Stockport Plaza Thurs March 11th

Only one unsavoury incident arose from the room – tripling last night. Allegedly Pug leapt out of bed in the early hours, grabbed his duvet and held it in outstretched arms before shouting “ F**k a duck ! “, and climbing back into bed. He has no recollection of this, of course, but “Lids” and Clive were both awake and can confirm that no sexual congress with aquatic birds took place, so the point of the whole somnambulistic business will remain forever a mystery. It DOES make you wonder what they all get up to in their own homes, though…..We leave the North East behind with mixed feelings this morning, and set off across the Pennines for Stockport, gateway to……another part of Stockport, presumably. We’ve had two bereavements in the camp in the last couple of days, sadly….firstly, we heard that Arthur’s infamous blue van has finally passed on, and secondly, my satnav Doris has expired without warning. The death of Doris is the more immediately problematic, as we haven’t a scooby – doo where we’re going. It’s a sad state of affairs that not SO very long ago you’d set out on tour with a notebook, a calculator, a map and a pocketful of change for the callbox. These days you’re considered to be lagging behind if you don’t carry enough technology to get you to the Moon and back, and even bog-standard mobile phones have on – board GPS and sat nav systems that could direct you out of the middle of the Amazon via the A13 if you wanted. Except mine, that is. I DO have a programme called Co-Pilot which works on the same premise but it uses so much processing power that the battery is sucked dry before you even enter the address you want. Looks like we’ll have to rely on old – fashioned methods of navigation, so we dig out the sextant and telescope. Luckily Clive’s poncy phone has Tom Tom on it, and despite it displaying a marked reluctance to let us enter anything useful like the street name or postcode we’re looking for, we somehow manage to find the venue. I realise immediately that the place I THOUGHT we were coming to isn’t this one….I’ve been telling everyone for the past week about the Plaza being this nice old cinema – cum – theatre that I did a show with Country & Western “ hat act “ Don Williams in some years ago. Well, one look at the outside of the building and I twig that I’ve got my Plazas in a twist. This place is MAHOOSIVE, and is full of beautiful, art – deco features. It’s what was once known as a “ picture palace “ and still has the old Wurlitzer – styled organ that came up through the floor and was used to accompany the films. It’s like a slightly smaller Hammersmith Odeon
( cobblers to all this Labatts / O2 / Live Nation Hammersmith Apollo corporate sponsorship nonsense, by the way….it’s the Hammy O and always will be ). It’s still big though, PROPER big, and a small crowd in here are going to be dotted around like pimples on an elephant’s backside. Let’s hope they’ve sold a few tickets...It’s also a mark of what we’ve gone through on the tour that when we’re told we have to load in the through the front door, roll all the kit the length of the building and then hoik it up onto a 5’ stage we just shrug and get on with it. At the minute we feel like we could probably span Niagara Falls with some gaffa tape and a couple of flight cases if we had to, so this is no big deal. It slows things down but it’s not the buttock - clenchingly stressful process of the early days. We’re getting good at this ! As it turns out there’s quite a decent crowd, although from the stage they seems miles away because of the orchestra pit, and their applause gets a bit lost in the cavernous room. The band are getting good at this, too, though; there’s all the verve and effort of a sold – out show, and Den brings the audience even more onside by talking enthusiastically about the fantastic venue. The band seem so far away because of the stage width that when I take the stool on for the acoustic set I virtually have to have a breather halfway across, but they generate such a good ( and how I hate this word ) vibe that the vast stage and cavernous room don’t seem to matter. Everyone sings along and guess what….at the end of the show we get a standing ovation and the manager asks us back. Now where have we seen THAT before…… ?!