Jonathan Coulton

I met the Sheriff of Nottingham. I didn’t know there was an actual sheriff, but there is. He’s a nice old man, I don’t see why anyone would want to give him any trouble. I was able to meet him because I played “Re: Your Brains” at the Guiness record-setting zombie gathering event outside in a square filled with zombies (he counted the zombies, I guess that’s one of his many duties). This is unquestionably the weirdest moment of the trip: me there in the green room tent next to the stage saying hi to the sheriff and seeing zombie faces everywhere. How did this happen?

And then of course we played the GameCity Halloween party that night – the standard semi-crappy sound of a large hotel conference room, made even more crappy by my then even larger throat frog. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to get through the set. But an audience of zombies doesn’t care about this sort of thing, really all they want is brains. And of course Paul and Storm kicked ass as usual, so I figure even if I was terrible there was still some decent entertainment on stage.

I can only hope that they’re as forgiving here in Birmingham, because the frog is still with me (I have named him Bernie).

What can I possibly say about London? There were over 500 people in the audience, and though the beautiful Shepherds Bush Empire holds many more, it felt nice and full and fun. The sound and the lighting were both exceptional and seemingly effortless, and the incredibly warm crowd was just what I needed to re-energize me in the middle of this long trip. We did “Always the Moon” for the second time (the first was in Manchester, and a little rough for it) and it actually sounded pretty good I think. Got a few compliments about it afterwards, which means I’ll probably keep putting it into the show when I can.

The one drawback was the very beginning of a little frogginess in my throat, which I think went mostly unnoticed by everyone but me, but returned the next morning with a vengeance. The Nottingham attendees will agree with me…

Another fantastic show, this time with the Paul and Storm bonus. Not to mention a little cross cameo business with our famous friend Neil Gaiman, who was doing a reading from his new book about 150 meters away (that’s in metric). Neil was nice enough to let us do a couple of songs at the beginning of his reading, and then when he finished up he came over to our show and read the second verse of Creepy Doll. Almost too creepy really, but an incredible thrill as I am a huge fan. Thank you Neil, and thank you Manchester.

And yes, for some reason I have been unable or unwilling to post this for several days – blogging ends up last on the list of stuff I gotta do when I’m on the road, which is kind of dumb because that’s when all the awesome stuff happens. It is now Saturday, and I have some breathing room in the hotel in Birmingham and am trying to catch up. Stay tuned…