Fish tour saved by NF organisers

Posted by Fish, forwarded on here by yr. obd't blogger:

Dear FishHeads, fans, Freaks and The Company,

Sorry I've been a bit quiet lately but the arrangements for the US tour have been taking precedent and creating a lot of stress.

The tour was close to going down in the last two weeks as we couldn't find a petitioner.

The petitioner has to be a company involved with the tour and basically guarantees that I pay any taxes and stands as a kind of bail bond should anything go wrong. Without a petitioner we couldn't get work visas. As you are probably aware, the US has a great deal of "ambulance chasing" lawyers and to put it in perspective when the tragedy occurred in Rhode Island with a band foolishly letting off pyros inside a low ceiling, sold out club which had all the exit doors chained and resulted in close to a hundred people dying, even the radio station who advertised the show were successfully sued. It's a wee bit scary. Everyone was walking away.

My US agent couldn't sign as petitioner, the label distributing my catalogue over there wouldn't and EMI publishing was in a quandary. Luckily at the last moment the Nearfest promoters stepped up to the plate and signed off which means we can now go for the visas. Believe me Yatta and I were on the edge of cancelling the shows as we were fast approaching the deadline for visa applications.

The bureaucracy of setting up this tour is a nightmare but bit by bit the Yattmeister has whittled away at the mountain and we are moving apace.