Matthew Seligman's tour diary from underwatermoonlight.com
Before the gig
After SxSW it's a day off. Flying to Baltimore via Chicago which doesn't sound the quickest way of getting there, but Chicago is the hub of the air travel wheel in the states so maybe it's not surprising. Waking up is hard to do. Especially after a late night which included me taking 3 hours to check the "select" box in the Windows laptop control panel. After falling asleep during the mp3-ing of Underwater Moonlight ( I ended up with an unusably long 15 minute mp3 of UM, Human Music and Sudden Town), I went to bed.

Next morning, ultra organised about the journey, I put all the valuable stuff like the laptop, digital camera and minidisc in one place – my blue Harrods bag (the owner of Harrods also owns my soccer club, Fulham, and he's our fairy godfather so I try to spread the word). That way I could keep an eye on it. Down in the lobby I'm late. We jump into two cabs and head for the airport. Morris tells me about a couple of reviews of last night's show – one is really up-beat, the Austin American Statesman (?), and one is a bit tepid, the Austin Chronicle – fair enough, we know it wasn't our best.... the Austin Chronicle is on everybody's doorstep in the Hyatt, so is Robyn's face, which is on the front.

At the airport we check in straight off the pavement. Me, Kim and Morris are three sheepdogs trying to round each other up. I'm half asleep and chat with Robyn and once the check-in's done we drift inside. Where's my blue harrods bag? "We checked it in" "No way!" – the sheepdog called Matthew starts running round in circles, so sheepdog called Morris comes to the rescue and we head off into the bowels of the airport to retrieve the bag from wherever bags go when they slip behind that crematorium like curtain. We somehow identify and rescue the bag (the harrods bit helps to describe it), and it is spewed back up from the bowels and onto a baggage reclaim as if it had just arrived from London, a mini-miracle. Born again. Morris has saved my sanity and the website up-dates.

We get to security and now I've lost my ticket, but I find something that looks like it and we get through. Late nights and airports do not go well together. I phone Hiromi, who is surprised to discover there were 3,000 people there last night because she thought all our crowds would be 50 or 100 like the feghorn. She is checking the website regularly. At the airline gate I try to negotiate my bass coming into the cabin with us. The steward asks to see my ticket and tries to allocate me a seat until he discovers it is only the leftovers of my ticket from London to Fort Worth. "Sir, this is a receipt not a ticket." I scrabble around in my pocket wondering when I will wake up. This produces a hand full of stuff including tickets and passport and dollar bills, but the money is folded inside the passport and falls out of it when I hand it to him. "Sir, I realise you are very very keen to keep your bass out of the hold but it will take more than this" but he is joking I think and he kindly gives me an emergency exit for the Chicago to Baltimore leg. "Do you think you will be able to operate this exit in an emergency, sir? I will put a note on for the stewardess to give you a test." OK, so I have 36 hours to wake up....no problem......

Oh, good news. Michèle has agreed to do the diary for Seattle and Morris is doing Maxwells in New York. And Kimberley and Robyn have both said they will too..... .we get to the hotel and check in.... all meet down in the bar later for a happy drink surrounded by lots of signed photos from people like Bob Hope that we think are fake.....

Near the gig
Interesting chat with Robyn at the airport last night. I'm going to have a crack at the set list for tonight – it's going to be: Kingdom of Love, Only the Stones remain, Side 2 of original UM, Human Music, My mind is connected to your dreams, Sudden Town, I Wanna Destroy You, Insanely Jealous, and Mr Kennedy...... Encores: any from Airscape, Bells of Rhymney, Prawns, Reptile, Leave me alone and Leppo....

Tracy's organised an FTP link for uploading mp3's on to the site but it still seems a little slow.... Robyn and I hatch a plan for the tour diary..... no-one is safe!....... it's going to take a few hours so I head off for Baltimore downtown.... "You have to be careful down there" says the maid...... she was right, if I'm not careful someone will sell me a video game...... unfortunately, I ignore her warning and am mugged in Babbages so I walk out with Age of Empire Gold Edition, whereupon I bump exactly into Morris who is passing... we have lunch and go back to the hotel where the whole band clusters in my room to look over the website.... everyone's really impressed... when we were the Soft Boys, music videos didn't even exist, let alone the internet, so we're all a bit stunned but it's agreed the team's done a lovely job building the site and tracy will make a great webmistress for what is to come.... but we think this tour diary is going on a bit, so its going to be a lot shorter from now on..... nice talking to y'all though, I've enjoyed it..... "afterwards is one word" Robyn points out as he departs for a late lunch with Kimberley and Michèle, smiling.......

The gig
Scruffy and collapsable, but the old spirit is back tonight.... we're not hasbeens cos we never were.... just a tiny band who accidentally made a great record, got nowhere and split up and this kind of gig is what we were for..... it's great fun, being 6 inches away and looking in the eye and smiling while you play... new set's much better, starting with Kingdom of Love.... we do more new ones, including Mind is Conected and Pulse of My Heart and end with Mr Kennedy...... and lots of encores and things.... really nice crowd, really nice people in the club.... really really nice support...... all really nice really (these late night diaries, there just aren't so many words to choose from) and Paul does a great job on the out front sound which isn't easy in small clubs...... the rest is in the mp3's, enjoy....

After the gig
Talk, drink, laugh, warm feeling, sleep (maybe in an hour ot two)....missing Hiromi, who is growing our egg at the moment... and Steve and Otis, of course......

— Matthew


Young Fresh Fellows opened, and were good, but too loud for my taste. I had staked out a spot about 10 feet from the stage, directly under the PA speakers, so I could get a good angle for my video. (which turned out OK, but the sound is kinda distorted because I was so close; also, I ran out of tape at the very end of the set proper, missing all of the encores. In a way, this was a blessing, as I was happy to bounce and dance through Leppo without having to worry about messing up the video). Matthew still looks jetlagged to me, but his playing didn't suffer. Robyn was in fine shape, Kimberley looked to be having a blast, particularly on Sideways and Kennedy, when he really was jamming out pretty ferociously. Morris was solid as always, but didn't seem as jazzed by the experience as Kimberley. The band sounded really tight, Robyn's voice strong, the guitars meshing really nicely. I was really impressed by the new tunes (Pulse, Kennedy & Sudden Town), which make me wonder if this is going to be a continuing venture, rather than a blip in history centered solely on the Moonlight re-release. I don't know, but these guys seem to have a future to me. Although so many of the songs were 21 years old, it didn't sound like a cheap reunion effort (Eagles, Kiss, Fleetwood Mac, anyone?), but rather a vibrant and current, powerful band effort. I could definitely see Kimberley sticking it out -- he
really was having a great time, relishing even the RH solo tunes (he really rocked out to City of Shame, as natural a SBs tune as any in RH's solo or Egyptians career).

I was struck by the focus on Moonlight-era tunes, which I guess is natural given the lineup and the whole reason for putting this thing together. On the other hand, Human Music in particular was great (perhaps because it is one of the few CoB tunes that sound like the Moonlight version of the band). Leppo was amazing as well, Rhymney sweet and well played, and Airscape was, well, the same as you would expect.

All in all, a very enjoyable show. . .

Ed