stone cold jane austin

7.6.2008

my eyes are burning like i've rubbed vicks in my cheeks and i can barely lift my fingers to live up to being the blog wizard that i wish to be. i'll soldier on, regardless.

unbeknownst to me at the time of my blog-a-day promise, our internet access (and general windows of recreational time) on tour was slight and, consequently, yielded only one measly blog. singular. shocking performance and i kicked my own ass over it. we're slackers and we hate ourselves like kurt cobain. boohoo. unlike previous tours where we'd wile away pre-show hours by spending money on crap like 'how to change the name to your songs and still annoy people months later' by Get Auverytt, this tour was seasoned with a lot more press stuff and talking about ourselves - something we're really, really, really good at because we love ourselves, obvz. rofl. lolz. so yeah, deepest apologies for the lack of gossip and chit chat.

on the flip-flop, this does mean i can just pool my tour memories into one big, mammoth-blog, dedicated to tour. this will be exclusively photoless, due to the aforementioned, 'glasgow atrocity'. leeg did not commandeer a camera for the rest of the tour, however, he did commandeer several bottles of jack daniels and rode them like pissed off bucking broncos from manchester to london. i've been unfashionably well-behaved on this tour and exchanged my usual penchant for post-show drinks with a post-show pot of jelly with mandarin (winner); or a post show bowl of rice krispies multigrain (double winner). this headboy-like display of angelic behaviour did allow me to collect several litres of russias finest export by the london finale, which allowed my friends and family to celebrate my cunning and foresight in blissful, slurring, lo-definition. that is to say, after london - shit got messy and we got rendered. the reason for this, purely, was that the tour (you know? the one we just did? yeah, that one.), well, it was the best tour we've ever done. mainly because you handsome people came out to the shows and threwdown with us every night and made us happy to be us, onstage, in front of you. it was actually incredible. excusing the first two shows (which were, nevertheless, equally awesome), we sold out every show. i'm not one to pick favourite shows or single out one crowd from another. every show on tour blew our minds and it's incredible that there are that many people interested enough in what we do to leave behind the house and books.

to contradict my previous statement completely, i will nominate london as (probably) my favourite show ever. scrap that. it was the best show we've ever done. reading included. it was the biggest headline show we've ever done and it was sold out and everyone seemed to be up for a good time and i can honestly say, hand on heart, i've never ever had so much fun playing a show in my life. it was incredible and we owe you all for showing us such a good time.

our album wound up at the dizzy height of 29 in the album chart in the first week. if we were mika, our camp, primary coloured, shit-song-writing, freddy-mercury-bastardized ass would be dropped, but luckily, we're us and it's absolutely out of this world. we didn't honestly expect top 40. yeah, we crossed our fingers a bit and held out hope, but it exceeded all our expectations and we even shankedour dear ex-girlfriend, ashlee simpson. i'm sure she doesn't care. she's hot, married and up the spout and we're haggard, single and just-plain-fat.

20 big-ups for my overuse of the hyphen today. --- <3

i'm a bit sad that valencia have gone. it's weird living on top of people for 3 weeks and then them going. potentially, it could have been a nightmare and we would have been forced to blow seven kinds of smoke at them. fortunately, they were all totally stand-up guys an we had a blast with them. particular highlights were the daily arguments about who's nations was better. they got pretty heated and i'm not sure who won. i think it was us. yeah. it was us. we have better chocolate and we spell 'colour' and assorted similar words with a 'u'. we even got to hang out on the beach in portsmouth. thank you shane, brendan, george, jd and max. you're alright in our books.

i have to wrap this up. i've just been told i have an interview at 6 and i'm sat an hour away from cardiff, 10 minutes from a train and about an hour from being presentable. whoopsy daisy.

thank you all very, very, very much for your support from day one. the fun starts now so we'll see you in festival season.

aled xxx