JOLENE'S TOUR DIARY - Continued

i Jolene's Manchester Show (Above and right)

We are in Birmingham. England. Not Alabama. The club is the Flapper and Firkin. The hours before our first show outside of London are a tad nerve-wracking. The soundcheck goes well. Chris will split time between the box and the drums. It seems to work. We return from the club after getting some dinner and it is packed. On a Monday. Wow. Granted, it isn't a big club but still… We talk to some of the people after the show and it appears that many of the crowd had seen us last year when we came through town with Hootie. Song recognition during the set and everything. The anxiety is day-by-day beginning to recede…

Tuesday we are in Leicester which has one of the largest Indian communities in the UK. We immediately blaze a trail to the Indian neighborhood and tuck into some seriously hot Madras, Vindaloo, Bhuna, Balti etc. If this doesn't burn away the cold I seem to be developing then nothing will.

A good crowd tonight at the Shed. This is Mick's home territory so I think he was especially happy that things went well. Mick and Chris are best friends now by the way. They have bonded on the DAT taping thing.  Both Mick and Chris have DAT's and are going to tape all the shows. One through the board, one getting the room mix. The "Jolene Live in the U.K." CD is imminent. Things are growing, things are growing…

Wednesday - Manchester:

Mick's family runs a pub in the country outside of Leicester called the Flying Horse. He is kind enough to put us up there for the night. The drive to Manchester is only a hour and a half so we decide to take the scenic route through the Peaks District National park. Rock and Rollers at night, tourists during the day. Suits me.

It is a picturesque gray, blustery day so the drive through the countryside puts us all into wistful, romantic moods that have us wanting to tramp across the Moors looking for Heathcliff and Cathy. We are short on time so the best we can manage is lunch in a traditional country pub.

Which we do.

It is called the Bluebell and provides us with Steak and Kidney Pie and pints of bitter. There is a peculiar alchemy that the British know well that comes from the combination of heavy country pub food and a pint of real ale or bitter. A euphoric sense of pure comfort spreads throughout your entire being and any stress you may be battling seems to drift off in the ether like the smoke from an extinguished match. This sets us on a pattern of taking time out to stop for a traditional pub lunch nearly every day.

I really don't trust anyone except me with the atlas and maps and, apart from perhaps Chris and our old tour manager Felipe, John's city driving skills are unparalleled. So after some inspired navigation on my part and some assured and plucky driving on John's part we weave our way through the urban topographical mess that is Manchester and finally arrive at the hotel. It looks familiar to me. I chew over my thoughts for a moment and realize that the reason it looks familiar to me is because it is the same place we stayed at when in town this time last year with H & the B-fish… the Wilmslow. That's pretty random. I love when moments in time stumble over themselves in a seemingly meaningless repetition. The day was shuttling along with such a positive force that I think all of us were allowing it to build up our sense of expectation. Manchester is going to be good, Manchester is going to be good..,

One of the promoters, Matt Hill, meets us at the hotel. Chris thinks he might try his "ride 'em like a redneck bunghole" routine with him and see what kind of reaction he'd get. Matt just gives it right back to him and we know we have a good one here. His partners Simon and Clint, who we meet later at the club, are excellent fellows as well. Definitely members of the tribe.

The Star and Garter is a very cool, dingy, rock club above a pub in a beautiful run-down Victorian building in Manchester's red-light district. We're in good company.

The soundcheck sucked. Bad. Our good moods are trashed. The one thread of hope that we steadfastly hold to is the "bad soundcheck = good show" equation. Also that the soundman was playing a tape of the Chameleons (our favorite Manchester band) before the show. Roven and I are both Chameleons fanatics and therefore consider it a good omen -despite receiving the info that Chameleons front man/songwriter Mark Burgess is selling tickets at the Man City football ground and not really making much music. That's fucking depressing. It almost seems that the relationship between true musical genius and commercial success is perversely inverted. Not always, of course, but enough people slip through the cracks (Nick Drake, Big Star, The Chameleons) that it makes you worry about some of the genius bands around now that no one has ever heard of (Scout, Mayflies, Continental Drifters).

We leave after soundcheck for a quick pint. And a Jameson's. And another pint. We put the breaks on because you aren't doing anybody any favors if you get arseholed on Stout and Irish Whiskey before a show. Our return to the club finds the place packed. Our mood picks up. The anticipation in the crowd is palpable. In fact it seems to have warmed this big drafty room up a bit.

The best show Jolene has played in months. The crowd response fed us so that we kept building energy and getting into more and more of a groove. We were stunned at how many people knew so many songs - old and new. James and Chris seem to have really gotten a handle on the material as well. The crowd wouldn't let us stop. We ended up playing for over two hours, well past midnight. We never play that long. And they loved the box.

Matt, Simon and Clint are so pleased they take us out for a killer Indian meal in Rusholme, where some of the best Indian food in England can be had at a very late hour. The Balti gave me bad dreams but it was worth it.