Cheltenham Town Hall Fri Feb 26th

Today’s another landmark on the tour, and it’s definitely being seen in different ways by the various members of the Booties’ party. We’re off to Cheltenham this morning, and the crew won’t be back now for eighteen days. For Pug and Steve Liddard this is new territory as we’ve only stayed out for the odd night on the tour so far, and the pull of home is strong. Although the band will actually be travelling home for the two days off that we have in this run, it’s the longest extended period out on the road that they’ve ever had too, and it’ll be a good test not only of how they handle the full touring experience, complete with overnight stays, but also of how Den and Jamie’s voices hold up. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not all sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll on the road ( or maybe I’ve just been on the wrong tours…..) but with all the travelling and the late nights you can get very tired very quickly, which takes it’s toll on your health. What we need the band to be doing after they’ve met the fans at end of each gig is maybe have the odd drink and then get off to bed. Not exactly Rolling Stones behaviour I’ll grant you, but then the Stones aren’t doing 44 shows in a Ford minibus schlepping from one end of the country to the other. There’s also the boredom factor; with the crew we do the drive to the gig then it’s full on from the moment we arrive, but for the band there’s a LOT of waiting around for soundcheck and the show itself. Now, we accept that it’s not exactly working down a coalmine, but combine all the factors and it doesn’t take long for the glamour to be stripped away. The Stones’ own Charlie Watts summed it up best when he described thirty years in the band as “ five years of playing and twenty – five years of hanging about “. Everyone deals with this in their own way, and it’s become increasingly common to see touring musicians plugged into iPods, PSPs and portable DVD players to help while away those dead hours. Others prefer to sleep; speaking for myself I used to try and nap at every possible opportunity, earning me the soubriquet Rip Van Winkle, and it’s good to see that the minibus is full of pillows to help the band pass those long motorway miles. They’re probably heartily sick of the inside of this minibus already, but they’re going to be seeing a LOT more of it in the coming weeks. Joyous. When we arrive in Cheltenham I’m struck as ever by the Georgian grandeur of the town, and the Town Hall is cut from the same cloth, despite the distraction of a sad Robbie tribute act ( Gobbie Williams, anyone ?! ) trying to stun an audience of special needs folks into submission in one of the side rooms. It’s over mercifully soon after our arrival The main concert room is beautiful, all subtle pinks, creams and Wedgewood blues. It’s like being inside a great big wedding cake, but in a good way. As a gig it unfortunately leaves quite a lot be desired, though. The vast, high ceiling makes the acoustics echo like the inside of a swimming pool, and as Arthur said, if you listen carefully you can just hear the final song of the band who played here last night ! It’s also got virtually no overhead lighting and no flying bars, so we can’t hang the projectors or the MACs. The difference between this and Harpenden is that they’d actually bothered to tell us, so we arrived with Plan B ready to go. Plan B didn’t actually work, so we moved on to Plan C, swiftly followed by Plans D through K, and ended up with something approximating a production. We can only go with two screens tonight for a variety of reasons, and the lack of overhead lighting means Rodders is supplementing the MACs with the two house followspots, but given the restrictions we’re faced with here it’s surprisingly good. Arthur and Pug are also taking the chance to hopefully resolve yesterday’s issue with Steve’s monitoring, and rather than use the mahoosive drumfill that he’s had until now, they give him two of the same small wedges that the other boys use, but sited on the floor behind him and pointing up at his ears. RESULT ! At the soundcheck he hears everything fine, and the added bonus is that we’re not mown down by the wall of noise from The Skyscraper which used to level everything in it’s path. You’d never call Steve’s playing quiet exactly, but the effect of dissipating the sound upwards rather than across the stage is that for me and Tomps everything suddenly seems almost hushed, and the band are visibly appreciating the difference. As I said yesterday, to you good folks out there this might seem like an arcane little thing, but trust me, tours have been cancelled on the back of less. Steve’s also got wife Jill here tonight, and I think that’s helping his state of mind too, but whatever the reason there’s a more controlled power about the band tonight, and I start to think this is what they should be aiming for night after night….being able to deliver a great performance but also having plenty in the tank should it be needed. There’s actually someone up and dancing from the first number, but then we realise she’s quaffed more than the odd sherbert and is living in an inhibition – free zone. Having said THAT, we had more than a few people bopping around from about halfway through the second set tonight who hadn’t had the benefit of artificial stimulants, and although this hasn’t been the band’s strongest performance, once again the carpet – bombing effect of the last five or six numbers blows the gentle folk of Cheltenham out of their Barbours. It’s very satisfying to see this kind of thing happening; just as a top football team continues to win games even when they don’t play at their best, we’re still knocking down doors when we we’re a bit under par, and that’s brilliant for us, so it’s a pretty happy group that hooks up after the show. We’re all staying at the Big Sleep hotel in Cheltenham tonight, a new chain part – owned by the actor John Malkovich which describes itself as “ a budget boutique “ hotel ( no, we don’t know what it means either ). What we DO know is that the night porter is a turkey of quite staggering proportions. He might be alright at pressing the button to let you in the front door, or at getting a beer out of the fridge behind the bar, but that’s about it. I’d been over earlier in the day to sort out all the room keys, and they were lined up like neat little soldiers just waiting for the band to arrive, but when Numbnuts came on duty he somehow managed to cock up the ones I’d left AND lose one altogether ! Then, when asked about parking the car and minibus he told us that there was none available around the hotel. Apart from the hotel’s very own underground car park, that is, which must somehow have just slipped his mind while we drove round and round trying to find somewhere to dump the vehicles. A small point again in the great scheme of things, Faithful Blogreader, but when you’ve done a long day and all you want to do is get your key and go to bed, such idiocy can swiftly culminate in GBH. Yet ANOTHER of the many little wonderful things you encounter on the road…..