POPMART Leg 5: 1998, Australia, Japan, South Africa

San Francisco – London.  Travel day.

I’m due to traverse the Atlantic four times in the next fortnight, so I thought it best to take the morning off. Our touring party breaks apart today for a brief hiatus. Some get to go home, some are holing up in L.A. and some are opening Broadways musicals. I’m going to the UK to further the Glastonbury cause and hopefully to go and lie down for at least a day or two.

San Francisco was in fine form when I woke up and opened the curtains. It’s another perfect blue-sky day, the kind that makes this city come alive. I headed to my former local café for breakfast with a few friends whom I had not yet managed to catch up with, but still had an hour or so to kill before heading to the airport. Wandering from the Hotel Fabulous, I just followed my feet and ended up drifting through Chinatown, which was alive with colour on such bright day. The streets were busy and noisy with cable cars clanging past, a smell of vegetable matter in the air, all very industrious.  Even when I lived here I rarely walked through this neighbourhood so I got to feel like a tourist for a little while and it felt good.

SFO beckoned and so I headed south. This short break feels like a bit of a watershed because once we emerge at the other side of the Glastonbury convulsion we really will be in the final furlong. I’ve noticed that I watch the shows now with a kind of wistful pride, making a point of seeing everything and taking it in before it all goes away forever. Symbolically perhaps, or maybe just in sympathy, my principal piece of luggage is giving up the ghost to the point where I’m not sure it’ll make it through this final few weeks.   My computer bag too is falling to pieces, so there’s an unmistakable air of a chapter coming to an end.

Airport, check-in, security at the funny new whizzing scanners that are like a cross between a tanning-booth and a giant photocopier, lounge, boarding and hopefully soon to sleep.