It's about time.
Babyshambles have lurched back into action. This summer we've played a splattering of shows - Australia, France, Germany... and with them we've definitely acclimatised our new drummer Adam Falkner to our singular modus operandi. Now with a clattering round the walls of Brixton Jamm, like an excitable drunk reversing a DeLorean into your front room, the Sequel To The Prequel tour has cranked up with a chaotic club show.
We've taken to setting up a mini rehearsal situation backstage with tiny amps etc to warm up before gigs. It's such a good idea, I can't believe we've not done it before. Speaking of surprising new ideas, get a load of this. We've stashed a bunch of folding bikes in the tourbus luggage bay. Brilliant. More on that potentially hilarious theme as it transpires.
Back to tonight... we played great, despite the usual disorder of stagediving kids spilling over the monitors onto our pedals (disconnecting them and breaking leads in the process). Peter in all honesty hasn't been as present as the rest of the band at rehearsals, but he remembered the lyrics for all the new songs pretty well.
Though the new record has only been out one day, the crowd sang along to all the new songs, bless 'em. We played some numbers we've not done in more than eight years... Gang Of Gin, Babyshambles the Song, Eight Dead Boys...that last one is a particular favourite of mine. Makes me think of Pat Walden.
So that was the old and the new. Tomorrow we'll hit something borrowed (our version of The Velvet Underground's After Hours), and something blue (Picture Me in a Hospital). Glasgow Barrowlands... Always absolute bedlam there. You know it's a lively crowd when there's an airport-style security gate kids have to pass through on the way in. Reminds me of that stage with chicken wire in The Blues Brothers. Maybe we should just play Rawhide 12 times and leave.
I'm happy to be here. On a tourbus again, with the lads. Tracing a line around The Kingdom for the next two months. Anything could happen, and probably will, as the fellow said.
Brixton has smashed the champagne bottle into the hull of the good ship, and we're on our way. Stay tuned, I'll be keeping a kind of account on my Huffington blog here. Now, where's that John Fante...