Kites Tour
Exchanging Glances Over Glasses
Part 1.
Kites have just concluded the first leg of their summer tour and are presently enjoying a brief siesta before they depart to Nottingham tomorrow morning. It therefore falls upon me – Kites’ loquacious and, arguably, inane vocalist – to herein recount the details of the first chapter of their musical expedition.
I was under no delusions of what a tour entailed. As a blemished teen, I had devoured enough rock biographies to make the Encyclopædia Britannica look like a harmless collection of Enid Blyton novels. The realities of life on tour – the technical debacles, the in-band quarrelling, the interminable tinnitus! – were not part of some secret history but were as familiar to me as my own reflection. Imagine then my internal confusion as I struggled to comprehend the perpetual difficulties that were to rain down on us like manna from heaven. As an enthusiast of musical folk-lore, I knew that these trials and tribulations were an inevitability. As the singer of Kites, I was utterly dumbfounded.
Our opening show in Guildford was fairly innocuous. The venue itself reminded me of the scene in ’24 Hour Party People’ when Tony Wilson unveils the Hacienda to his bemused colleagues at Factory Records. Just like at the inauguration of its illustrious counterpart in Manchester, the paint had barely dried on the walls of Guilford’s Backline Live. The post-industrial interior was sparsely populated by an advanced guard of Surrey musos. Clearly, in six months time, this setting will be their cultural Mecca but, for now, it is still in its embryonic stages.
Although Guilford could not be declared a disaster it was hardly the launching pad into global ubiquity that we were hoping for. Moreover, Kites’ next performance at 93 Feet East was prefaced by a string of ill portents that sent chills down my spine. Please don’t drown me in a lake! I am not a witch. I do not jovially greet magpies. I deplore Mystic Meg. In fact, I am probably the most unspiritual cynic you will ever meet but, on this occasion, nerves were getting the better of me. Let me quickly recite the facts; we were an hour late for soundcheck after a journey that would make Marco Paulo look like an errant schoolboy, Taio’s guitar was on strike, and tumbleweed was rolling through an empty venue. It thus seemed like a veritable miracle when Taio plucked his first note and the sticky floors of 93 Feet East exploded with the dancing feet of revellers who had forsaken balmy beer gardens for Kites’ brand of provocative melodrama.
Intoxicated with our own success in East London, we arrived in Birmingham brimming with youthful enthusiasm. We were scheduled to headline a mini-festival at the Hare & Hounds - an extraordinary little venue tucked into the heart of the city's King's Heath area. The day had been a delight as we prepared for our set by supping on shandies and lolling our heads in the late afternoon sunshine. Should we have been suspicious at this juncture? Perhaps; yet our equipment had been under our eagle-like supervision all day and there seemed to be no real cause for concern.
And so it was that, upon taking the stage for our performance, an emotional uproar was to occur that seemed like two tectonic plates colliding. IBM! You have so much to answer for. As a modern day Luddite, technology has never been a friend to me but I never expected our sturdy laptop to give way at such a crucial moment. On closer inspection it became apparent that the machine had been sabotaged and there was no way of knowing how it happened. If there is a culprit I would like to presently articulate a few words to them: 'I hope that you suffer some similar calamity in the not too distant future you churl!' Our vexation was only exacerbated by the knowledge that this would have been a truly memorable event to partake in.
On this occasion we had been denied that privilege. We could only pray that our our fortunes would improve for the second half of our tour: 'Exchanging Glances Over Glasses'.
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