Skegness Embassy Thurs August 11th

So while we were slumbering peacefully in our little truckle beds in the Washington Travelodge, the band, we thought, were relaxing in the opulence of the New Ambassador Hotel in Whitley Bay, where we had visions of them sipping cocktails in the Vegas Bar and generally being Rock Stars. It would appear, however, that the reality was a little more prosaic. From the borderline psychotic desk manager with the bottle of Jack Daniels tattooed on his arm and the casual mention that he could no longer sample his favourite tipple as it made him vomit blood, to the totally over- the- border psychotic woman who followed the band from the hotel to Stavros’s Kebab & Salmonella Emporium, all the time flashing various parts of her anatomy, to the attractive smell of damp which pervaded the building, right through to the interesting collection of other people’s pubic hairs which were to be found in most of the beds, the New Ambassador experience seems to have been one which the boys will always remember, but possibly for all the wrong reasons. Still, got to be pragmatic…at £ 20 a room including breakfast ( which none of them, surprisingly, sampled ) it’s a bloody good deal ! In deference to the band and their variety of nasty, itchy little red bites, however, the “ Roach Motel “ has been struck from the list of accommodation. Lightweights…… Now, when you look at a decent – sized map, Washington to Skegness is about…..oooooohh….three inches, say, but when you’re driving there it’s actually bloody miles. About 220 of them, to be precise, many of them winding through the dreary Lincolnshire fens past odd-looking little hamlets with names like Much Trubbling and Lower Splunt. It gets even more jolly when you find yourselves following a house, as Nick, Junior, Arthur and I did for what felt like much of my adult life. OK, so it was just one of those prefab jobbies on the back of a flatbed truck, but it was BIG and it was SLOOOOOOOW. So slow, in fact, that we were an hour late arriving in Skegness, and even the heady aroma of fish, chips, candydfloss and chav couldn’t divert us from our mission. Normally, if you haven’t done a show for a while, it can all get a wee bit rusty and slow, but we were like the proverbial greased lightning today. So greased were we, in fact, that we had the show in, built, soundchecked and finished within three hours, which is pretty bloody good going by anyone’s standards. This gave us a bit of time to consider our options. For a brief moment we thought about riding the Log Flume in the amusement park next to the theatre, which seemed like a wizard wheeze, but one look at the primordial soup which passes for the water that the logs have to go through changed our minds…perhaps if we had our waterproof biohazard suits with us, but not this time, eh ? Although it was raining on and off, the streets of Skegness were pretty much rammed with the very finest type of British holidaymaker, and the difference between now and the last time we were here is remarkable. The place is palpably alive in a kind of kiss-me-quick, all-day-bingo, end-of-the-pier kind of way, and after all the images we’ve seen this week of this country’s cities being laid waste to by a rioting sewer - effluence of feckless hoodie-rats, sink estate scum, wannabe gangsters and other oxygen thieves, it’s somehow comforting to see this tacky display of traditional Britishness in all it’s tawdry glory. In fact I’m SO comforted that I buy two big sticks of rock and a bag of cinder toffee, as I reckon I’ll need something sweet to follow the fish and chips I’m just about to scoff..The other thing that was missing when we were here last was an audience, but the venue’s assertion that a summer season gig would be different is borne out as we see a healthy flow of people making their way to their seats. All is looking on course for another stress-free show, when just five minutes before lights down the main projector starts flashing, then goes off altogether. Tomps is never a man to get his boxers in a bind, but even he has a little bead of sweat on his brow as he wrestles to get the thing working. With a