Hi guys. I'm writing from an Internet cafe in London. We saw Santa's Boyfriend a few nights ago. Here's the important stuff. First, they had no CDs for sale. Sorry to all! Second, their new name is Fiction Plane. Joe started off the set by saying "We're Santa's Boyfriend, probably for the last time." I asked the keyboard player about Factory X and he said they couldn't use it because it was some other band's name or something. The show was in a small bar/pub. There were about 35-40 people. The band did not have a drummer. I guess he got fired from the band. Abe L. (Sting's drummer) was there. I talked to him for quite a while. He told me about the drummer getting fired. One other guy recognized him too and bought him beers all night. Abe is a great guy. He's playing with Paul McCartney. I asked about Paul getting married (it's in all the papers here) and Abe said that "might have something to do" with why he was still in London. Of course, now everyone knows Paul is getting married today. Paul had just finished playing the Jubilee. Abe said he talked with Prince Charles for 5 minutes at a party at Buckingham Palace. |He was stoked. He is such a good natured guy. He actually knows the town where I work becuase he has a friend there and I think one of my friends knows his friend, too. Small world! Abe sat in on one song for the band. Joe played drums on a few others. He also played keyboards on the opening song. They only played ONE song from Swings and Roundabouts (Everything will never be ok). All the other songs were new. There was one called "Lies" and one called something like "Fuck you and fuck your cigarette." I didn't think he sounded as much like Sting as he does on the CD, but he sure looked like his father at certain times. Even my husband noticed and thought it was eerie. Abe says Fiction Plane has signed with MCA, he thinks, and Joe told me that they hope to have a CD out in 6 months, that's why they weren't selling any of their old ones. They "want to do it right" he said. That's typical when a band signs. rubyhorse did the same thing when they signed with Island. They quit selling their indy CD at shows. Anyway, I talked with Joe a bit afterward. He said there's a new email list for the band. I think it's fictionplane@hotmail.com for those who are interested. Oh, a guy named Brian, who is Paul McCartney's bass player was with Abe. Abe was great on the drums (even though it was a tiny little drum set). I took several photos. Joe trashed the drum set at the end of the last song. They played for about an hour. That's all I can think of right now. I'll email when I get back in about a week and a half. We're on to Ireland in two days. We were supposed to see New Order on Sunday, but it was raining sooooo hard. I was soaked and cold and I didn't want to wait through a couple more crappy bands for New Order, so we left. Oh well. Bye. Maggie