Preston Charter Theatre Tue March 23rd

It’s the long haul up to Preston today, and it’s not a happy camp as we set out. There have been some personal and professional problems which have arisen for some of the tour party over the last couple of days which have cast something of a shadow over things, and we also have some pretty unhappy memories of Preston; last time we were here a couple of years ago we found that, due to a booking error, we were doing the cavernous Guildhall, instead of the more intimate Charter Theatre next door where we’re playing tonight. We didn’t have a bad crowd considering, but they were lost in that huge room more suited to world snooker finals and the like. To add to the fun that day my car was broken into while it was in the loading bay and Arthur’s satnav was stolen., so I spent the afternoon the nice man from Autoglass having the window replaced ( I was picking glass shards out of my bum for about three weeks
afterwards ). Since then I’ve been back here with the Israeli dance show Aluminum, and that was a nightmare of a gig, so it’s with some trepidation that we pull up outside. The get-in’s no fun either, as everything has to go up in a small lift onto the first floor, but the house crew lads are friendly and welcoming and luckily it all goes pretty painlessly. We have a protracted visit from the gremlins today, though, and the little buggers seem to get everywhere. When Clive sparks up the main show laptop it becomes clear it’s got a virus, which is pretty weird as it’s never used for anything other than the show and doesn’t ever get connected to the net. We can only assume it was infected by a memory stick that was used to load on the “ local footage “ pictures in Dunstable, but however it happened Clive’s got to take it off downstairs where he can get wi – fi so he can try and clean it up. Jamie’s amp then starts picking up a bizarre regular beeping signal, and we go through the options to try and get rid of it, all to no avail. When Phil’s starts doing the same a while later we can only conclude that it’s an alien life form trying to contact us from a distant planet, but in the end it turns out to be the rather more prosaic signal sent out by the building’s fire alarm system which some electric guitars pick up. As they won’t switch off the fire alarm
( spoilsports ) we just have to get on with it. Steve then starts having a problem with his monitors, and we have to break soundcheck to try and sort this out, all of which eats further into the hour and a half or so we have to play with. The band are also trying to use this time to rehearse for the German TV show, so things get a bit tense as six thirty gets nearer. In the end Den realises that there’s not really the concentration that the process needs, so the band call it a day and we agree an earlier soundcheck start in Crewe tomorrow. By the time the audience start coming in we’ve just about got everything working and so our one remaining worry is Jamie’s voice. He says he feels OK but he developed a cold over the weekend and that’s a worry, He holds back in soundcheck but there’s a big burden on him in the show and it really is a case of just seeing what happens. We’re also a bit disappointed in the house; after we played here last time we made a really good impression and that’s why we’re back today, but it becomes clear that we’ve picked up almost exactly the same number of people this time round. This is only the second time on the tour where we haven’t significantly improved on numbers from a previous visit and it IS a pisser, especially as both have come at the end of long journeys, first to Llandudno and now here. The audience are a receptive lot, though, and of course the boys have learned the Weymouth Lesson now. They’re a bit cagey about Jamie’s voice, to be honest, but apart from a few rough-edged bits here and there he’s actually doing fine. I ask them at the interval if they think they’ll need to pull any of his songs from the second half and the reaction is “ No, we’ll be OK “, which is good news, and again I think back the early days of the tour and the panic we felt when Den’s voice was going. We were restructuring entire sets to cope with it then, but now it’s a total “ can do “ attitude….in fact I think Jamie was more upset about the fact that I hadn’t brought him an ice cream like the one I was eating when I walked into the dressing room ! Touring DEFINITELY changes everything……Into the second half and Jamie’s as good as his word, getting through some tough songs, but it’s still with a sense of relief that we bring the curtain down at the end. It’s been a hard day today. As we’ve already learned it’s not easy getting back into the swing when there’s been a little break, though I must say we’ve done pretty well today in the light of some tricky circumstances. There’s a nice family touch tonight too as Pug’s Gran has come to the show and has really enjoyed it….she gives her “ Snugglemuffin “ a hug and tells him she’s proud of him before brushing his hair , wiping a dirty mark off his face with her hankie and telling him to wash his hands before dinner. We’re staying with those wonderful Travelodge people again tonight and it becomes immediately clear that they work on different miles to the rest of us…the hotel is apparently 4.6 miles from Preston central. As we pass the eight mile mark we start to question the veracity of the Travelodge website, and when we see the herds of moose crossing the tundra we know they’ve definitely sold us a wrong ‘un. Eventually we find the hotel and to our relief English is still spoken here despite the remoteness of the location. It’s got everything we need….a bed, a shower and an ice cream machine in the foyer. SORTED !!!