We had a couple of days at 3 Mills Studios in East London to integrate the new parts of the show that we didn't have in the US due to the bigger venue sizes over here.
I had some of the strangest cushions in a hotel on this trip too. Kinda cool though i think
So with rehearsals all sorted it was time for the first show but what do we always do before the first show??? A warm up of course.
This one was something a little special as The Killers and Coldplay teamed up for a one special one off charity show at Shepherds Bush Empire in aid of the War Child Charity. What had the potential to be a logistical nightmare was actually a relatively easy day as both sets of crew were only interested in making a show happen and not the "well, we're the headliners" meantality you see sometimes.
So after both bands played short sets of 9 songs each(The Killers giving one of the best performances i've ever seen from them in 400+ shows) came the unknown.
There was talk of all sorts of crazy collaborations taking place all day long and this of course meant a lot of backstage learning of songs had to take place
It was like rock star guitar lessons back there for a while.
So in the end you ended up with Killers, Coldplay, Bono and bizrrely Gary Barlow from Take That performing 'All These Things That I've Done'.
(Trade Secret #1-Bono wasn't doing his usual bending down to the front row trick-He had the words on an A4 piece of paper on the floor)
I did bust out my Bono-esque shades for the night though.
(Trade Secret #2 - They're just safety goggles)
Also Clarke, our monitor guy was getting pissed off at the lights above him shining on his desk monitors. So he constructed a makeshift defence against it.
For some reason the band took to calling me Potato a couple of years ago so Clarke now has the anti-potato-shield
So after the weirdness of that night it was off to Dublin for the first European show proper of the Day&Age tour 2009.
The show was at the brand new 02 arena which took the the place of the old Point Depot Arena.
It only opened in December so is still relatively new.
Not quite sure what the bears outside are all about thought to be honest
It was a great start to the tour with the Irish crowd living up to its mantle as being one of the louder ones around for sure.
i also decided to include a little home town pride into the end of the show by putting up the tri-colour as the band were walking off the stage
Next up we were off to Belfast for show #2 at the Odyssey Arena, again another loud crowd was lying in wait and another great show was had.
After an all too brief visit to the aftershow party for some drinks with old friends it was back on the bus to head back to Dublin and take the ferry back across the sea to England and half an evening off in London before the first of 2 shows at the O2 arena at the Millennium Dome. These were the bands biggest headline shows in the UK so far barring all the festival stuff we've done so they were extra eager to impress and now that there is a couple albums worth of material to choose from they can change the setlist around a little depending on what they feel like playing. There was some changes over the course of these 2 shows.
Out went Shadowplay, World We Live In and Losing Touch. In came Sweet Talk, On Top and Smile Acoustic. Hopefully this continues, it at least gives me a little variance as well as those of you who go to more than one show.
After a few tech nightmares for me the first night, the second show was really good and we were off and running to a day off in Birmingham.
And what better way to spend a day off then to rent a car and head off down the motorway to Nottingham to watch Metallica play from the comfort of a private box.
Unfortunately the car i had booked was unavailable so i got a Vauxhall Insignia, which was actually quite a nice little ride
Seats were pretty good as well weren't they
Watch this bit of video from the end of the show and look out for Ray, the Killers live keyboard/violin/extra guitar player
(I.E. The guy in the dark in the back) singing along to Seek & Destroy
So back to Birmingham we went with heavy metal screaming in our ears for 2 shows at the LG Arena which is where you find me now on a bus in a parking lot beside some train tracks. Oh the glam of it all
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