20th of March 2007

Consume in massive quantities

Ok. I'm not gonna lie. The album and tour of catching tales finished with our Tokyo gig back in December; emotionally it felt like the bookend to an incredible 18 months. So repacking my suitcase for our little mini "tourette'" recently was much more like packing for a holiday. I only remembered at the last minute to throw in some footwear that was something other than flip-flops. Yes, I'm a beach monkey. I writhe around in the sun, read, splash around in the water, drink ice-cold beers and listen to the waves happy as anything. So the opportunity to do this for a week in March bookended by a couple of shows was too much to pass up. You'll forgive me for treating it like a holiday. We had a great time in Jakarta, Bali and Dubai - I had no idea that we would pull such large audiences at both gigs. It was a nice surprise. When you are at home writing songs on your own you forget there is an audience out there.

The Jakarta gig was great fun, but I was in holiday mode so I'm gonna tell you about the partying instead. We danced till sunrise and enjoyed the hospitality of the indonesians while both the sun and the rain beat down in equal measure. I discovered a new drink (Chivas Regal with iced green tea) which I proceeded to consume in massive quantities. I was stunned to turn up at a groovy club (Embassy) and discover that my favourite DJ, Laurent Garnier, was spinning. I threw myself around while the filthy basslines and spluttering beats burst out of the speakers. On the plane to Bali I realised my legs actually hurt from all this exertion. Who needs the gym? We were lucky to be on the bill with our friends from the Kyle Eastwood band, who my brother sings with occasionally when you can get him out of the studio. I can't go into too much detail, but lets just say that it's better for all our health that we don't tour together too often.

Bali, only an hour by plane from Jakarta was a tropical paradise. We were shocked to hear about both the earthquake and plane crash in the region as we arrived. We were here to relax however and our days were spent by the sea, jet-skiing, swimming and drinking iced coconut water. Evenings were spent with hoards of Australian and English backpackers dancing to Vanilla Ice and Kriss-Kross. Mr Garnier would have been horrified. We felt so lucky to be here as the gentle afternoons turned into storms and then returned to a moonlit, nightime calm. I spent a lot of time listening to new albums from Deerhoof, LCD soundsystem, Wynton Marsalis and a huge number of Lee Morgan albums I've had ready to listen to for ages.

We arrived in Dubai after 3 very long flights and very little sleep. Driving from the airport to the our hotel by the sea was surreal. They say 20% of the worlds cranes are in Dubai (actually that's rory's statistic) and I can believe it. Dubai is an eery mixture of intense commerce and opportunity, funded and operated by those with immense wealth but ultimately run by workers from all the poorer corners of the world. But don't you think London is becoming like this? I had my preconceptions about the place but was happy to see the amount of variation in the level of tourism that is here. There were visitors from all parts of the world of varying degrees of wealth enjoying Dubai's beaches, shopping centres and mind-boggling architecture. We had a fine time here on our short stay particularly at a water park called Wild Wadi. We spent the day running around with water pistols in the sunshine enjoying the slides which take you up, down and around the site on a rubber tyre at varying degrees of speed. I haven't enjoyed myself at one of these places in quite the same way for a very long time. Watching Seb come down the "death-slide" at 80kph like a cannonball is something that will remain etched in my memory. Our gig was outdoors and fun. I played a little of a few new songs, heavily disguised amongst familiar ones so hopefully no-one noticed..........

Well enough of the travelogue. My next journal will be about mundane, everyday rubbish I promise.

with love

jc