tweak and a tug he gets it up and running again, and we’re off. All is great until the second number, when my computer freezes, and steadfastly refuses to show any more of the slides. I’ve mentioned before that things which would once have had us blubbing with fear are now dealt with almost nonchalantly; there’s a BIT more tension around than normal here, but the feeling is more that we’re annoyed we can’t give people the best show rather than “ It’s all gone wrong and we’re all going to DIE !!!” which was my previous default setting. By the end of the first video insert it’s all happening, though, and from then on we’re in cruise control. The band are even more on it tonight than last night, and more remarkable still is the fact that Phil got some very disturbing news from home in the interval, yet has played the second half as if his greatest care in the world was what colour guitar pick to buy next time he needs some. Strong stuff indeed. There’s a great response again tonight, and once more we get the message that the theatre management are really happy with the way things have gone….this definitely won’t be the last time we play here, and we’re all very, very happy about that. Some places just feel right, just make you so welcome, and this is one of them, from the bar staff to the technical boys. More, please !!! We now come to the weirdest part of the night….we’ve done two shows, we’re in the groove, we’re back on the road…..except we’re not. We’re going home again after this, and it’s sad, frustrating and annoying in equal measure. Oh, we’ll all be seeing each other in Liverpool in a couple of weeks , of course, but I don’t think there’s a single one among us who wouldn’t rather be getting on the bus with Big John, cracking open a brew and heading off into the night to the next show. As it is, Rodders has the drive from hell. He came to Whitley Bay straight from Edinburgh in a one-way rental car, and has told us that he needs to have it back by 10.00am tomorrow morning…..in Penzance. That’s about halfway to the Moon by my reckoning, so we waste no time in hitting the road . He’s very kindly agreed to drop Tomps, Junior and myself off on the way, so we cram into the small Japanese saloon that was only ever intended to carry four little sons or daughters of Nippon and not four big British blokes with enough luggage to sink a battleship, and off we go into the night. So it is that at about 2.30am I’m standing outside my house and watching Rodders’ tail lights disappear into the night , and I’ve got a bit of a “stunned mullet” thing going on. Just forty eight hours ago we were driving up the A1 on the eve of the Whitley Bay show, all excited about starting the shows again…..and now it’s already finished ! I’m definitely left with an air of “ What happened here today…..?” right up until the moment I put my key in the lock and realise that my partner’s put the safety chain on, and I can’t get into the house. Nor can I phone her, as there’s a problem with BT so the landline’s off, and her mobile has no service inside. I can’t climb over the gates and we don’t have a door knocker. Add to that the fact that she sleeps like the dead and the prospects aren’t looking good. I can’t explain why, but somehow it fits…..I’m not on tour, yet I’m not at home. It’s over, but I can’t close the door on it. Through this maelstrom of maudlin musing I gradually become aware that I need to pee, and at my age, when you need to pee you need to pee NOW. Not wanting to upset the neighbours by hosing down their prize azaleas, I try her mobile again….and miraculously it starts ringing. She eventually answers and sleepily slurs “ Thought you said you were coming back Friday ?“ when I tell her I’m standing outside the LOCKED front door with a bladder that feels like it’s a rat’s handbag filled with the contents of a swimming pool. “ It IS f*****g Friday !!” I manage to reply. Eventually doors are opened, bladders are drained, and beds are wearily clambered into. Meanwhile, somewhere on the M6, Rodders is cranking up Saxon on the car’s CD player and trying not to thing about the six hours of driving that still lie ahead of him………

