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The Boy And The Girl That Got Away

In January 2005, Jim, Si and I undertook an acoustic tour of Germany. Our good friend and loyal fan Neil came with us, drove us, and sold merchandise.

The tour was something our manager Nick had been very keen for us to try, partly as it would show off different elements of the songs, but mainly because it would be cheap. I was initially sceptical, as it would only involve some of the band, and seemed scary. I warmed to the idea when I thought we could use it as an excuse to write some songs specifically for the shows. I don't know why this brought it to life for me, but it did.

So I wrote 9 songs for the tour, which we duly rehearsed alongside re-workings of other Spearmint songs. Doing the gigs was absolutely terrifying - we were used to hiding behind noise, and this seemed so quiet! For these reasons I found it really fulfilling to pull off the shows, and to (hopefully) hold people's attention for the whole set.

The weekend gigs got really scary, when we found ourselves booked into club venues that suited full bands but were totally inappropriate for an acoustic trio. But we got on with it, played quietly, and seemed to go down ok. I know that Si and Jim didn't enjoy it as much, as the shows were more challenging than fun, but this was one of my favourite tours, because I felt so stretched, and I suppose because it was all about the songs.

It was very wintry and we have some snow-filled memories of my birthday in Freiburg, plus a lot of good times as the smaller group that we were. Jim got very poorly one morning, so I encouraged him to take some of the Nurofen I had with me. That is when we learned that Jim is allergic to Nurofen. Poor lad - I remember us driving into Berlin, Jim having to get out of the van, being sick by the roadside, us driving half as mile more, Jim getting out of the van...

When we got back we recorded the nine new songs and put them out as a limited pressing called "The Boy And The Girl That Got Away". In retrospect, this is the slightest of all our releases, and I wish we had just put out six of the songs as an EP. I find 3 of the songs unsatisfactory, and the sound of the whole thing could have been better. Nice souvenir though...