Becoming

Lightning Strikes Twice

Ade brought Nathalie and the kids to stay at Dave's for a week in February, as Tasha's school and the Smith kids' school had the same winter break. Nathalie and Tamar spent most of the week catching up with each other whilst supervising the kids either at the beach, at the park, or just in the swimming pool, letting Dave and Ade spend the bulk of their time holed up in Dave's home studio.

"So when does your tour start again?" Ade asked as he and Dave relaxed in each other's arms following a most enjoyable hour on the futon that Dave had gotten to replace the wicker furniture that Tamar had chosen when redecorating.

"End of April," Dave said. "And in between shows, we're playing exhibition football games, us and the crew against local pros or other musicians. I don't know why Harry's so bloody determined to hitch the album to the World Cup and all, it's not as if the album has anything to do with footie. I mean, I s'pose I get that he's looking for publicity and all, but I should think we could do the exhibition matches without trying to force some sort of connection between the album and FIFA, y'know?"

"Yeah, that does seem a bit strange," Ade agreed. "Not only that, what if one of you gets hurt during one of these games? God forbid Nicko was to sprain his ankle or something, yeah? That would fuck up a few shows for sure."

"My thoughts exactly," Dave said. "But yeah, Harry's not listening to anyone but himself these days. Even Rod's not getting through to him most times. I've not discussed it with Nicko as I'd not like him accidentally blurting out anything I might say in front of Harry, y'know? But Janick agrees with me that something's not working, even if we can't put our fingers on what."

Ade nodded. "Yeah, I get that. Like how I couldn't explain properly what I thought was wrong when I objected to how Harry wanted to do No Prayer For The Dying. Or at least, I couldn't explain it in a way Harry was willing to listen to."

"Worst about that is, Harry's said in the last year or two that you maybe had a point about that," Dave said with a sigh. "But it is what it is. When do you go in studio with Bruce?"

"End of next month, and we're recording in Los Angeles this time, cos Roy's band Tribe Of Gypsies is also in studio there, not to mention Eddie and Dave both live there," Ade said. "Bruce and I are the only ones needing to travel in."

"How long do you think you'll be there?" Dave asked. "I'll be heading to England in mid-April ahead of our tour starting, so's we can get some footie practise in and hopefully not make too poor a showing in those exhibition games."

"I don't know for sure how long I'll be in studio, but I'll happily stay in Los Angeles if you'd like to stop through there on your way to England," Ade said with a smile. "I can always get in a few fishing trips if I'm finished recording before you get there."

"Sounds like a brilliant plan," Dave agreed.

*****

As a result of that conversation, Dave left a little earlier than he'd originally planned and had three days in Los Angeles with Ade before he had to fly out to England. In addition to the footie practise and a few rehearsals of the upcoming show to make sure everyone had the set list down, they also spent some time in what Dave privately thought of as Signing Hell. Sitting around a large table in Steve's manor house, they spent hours at a stretch autographing CDs which would be sold at their merch booths once the tour started. Dave just hoped Steve wasn't being optimistic in the sheer numbers of CDs he wanted them to sign.

To everyone's dismay, Rod announced that he'd gotten them into a few festivals in August, meaning that they'd not have the expected month-long break between North America and the second European leg of the tour. With varying degrees of grumbling, they all called their homes to let their families know about the changed schedule. Dave was thankful he and Tamar had hired the new nanny, so there wouldn't be any child care issues caused by the schedule change.