LATEST DIARY | Official Roddy Woomble - roddywoomble.com

Airport lounges are a world unto themselves. Usually I hate them, but recently Terminal 5 in Heathrow changed my mind. As beautiful as a modern, functional building can be, I thoroughly enjoyed spending two hours sitting people-watching there recently. They've done a good thing having all the domestic and international flights leaving from the same place. Even if you're flying from London to say, Aberdeen or Newcastle, you can still sit and mix with people flying out to Mumbai, Los Angeles or Cairo. It's an open, bright and airy atmosphere. There's even a Gordon Ramsay restaurant, where I went and had a nice breakfast, and bumped into a fellow I was at school with.

Yesterday waiting on a flight home from Belfast's George Best city airport I was vaguely disturbed with the overhead screen displaying above my gate 'Glasgow... wait in lounge - relax and shop'. I don't know, maybe i've been reading too much Dystopian fiction lately, but I couldn't help of thinking of 'Brave new world' and slogans like, 'to consume is in the interest of industry'. The whole notion of Shopping being relaxing doesn't play with me either. I find it stressful, overly expensive and usually a waste of time, unless we're talking about nice food, or second-hand books, which are always worth spending a bit of money on, providing they're from good, local places. Anyway I resisted the urge to squander my pounds buying perfume, sunglasses, celebrity magazines and chocolate and sat reading 'island' by Aldous Huxley. Just to add more fuel into my already cynical hearth.

I'm joining John McCusker at the 'Burns and a that' festival on Sat 23rd May in Ayr, singing a few songs with various other good folk. Come along if you can. Also a show has been added onto the end of the Drever, McCusker & Woomble June tour. We're playing at the Mugdock festival just north of Glasgow on Sat June 20th. Those that have been asking when they'll be mailed their new Idlewild albums - I'm told by Rod (who is in charge of this) that a slight problem with the mastering and pressing has been remedied and the albums will be posted out by the end of next week at the latest. This probably won't be in time for those coming to see us play the new album at Dingwalls in London next week, but it's not the end of the world. Think of it as a sneak preview, and anyway the next day you'll probably be able to listen to the whole album via crappy mobile phone footage on youtube. Our new album is called 'POST ELECTRIC BLUES'.

An enjoyable, if hectic day was spent yesterday in a very warm and sunny london, taking part in the annual Camden crawl festival. For those not in the know, it's when 150 bands take over Camden in North London and turn the whole place into a boozy street party. Originally we (idlewild) were scheduled for just one gig - at the Dublin Castle, a tiny, sweaty venue in the back room of a pub (a famous place though, where many well known acts played their debut London show. Just about every band it seems, at one point, has played at the Dublin castle). But in the end we played two, the latter being as a replacement for angry young men 'the enemy' at the fabulous Roundhouse venue. Their singer had a sore throat.

Before all that I had the morning and early afternoon wandering around my old haunts in London, buying coffee at the Monmouth coffee company, browsing in the London Review bookshop, and having some lunch and a pint of ale at the Lamb, a pub round the corner where I used to live. It's worth going to, it's like something out of Mary Poppins. The afternoon became vaguely stressful, more down to the size of the venue, the amount of bands playing and subsequent lack of space and tight sound check schedule. In these situations I normally prefer to go and stand outside, but the pavements of Camden were already full of crawl revellers drinking cider, eating hotdogs and adjusting their sunglasses. So instead i stood in the corridor and read a bit of 'Growth of the soil' by Knut Hamsun - a nobel prize winning Norwegian farming classic.

We did a BBC6music acoustic session with Steve Lamacq in the adjacent cafe next to a toastie machine. I think it went ok, but Madness were playing a gig outside on an open top bus , so i could barely hear Rod's guitar. in Lieu of the venue having no dressing room, a sanctuary was found in the Albert, a pub on Princess road with a relaxed atmosphere, a large beer garden and good food. It became our de facto dressing room, and we stayed there until just before gig time. The concert was good, but so loud that it was hard to know what was going on. There was almost a fight at the front, and the stage was so small that we were all glued to the spot, but then that's what playing in the back room of a pub is usually like. A mad dash to the roundhouse was followed by an hour or so enjoying the confines of a large spacious dressing room, prompting the question 'what was up with the mad dash?'. Taking the place of another band whose fans are waiting to see them is never a easy prospect. But it seemed like the enemy fans had gone elsewhere, or had simply decided just to stay and have a good time because the concert was good fun, even despite having no sound check and playing with borrowed gear. It's a great venue the roundhouse, one that i'd love to play in again. What followed is uninteresting for the reader, but i'll tell you anyway- I sat in the front of a van for a while as we drove back to the dublin castle to collect our equipment, then onto a travelodge, where i spent a good while trying to work out how to turn off the heating. the room was far too hot for sleep, so I ended up watching snooker on television with Johnny, the monitor engineer. Rock and indeed, roll.