I haven’t shared very much about the tour here in all honesty. Unlike with previous tours where I felt very much a part of things most of the time, with the Acoustic Tour and then – with a sticky moment in between – the Walk Between Worlds tour, I was in “the heart of the crowd”. Even to a lesser extent I felt very much a part of things during the Big Music Tour – even though I only went to two gigs in 2015 – it was the early days of my fandom and my enthusiasm was…infectious…and feeding my own hunger for more.
This blog started in 2015…starting its life on Tumblr and then moving here to be a fully fledged website in its own right, carrying the “Priptona Weird” URL. Rather cringingly it started as pretty much a visual Jim Kerr “drool wall”, thinly veiled as a “Simple Minds” blog.
After a time I wanted it more and more to move into more “serious” territory. Still have some FUN, of course – I have never been trying to compete with Simon’s Dream Giver Redux site, nor did I ever want to! I was a mere cub in no way equipped to compete with a roaring lion and I knew that. I always wanted to have my blog have SOME of me in it. Present it as MY Simple Minds world.
I had been happy with where I had taken it and where it was going in recent years. Diversifying somewhat to have more generalised musical input – gig reviews, new album release reviews, interviews – all of that side of things makes me “proud” (be careful using that word, kiddo!) – hmmm, okay…”gratified” (there we go, that’s better!) with the state the blog was in during 2020 and 2021 and the couple of years preceding the pandemic. The work I put into the Minds Music Monday posts celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Sons And Fascination/Sister Feelings Call feels like the pinnacle of it all. Little did I know that as I was putting all of that together, Graham Thomson was writing Themes For Great Cities. I felt like all my work was a precursor to his amazing book.
This new year promised to be so great. The book I just mentioned was due for release in January and I felt I had scored myself a bit of a coup for this blog in being able to get hold of a copy of the book before its release date and review it here. I was delighted to also be given the opportunity to have a couple of copies of it to give away.
The release of Act Of Love was also a fantastic thing to happen early on this year.
I was counting down to Paris, the first gig of the recommencing of the tour – for me personally. In actual fact I think the tour WAS meant to recommence where it had stopped – in Copenhagen – but one last minute reschedule meant that Paris would not be until May and the new start of the tour with my personal run of gigs would be in Aberdeen.
Over the past six months, particularly within the past three months – more than ever before – I have felt on the outer. Being a “social butterfly” never really comes comfortably to me. I have spent many years sheltered and comfortable in my own company. Perhaps it is part of continued undiagnosed neurodiversity? Even when I do engage in social situations, I have ALWAYS felt inept. These recent weeks have felt no different. In fact, they have only compounded my feelings of awkwardness and ineptitude even further.
My retreat is here. This blog. Even within the online social network these days – a place I felt initially much safer in “socialising” in, I once again feel on the outer fringes. I’m not really having any involvement with any of the Simple Minds group pages. Just the odd thing that I may feel particularly vocal about or eager to express – like yesterday with sharing the review of Sarah’s album in Mojo magazine on SMOG. These days my interaction is an exception to the rule.
The work I did for this blog last year for the Sons/Sister 40th Anniversary I wanted to emulate for New Gold Dream. I was looking forward to that. But now it’s April and if I want to do something I know I should be starting NOW with the release of Promised You A Miracle as the first single release for the album. Minds Music Monday was put on hiatus for the tour – but frankly since I started my study, MMM has been neglected by and large.
The tour has been going since March 31st, and the band just played their first mainland European gig last night at the Ziggodome in Amsterdam. They continue with the arena leg of the tour through Europe until near the end of May. Paris is in 16 days time and I am frightened to fuck about it. I don’t travel well internationally at the best of times but just all the extra logistics involved in what really is such a short journey is positively freaking me out. I have so few gigs left to enjoy though I really don’t want to miss it. And…I have a meet and greet AGAIN. And one final chance of a NICE photo with Jim and Charlie. Don’t get me wrong…I love that one from Aberdeen. It has a personal significance to it for me that I really love – I just wish that Jim and Charlie had been framed in it better and not look like they are suffering from epic cases of jaundice! Lol. And I am ssoooo bummed that they lost the Newcastle photos and I couldn’t take advantage of going to another UK gig as compensation. So…a lot hinges on Paris.
As I said at the beginning of this post, I haven’t shared much of any of this tour so far here on this blog. I haven’t even shared all of my own photos from Newcastle as yet (rectified above). You know…the web is AWASH with stuff – especially on the SM group pages on Facebook. There’s plenty to see there. I feel little need in sharing any of it here. Which in turn is starting to make this blog feel…surplus to requirements. A combination of my continued concentrated attention to my studies as well as just feeling less and less part of it all.
So where does this blog go? It’s called “Priptona’s Simple Minds Space” after all! It’s not “Larelle Read” – my own actual personal blog has lain abandoned for YEARS – and it is rightfully the place I should be writing about my academic endeavours on but I guess I started talking about my academic pursuits here as a way of highlighting why things might be a bit “Minds light” on the blog at the moment.
Truly, I know the only person who cares about this blog is me…and even I’m worried that the enthusiasm is dying. At least for it to be the kind of thing it had been for the past, say, four years. A good blend of lots of Simple Minds stuff, with broader music based features, some fantastic posts (if I can blow my own trumpet for one nanosecond) and pretty darn good interviews – for a rank amatuer.
Again, where do we go from here? I don’t know. I really do hope I’m just feeling a dose of PGD (Post Gig Depression) and things will pick up again. Perhaps after Paris?
We’ll see. Until then, thanks for listening and reading and continuing to visit this old mishmash of crap that is “Priptona’s Blog”.