What would be worse: To be born with a rugby ball for a head or to have hockey stick arms? This is the kind of sporting goods nightmare that keeps me up for hours at night. Here’s another one: Would it be worse to have golf tees for hair or boxing gloves for hands? This second query is obvious, It would be much worse to have boxing glove hands. It would be near impossible to handle an umbrella or pour skittles into your hand effectively. Also, golf tee hair would be trendy and new age. They could bring out a range of hair products in conjunction with wood varnish companies. It would harold a new age of hair care, the possibilities are endless. But usually, the questions that present themselves are much harder to answer as most people would rather have the normal human body parts than have to substitute something away for sporting equipment. It is maybe man’s greatest fear... to have snooker cues for legs. And not the fold away versions, the solid kind so you would either have to stand up or lie flat down. No in between. Does anyone else have these nightmares? No? Me neither. I only wrote this because I could think of nothing to say. That’s Pulitzer Prize winning honesty.
The next stop on our magical mystery tour (it was no mystery, we all knew where we were going) was Rochester, New York. That’s different than the New York from ‘Home Alone 2: Lost In New York’ and ‘Home Alone 6: Lost In New York Again With No Filming Budget’. That’s New York City, where all the magic in the world happens. Rochester is in upstate New York - where murders happen. I don’t actually know that, i’d just heard that upstate New York was scary. But then Glasgow is meant to be scary too, and I walk about that place like i’m king of the jungle. Literally. I wear a t-shirt that says ‘King of the Jungle 2k11’ and a collection of exotic animals follow me everywhere. It’s really quite something. My only other experience of upstate New York was when we played Buffalo last year and me and Ross went looking for food late at night and every corner looked like where a potential rape attack could take place at any moment. It didn’t happen obviously, or if it did the attacker was very quick and I don’t remember it.
When we got into Rochester my fear of it being scary was overtaken by the very real sensation that it was fecking cooooooooold. It was hat and gloves weather, of that there was no question. Unfortunately I only had fingerless gloves with me, which are about as useful as shoes made from smoke. I say this like I was outside for ages, it was only about 30 seconds and my fingers warmed up within about 1 minute of going inside. But still, it was an emotionally damaging experience - sometimes I still get a chill in my fingertips and it brings memories of that icy 30 seconds flooding back... terrifying. The venue was called Water Street Music Hall, which had half of it’s name right. It was definitely a hall for music but the street outside was not made of, or filled with, water. Misleading, we’d packed scuba gear and traded all of our instruments for waterproof versions at much cost and effort. In spite of this, I liked the venue - it had character. This is another way of saying it was old. But it’s the same thing.
The show went well but the crowd seemed too into it if that could ever be a bad thing? It kind of felt liked canned applause, as if the people in the crowd weren’t actually there. This is the only time I will probably ever be confused about people clapping. The show was put on by a radio station so before AWOLNATION (honestly, it’s illegal to put in lowercase) played they did an introduction that descended into pantomime call and response stuff from the radio guys and the crowd. Strange. Things got much worse when they started playing, myself and Barry witnessed a girl get fingerbanged on the balcony by a man who had perhaps 4 litres of whiskey. And an old woman standing beside us took her top off whilst a man who was perhaps in his 70s jumped up and down beside her. I feared for his health. It was an experience i’m not sure i’ll ever recover from. In the space of 30 minutes I witnessed things I thought i’d never have to see. A traumatic night, and Rochester had fulfilled it’s legacy of being scary. But not because of murderers.
I’ll leave you with this: Imagine having cricket balls. By this I mean testicles that looked like the spheres used for the gentleman’s sport. Not the genitalia of the insect, that would just be silly.
P.S. The day after this show we had to go to Cleveland, Ohio for press, which is where the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame is situated. This will probably be the only time we ever legitimately get to put ‘Rock & Roll’ into the Sat Nav. It was as much of a thrill as you would imagine it would be.
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