[Guest Column] Lail Arad // Young & Breaking #5

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Hello from Tel Aviv! I just finished a mini-tour supporting Jeffrey and Jack Lewis. They are already onto the next adventure playing Primavera Festival in Barcelona, and I’m still trying to process the last week! I’m guessing that the more you tour the more you get used to it – as a novice, I found it completely overwhelming. On the one hand it was pretty short, on the other hand we crammed so much into 5 days, the level of intensity and lack of sleep felt pretty hardcore to the 8-hours a night, 3-meals a day girl I usually am.

I’ll give you a quick rundown of the shows. The first was in Jerusalem, at a tiny venue called Uganda which doubles as a record/comicbook store – one of the few hipster joints in the city. The show was so packed it was hard to move. I was relieved that the language barrier wasn’t a problem – people laughed and heckled just as they would in London – only maybe with a bit more hutzpah! The next night we played in Haifa. The nice thing was that there were two local bands in the lineup as well – and they were awesome! I feel we all upped our game because of that. I played solo for this show – when we arrived they said we cant mic up the piano which I was banking on – so I pushed to play unplugged and they finally agreed to set it up on the other side of the stage behind a curtain – hard to explain – but basically it meant my little set had two halves, in two locations, on two instruments – weird but it worked! Sometimes limiting circumstances make for the most interesting shows. And then Tel Aviv was the big one, at great venue called Levontin 7. I was more aware for this show that I was a support act, and had to win the crowd over – maybe because there was a lot of them and they were all very young and hip! Usually I like the challenge of support slots – grabbing attention and claiming the space – but it was harder when the main act were friends of mine, who I’m also very humbled by – I found myself talking more about how excited I am for their show than concentrating on mine! Its funny how nerves often come out in the speaking between songs – the songs themselves went very well. There was another secret show the next night, and radio session in there somewhere too… Lucky me to see so many J&J Lewis shows in one week – they were all fantastic, and all completely different! It was brilliant to realise the wealth of songs they have to choose from, to hear all my old favourites and meet some new material too. The experience of playing night after night in new places to new people was wonderful, but the truth is what I found most invaluable was the ongoing conversation – hearing them plan their sets, debrief their shows, hearing their take on the music industry, their experiences and advice, dissecting each other’s ipods in the car, hearing stories…

I was a little freaked out by the insight into the touring lifestyle – I don’t mean not practically so much as emotionally. The anti-glamour of lugging gear and merchandise up stairs at 4am and grabbing a falafel when you are beyond hunger breaking point – all that will do me good. But the reality of spending such intense time with people and then moving on to a new place each day, its going to take some getting used. Not to mention the void you feel when its all over! I get too quickly attached, need to toughen up!

Listen to Lail’s new track ‘Everyone is Moving To Berlin’ below!