Whitley Bay Playhouse, Wed August 10th

Welcome to the mini - est of mini – tours !After a gap of a few months we're back treading the boards with a couple of gigs to blow away the cobwebs before we take a completely new show to Liverpool Philharmonic at the end of the month, so we’re all trying to remember what goes where and who does what ! We’ve been asked back here to Whitley Bay Playhouse by the theatre management, which is always nice and not a little flattering, so we’re keen to make a good impression as well as ironing out any kinks.
( See what I did there ? ? Kinks ? Sixties show ?....Oh, never mind…..) Although it’s over four months since we last did this show, however, it’s a bit like riding a bike, and we find that we’re slotting back into the tour routine as if we’d never been away. The crew traveled up the night before to give us a good run at things today, and within minutes of setting up, the prudence of this becomes clear. As Tomps starts to change the settings on the main projector he is rewarded with a bang, a flash and a puff of smoke out of the air vent on the side. Now, I’m no technician, but even I could see that this was a Very Bad Thing. At £ 200 – odd a pop these aren’t the kind of item you carry lots of spares of, but luckily we DO have an older lamp on board that will suffice, and with little more than a curt “ Nothing to see here..step away from the projector !” from Tomps as I wander over to see what’s happened, he and Dr Arthur don the masks and gowns, whip out the scalpels, and soon have the thing working again. We have a few tense moments with a recalcitrant radio microphone rack that clearly needs something more than Impact Therapy to get it working again, but with very little evidence of blood, sweat or tears, soundcheck is soon running smoothly, and we’re treated to one of the new songs the band are playing tonight, The Hollies “ I’m Alive “, which replaces “ Look Through Any Window “. They’re also switching “Wonderful Land” back into the set at the expense of the “ Apache / FBI “ medley, thought they insist this is on musical grounds only, and nothing to do with the shenanigans the crew used to pull during “ FBI" on the last tour. Spoilsports…..We’ve actually increased sales quite nicely from the last time we were here, but you’d never know from walking around the town. Normally when we play seaside towns it's cold, grey, wet and pretty much deserted, so we thought it'd be nice to do some in the summer. Here we are, then, in Whitley Bay in August…..where it's cold, grey wet and pretty much deserted. One place that IS open, however, is Pantrini’s, the fish and chip restaurant, and let me tell you, if we’d played in Whitley Bay on the last tour then Pantrini’s would have been pushing for a top three slot in our top tour grub league table. Light, fresh and crispy with just the right infusion of lard, they truly hit the spot, though they DO have the unfortunate side effect of making the backstage area smell like Billingsgate Fish Market. Still, a man’s gotta chew what a man’s gotta chew. Whether they’re slightly dazed from the effects of the 260 mile drive up here today or whether it’s incipient mellowness, the band hit a really relaxed groove right from the start. Steve in particular is just driving things along beautifully, playing a smart, tight solo in Pretty Woman and generally backing off the general violence and pyrotechnics a little, but they’re all just clicking really nicely. Den and Jamie are in great voice, Phil’s right on the money, and apart from an interesting new intro to “ Whiter Shade Of Pale “ Chris is bang on too. Next to me Tomps is proudly operating his new show computer and dropping in his usual witty asides over the comms system ( though fortunately he is fart-free tonight, to the relief of my little nostril hairs which have only just grown back from being singed off the last time). Nick is next to Tomps doing his hand – jiving and Dad – dancing, and on the other side of the stage I can see Junior, looking more like an eco-warrior than ever, and suddenly I feel a real surge of love for this whole thing, for all these people, and it feels so much like being back on tour that I get a real pang when I realise we’re only doing this for two nights. Luckily this only lasts a second or two before I accept it’s time to MAN UP and stop being such a soft shite. Emotions are for GURLS.
We’ve got a very decent crowd in tonight, and they play their part in turning this into an above – average evening, so by the time the house lights have come up at the end we’ve got a real sense of a job well done. We’ve identified a couple of things we need to look at before Liverpool, which is one of the main reasons for doing these two shows, so all that remains now is to work out what goes into which vehicle and in which order. Thanks to the Playhouse’s splendid bi-van load dock, however, even THIS is accomplished quickly and painlessly, and it’s not even midnight as we pull away and head for our hotel at Washington on the A1. We’ve left the band here in town tonight ( more of which later…..) and are all set for the simple run through the Tyne Tunnel and onto the A1….except that the Tyne Tunnel is shut for roadworks, and the attendant diversion system has been put in place by someone who has failed to grasp the premise that the primary function of a road is to assist you in reaching your destination. Just when you think you’ve worked it out, WALLOP !!!....along comes another “ Road Closed “ sign. Now, I used to live around here, and I have a reasonable grasp of the geography of the place, or so I thought. At one point I was convinced the Roadworks Bastards had even changed the course of the river Tyne as it was most definitely not where it should have been, but eventually we found our way onto the coast road, and without further mishap headed south until we eventually rolled into Washington Birtley services and the delights of the Travelodge. It had taken us nearly an hour to cover 22 miles. We finally hit the hay, grumbling about the “ lucky old band, staying in the nice hotel right around the corner from the gig……”

Oh we do like to be beside the seaside.....

It's bucket and spade time ! To warm up for our headlining show at Liverpool Philharmonic on Friday August 26th, we're packing our towels and trunks ( and our thermals....this IS England after all ) and heading off to the seaside for two gigs at Whitley Bay Playhouse and Skegness Embassy on Wednesday and Thursday August 10th and 11th. I know they're both " school nights " but what the heck...why not let yourself be lured by the heady smell of candyfloss, fish and chips, sticks of rock and chavs from Dagenham and join us on our two-date East Coast Tour ?! If you're thinking of coming up to Liverpool, that'll be a bit good too, as the Beatles Festival organisers have asked us to put together a special " Cavern Years" Bootlegs show. In fact, why not make a weekend of it ? We are !!

Anorak & Chips, Please.....

I’ve already noted in previous blogs that I get a bit of stick for not having talked about the actual show enough, and as I said before I’m trying to describe the weird, boring, exciting, funny, sad, exhilarating, tiring, invigorating daftness that is life on the road….I’m NOT reviewing the gigs. However, I HAVE been asked to list the songs which were played, so I’ll just don my best anorak and we’ll get started….

