DIARY 06/07/10
There is a certain trudge about touring. Wake, breakfast, travel, check-in, relax, explore if there’s time away from promotional business, sound-check, dinner, play show, relax, sleep, wake, breakfast, travel.....always the travelling, moving around and about. But as a saving grace there is always the place at which we arrive to consider: the town, the city, the place; almost always worthy of respect and consideration. Could be worse.
For a 17-week stretch in the mid-70s, Marc Bolan and I spent every Tuesday night at my flat near Marble Arch watching The Prisoner. I filmed it too, on an early home video recorder, a Philips top-loader bought from Johnnie Walker when he left these shores with wife and two young kiddies to criss-cross north America in a Winnebago. The Walkers sold off much of their possessions to fund the trip and I took the vid machine. And I filmed the entire series of The Prisoner, being re-run after its original 1967 showing. Marc and I were both besotted with The Village, and with the surrealism of it all. Number 6 was a sort of hero, and we argued and debated through the night, emptying at least one bottle of Remy Martin cognac and a couple of grams of the white man’s marching powder in the process. The more we downed and upped those substances, obviously the more we argued rather than debated!
I still have those square Philips vids, boxed up in a hay loft, stacked among case after case of LPs, the unnoticed and unconsidered vinyl of the same time. Portmeirion is The Village, the Italianate fantasy. I went there in 1978, the year after Marc died, and stayed, and thought of him every waking moment, day after day; thought of how he would have wanted to be there too, searching for clues, feeling Number 6’s presence, trudging the cobbles trudged by himself and those controlling him.
I return, all being well, to Portmeirion for the first time since then in September for an acoustic set for an Alzheimer’s Research awareness-raising event. My old mates Steve Knightley and Phil Beer (Show Of Hands) play, too. They alone are worth the ticket. Buy one if you want a special evening in a special place. Then those of us there can all consider, if only for a brief moment, what Marc would have felt. Anyway, I would have made him join us, maybe for The Lighthouse, whose chord sequence I borrowed from a track or three on his early Tyrannosaurus Rex album, A Beard Of Stars. He would have spotted that. Barry and James will play with me.
And even before the trip to the amazing fantasy village in north Wales, the full rock band gets to Glastonbury again, this time to Glastonbury proper. The ruined abbey cries out for help. It boasts that once it was the “grandest and richest Abbey in England.” Sounds like PR spiel to my ears, but grand it is still today, if not very rich. We can help!
Told an old friend yesterday about the Union Chapel date in November. “Most beautiful venue in London,” she thinks. I shall try to organise a bonus to the show that night; maybe add some extra bodies on stage. We’ll play roughly 18 shows on the UK acoustic tour, and I know already that we’ll be playing Liverpool and Manchester, Norwich, Pocklington (very small, but charming), Glasgow, Sheffield, Falmouth (been so many years since I played in Cornwall that I can’t even remotely remember) and Bury St Edmunds among others. The trudge goes on, thankfully. More exploring to plot.
And the Robin2 at Christmas time. Could be worse. Make sure the mince pies are warm. And the Guinness cold. Can’t take mulled wine. Too sweet for my taste.
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written by jim pirie , July 07, 2010
eighteen date acoustic tour!!!!!
brilliant news steve,where do you get the energy?
see you at a few again no doubt....
all the best to you and yours
jim
chesterfield.
written by Dave Grover , July 07, 2010
Falmouth! Cornwall again after all these years! We will get there for sure, as we have lots of family in the Roseland Peninsula. Name the day!!!
written by Dave Grover , July 08, 2010
Love the acoustic shows, Steve. Who will be with you...just say BARRY and all will be cool!! The two of you would create magic!
written by Kath Tyler , July 08, 2010
Birmingham please..........
written by Andrew Parker , July 08, 2010
Great!! to hear your bringing the acoustic show down to Falmouth. I will be booking the tickets as soon as they are available.
written by Alison , July 09, 2010
Steve, now this is a gig I only wish I could make it to! I love The Prisoner, and to see you perform in The Village, with Marc in mind and the memories you hold, would just be incredible. If only Marc would rustle up some magic from where ever he is and get me a plane ticket!
Fantastic blog, thanks so much for posting this!
written by Marc Librescu , July 19, 2010
I visited Portmeirion in 1989. It's a wonderful and magical place and would be an amazing venue. I wrote a travel article about the place but sadly, it was never published.
The man who built the place, Sir Clough Williams-Ellis, built it without using any plans. He told his helpers what he wanted to build and where to build it. It wasn't exactly structurally sound; after he died, the structures were shored up using the existing buildings as a sort of frame.
Many of the rooms in the various buildings were rescued from estates in England that were being demolished. The rooms were disassembled, transported to Wales, and then reassembled.
All that and peacocks.
Fairport Convention wrote an excellent song about Portmerion, aptly titled "Portmeirion."
I wish I could be there, but barring some kind of miracle, that's not going to happen.
written by Lynda , August 16, 2010
It was my birthday yesterday and my beloved bought me 2 tickets for The Robin
)))))))))))))))))) Woop!!! See you there!! x 
written by Andy Davis , August 26, 2010
I got my tickets for Portmeirion, a stunning place, set in a stunning place. Considering the ticket price includes admission to the Village, it's cheap!
I know I'm not gonna be able to outbid anyone for the Townshend jacket... or the SH guitar.
see you all there.
x
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