2015-a year in the life...

Another year gone...where does it go? Unbelievable...I look back on it and, seeing the things we did, it seems simultaneously like yesterday and 10 years ago sometimes...

January started with a trip to JJ's to catch up and talk about possible songs for the March On tour...unseasonably warm even for the South of France, we managed to sit in the garden in t-shirts playing acoustic guitars one afternoon...global warming at its finest...

At the end of that month JJ, Jet and I appeared on BBC Breakfast TV in Manchester...Jet all bundled up in scarf, shades and woolly hat, prompting Boy George to Tweet "Jet Black...a punk Paddington Bear"...The presenters seemed more interested in the band's dalliances with Heroin from days of yore, I get asked one question and am abruptly interrupted by the rude and particularly crass male presenter during my answer...I opt not to speak again...

February is taken up, as most Februarys are these days with rehearsals...We convene in the west country for 2 weeks, have a break, then come back for another week. Sometimes it doesn't last that long, sometimes we need longer, but not often...We tend to know what we're doing...

March of course was tour time...and again, a great time. As it comes around, we always play it down thinking it'll not be as good as last year, or the year before that...and it always is...Our expectations are surpassed, and we still look at each other with 'wow' expressions on our faces...hard to put into words how it makes us feel...but I think you know...

April is a quiet month...nothing going on but the rent...

May is a very varied month. We play in a marquee in Belfast city centre...always fantastic to go there, we don't go enough...

Then me and my mate Merv go on a road trip of a lifetime on our motorcycles, getting a ferry from Portsmouth to Bilbao and riding through Spain and along rhe bottom of France, culminating in a gig for Harley Davidson in St Tropez in the south of France...full of posing arrogant Europeans on very silly machines, but still worth a look...When I arrive home I discover I've ridden over 2000 miles. 

The month is rounded off by 2 cracking shows in Greece...despite all the economic problems both shows completely sell out and we're looked after very well. You always go to places like these and assume you'll never go again...somehow you always do.

June is a relatively quiet month but is punctuated by festival in Belgium early on, and rounded off by a superb show at the Eden Project in Cornwall with Motorhead...The weather surpasses itself and 5,000 people bask in the early evening sun as we take the stage. Despite us being pretty consistent in our performances most of the time, we play and sound particularly good on this occasion and win over a lot of hairy people during the next hour...It's all smiles as we leave sweaty and triumphant...

Backstage we encounter a very frail looking Lemmy who has a distant and glassy look to his eyes but is still friendly as only he can be...He and JJ embrace and him and I shake hands and exchange brief pleasantries...

It's the last time we'll ever see him...

July is a pretty varied and quite busy month too. We travel to London on the 9th to do a video with Simple Minds who we'll be touring with at the end of the year. Jim Kerr has come up with the idea of us playing together and making a promo to be streamed nearer the time...it's also his birthday and after we do the number, a combined version of 'Grip', the bubbly and cake appear and we all toast him as he stands looking slightly sheepish. Charlie Burchill then breaks the whisky out ,and it's with slightly blurred vision that we leave them later that afternoon, looking forward to seeing them all in the winter. Lovely day...

We then play a small series of club dates as we've done for the last couple of years, taking in Worthing, Hampton Pool, York, Middlesbrough, Holmfirth and Blackburn...The York gig being the hottest gig I've personally ever done in my life...ask anyone who was there...unbelievable...

August starts with the famous Scots Festival Belladrum, which takes place up near Inverness. I opt to ride up on the bike and it's a very pleasant journey indeed...The weather holding out nicely. We're on with the Kaiser Chiefs who are fans and mates, and the whole thing is set in a lovely forest clearing surrounded by mountains. Earlier in the summer they'd played in Sunderland with the Foo Fighters and a fan had presented Ricky with a football shirt complete with his name on the back...him not being a football fan at all, never mind a Sunderland fan, asked me if I wanted it...bless him...My daughter is a Kaisers fan, and when I give it to her, her face is a picture...

Unfortunately due to the late running of the previous act, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas would you believe (who can still sing like a bird) our set is cut short which we're none too happy about...We make our feelings known and people tend to give us a wide berth after that until we leave the festival site...bit of an anti-climax to say the least...Still, the ride was good...

We then do a couple of shows in the west country and Warwickshire which go without too many hitches, and then my favourite part of the whole summer...JJ'S too...

We're doing a festival in the Ardennes region of Belgium, and myself, JJ, Merve the Swerve and 2 motorcycle journalists ride down from England in a convoy to do the show...Merve and I getting a ferry from Hull and meeting the other 3 at a hotel near Zeebrugge...They're covering it for Motorcycle News (MCN) and also want to take in the gig...It turns out to be a fabulous weekend...The weather is sublime, the gig is superb, 10,000 folks in a gorgeous old city square, and the riding is an absolute dream...Of course, you can't have things your way all the time, and on getting back to Hull 2 days later, it's pissing down...I mean absolutely stair rodding it, and when I arrive home 3 hours later I'm soaked to the bone despite all my expensive protective clobber...If the weather wants to get in, ride through it long enough and it will...

