Tunbridge Wells Assembly Rooms Mon Feb 8th

After yesterday's stressfest we could all have done with a "normal" day to collect our thoughts and regroup, but instead we're heading down to the Georgian splendour of Royal Tunbridge Wells for another day in the Land Of Wibble. We knew that we could only pull off something like last night's show once, so to get us through tonight we took the decision to ask former band member Steve Gray to step in and take over some of the numbers Den normally sings, thus reducing the pressure on Jamie and HIS voice. The upside of this arrangement is that, apart from being an absolutely top bloke, Steve has been in the band before, knows all of the guys except Phil ( or " Jim " as Steve keeps calling him ! ), and can slot in with the minimum of fuss. He was also the first person to play Buddy Holly when " Buddy " the musical opened in London, and did a five - year stint in the role, so we play fast and loose with chronology and ask him to don the specs and Stratocaster one more time for a special first-half slot. The downside of the latest change in what's now known as the " F*****g Organic Tour " is that we have to completely re-jig all the visuals AGAIN in the hour or so before the show goes up, but Arthur comes up with a cunning plan to allow us to use a lot more of the material in the places where they're actually meant to go, and as young Steve Liddard is on hand backstage he's quickly recruited as Slide Finder Bloke. It's all a bit Heath Robinson at the AV control position, but to our delight it actually works well, and visually at least things look a bit more like they're supposed to again. But as we've already seen, the Rock Gods giveth and the Rock Gods taketh away, and no sooner has the re - re - revamped show kicked off than the key spotlight on Jamie blows, so he spends much of the first half in darkness. There's a moment of musical oddness at the start of " Time Is Tight " where it sounds like the guys are playing in two different keys, prompting lots of bemused glances between the band, and Stevie P's having some trouble with his drum monitor. There's the odd mini - stumble on the starts and finishes of a couple of the songs with Steve Gray because they simply haven't had time to rehearse them more, but generally it's going well, and having Steve up there gives the band a bit of extra visual presence, too....then Jamie's guitar amp packs up, and despite the application of new fuses, new cables and even some vigorously applied impact therapy, it steadfastly refuses to co-operate. There IS a spare amp but it can't just be dropped in, so Jamie picks up his acoustic guitar and manfully decides to hold out until the interval. Unfortunately this means that he can't play one of the numbers in the re - re - revamped set, which swiftly gains another prefix as we have to re-do the visuals to compensate for the change. The spectre of last night is looming over us, it seems.....Steve Gray's three- song Buddy Holly tribute pulls things back, though, and we go into the break on a high. The spotlight gets replaced, the guitar amp decides it WILL play after all, and off we go....for three numbers, at which point Jamie's amp finally turns up it's toes and dies for good, leaving him stuck on acoustic and....yes, you guessed it... ANOTHER revamp of the visuals as the set is moved around again. The rest of the second half is, to be honest, a bit of a slog....Jamie stumbles over the lyrics to Strawberry Fields ( hardly surprising, given the night he's having ) and Phil loses his way a bit in Classical Gas. The shifting around of the set has also shunted the slide numbers into different places and we start to struggle to find what we need, but then we're on Final Approach into the last six - song section of the set, the audience ( clearly oblivious to most of the above ! ) are dancing and yelling for an encore, and somehow we've done it AGAIN. There's a more subdued atmosphere backstage than last night, though; apart from the technical gremlins that ALWAYS piss us off, everyone knows that Steve Gray has helped us pull this out of the fire, but he's got his own commitments and this isn't really a long - term solution to the problem we've got. Instead of being totally in the touring groove by now we've already done two shows on the fly and the continuity we were building up has gone. We need to get back to where we were in Derby, and that means having Den back ( literally ) on song. He's booked in to see one of the leading throat specialists in Harley Street tomorrow morning, and we all know that we could potentially be looking at cancelled gigs here. It's with mixed feelings that we all head off into the freezing, snowy Kent night. Looks like tomorrow's going to be D - Day.....