delphic recollections

10 November 2009

Joss Stone has just started, which means I’ve got about ten minutes between her, Alice in Chains, and ourselves. Just enough time to nip to the bathroom. Quick reset.

But when I come back, I can’t find my in-ear monitor pack.

I can’t bloody find it. I’ve got the headphones but where’s the pack?

We’re at the BBC for our debut performance on Later... with Jools Holland. We’ve already done the pre-record - that went great. Smooth and controlled. 

Now it’s the live bit. Actually live. We’re on TV in five minutes.

And I’m stood there, patting my pockets and scanning the floor. It’s not there. Did I leave it in the bathroom?

We’re all on in-ears. I need them for the click. Without them, it’s chaos.

Where the fuck did I put them?

Dan, the drummer, looks completely panicked, like he can already hear the train coming off the tracks. James is glaring at me, unsubtly. A look that says, how could you do this to us? First live TV performance and you’re about to derail it before we’ve even started. What on earth are you playing at?

The cameras are repositioning, someone counting down somewhere. The room feels like it’s closing in. Shit.

And then I spot it. At the foot of Dan’s drum riser.

Alice in Chains have just finished and Jools is chatting, I’m scrambling to put the headphones back into the monitor packs. But it won’t go in. Like someone in a horror movie trying to get his key in the door, whilst the villain is closing in on them.

“—and next up is… Delphic!”

Fuck, it’s in. 

I dive to the keyboard and start the opening riff of Halcyon.

And then normality resumes. Muscle memory takes over and we’re off.

It goes brilliantly. From blind panic to complete focus. We’re locked in. We’d brought our light strips with us that all sync up in time with the music, I think it looked great.

Phones start pinging immediately after.

“Just saw you on TV!” “Mate that was unreal” “Where have you been hiding this?”

We’re buzzing. Properly buzzing.

We’re off to Tokyo supporting Bloc Party next. Full acceleration. No time to really process anything. Pack up and go.

Then back for a run of UK shows - supporting Kasabian, Doves - big crowds. Along with a show at XFM’s Winter Wonderland with The Courteeners and Echo & the Bunnymen. And finishing the year with a New Year’s Eve set at The Warehouse Project.

Then suddenly it’s album time.

It’s absolutely manic.

We’re everywhere.  The Airports, buses, hotel rooms all blur into each other. I wake up and don’t know where I am most of the time. But I’m loving it. Completely lost in it.

And then there are quiet moments. When I get back to the flat, and I feel so drained, and my health anxieties start to creep back in - ‘why are the other lads not run down like me’, ‘why am I so tired’, ‘there must be something deeper wrong’ - and then suddenly we are back out on the road, altogether travelling in the bus, or jet setting to the other side of the world - so I don’t have time to worry any more. The motion is the cure I guess, I can just shut it out, for now at least.  

We drink most nights.

Probably more than we should

But it’s nerve wracking doing a show, so you need a beer or 2 to settle the nerves, and then of course you need a few after to help come down. I get it now, I understand why we’ve heard of so many of our favourite artists getting lost in alcohol or drugs - how do you come down without it? How does Elton John play in from of 100,000 people and then… just go back to his room for a quiet game of monopoly? 

We hang around while the crew pack down.

The strange afterglow, half exhaustion, half euphoria. James says Joss Stone was giving me the eye, I was going to go and chat her up, but I chickened out.

Then it’s back to the K West.

I’m sharing a room with James again. Same as always. We sit there, going over everything - what worked, what didn’t, what we thought it felt like versus what it probably actually looked like.

The post-mortem.

Then sleep.

And then it’s back to Manchester.

And ready for Tokyo.

Rick