25th April. Club-Soda, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
So on gig day we arrived at the venue about 2.30 pm. I set up my instruments, then met up with the great music writer John Kelman and his friend and a few of us went out for coffee, cake and chat which was nice. We came back for the soundcheck and played through 'Luminol' first. There is something that happens when we play that song on the soundcheck after a day off, particularly during the keyboard solo section near the beginning. We all go a bit crazy, let off steam and play with a really powerful energy just enjoying being back on the stage and playing again with this wonderful group of musicians.
In the dressing room, Steven mentioned that the new album has now sold 8000 copies on vinyl alone. This is obviously a small fraction of total sales, but it is lot of vinyl copies, and would have been unthinkable 15 years ago. Interesting just how much there is a resurgence of interest in vinyl. The gig itself was amazing. The audience was ridiculous (good ridiculous!). We walked onstage to a deafening roar which kept going for quite a while. I looked out and saw half the front row all were wearing black 'Raven' T-shirts. The enthusiasm continued throughout the gig. It was nice to get some applause after my sax solo in the song 'Pindrop'. At the end of the gig after the encore, the audience was so enthusiastic Steven decided to go back on for a second encore. We have not done this before and it was not planned. I think it took the crew by surprise, but with an audience response like that we had to do something. After it was all over I went out to the merchandise stand to sign autographs and where I sold over double the number of copies of my CD 'Follow' than on any other gig to date. Good to meet some fans and facebook 'friends' too.
After the gig we headed off back to America. It was going to take an hour to reach the border crossing, so we watched one of the Jeremy Brett episodes of Sherlock Holmes that Adam had brought on DVD called The Dancing Men. Most enjoyable. We reached the border at about 2.45 am and it took an hour to get through everything, so I finally got to bed at 3.45am exhausted.
I woke up whilst the tour bus was driving into New York. There is something very exciting about driving into Manhattan on a tour bus on the way to a gig there. I remember well driving into New York in 2000 with the band Gong on a converted Greyhound bus listening to a great McCoy Tyner CD 'Infinity' on the way to our gig at the hip venue/club called the Knitting Factory (now no more). As a British jazz musician, gigging in New York is always going to feel really special. We drove through the Bronx and Harlem and down Broadway towards Times Square where we are playing tonight at the Best Buy Theatre.
Theo Travis'The Raven That Refused to Sing (and other stories)' is available from > StevenWilsonHQ
