Hello from Manchester! We are a few dates into our UK tour with Tokyo Police Club and all is well. They aren’t from Tokyo or even police officers, but are rather quite genteel, well-heeled Canadians. They are also a fantastic band.
But rewinding a few weeks, on our US tour this spring with Black Kids & Cut Copy something magical happened - I learned how to snap. Powerfully. Powerful, overpowering snapping. Something about 10 hour drives through Wyoming in both directions… anyway, I have since been impressing everyone in my path with my new ability, or at least impressing myself.
They say that you travel to learn about your home, and I guess now that our European travels have concluded (or, more hopefully, adjourned) I can finally understand what that means. The various people we met and places we drove through, often barely stopping for enough time to fill up our stomaches and gas tank, reflected a light back upon me that made everything look a little different once I got home. How much more I appreciate the relative stillness of my quiet life in the valley.
I apologize for not reporting more fully from the motherland as events unfurled. Sometimes you are too busy doing or not doing to talk about what you’re doing or not doing. And long drives and impatient waiting in backstage closets merely dull your ability to converse normally anyhow. Needless to say I had an amazing time, a good friend of mine might have called it “life affirming”: a once in a lifetime, memories racking up like the miles blowing by, millions and millions served, bull-ring, shot-gunning, no sleep, leg drop sort of occasion. And everyone shouting out “GARY” when you spill your beer on yourself for the hundredth time.
Here are some more European memories . . .
As we criss cross Germany this week, we’ve gotten to know the alternately amazing and frustrating highway system here, known as the Autobahn. I always thought it was one particular road - a mythical place where you drive as fast as possible as a sort of national imperative, ideally in a very nice German sports car. (more…)
This is a city that seems to push its artists to cover every inch with living images. Stencils and stickers, giant spray-paint murals to tiny tags, everywhere you look there is another little masterpiece. (more…)
Hello from Hamburg!
The european Mobius Band invasion takes a break for the day in the home (or at least namesake) of that most American of appropriations, the hamburger. Haven’t eaten one yet on tour, but the doner kebab in Germany is proving tough to beat. (more…)
A few days ago we played an honest-to-god arena.
I know this because it was called the NIA and the ‘A’ stood for - arena. I also figured it out when we showed up and it was fucking huge. Like 11,000 people huge. Like “we have major sporting events here on the regular” huge.
Well, that bearded gentleman with the crazed glint in his eye is our good friend and current road master, Ryan “Cap’n” Pardey. He’s with us for our grand European tour as a driver, tour manager, shmoozer, snoozer, confidante, and general grease for the wheels of the old country. We threw him in the deep end of the pool, making him drive our massive “splitter” van through rush hour London traffic, on the wrong side of the car, down the wrong side of the street, on two hours sleep, the day after he learned to drive a stick shift. Yikes! That’ll grow ya some short ones.
So, the tour is going well so far. We’re backstage in Glasgow, at our third show. Ireland loved the Mobius Band, let’s hope the UK agrees.
Here are some more pictures. . .
Happy Valentine’s Day from Mobius Band to you. Our new covers EP, LOVE WILL REIGN SUPREME, can be downloaded here. I wrote a little about recording it here.
It’s true! We’re going on tour in the UK and Europe! We’ll be opening for Editors for 6 or 7 weeks from Belfast to Barcelona, London to Lyon, Dublin to Darmstadt. What. Tour dates here.
The week before last, we went up to Noam’s house in Hatfield to do some recording. More details about what’s going to be released will be here soon, but basically the idea was to take just a few days in a room with our instruments and make some music. Normally our process is very slow and considered, but this time we wanted to tone down the editing and turn up the spontaneity.
