Bristol 24 Feb
It’s nighttime, freezing, at a slightly odd pub 300 metres off the motorway. The pub is slightly odd because of how close it is to the huge road, it doesn’t feel naturally occurring.
My mum’s just dropped me off, I won’t see her for a while, and I hug her goodbye. I leave her and head for the van in the unlit car park. It’s very cold, and I am shaking my legs by choice so that I don’t start involuntarily shaking them.
After waving goodbye to my mum, I load into the van with lots of six foot men and we pull out onto the motorway.
It amuses me to imagine it like this, some kind of dodgy handover situation. You can imagine that story from these aesthetics; handing people over at service stations in the dark.
But these are my friends and I am getting in the van with the band. We have a gig in Bristol.
A Visit
Gigs all over the place are a good way to see people all over the place. I headed to the South-West a day early to see my mum and my gran.
If you leave big enough gaps between seeing people it can be like time travelling. You jump from one version to an older one without living through the time in between. I think about this time travelling effect on myself, how I’m popping in to see different versions of myself every now and then.
I would love to be the same person in every context, but I don’t think I am. Maybe it is to do with performing a lot; you need a certain face for certain situations (e.g. being on stage).
With my mum and my gran, I get a glimpse into seeing this family-version of myself that I haven’t seen in a few months. And I am suddenly more aware of the fact I’m 23 and things like the housing crisis and parenthood. Things I haven’t thought about in between. I have jumped from Christmas straight to now, I carry on the train of thought, from when my nan had dropped the word ‘grandchildren’ into a few conversations.
I think of being on a train while another one passes. If one pulls out of the platform first, there’s a second when you don’t know which train is moving. Who is stationary you or them.
This family self used to be the viewpoint from which I looked at everything else. Things moving around that stationary version of me. It has shifted now. The constant is something different.
I’m not entirely sure which version is the true one, like the split second of the trains before the world decides which is moving, and both are equally true.
My most constant self is probably the one sitting next to the band on some mode of transport somewhere.
I watch things change around me from this point of view. I wave goodbye to my mum.
The train pulls out of the platform and the van pulls out of the motorway pub.
Evening
When we pull into Bristol I notice one of the others hair looks different. His ringlets are really popping, they look oily but on purpose.
It’s not on purpose.
I’m trying to tell him it’s good: ‘No, no, it looks like fashion oil!’ Everyone laughs because fashion oil is not real.
We go straight into artist catering and bump into a friend. Her hair looks wet, slicked down past her ears like she’s just been swimming. Something editorial you would see on Instagram.
It is on purpose.
She’s holding something small wrapped in kitchen roll. ‘What’s that ?’ I ask. She unwraps it from the paper and reveals a small bottle of fashion oil (for her hair).
I am very pleased with its undeniable existence.
I watch a lot more of the other bands than usual. It’s nice to actually see things. Deep Tan are really good, all rhythm. I watch with a bassist, so he keeps pointing out what the bassist does, how she mutes the strings at the perfect moments. I like the way the vocalist goes ‘ooooooOOOOOH ? OOOOooooh.’ It’s like she’s exclaiming at something. I like exclamations.
Home
This gig is a late one. We come off stage at half midnight. It was an intense crowd, more so than we’ve had in a while. It’s very tidal the way they all pull back then shuv forward. Perhaps shuvving a little too much as they fall onto the stage, and the security guards step into a more central position. The security guards have very good stage presence, I think. It’s all in the posture.
After the gig, the swells continue. Everything falling in and pulling back, like ripples moving out from that first intensity.
We all separate off the stage. Dissipate, try to sell T shirts, or sit in the green room. Standing outside for a cigarette or the cold or the still.
After a while it surges back in as we all pack into the van. Close together and over stimulating again. ‘Think’ by Aretha Franklin is playing loudly in the front, ‘Eastbound and Down 30 minute highlights’ is playing in the back at the same time. The van is swerving around the hills of Bristol, everyone wants to locate a McDonalds and I am singing along to Think.
We drive past the M5 and I see signs for where I grew up, it’s funny that walking the dog with my gran is part of the same day I’m currently in. For a minute I really want to drive down the M5, further away from London. But then everyone cheers because the sound finally works on the TV in the back and I look up at that instead. It’s the plum scene.
I have not seen Eastbound and Down but I have seen the plum highlight many times.
We get to the McDonalds. Everyone spills out and away and it’s quiet. I don’t want McDonald’s. I sit at a table slightly far away and eat some flapjacks I bought in Sainsburys and listen to Worrywort.
We pile back into the van, the final surge of energy when I realise we can load Doctor Who on the TV. I put on ‘The Wire’ episode, everyone is pleased with this and pleased to see David Tennant.
It’s just on the wrong side of uncomfortably loud, which works with everyone shouting about Billie Piper and doesn’t work 20 minutes later when they are all asleep. I have earplugs in.
The final ripple of the night fading away as I turn the power and the lights off in the back.
I’m trying not to fall asleep because recently on the really late drives I have been falling asleep and then jolting awake feeling incredibly travel sick. I firm myself and look forward.
The road is full of the thickest fog I have seen in a long time. So opaque any illusion of a moving image is gone and it looks completely still, painted onto the windscreen. An unlit grey, with the idea of motorway lights loosely painted in the middle. I poke Ben so that someone else sees. He looks forward, shakes his head, but then goes back to sleep.
The same emotion as when we all lock eyes on a plane in turbulence; resigned to the going down.
I couldn’t bear it if I just sat in the tiredness.
I get home around 5:30 am. I value sleep but it is quite hard to maintain those values around this lifestyle. I wake up at 12, make some food and rush out to meet Maddy and Eliana in a cafe. It is good to have something to rush to after getting back late the night before.
Next week we will go to France. Entirely on trains, so nothing can go wrong.