HeyJaredGregory Spawton
Songwriter and bass player for progressive rock band, Big Big Train. This Substack is about the life of a musician in the twilight years of the age of rock.
- Indexed issues, all indexed history
- 15
- Latest publication
- Oct 12, 2026
- Audience
- Checking…
- Earliest indexed
- Feb 1, 2026
Latest issues
Woodcut Tour Diary (opens the original)
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We face a 727 mile journey to our next stop in Vicenza, Italy, where we will have a hotel night. Even with a departure time tonight of around midnight, that means we’ll be on the tourbus until at least 4pm. However, my wife, Kathy, is flying in for the first of our shows in Italy and seeing her for the first time in 10 days gives me something to look forward to.Only me and NDV are awake for the crossing into Italy. It’s a nice moment for us as we both have Italian heritage. ‘We’re back in the Mo…
Woodcut Tour Diary (opens the original)
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And so to France for our first-ever show on French soil. I imagined that we’d probably play a debut show in Paris but our booking is, instead, in a rock club in a tiny town (population 700) called Pagney-Derrière-Barine. The club is called Chez Paulette and has an interesting history, starting up as a dance hall in the 1950’s (a place where American servicemen and local girls could mingle) . In the 1960’s, it became a rock club and it hosts 50 or so shows a year. Two prog rock listeners from nea…
Woodcut Tour Diary (opens the original)
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Five gig days in a row is hard, but eight rehearsal days directly before those five gigs means that we haven’t had a break in almost two weeks and it is fair to say that this Train is beginning to run low on soul coal.Thankfully, we have an afternoon and evening off, and a nice hotel bed tonight. But first we have to drive 370 miles. Furthermore, we have to navigate both immigration control and the insane bureaucracy of the carnet process (a checksheet of every bit of musical equipment we are ta…
Woodcut Tour Diary (opens the original)
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The Stables in Milton Keynes has become a very popular prog staging post. It’s a well-run venue, with a good PA and a slightly different seating arrangement than the usual rectangular theatre. The only downside is that it’s a few miles out of town, so it’s not possible to find a good coffee without getting an Uber and facing a road system of a million-roundabouts. But, for the band, in this early part of the day, there is time to kill, so me and Alby do just that while other band members sleep i…
Woodcut Tour Diary (opens the original)
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For the Woodcut and Other Stories tour we will be playing two sets at each gig: a first set featuring BBT back catalogue material and a second set where we play the whole of the Woodcut album.Two sets equals two hours and ten minutes of music to learn and to get tight, so we have allowed eight days of band rehearsals at our location down in a former military site in Portsmouth (those eight days include a day-and-a-half for technical setup).Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new…
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