Wednesday 12 February 2014

Watching the world turn under my feet

I have had a bit of sleep now, I don't know how much, as I didn't have anyone to notice when I dropped off and when I awoke. I suspect it wasn't very long.

I watched the Netherlands turn to France and then France turn to Spain and then Africa turn to sand and then we turned and headed off across the Atlantic ocean to aim for the southern Americas. I feel a bit uneasy when I think of what is below me and indeed what is above me so I try not to think and I decide to do a bit of my blog.

Everything is beginning to feel real now and not such an abstract concept that I have talked about for so long. The name Brazil seems bigger than the imagination, just like New York or America, they cannot be fully imagined but both can be fully lived. To touch, smell, and hear other peoples lives is to be truly alive, a chance to walk out in the sun of our existence. Soon it will be visceral, good or bad or both, soon it will be real.

Strange thing is, I bring music to a land full of music, we are gluttons for it as human beings, we cannot get enough, there is no enough!


"the tenderest form of communication, does not need the power of speech, and while nations sings unto neighbours, there'll always be the chance of peace."

Scum Class Tourists - Steve Drewett and the Indestructible Beat
Finally, with three hours of the flight left to go, I get my first view of South America. The land peeking through the gaps of the mountains of cotton wool clouds tease me with glimpses of silted delta plains and the rise and the fall of the contours of the land. It is very hot down there, obviously you might think, it is South America, but in Sao Paulo at least, they are having their hottest summer for 72 years. I don't know how that bodes for having a packed venue heaving to punk rock but we will see.
As we grow nearer my destination, I am beginning to worry about my guitar. It has travelled a long way in a new and untested case and I left England with the tales of guitars getting broken necks during transit even when they were stored in a proper flight case.

The same result for me would put the tour in jeopardy and the sight of my beloved guitar all broken up would put a real damper on the very beginning of this adventure.


 

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