Madelaine Hart

Ahh… mmm… where have I been? Not in my own head or not in my head enough.

A film made by Jonny Kight and I over a couple of days. Spontaneity on a Shoreditch roof. Hotel in Brixton by Baxter Dury is the tune.

Madrid… Beefeater Gin Lords take us.

There is one remarkable thing that occurs.

Pedro Almodovar comes to watch us. He loves the album and he comes especially to meet us in the dressing room before the show.

When I’m on stage I try not to search for his whereabouts. “Don’t! he will only make you nervous!” But the crowd and the paps find him 2 songs in. Standing on a balcony. Hiding behind dark glasses- his small gesture to anonymity.

Flashes and fingers fly into the air. Pedro Almodovar! Standing there. 

Moscow… Beefeater Gin Lords fly us with The Kooks and Emile Sande.

We have left main land Europe. Not really but it sure feels like it. 

Airport mayhem. Queueing catastrophes. I am still at the back of the passport line after an hour. Russian elbows are adept at pushing a novice back and Russian shoulders are accomplished in the art of the “it wasn’t me. it’s only business. go fuck yourself” shrug. A small movement that means so much and is used so often.

Car journeys can be 2 hours or 2 minutes traveling over the same distance. Your vehicle can have no bonnet, no tail lights, perhaps no chassey or number plate, can originate from a factory that closed down in 1975 in a country that has long since changed it’s borders and name. It may also be a state of the art, brand new, blacked out Mercedes four wheel drive. In Russia there is as much money as there is no money.

Many dead animal tails hanging from shoulder pads, beautiful women on the arm of… men, a human shit in a 5 star hotel reception.

Ritzy clubs, bad food and you do not get anything out of anyone without paying for it. Nyet. 

Paul Weller. Very nice chap, though I only smiled and waved at him. We took to the Round House stage an hour before him and played to his confused but receptive crowd. I was statuesque in huge shoes. When I say statuesque I mean; like a statue, unable to move for fear of falling over. Perhaps this is a typical statue’s fear also.

I turned left (unlike Zoolander) and saw Paul watching from the wings. I was touched. Usually the main act holes up in his/her dressing room and refuses to interact with the outside world much less the evening hors d’oeuvres (support act).

What a pro.

A Turkish cafe in Rotterdam is comforting to a Stoke Newington girl.

As Chaim says; You ask a short question you get a long answer. This is Israel.

It was impossible for us to have been more looked after. Adi and Eran’s motto is More. More halva, more vodka, more hummus, more (shall we say unusual) non-alcoholic mixer beer. More. We were showered in generosity.

Beautiful audience- I was given dresses!

Food fight in a bar with music so trendy no one understood it let alone enjoyed it. Oh so much marshmellow. Smeared on faces, rubbed in hair, thrown on shoes. I could not breathe for marshmellow nostrils. Brits abroad was the phrase on most local tongues.

And the sun! Oh the sun! Why have you been hiding from me? Oh yeah, I live in a fucking low pressure zone.

Stayed 2 more days to see Jerusalem. Where do I begin? I don’t. See it for yourself.

Cheese, cheese, so much cheese. We started in Tours, ended in Nante and had the pleasure of Paris traffic at least 3 times.

Jonny knew his diesel engines and Higgs new how to scale a razor wire fence.

La Maroquinerie avec La Blogotheque. Incredible audience.

One man tells me I sing like a virgin. “No- it’s Mad-ELAINE”

After 7 hours in a van, a quick change (sans mirror) and a short taxi to Abbey Road, exhaustion sees fit to push me swiftly and head first into inebriation. Thankfully my only drunken demands were cuddles, cigarettes and straws… fairly standard.

We set the scene; Butlins. Depths of an English winter. Men and women of middle ages wear t-shirts that remind them of their youth and of their middles that are aged. Hundreds of people squashed into the shadows along the back wall. Watching from behind their beers. A few brave ones edge toward the stage. Come forward! What can we give you if we can’t see you? We had to go through the motions and hope they weren’t distracted by the vomity psychedelia of the carpet patterns.

Midi Festival, Toulon… encore… stage invader.