7AM. Am woken by the phone. It’s a strange phone in a strange room. Who am I? Where am I? And what exactly can I do about it?

Bits of my mind start to fire up after several attempts. Worn-out Ignition on a cold morning.  My name is Dickon Edwards. I am in a hotel room in Stockholm. I am the frontman of a band called Fosca. And if I don’t get dressed in a passably decent state and stumble downstairs right now, I will miss out on a paid-for breakfast.

After consuming as much juice, coffee and toast as I can stand, sharing such bleary munching with bandmate Ms Charley Stone, I manage to meet Rachel Stevenson and the record label touring party in the lobby on time. And off to Karlstad we all go.

A snow-laden yet sunny day on the Swedish motorways. Stop at a service station by a vast and lovely lake. Find myself singing Haircut One Hundred lyrics: ‘Where do I from here / Is it down to the lake I fear / Aye yi yi yi yi yi / Yi yi yi yi yi yi yi ya…’ No one joins in.

1PM. Reach the venue in Karlstad: the ‘Arena’. Thankfully it’s more like the Highbury Garage than Wembley Arena. The afternoon is spent recording two brand new Fosca songs elsewhere in the building: ‘The Man I’m Not Today’ and ‘My Diogenes Heart’. Just the three of us: self, Ms Stone, and Rachel Stevenson. Charley likes the A-side, Rachel the B-side. I like both.

The studio’s live room is full of marvellous vintage organs and synths. Up against time, we bash out the two songs with engineering from a nice chap called Mattias and production from Niklas (of our fellow touring band Friday Bridge). I finish the lyrics in the van, during the three hour journey to Karlstad. As ever, I’m annoyed at how useless a guitarist I am when it comes to making records, and am grateful for Ms Stone’s more innate ability on the instrument. Ms Stevenson provides backing vocals and synth, instantly changing the songs from odd little Dickon Edwards tunes to Fosca The Band, and thus into something more inclusive, more at home in the world. Somewhere in the collective efforts from all present, a fanning-out of the songs’ spectrums pulls through. On top of which I’m just reminded how much more fun and enjoyable it is to be in a band than to be a solo performer.

6PM Soundcheck in the venue. The house sound engineer and venue PA system are so much better than last night’s set up. It’s an utter pleasure to soundcheck for them: instruments and voices as clear as a bell before we have a chance to even ask what we want in the monitors.

7PM. Meal in the venue, then a couple of hours in the hotel to relax. After the busy and metropolitan Stockholm Crystal Plaza, this hotel feels like we’re the only guests here. But it’s only a few minutes’ walk from the venue – via a square with a clock-dominated municipal building, which strongly resembles the one in Back To The Future. My room is large and cosy, and I can’t resist trying out the bath, with its split shelf floor for enhanced sitting action.   I’d already had a shower back in Stockholm, so the concert attenders of Karlstad are treated with a doubly-washed Dickon for their money, at no extra cost.

1030PM Hide out in the venue dressing room, hidden in the backstage maze of corridors. Meet family and friends of Friday Bridge and the record label. Am provided with much white wine, but take care not to overdo things. To get from the dressing room to the stage, we have to cross the balcony floor of the adjoining nightclub, with its requisite pumping disco.

1115PM Perform my solo number, then do my guest vocal with Friday Bridge, then after arguing with Charley and Rachel about which set list is most likely to please curious but uninitiated regional gig-goers, we perform as Fosca proper. There’s only a few dozen people down the front, but they manage to be even more passionate than the Stockholm fans. A few shouts of ‘I LOVE YOU DICKON!’ from strangers, plus a one man stage invasion, and I consider the gig a success. So what if the venue isn’t packed out, when the few who do come are so devoted? The whole point of Fosca is celebrating the passions of individuals, not reducing people to, well, making the numbers up.

Had this gig been in London, these fans’ counterparts would have kept away from the front of the stage, self-consciously lurking in the back corners and shadows of the venue. What regional gigs may lack in numbers, they more than make up for in unabashed, fashion-free affection. Thank you, Karlstad.