The adventure begins. The band and crew arrived in Tokyo on Thursday afternoon, from England, New York, Baltimore, Toronto, Texas, Palermo.

Let me just say that the paperwork required to be one of the first international bands to play in Japan in some time, was… prodigious. Kudos to our management team for helping us all get the right forms and tests from our various areas, and as it turned out after 3 hours in the airport going through various lines, tests, submitting forms and downloading apps… it was all successful, and we’re in!

Up next, after being driven to our hotel (each in a separate van!) comes our six days quarantine in the hotel room, (hearafter referred to as “The Room”) not allowed to leave the Room for any reason. Food to be delivered outside the door, daily check-ins and data via the apps we now have, and occasional covid tests in the room. After that we’ll have a few days of rehearsals. (Could this be the first time the band is thrilled to go to rehearsals?!)

The promoter has kindly stocked the room with nice things, (photo above) and it’s a very nice hotel, so I’m not saying that we’re suffering here - just that it’s going to be challenging, and probably pretty interesting - somewhere between being on a retreat and doing time in jail.

My plan for these days of lockdown (it’s good to have a plan - (IGTHAP!)… my plan is to excercise a lot (brought my stretch bands), practice a lot (brought bass and Stick for that reason - we can’t get at our show gear), to maybe record something new, to write a lot, read a lot (brought Dune to re-read)… and hopefully find something creative to make this experience worthwhile. As I said, that’s the plan - what will actually happen remains to be seen.

More soon.

p.s. In Japan now, so of course, you can expect haikus. Here’s one from the flight over: