Day 6
And so I get home and all is calming. And clammy. There is no band to see across town at 1pm. Or 1am. There are no more Yellow Cabs and sleek black Car Service glides from Brooklyn into the pit of Manhattan, no more subway rides overground in the glistening morning sun. No more beards (I shaved off mine own on arrival at home) and probably less beer, weed and pizza than has been the norm this last week. Certainly not for breakfast anyway.

So, was it all hard work? Well, yes. And no. Don’t get me wrong: 15 hour days of bands and beer are great. I have to admit is a little daunting when you stack 5 of them back to back. Especially rolling straight on from two days on the road with new Swedes, Air France. But I have skills and methods and coping strategies. Continue Reading

Lake Toba is the second album by Norwegian band Lukestar, who apparently are very much in vogue at the moment in their homeland. I went to Norway a few years ago, and absolutely loved it - it’s a hell of a place. You know you’re in an interesting country when the only graffitti you can find is protected by a sheet of plexiglass as a historical anti-Nazi relic from the Second World War. Norway’s not necessarily the first Scandinavian country to pop into your head when you think of musical output (with the exception of a-ha) but that doesn’t seem to faze Lukestar here - Lake Toba is a confident, emphatic album which appears to be named after a lake and supervolcano in Indonesia… for some reason. Continue Reading