European Promo Tour 2010

Wednesday, May 5th

So, I'm relaxing and having a pint at the Goat's Tavern, a traditional English pub in Kensington, having just arrived in London a few hours ago, and I thought maybe I would share a few thoughts about this European promo tour the band is currently on. You see, outside of recording much of our most recent CD right here in Kensington exactly one year ago, we haven't been to Europe since the My Private Nation tour in 2004. The UK and most of Europe knows the band Train for only two songs really - Drops of Jupiter and Hey, Soul Sister. Meet Virginia received very little radio airplay here, and Calling All Angels wasn't the big hit song over here that it was in the States. Cab did nothing at all in Europe. On past tours when we've played those songs in concert here, you can see the faces light up with faint recognition, much like the young kids in America who are just discovering the band through the success of Hey Soul Sister..."Hey, I've heard this song before! That's these guys?!" We see it every night on tour in America, so performing in Europe won't be that much different. What will be different is that this first visit to the UK and Europe is more of a re-acquaintance trip. "Hey everybody, remember us...the Drops of Jupiter guys who are back with another smash hit after all these years?" Unlike America (and Australia really) where we have a fan base that has welcomed us back with open arms, we never really developed a fan base in Europe. And that's why we're here. We need to take advantage of the worldwide success we are once again experiencing thanks to Hey Soul Sister, and do the hard work that it will take to tie the 16-year history of Train together for the rest of the world, so we can keep coming back to these places for many years to come. But that won't be easy for us, given the success we've been experiencing on our most recent tours in the U.S. and Canada. We've gotten kind of used to the sold-out theater shows and festivals we've been playing for the past six months. I mean, we're opening for Bon Jovi at the New Meadowlands Stadium in front of 100,000 people only a few days after we return from Europe! Well, that's then and this is now. And the reality of what's now is that for the next few weeks we will be visiting radio stations and doing lots and lots of interviews all day every day, while playing small 500 seat clubs at night. Then we will travel, by tour bus mostly, to the next city/country, wake up and do it all over again. It'll be fun, if not a little humbling. Then we'll come back in the fall and hopefully move into the larger theaters and do a little less promotion and a lot more dates in many more cities and countries. So, I'm going to finish my pint, and maybe have one more with the guys who just walked in. Then I'm going to get a good nights rest, because tomorrow morning it's time to roll up the sleeves and go to work. The Train is here, Europe, and we're here to stay!
Peace,
Jimmy