I’m happy to be back home for a few weeks following our long trip through North and South America. I want to thank all the wonderful people that came along to these concerts, you helped to make every show special. I can’t remember having a single night where I walked off stage and didn’t feel like the experience hadn’t been inspiring and unique in some way. However, while I’d managed to get though the whole 2018 tour without getting sick, my perfect record unfortunately came to an abrupt end on show 67, the (wouldn’t you just know it?) very last date of the tour in São Paulo, Brazil, at which I had finally succumbed to illness, in this case a gastric flu which meant when I walked on stage I hadn’t been able to eat anything for about 48 hours. But I managed to stay standing (well OK I sat down for some of it) for 3 hours after being lifted by the incredible atmosphere that the Brazilian audience always knows how to generate. In fact these final shows across Latin America were amongst the most inspiring of the whole tour, as we performed to 13,000 people across 6 concerts in Mexico, Chile, Argentina, and Brazil. The support and love for the music never fails to touch me, with the fan tributes particularly incredible on this tour. Special mention needs to go out to the whole band (including Ninet) rendered as anime characters by Japanese artist Maro (who flew from her home country to see the concerts in Seattle and Portland), and a wonderful SW puppet gifted me by a Chilean fan (my apologies for not knowing your name, but I love it, thanks!) The bootleg merchandise on sale outside the venue in Mexico City is also always something to look forward to, and this time around this tastefully designed cap was a big favourite!

For those of you who haven’t been able to see the To the Bone tour in the flesh, or if you have but just want to see it again in the comfort of your own home, the Royal Albert Hall concert film is being edited and mixed as we speak. It will include the whole of the third night’s performance in this beautiful venue, as well as some extra songs not included in the gig set list that were filmed earlier in the day in an empty venue. Official announcements on title, contents and formats coming soon.

Later in the year I’m planning on recording some new material (very different again is all I can say right now), but next there are some festival appearances from late June through July, so hopefully see some of you there. Hellfest in France should be particularly interesting, don’t expect to hear Permanating at that one! 🙂

Best!

SW – 31st May 2018