Please don't steal our things Chicago.

We had driven a couple of hours after the first show in Cleveland, so we woke up in a place called Perrysburg, Ohio. We also went to sleep in a hotel there before we woke up - we didn’t simply wake up on the ground dazed and confused in Perrysburg. That would have been a bad start to the day. Is it just me or does Perrysburg look weird written down? It looks to me like it should be two words. Maybe it is, can you let me know citizens of Perrysburg? Thanks. I went for a run through Perrysburg before we had to leave, on my travels I saw a Masonic Lodge, A neighbourhood for families with children with impaired hearing, and also a street called Elm Street. I can’t be sure, but as I ran past it i’m sure I saw a guy with a hook nose and a big hat brandishing a massive blade in the middle of the road. Can’t be sure though, and I was running quite fast because The Nightmare On Elm Street really scared me. As we left we went to a supermarket called Mejiers and I bought Ritz crackers, raisins and two bananas. And an orange. And that was the end of our Perrysburg adventure. If I was to make a sign for Perrysburg it would read as so: ‘PERRYSBURG - A PLACE FOR NEW EXPERIENCES’. I managed to write Perrysburg nine times in this paragraph. Might aswell round up to the magic ten...... Perrysburg.

Onwards to Chicago, Illinois. The Windy City. Although when we got in it was more just the cold city. The centre of Chicago has many more gigantic buildings than I remember it having, but then again my main memory of the place before we came here a couple of years ago was that it’s where the Biker Mice From Mars live. I’ve yet to meet those guys, I assume they probably keep a low profile until crime gets out of hand then they hand out some two-wheeled rodent justice. We were playing at a venue called Beat Kitchen - it served food, and had a venue in it, do you see what they’ve done there? This place was obviously owned by a seriously clever business person - they’d got their product across perfectly in just two words. Once we arrived I headed to a music shop called Andy’s Music just along from the venue to pick up some stuff and found perhaps the worlds biggest selection of harps and gongs inside - it was like the most exclusive instrument club ever. It’s customers had to be enchanted fairies or progressive rock drummers from the 1970s. The fairy scene and the vintage progressive rock scene are still big business in these parts i’ve been reliably informed. This guy Andy is obviously just cashing on this, another astute entrepreneur. I’d learned quickly that Chicago is where the business elite clearly dwell.

It was another case of ‘too much gear, not enough stage’ - I have a feeling this is going to be the general vibe of the tour. All our gear was actually in the crowd until we went on, that’s not one of my usual massive over exaggerations either - it was actually just chilling in the corner of the room waiting to be stolen by one of Chicago’s famous music venue pick pockets. Rumour has it that their pockets are deep enough to fit a whole drum kit. I kept a close eye on anyone with a trench coat in case they tried anything. To further add to our woes, Sam managed to show up 15 minutes late for our stage time - quite impressive when you think about it. Sam has been late for practice maybe 1000 times in the past, but being late for a gig when you were in the same venue a couple of hours before? You have to tip your cap to that. It turns out he’d been quite ill, although when I pressed his stomach it didn’t make him vomit... I was suspicious. It did mean we had to sit at the side of the stage for those 15 minutes with the crowd looking at us, wondering why the support band were just waiting about? We probably looked really cool. We did get to play three songs in the end, i’m not sure if that’s a victory or a defeat. I think we successfully managed to confuse everyone in the room, we’ll take that as a victory for science.

We drove 4 hours after the show to Lansing, Michigan. Why did we do that? It’s none of your business, maybe we all have friends there and wanted to visit them late at night? Or maybe Lansing has a great 24 hour supermarket that we wanted to go and by some grapes at? Grapes do taste better between midnight and 4 in the morning - that’s just fact. But we got to our hotel around 3 in the morning to discover the rooms had been set to the arctic setting, a group of young eskimos scuttled by us as we entered the room. So we made that rookie mistake that you never learn from by cranking the heating up in the room so we all woke up at 5 in the morning with no fluids left in our body. I think we’ve made this mistake in excess of 1000 times now. That is also an exaggeration but isn’t at the same time. That doesn’t make sense but then neither does the success of the band Nickelback. Some things just can’t be explained, they...... just....... are.

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