Hello! I’m writing this letter from a small coffee shop in London. Modern furniture, Moses Sumney in the background... my kind of spot!
I’ve just completed my first European tour... and holy hell what a crazy two weeks it's been! I wanted to take the time to share my experience with you.
Tour Reflections:
These were without a doubt the biggest venues I’ve played. The tour started off in Berlin, in this giant, modern concert hall. I was very nervous before I went on: there were hardly any lights and just a giant spotlight placed upon me while 3,000 Germans watched my set. Try beat-matching with that many eyeballs upon you at once!
With each show, however, I got a bit more comfortable. By the end, it felt perfectly natural in front of these crowds. I’m hoping that lasts… but regardless I’m grateful to have gotten some experience playing to these larger rooms.
Travel Reflections
Wandering around Europe jet-lagged is a surreal feeling. There’s this concept of ‘soul delay’ (coined by William Gibson in his amazing novel Pattern Recognition): it’s the idea that when you travel to a faraway country, your body gets there before your soul. The soul takes a bit longer to arrive.
I feel it. Wandering the cobbled stone streets of Madrid in the rain, I feel it. Eating döner at 1am outside a Berlin nightclub, I feel it. It’s disorienting, yet also a bit enchanting. It’s like I have to keep reminding myself that I’m in Europe… that I just performed in a Spanish nightclub the night before.