After a short drive and a correspondingly short sleep my condition was not in an ideal condition when I sortied from the bus in search of breakfast. Apart from my loss of voice I'd had no other symptoms over the previous few days but overnight I had developed an annoying cough which compounded my concerns about passing this on: I subtly kept my distance from the others.

The SSE Arena is home to the Belfast Giants ice hockey team who are one of the big players in the Elite League. Backstage at a professional ice hockey arena is not the gonna be the most salubrious of places at the best of times. We are plumb in the middle of the season—the Giants had played a double header against the Guildford Flames just before we arrived (winning both games 3-1) and have another game here next Saturday. To stage a concert in a place like this a floor is installed on top of the ice—the rink isn't thawed as you might imagine. So it was COLD. Much colder that it was outside, and it wasn't balmy on the streets of Belfast that morning.

We had been allocated the away team's locker room as our dressing room, a large, painted breeze-block box with communal showers that retained all the ambience you would expect from it's primary function as home to twenty three professional ice hockey players—a heady composite odour redolent of sweat, Ralgex, Lynx Africa¹ and male pheromones saturated the walls. A few token pieces of furniture had been dragged in to supplement the benches round the walls effort to make the room less spartan—a couple of airport sofas and an office chair with a single Ikea TÅGARP uplighter in the corner (a fixture ubiquitous in backstage dressing rooms in venues the world over).

Along the corridor Sarah, Rob and Tom were preparing lunch in less than ideal conditions underneath the bleachers next to the Zamboni machines used to smooth the ice at the matches between periods. The lovely Ellie was, however, was conspicuous by her absence and it became apparent that she had had a horrible accident in Dublin after we had left, tripping and severing the tendons in her wrist with a bottle she was carrying, requiring an emergency operation to reconnect them with six to twelve weeks in plaster to follow. (Best wishes Ellie. We all wish you a full and speedy recovery.)

As much as I love being in this city—Belfast has always felt like Glasgow's sister and soulmate, even at the height of the troubles—all of this persuaded me to take refuge back in my self-quarantine zone on the bus and I spent most of the day there asleep.

I was rudely awakened by the persistent ringing of my phone. A glance at the time—I hadn't considered the need to set an alarm—5.19 pm. No need to answer: Derek (tour manager) Fudge was trying to find out where the fuck I was when I was supposed to be on stage. I donned my warmest clothes and ventured back in to the rink. By now the loading bays were closed and there did seem to be some kind of heating in operation, in the auditorium at least, and it felt a bit less like a chilled foods warehouse.

Being 20 minutes late for a 60 minute sound check does not have any of the rock-and-roll kudos of going on stage two hours late (which is something you can't possibly do at Arena shows, no matter how big you think you are for your boots, Ms Ciccone). It's just a PITA for all concerned. But thankfully there were no further hitches to my sleeping-in and we were comfortably done by doors.

The Arena filled up fast and warmed up over the next hour and we went on stage to a pretty much full room. The excess sleeping seemed to have recuperated a few of my vocal chords and I managed a few more of the missing harmonies. People stood and clapped when we left the stage. Someone even shouted for one more song². I remembered why I love this city.

Footnotes

¹ STAY SMELLING FRESH. ALL DAY.
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² Not gonna happen—the timing for us has to be military in its precision: not one second past 8pm. That's just the way it is for the opening act. We appreciated the thought though!