The Roots

Christmas is approaching and we're touring around the country opening shows for the Roots. You may remember my last blog when I spoke of the German dates which I done acoustically and how I couldn't wait to get back with my band The B-Team for the UK ones? Well. We got to Bristol, set up the drum kit by the side of the stage with The Root's production team watching only to find out five minutes before sound check that The Roots never have bands supporting them. WTF I thought, could have sworn they knew I had a band, obviously not. Apparently in the small print of the contract there is a STRICTLY NO BANDS WILL SUPPORT THE ROOTS rule. A bit like that NO ONE'S ALLOWED TO SAMPLE RADIOHEAD rule. Anyway I done the show. It was alright but like I said in my last blog it's hard to grab the attention of that many people with just an acoustic guitar.

So on to Shepard's Bush Empire. Got a sick review from London Lite newspaper who noticed Beni G's decks set up but him no where to be seen. The reason for this was simple; I don't have full PA mixes of my tracks because I always play backing tracks with the band i.e. versions of the tracks without drums and bass for Cassell and Drake. So even though Beni had spent the day getting PA mixes of the tracks from the studio, he had no time to check the mixes. This meant sound check was the only time we could make sure they were ok to perform... Evidently they weren't.

--> --> Good news. The next day The Root's people decided Cassell was a proper musician. Their production manager had toured with him before and knew he was a good drummer so The B-Team was fine to play with me for the rest of tour. Lucky for me Cassell's a proper musician or I'd be fucked! After thanking The Roots for tip ex-ing over the small print we opened the show for them. Was an alright show. Always takes a show or two to warm up so weren't the best but was of a good standard.

The next night was Birmingham which was followed by Manchester and then Glasgow. Out of all three Glasgow seemed to enjoy them selves the most, the crowd definitely got moving straight from the start. After the show some guy came over to us and said we were the best band to support The Roots since Ms Dynamite did with hers. He was drunk!

Apologies in advance for the random way of which I'm about to finish this blog but..

I was standing in a queue at a club with Cassell and the girl in front of us had a moustache! Think your fifteen year old brother only just going through puberty letting the wispy mousey black hairs above his lip grow to convince the bloke down the offey he's old enough to buy alcohol. It was fucked! I watched the Bouncers reaction towards her as she and her boyfriend approached him at the door. Nothing. It was like it was normal or something. I felt sorry for her. Was everyone she met just so polite that they never said anything or did she (along with her boyfriend) just find it attractive? Messed!"