Doesn't dampen my thoughts about that weekend though...it'll live long in the memory...

September is traditionally a holiday month for us...and providing there's no work to do, we try to relax...I go to JJ'S for another week of playing, writing and drinking...and we get a few little nuggets recorded for later...

The three stooges-France 2015

As we've an unusual November tour of Europe coming up we spend most of October rehearsing and getting ready...it's going to be an intense jaunt...16 shows in 19 days in 5 countries...3 days off....

And it couldn't be better...at least until the end of the French leg. It's normal for it to take 2 or 3 shows to bed in on a tour...iron out the wrinkles and get things seamless...but we don't even need that this time...We hit the ground running from the very first show and don't look back. It's apparent that all the playing we've been doing has really paid off, and we're as tight as I can ever remember us being. 

Then we hit Strasbourg...it’s the final night of a very triumphant French tour...we're heading into Switzerland tomorrow for a rare visit there, and things couldn't be better...until we're told to switch on our TV's because something has happened in Paris...something bad we're told...

I've mentioned the tour bubble before. Every band on tour gets it, and everyone associated with a tour understands it. You just don't know what's going on in the outside world most of the time, so it's with abject horror that we watch the events unfold around the Bataclan with absolute disbelief...I'm thinking of the layout of the place...We've played there...I had a birthday there...I was hoisted up onto the shoulders of fans and carried around the place there...like that famous picture of Bobby Moore holding the world cup at Wembley...I know how intimate that place is...and I can't imagine what those poor kids inside must have gone through...all that needless carnage and horror in such close proximity...We sit and admire the tactics of the French police...no fucking messing about...They formulate a plan, act on it, and are merciless with those responsible...exactly as it should be...but nothing will ever bring those poor unfortunate kids back...kids who'd only gone to see a show...The poor merchandising guy who was shot was known to some of our guys too...

It's with heavy hearts that we cross over into Switzerland the next day. We're anticipating a thorough shake down as we try to enter, in my opinion, one of Europe's strangest countries...but nothing could be further from the truth...They don't even stop us and we cruise on to Zurich for the next show. The rest of the tour is a blur really...I know it was great and our Wonky counterparts do us proud for the last 2 Dutch gigs...really charging the atmosphere...but it's hard to shake the images from Paris...especially with armed guards and police at all the remaining shows...keeping a low profile but there none the less...

Final gig of Euro tour

So we finally arrive in London with 3 days off before our first Simple Minds gig at the O2...

I sleep for pretty much the whole of the first one and don't do much for the other two either...The last 3 weeks have been very intense, and although extremely enjoyable, totally knackering too...

We do 5 shows with the Minds and enjoy every one. It's great when the pressure is off a bit and you can just enjoy it and leave...We were in the bar most nights by 8.30...

Both camps are tight but there's still plenty of time for a good crack with them all, and I enjoy a particular flight sitting next to Jim Kerr where we get to know each other much better...him telling me his first ever football match was on holiday in England and his dad took him to Roker Park in Sunderland to watch one of the world cup games of 1966...He was 5...bless his little cotton socks...

They've got a great crew, just like ours...Some faithful lads who've been there for years, through thick and thin...but also they had a couple of production managers who were hired in just for the tour...and I couldn't let this opportunity pass without giving our opinion on them...I won't get too het up about it but suffice it to say that if we never see those 2 wankers again it'll be too soon...If you've seen the footage of JJ blundering across the stage in Aberdeen when Simple Minds were on, or if you were at the gig itself and wondered what on earth he was doing, it was a direct swipe at these 2 pleasant individuals...and it worked...The confrontation afterwards between JJ and one of these chaps was worth the price of the admission alone...I laughed my arse off for 10 solid minutes...The one way to hit out at a jobsworth prick like that is to make him fail completely in his job...in full view of everyone...and my erstwhile colleague did just that...total humiliation...I love it...

Dave and I got the train home the next day, me leaving him in Edinburgh as he ploughed on home. We then did the Christmas thing and reconvened to fly to Poland on the 29th for a new year’s eve television special...miming to 4 songs musically but singing live in front of 75,000 people in a Wroclaw city square and 16,000,000 live on Polish TV...a weird but actually very enjoyable experience...

When we took to the stage for our final bit at 1.40 in the morning it was minus 8 degrees... 

We fly home on new year’s day and sleep for the rest of the week...

Who says we don't suffer for our art...

This year promises to be as productive as the last...We've of course got the much anticipated Black and White tour in March, and then with barely time to turn around, New Zealand and Australia in April...

The festival season will be upon us in the summer, and there are quite a few things being mooted for later in the year too...can't say too much about any of that yet as I don't know to be honest...but that's the beauty isn't it? 

Baz/30^th Jan 2016