no sleep til' BRUSSELS

It’s 2:45 in the morning, and I’m writing from our van as we jet south to catch a ferry from the port city of Dover. This will be our hardest day of travel of the entire tour, and we will most likely arrive in Brussels somewhere in the early afternoon. I’m told that our hotel has a pool, sauna, and Jacuzzi, so there is a silver lining in there somewhere, even if we’ll only be able to enjoy it for a slim hour or two. I just finished the first shift in the shotgun seat attempting to keep our faithful pilot Nuno awake and on his toes, a chore which proved positively enjoyable. I think Nuno and I have a lot in common: we both have beards, we’re both extremely laid back, we both love music and travel, and we are both photography buffs. Come to think of it, that means that every single one of us in this van right now have a lot in common with Nuno. Of course, Shara lacks the beard…

Nuno is from Portugal, in a town not more than a kilometer (approximately 2/3 of a mile, for those of you not familiar with the metric system) from the beach. Portugal is apparently referred to by fellow Europeans as the “California” of Europe, a fact which goes far to explain Nuno’s laid back demeanor. It has been raining since we left Manchester, hard enough that the pitter-patter on the windshield has made it hard to hear the i-pod playing over our van’s speakers.

In the silences between our front-seat chatter, I got to thinking about the show tonight. It was completely out of body for me. I don’t know whether to accredit it to Brian’s being there, or to Shara for playing her most solid show yet, or for the city of Manchester for providing such a positive and enthusiastic audience. Whatever the reason, we kicked serious arse tonight. It felt like every song had a near perfection to it. And, of course we KILLED No Quarter again. No question. To think that this is our first show together in trio formation is scary, because it makes me think about the next 44 shows we are yet to play over the coming months. We have 15 left on this tour, then the SXSW show on march 16, and then it’s on the road again with the Decemberists.

As tired as I am right now, I have a strange manic energy happening in my bones. I even volunteered to stand my post next to Nuno for the duration of our early morning journey, but then thought the better of the idea and took a seat in the back next to Brian. The droning hum of the highway is almost deafening right now as I sit with my laptop, but I’m happy. Brian just leaned over to me and said, “I know this may sound sappy, but this is exactly what I want to be doing right now. Even if it’s 3am, we’re going to our next show. This is awesome.” Sappiness aside, I couldn’t agree with him more.

I will now try to catch some ZZZZs.

Wow. I just jostled about on the floor of our van for a good hour and a half trying to find a position suitable and comfortable enough for slumber. I don’t know if it worked, but I do know that we have somehow, someway arrived at the cliffs of dover at the southern tip of England, thanks to Nuno’s stellar work behind the wheel. I am dedicating today’s blog to him. And let me reiterate that Nuno is the MAN. I don’t know Brian is even alive right now given that he just arrived on the continent yesterday morning and had a show to play last night. He wins the trooper award for the week. In spite of maximum trooper status, we’re all a bit batty right now seeing as it’s 7:30 in the morning and we’ve successfully driven straight through the night. Once we are on the ferry at dover, we will still be about three hours away from Brussels. By the time I get to a wireless connection and publish this update, I will be one more time zone further east, and therefore one time zone further away from home. What I’m trying to say here is that I miss my peoples. Please send me email if you’d like, as I’d love to get some word from the states. Today’s girlfriend haiku reads:

A LONELY BOTTLE

OF BUSHMILL’S IRISH WHISKEY

AWAITS YOUR RETURN