UK 30 Shows in 30 Days: Day 11 – Downtime

From NME.com.

We’re now halfway through our residency—not halfway through the tour, though, mind you. It feels simultaneously disconcerting to find ourselves still so early on in this adventure and amazing that we haven’t imploded yet after 11 consecutive days of driving, performing, consuming massive quantities of alcohol, and sleeping in dodgy hotels. Normal life is forcing itself back into our wayward schedules, and so upon our return to London, we set out to do mundane things—shop, eat, call friends, sit… After so many days, you get the hang of it and learn how to mimic normal living, as much as you can.

It only lasted for a few hours, though, and then we were off to sound check at Dublin Castle in Camden. We held an impromptu drum competition (you learn to get creative with things to do while waiting for sound people to arrive) and then headed next door to Toasted, a living room of a Toastie shop co-owned by the proprietors of the Dublin Castle. In addition to toasties (which we learned are sandwich pockets that can contain anything from cheese and peanut butter to cat food), you can get custom-made t-shirts. We continued our afternoon wind-down there, well into the evening, then headed off for Vietnamese food with some friends living in London. Normal living never felt so good.

When we returned to the Castle, we found the place even more crowded than it was last week. Little Death, friends of ours through Los Angeles connections, shared the bill with us. They were fantastic. More friends appeared, and then, we finally took the stage for a particularly loud and sweaty set. In all, our night lasted until four in the morning, when we gradually lost track of each other. We fully expect to be raving mad by week 4.