27 May, 2010 Watch Us Go!
There will be no such thing as having the luxury of time when Simple Minds gather in Troyes next week for the first of our summer dates. In fact it will be a case of “how are you, let’s sound check, and now let’s play,” as we hook up for the first time in two months, our first gathering since our end of March trip to OZ and NZ. We will be flying by the seat of our pants in doings so, especially as it means that there is no room for rehearsal, that can be great thing sometimes though and it certainly brings an edge to proceedings.
Interestingly it is now exactly a year since we released Graffiti soul and similarly a year since we did “that lovely festival in the woods of Sweden” to coincide with the week of release. We of course on that occasion played songs from GS such as Rockets, Moscow Underground, Stars Will Lead The Way, This Is it, all of them played for the first time on that day, all of them now confidently and permanently immersed in our live set alongside many other irremovable live Minds classics. The reality of that alone signifies how strong an album Graffiti is.
Understandably then I will always look of the period of Graffiti Soul with some extra fondness as for me it will forever be the album that saw Simple Minds return to full artistic strength. The album that enabled us to once again look on ourselves as being as good as any other out there, and in terms of song writing – probably more ahead of the game than most. That felt pretty nice I have to admit.
These up coming summer dates however will mark the true close on that period, as with the exception of the odd appearance, it is more likely that SM will not tour extensively again until the release of our next album, and that is not due for release until the end of ’12 at the earliest. Then again, plans often do change so who knows exactly what will happen. More important for many will be the news that song writing for that already mentioned future album has not only begun but is also off to an exhilarating start, or at least it is to my ears.
All being so, in my opinion Simple Minds have a very good future indeed to look forward to, in addition to that I also sense that things within the band are in great enough shape to deal with challenge of substantially building on our story. Nothing will make me happier than to see that come to fruition.
Meanwhile throughout these immediate weeks and summer months we will set about the task of not only maintaining but also going beyond our reputation of being a live band that guarantees to give absolutely all each and every night we take to the stage.
Watch us go!
Jim Kerr