clapped, screamed, went nuts...it was amazing. We were all in agreement that was a really exceptional night. We got a day off in Glascow then played the Manchester Apollo the next day. I've heard about this place forever, it didn't dissapoint. I had a great time there as well. I need another word besides great.
To finish our tour we played two nights at the Shephard's Bush Empire in London. I was really looking forward to this one. Everyone else had played here before except me. I've seen a few shows here over the years, last year my wife and I took our kids to see Cheap Trick here (they loved it). There were a lot of Dave's family and friends around and the shows went really well, especially the second night. Our producer Marius came both nights...I was very impressed, I didn't know he cared. Michael Holden's girlfriend said I was looking like Paul Weller...I don't think she meant in a good way either. Michael has written the tour program for our upcoming tour and we got to see them for the first time on Saturday. They are very cool and there's a DVD in the back.
And here we are the next day, I'm all alone again, wishing I was home with my family, thinking about everything I have to do before we leave for America next week, and then our tour manager texted me that the album is number one again this week in Britain. That is unreal. I've never played on a number one record before (the rest of them have). I wish there was something that happened...like a free desert at a restaurant or half off at the record store. They should issue number one artists a laminate for the week to get them to the front of the line at the store or something like that. That would be good. Or maybe I should think bigger.
I'll take a week off and write again after the first week of our next tour. That will include two nights in New York at Radio City Music Hall that we're all looking forward to.
