Sunday 21 September 2003

A82, heading south this time (Alison's driving the van).

We're now heading back to Glasgow after last night's gig - beautiful weather again. A photo session awaits us this afternoon - not sure I'm in the mood really.

I'm feeling unusually wretched this morning.  The promoter was providing our accommodation (hospitality rather than a hotel, or 'hostility' as it's often unfairly described by musicians).  This can be delightful, as our hosts were, but for reasons too complex to go into here, Katherine and Alison both had to leave for their digs immediately after the gig, before we'd even packed up the van.  So David and I were deprived of Katherine's knot-tying skills, which was a bit of a pain, but what was unexpectedly very distressing was the fact that we had no time with the four of us together, to come down from the adrenaline rush of playing the show. This sounds trivial, but even 10 or 15 minutes unwinding and comparing of experience afterwards makes the vital difference between feeling at peace with the world having worked hard at entertaining some people, and feeling like you've just had far too much unreasonably asked of you and taken from you by too many. 

When the exhaustion kicks in before you've had an opportunity to relax, it's quite bewildering, and very unpleasant indeed.  I'm not prepared to knowingly put myself in the position of feeling like that ever again, so any more of these 'accommodation included' gigs are going to subject to strict rules from now on. Look out, here comes our new rider, it's only one small step from here to blue M&Ms.

And I've spent much of the journey south re-evaluating just how much I want to be responsible for a group when after the tedious months of hard slog, I don't even get to enjoy the satisfaction of the moment of completion. As I've mentioned here many times before, the first sip of beer (or other, not necessarily alcoholic refreshment) amongst musicians after a hard gig is a magical moment, and this time I felt I'd really earned it. This is going to sound petty, but being deprived of it in this instance, when the run-up to it has been protracted and difficult, has made me question whether I want to do this for much longer. The music's great of course, but it has to be allowed to grant its own rewards to those who make it. Otherwise I'll scream and hold my breath, OK?

Over the next week or two I'm going to be going over our possible future projects with a fine tooth-comb, and anything without a 'comfort zone' to allow for job satisfaction will get pulled. So my sincere apologies to any musicians who I'm about to deprive of work, but I've had enough of being the whipping boy.

(later) We had a useful if exhausted band meeting this afternoon sorting out money and diaries, after a pleasurable hour or two with photographer (and novelist) Kevin Low.  We're recording in Crichton tomorrow - I hope there's a functioning power supply there this time.

DMcG before deprivation of post-gig wind-down: Falls of Falloch, 20/9/03 12.40pm

DMcG after deprivation of post-gig wind-down: Rannoch Moor, 21/9/03 10.27am