Woodpigeon Tour Diary: February 2009

An early rise for the last day of the tour, and a scheduled recording for Bandstand Busks, a great new website in which bands perform on one of London’s grand old bandstands in Shoreditch. Thing was, I had no voice. I called our managers, whispering into the phone, barely audible. I tried singing something,...

Today’s the big one, and one of our busiest schedules of the entire tour. The only real rest comes while on the train, which is emerging as a bit of a theme on this trip. While England rushes by the window, we all catch up on a little bit of sleep. First up, a...

One of our busiest days, kicking off with a train ride to Manchester (at least following a bit of a lie-in in the apartment above the café where we’d recorded the night before). Upon arrival, John from Pulp Magazine (the design-savvy Manchester students publication) was waiting for us on the platform with a great drawing...

Upon arriving in Newcastle, we called our lovely friend Beth Jeans Houghton (mark my words: someday we’re going to be opening for her) to meet us at the Heaton Perk coffee shop in which she works and above which we were to spend the night. In the time it took her to finish her...

Returning to Scotland is always a joy for me. Having lived here, it still feels like home in a lot of ways, and riding the train up along the Scottish coast will always take my breath away. I always keep track of what my iPod decides to play on shuffle once the train hits...

First thing we were scheduled to play on BBC4’s long-running Loose Ends program, listened to by millions every week. We arrived to the BBC’s mighty Broadcasting House, and an autograph hunter jumped on Foon with his autograph book out and open. Apparently a small crowd gathers every week to catch a glimpse of the guests...

A partial day off in one of my favourite cities in the world, and then a night flight to London to meet up with Malcolm from Eagleowl, joining us on ukulele and violin for the UK leg of the tour (sadly Annalea and Garrett had to return to Canada for work). I met my friend...

On today’s train, for some reason I was convinced the last and final stop of the route was Haptbahnhof in Berlin, so we could take it easy getting off once we’d pulled into the station. Casually gathering our things, we didn’t notice the doors closing on us, and the train pulled out. In broken...

By this point in the tour, we’ve developed what we consider to be a brilliant method of rail travel. Upon arriving at our station, whomever’s awake will alert the others. Foon will jump onto her seat and start whipping our luggage to the floor. We form a line, handing bags and instruments to one...

I’m a 30 year old man, and I’ve developed a taste for a certain level of comfort I’m willing to work hard towards attaining. As such, our rail passes were in first class across Europe, and we paid the extra reservation fees for the swank table service one gets on the Thalys service between Paris...