Set 1
Please Please Me
Don’t Throw Your Love Away / I’ll Keep You Satisfied
Hippy Hippy Shake
Go Now ( once ! )
Little Deuce Coupe
Not Fade Away
Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood
Pretty Woman
Catch Us If You Can
You’ve Got Your Troubles / Tobacco Road / For Your Love / She’s Not There
The Times They Are A-Changin’
Mr Tambourine Man
Look Through Any Window
Keep On Running
Don’t Ever Change / Walk Right Back / Rhythm Of The Rain / Breaking Up Is Hard To Do / Do You Wanna Dance
You Really Got Me
You Were On My Mind
Apache / FBI
Out Of Time

Set 2
Feelin’ Groovy
What A Day For A Daydream / Happy Together / Mellow Yellow / Lazing On A Sunny Afternoon
Itchycoo Park
Hole In My Shoe
Strawberry Fields
Whiter Shade Of Pale
Light My Fire
California Dreaming
Handbags & Gladrags ( once ! )
Proud Mary / Mighty Quinn / Got To Get A Message To You / Suspicious Minds
Star Spangled Banner
Pinball Wizard
He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother
Green Onions
I Wanna Hold Your Hand / All Day & All Of The Night / When You Walk In The
Room / Gimme Some Lovin’ / Satisfaction / Mony Mony
Daydream Believer
Spirit In The Sky ( twice ! )
You’ll Never Walk Alone.

As the tour progressed, another very important list was made up, too….this was the Bootleg Sixties Crew Top Tour Grub Chart, and competition to make it onto this was fierce indeed, as we know that restaurants, pubs, fast food outlets and blokes with dodgy whelk stalls all over the country avidly await the results each year to see where they’ve come. We HAD considered a sub-chart for fish and chip shops as we had these no less than seven times, but in the end we just incorporated everything into one big smorgasbord of wonderfulness. As a result, we have a tie for the top slot this year, so take a bow Busy Bees ( Bridlington ) and The Gourmet ( Scunthorpe )

Busy Bees is without doubt the best fish & chip shop we’ve ever been in. The fish is all cooked fresh and by weight, the batter is light and crispy and the chips are firm and chunky. The portions are huge ( fnaar fnaar ) and eating there really is an experience not to be missed.

The Gourmet is a very fine Indian restaurant in Scunthorpe. Although billed as the best in the area, prices were very reasonable, and the chicken tikka was especially good, tasting as it did of proper tandoor oven cooking as opposed to being just meat smothered in red tikka sauce to disguise possible feline or canine origins. Even the spices, relishes and raithas were excellent, and the staff were exceptionally polite and helpful given that they were invaded by twelve hairy – arsed pissheads on a quiet Monday night.

Also worthy of mention were :

Dominos in Worthing who delivered our pizzas direct to the bus after all, even though they originally said they wouldn’t

The Golden Ringpiece in Andover who not only supplied us with a mouth-watering array of Chinese dishes, but also plied Arthur with booze as he waited for it to be cooked

The Marlborough fish and chip shop in Weymouth which NEARLY made the top slot had it not been for the fact that I’d almost died of exhaustion by the time I eventually found it

Wetherspoons in Weymouth for their superb, and incredibly good value “ train smash on a plate “ full English breakfasts.

Beales fish and chip shop in Porthcawl, whose delicious fish and copious chips were marred only by a slight excess of grease., most of which I ended up wearing

We must also, unfortunately, give a Golden Raspberry to McDonalds in Scunthorpe High Street for not having realised that it’s supposed to be “ fast food “ ( the clue’s in the name, you morons…) and for employing a cloth-eared bat who managed to get BOTH of my very simple orders totally arse-upwards. May she drown in a vat of ketchup.

A final word of thanks must go to Kay Howell for a seemingly endless supply of carrot cake and the fearsome chocolate confection which goes by the name of “ Tank”, both of which helped the bus travellers ( well, mainly me, to be honest ) to stave off hunger in the middle of the night.

To all of the above, our heartfelt gratitude and appreciation ( except Scunthorpe McDonalds, of course, which needs to be razed to the ground, especially if the soap-dodging, benefit –scrounging , chavvy oxygen-thieves who congregate there are still inside )

As ever, Faithful Blogreader, thankyou for your continued indulgence. We’ll be back in August for tales of Whitley Bay, Skegness and Liverpool……

