Market Drayton Festival Centre Sat Feb 20th

Despite the problems with the sleeping arrangements last night, most of us get a decent kip, and, bolstered by sausages and bacon from the Frankie & Benny's next door to the hotel we head north- west. It's a beautiful, crisp morning, with a clear, blue cloudless sky. There's a heavy frost and a smattering of snow on the ground still, and as the sun warms our faces this melts and glistens, so everything shines as if the whole world has been polished. The traffic's light, the truck cab's warm, and we're on the road. The sleepy little town of Market Drayton awaits us, nestling in between the rolling Shropshire hills. It's not famous for all that much other than just being quiet and pretty, though if ever you change your name by deed poll, this is where all the paperwork will be processed, trivia fans ! Despite Doris the sat nav's best attempts to send us via Norwich, we pull up outside the Festival Centre ten minutes ahead of schedule, and get out to stretch our legs. The building is actually an old Methodist chapel, and it's small. As in shoebox-sized small. As in " Bugger...how's THIS going to work ? " small. Rodders and I go in, hoping against hope to find a stadium - sized venue somehow hiding behind this tiny exterior, but no, this is it. The fact that it seems to be crammed with ridiculously attractive young women in skimpy leisure gear immediately jumps the place up the league into a Champions League qualifying spot, but then we see the theatre itself and suddenly relegation beckons. The stage itself isn't that bad; only a tiny bit smaller than Tamworth, and we managed fine there, but the lighting bars can't be dropped down, the only access to these bars is via what appears to the world's largest step ladder ( it's not my real ladder, it's my step - ladder....) the load - in is up a flight of wooden stairs, there are no dressing rooms backstage and no stage crew to help us. However, Geoff and Glyn, the two main men in the organisation here, pitch in, and we get the truck unloaded in good time. I must confess I was feeling a bit negative about the whole thing at this point....I couldn't really see how we were going to get the visuals working, for a start, and when the rest of the crew arrive I let my feelings be known, so there's a bit of a bad vibe floating around for a bit. However, we've done this kind of thing so many times before that we quickly decide on a game plan and get stuck in. That's the way it has to be in this game....if you're going to do the show, do the show. Don't bitch, don't bleat, just make a plan and get on with it. It's cosy onstage but totally workable, and all we'll have to drop out of the show will be the pyrotechnics, unless I want to risk a November 5th - stylee conflagraton. The staff here are all volunteers, and what they may lack in technical expertise they more than make up for in enthusiasm and general
niceness. When the band arrive I'm half - expecting the " what are we doing playing here ? " complaints, but after the wide open spaces of Worthing they're obviously happy to be playing somewhere more intimate, and this is as intimate as an airport customs body - search. Soundcheck goes without a hitch and the lovely people of the Festival Centre then cook us a meal and even take our drinks order for the interval...now how civilized is THAT ?! I'd just like to say that I only tried all three types of their delicious home-made cake for purely scientific purposes, and not, as was scurrilously claimed by other members of the touring party, because I'm a greedy fat bastard. And so to showtime. The venue sold out some time ago, and you can almost feel the expectation. There hasn't been so much excitement since Sally Morgan the famous medium was due to appear here ( sadly her show was cancelled due to unforseen circumstances ) and the show's in the bag right from the off...the audience are even laughing and cheering the intro video footage! Despite almost not beng able to move, the lads are clearly loving it tonight, and sitting as I am about three feet away from Phil's guitar amp, I'm finding out again just how powerful a beast they can be up close. Clive's not on this run of shows so we've got the lovely "Tomps" Tompkins running AV, and as I look over at him on my left he's singing away into his headset as he fires in the moving images onto the back screens. I can see the lads sweating, a good sign that they're getting into it, and they're smiling and making loads of eye contact with each other, because they know what they're capable of and what's happening here. This is turning into a great gig. All the jokes are laughed at, all the songs cheered to the rafters, and the band are giving it some serious wellie. Despite the venue having accidentaly sold the seats at the back where he normally mixes the sound from, Arthur gets it bang on from his new location about two rows from the front, and although we couldn't get Rodder's MAC moving lights up in the air here, he's managed to get a fair few in dotted around the stage, and they look like mental, coloured searchlights in this tiny room. The positioning of two of them on the front of Steve's drum riser was a BIT of a problem; during his solo on Pretty Woman, as the beams raked across his flailing hands I noticed he'd taken on a certain " rabbit frozen in the headlights " facial expression, and so I picked up a handy fire extinguisher in case I needed to revive him. Normal service was resumed as soon as the MACs went off, though, so despite being baked AND blinded, he soldiered on until the interval, at which point he was spotted backstage blundering into walls and trying to sign an autograph for a vending machine. At the end of the show it was genuine standing ovation time, and the audience would have let us play all night if we could. A brilliant gig, one of the best on the tour without a doubt, and we decide we definitely want to come back and play for these lovely people again. Even Doris's attempts to get her own back by sending Rodders and I to a cosy ditch deep in the countryside near Shrewsbury instead of to the hotel can't take the edge off tonight. It's a long old poke down to Weymouth tomorrow, but that's another day. Another tiny part of the western world has fallen beneath the wheels of our mighty campaign, and tonight we are the KINGS OF ROCK, I TELL YOU, THE KINGS !!!!! NOTHING CAN STOP US NOW !!!........erm, might be time for bed now.....