No Snitch Tour Diaries Part VIII

To celebrate the release of Live At Royal Albert Hall on vinyl and bandcamp (both available NOW) I present my journals from the 2025 tour with Father John Misty. These writings provide the narrative leading up to the now immortalized concert at Royal Albert Hall.

No one will be snitched on in these writings. This is about what it was like for me, a largely unknown, entirely independent artist to take on a massive EU/UK tour as the support act for an established, beloved act.

NOTTINGHAM (Day off) - APRIL 11

We are rousted at some pyschedelic hour to face customs in the UK. This is the moment that I’ve been building up for months. If my merchandise is going to get taxed or confiscated, this is where it’s going to happen. If my non-visa credentials are deemed insufficient, this is where it’s going to happen. I’ve been told that they do not fuck around in the UK.

Paul asks us all to make sure to get our passports stamped for our visas and to send a picture to him. I tell Paul that I have PPE letters, not a visa.

A Paid Performance Engagement letter is something concert promoters can write for an artist to let UK customs know that the artist is invited to perform, when and where they will perform, at which port they will enter the country, that they will be paid for the engagements, and that they will leave when they are done. It’s a way to get into the country as a performing musician if you don’t have a sponsor for a visa, which in the case of everyone else in the touring party is the FJM booking agency. When I tell Paul about this he says he’s never heard of such a thing. That’s not reassuring.

They have us sit in what the group lovingly calls “band jail”. It’s a railed off area where large groups wait while they run everyone’s credentials. The agent goes through our passports and calls us up one by one to present our visas as the buses and the truck get searched. When my time comes I nervously hand over my printed PPE letters. He takes them and walks across the building into another room. I wait in suspense. He comes back after a few minutes and hands them to me. I guess we’re good? No mention of the merchandise I have stashed on the bus either. Months of stress behind me, just like that.

We board the bus and wait for it to drive onto the ferry where we must immediately get off and go to the upper deck. A tomb within a tomb. Everyone in the group gets a breakfast ticket. This is my first chance for a full English, which I am thrilled about. I love shit like this. From a ferry cafeteria, no less. I get my plate. Heinz baked beans, eggs, bacon, braised tomato, hash browns, mushroom, sausage, toast. The only thing missing is black pudding. Everyone is a little repulsed by it except for me. I ask Kyle if I can have his cookie as I lift the uneaten mushroom off of his plate. Something about this performative visual agnosia turns Jon’s stomach. I pitch the idea for “Full English Breakfast: Oops All Mushrooms”.

I look for the longest bench to attempt some labored sleep. I find one about half my length. I make sure it’s near where everyone else is sitting so I don’t get left behind. Later, a picture shows a number of us asleep, draped over the seats like damp towels, mouths agape.

We finally get to reboard the bus. The thought of getting back in my bunk for seven more hours of driving sounds like the highest heaven. Stepping out of my jeans, rolling into the bunk, stretching my back and cycling my legs against the sheets to get settled will forever live in the pantheon of pleasurable sensations I’ve known. “Orgasmic”, says Chris as he slips into his bunk above mine.

A short seven hours later the bus comes to a stop. We are hustled off because the bus drivers need to go somewhere to plug in while they sleep. We’re at a hotel in a nondescript area near Nottingham. I pull up a map and don’t see much to do. I guess I’ll just lay on the bed and wait for bus call. But once I’m in my room, Kyle, ever the mission-oriented location scout, texts to say that they’re meeting out front to go to dinner.

We pile into an Uber and wind up at a place called Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem. It’s a pub built into the mountain under Nottingham castle that was established in 1198. We all order steak and ale pies. I see an order of fish and chips go by looking world class so I order one for the table. I also order the house ale. Aside from the occasional Old Speckled Hen I don’t see a lot of ale in the states. I’ve come to love it.

I mention to the guys my intention to record the London show. The problem is that the board mixes I’ve been getting don’t sound great because the room sound itself is not represented. Everything is direct from the board. My guitar sounds like rubber bands and the vocal is dry. Some of the guys think I should ask Jacob to record it with the house mics. Others think it’s a potential overstep. Some think it doesn’t hurt to ask, others think it might. I decide not to. I don’t want to ruffle any feathers.

Some drunken Scottish guys take an interest in us, especially Dave. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my time traveling with musicians, it’s that a guy with long hair and a beard is irresistible fodder to a certain type of bar patron. It’s always that they look like someone, usually Jesus. In this case he looks like “Beahmayfoo”.

After yelling “Beahmayfoo” several times I deduce that they’re saying “Beard Meets Food”. Some internet food personality. After eight cities in non-English speaking countries, it’s not until we get to north England that I have trouble understanding people. These guys show off their broken noses and scars from knife wounds. They ask to take a picture with us not because they recognize us as musicians, but that we’re a curiosity. An oddity. In the way that someone might take a picture of an oddly shaped tomato that grew in their garden.

Kyle and I hang a bit longer than the rest and we have another pint before catching an Uber back to the hotel. I crash for an hour or so before bus call at 1am. Another five hours to Edinburgh. I’m exhausted. I can’t remember a time that I’ve had more sleep.