Run For Cover(s)

The recent EU/UK tours were fantastic and I have lots to tell you about. But one of the great things about playing a lot of shows in a row is that you start to relax a bit, gel together as a group, and as a result you are far more able to mess around with the set for fun.

On the other side, one of the big negatives is that you get kind of sick of your own set. I reflected the other day that I haven’t played a set since 2006 that didn’t have “Antarctica” in it. It’s a fine song. But jesus holy living fuck if I never have to play it again that would also be fine. Lots of bands play literally the same set every night and have done for decades… I have no idea how they don’t just shoot themselves. It’s brutal.

Anyway, this combination of factors led to some hilarious stunts on tour. First off, we’re in the van and I’m playing some light-hearted old-school lounge music. As you do. Then The Champs’ 1958 classic “Tequila” comes on, the song of course made re-famous by Pee-Wee Herman. Our merch man, who we affectionately call Cock Face, and who was once the world champion of cup-stacking—I am not making that up—says: “God, I hate this song.”

So of course we all immediately figure out the chords and main riffs and decide to play it that night just to annoy him.

Next, because we were in England on the second trip, I randomly tossed a verse and chorus of Oasis’ “Champagne Supernova” into the set, and somehow everyone in the band knew it without practicing. The crowd groaned. But oh, they sang!

And then, the piece of resistance: we arrived at the lovely seaside town of Appledore and went into the truly magisterial pub The Beaver Inn. We were recognized by some guys from Somerset who were attending the gig that evening. We had a drink with them by the sea, which BY THE WAY looked like this:

Fig 1. G and T, by the sea, that’s the life for meeee

And we joked about our Oasis cover, and one of the guys from Somerset got deadly serious and said: “Ok guys, but seriously, please, just DO NOT cover Coldplay. Never. Ever.” This was spoken with such force and conviction and with more than a hint of disgust. But he didn’t think very hard about who he was saying it to. There is only one way to guarantee a Coldplay-free set from us, and that is to not mention Coldplay at all.

So we went backstage, and started jamming out Coldplay’s “Clocks”. Our bass player, the inimitable Cumulo-Dingus—so named because he is utterly clueless about clouds—started singing his own words along to the main melody. And so we ended up with a new west country themed smash hit, which will soon be sweeping the radio hit parade: “Cider Time”. Here’s the backstage jam:

And here’s the live performance that night:

And all of this culminated at the festival with the increasingly hilarious and inapt name—Rebellion Festival in Blackpool—with a “folk-punk” set that featured Oasis AND Coldplay AND “Tequila”, where for that last song we told the audience that it was time for “punk rock Karaoke” and that four volunteers would be singing a “Ramones classic”, when of course they and their pink mohawks ended up just standing there awkwardly on stage through 87 seconds of a famous cheezy horn riff, waiting just to be able to shout: “TEQUILA!” All as Cock Face stood over at the merch table, shaking his head, wondering why he chooses to spend time with such incurable morons.