UK Tour Day 1. It’s snowing here.

It was our intention to write something yesterday but I don’t think any of us counted on jet lag hitting us as hard as it did.  We arrived on Dec. 1 at 10:30am UK time, which felt like the very early hours of the morning to us.  We drove straight to Brighton, even though the first show wasn’t until tonight.  The plan was to stay up as late as we could and fight the powerful urge we had to keel over and pass out on the hotel lobby floor.  Eventually we lost and the hotel lobby floor won.

Anyway, the trip has been an interesting one so far.  As you may know, this country has been hit by a somewhat unexpected set of snow storms.  Which means two things:

1. it is fucking cold (we are acutely aware of this as the back of our rented van has no heat.  it does however have 2 dvd players and wifi.  it’s the streamlined pinnacle of 21st century vehicle design, we’re assuming)

2. everything is covered in perfect white and it looks beautiful (kind of makes it all worth it)

We had a great dinner across from our hotel and then naturally we had to challenge the locals to a snowball fight and I don’t think we need to tell you who won that time.  

Still, we’re a little bit crushed by the fact that we missed the Vampire Weekend/Ratatat show 10 minutes down the street.  We didn’t even know it was happening till we met some lovely folks who were having a drink before the show (and coincidentally ran into after they’d left the show for a drink).  I love Vampire Weekend’s newest record a whole lot, and this song in particular: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKLlNLwVqWE.  I bet they played it and I bet it was great.  Damnit.

But it’s morning now so we’re collecting ourselves off the hotel lobby floor (much to the hotel staff’s relief) and enjoying Brighton before we play The Prince Albert tonight with Jesse Malin.  We’re on at 8PM.

-Keith