Geddington, Mon April 4th

As predicted, I didn’t see the band this morning, apart from Phil, who has opted to travel in the van with Nick and Rodders as he’s going to Stansted to catch a plane home to Sweden. ( a decision he will come to regret ! ) Big John, Rodders, Tomps and Junior have already been up and into town for breakfast, making my creeping about the bus so as not to wake anyone seem a little redundant. Nick, rather unusually, has not surfaced yet, so I’m despatched with the pokey stick to wake him up. As I approach the bus the door opens and a vile monster steps out….oh, hang on…no, it’s just Nick, but he looks like he’s been dragged through a hedge backwards AND forwards, and then gone to sleep in it. Sensibly, Rodders takes the first stint at the wheel and Nick is poured into a passenger’s seat until he can finally emerge from his cocoon like a beautiful butterfly. Or something. It really IS parting time now, and so it’s handshakes and hugs all round. As Tomps and I attempt the latter we realise we’re not actually getting much nearer to each other; he looks down at our comfortably capacious stomachs and comments ruefully “ I think we both need longer arms ….” . A last wave and the vans are off, the adventure over and just the last bit of grunt work to do. We’re dropping our kit at our storage facility in Northamptonshire, and due to a peculiarity of the geography on the site even half a centimetre of rain can make the approach to it turn into something from The Somme, but our luck holds today and it stays dry, so everything goes back where it came from with the minimum of fuss and effort. Arthur drops me off at home, and as I walk up the hill towards the house and the recommencement of “normal” life I think back on everything that’s happened, not just over the five weeks of the tour but also of the many months leading up to it. We still don’t know how the tour has done financially, so there’s all that to work out, but whatever happens, one thing DOES shine through, which is that Clive continues to recover from his stroke, and that helps keep things very much in perspective. If HE can keep smiling through all that, then so can we. I think of the stress, the late nights, the logistical nightmares, the budgetary fun and games and all the little foibles and farragoes that accompany the preparation of a tour like this, and as I begin to try and put things in some sort of mental order, one thought burns into my mind……” I wonder if the pub’s still open ?”………..

Tony Henderson
Geddington, Northamptonshire
Tuesday April 5th

Buxton Opera House Sun April 3rd

Although Buxton is a lovely little town nestling in the Derbyshire Dales, it’s a bit of a bastard to get to, especially in a heavily laden van with coolant problems, but we manage to arrive safely, and even thirty minutes early. To our surprise no-one’s about, but then Tomps makes an appearance. He’s looked fresher, truth be told, and the reason for his somewhat less than chipper demeanour today is down to a combination of a VERY rough drive up in the bus and the hourly pealing of the bells from a church about four and half feet away from where the bus is parked. It would have been uncomfortable enough travelling up these little roads with their twists, turns, dips and hills in a double decker bus under any circumstances, but when you’re trying to sleep on the pitching, rolling upper floor it must have been horrible. When they finally arrived our weary travellers thought a few hours of stationary rest awaited them, but at seven am the bells of the adjacent church suddenly started pealing…..and pealing….and pealing. They weren’t just sounding the hour, of course, it’s Sunday morning, so they’re calling people to services…AND it’s Mother’s Day, so there are special services too. Nightmare. This is potentially bad news…the last thing we want on the final show is for the band and crew to be tired and below par. One by one they get up ( yes, even Jamie….) and either shower or head into town, and to our relief it seems to do the trick….by soundcheck everyone looks almost human and firing on all cylinders. There’s none of the “ end of tour “ blues about today, either, which is VERY odd….normally at the end of a jaunt like this you’re already starting to look to life beyond the twelve people you’ve spent the last few weeks with and wondering how you’ll cope without Nick to take the piss out of., or Rodders to buy crisps and chocolate for you, or Tomps and Junior to have a laugh with during the show each night, but everyone seems very philosophical and matter of fact about things, to the extent that I wonder if it’s only me who feels like this ! There are certainly no weird end – of – tour high jinks to distract the band from their playing….though the Shadows moment tonight is perhaps our best yet, with Junior, Tomps, Nick and myself hurtling across the stage behind the backdrop to take up station at the opposite side to where we normally stand, and where the band normally see us, each night., so that as they do the choreographed turn there’s a confused moment of “ hang on….they should be over THERE…have I turned the wrong way ? “ Possibly the very best part of tonight is the presence of forty – odd eleven year old kids from a local school. No, hang on, I haven’t gone all Gary Glitter on you….we learn that they are studying The Sixties as part of a history project, and as they knew we played all the music and showed all the images from the decade, their teachers thought this would be a good show for them to see. Big hand for the forward thinking of those staff ( mind you, they clearly had a ball themselves, so it wasn’t COMPLETELY altruistic !) but the kids seemed to love it…they dutifully screamed at the end of each song, giving it a nice “ Beatlemania “ feel, and it was just great to see them bopping about. We had a good crowd in tonight too, as Buxton is one of the venues where we road – tested this show a few years back, and they know how to promote us here. In fact, it’s a perfect choice for the last show…great theatre, great crowd, great crew, great place altogether. I’m totally fine for almost the whole set, then for some reason Whiter Shade Of Pale takes on an almost unbearable poignancy and I feel the tears prick my eyes…it suddenly crashes in on me that this really IS the last show, and the adventure’s over until next time. I’ve got a huge amount of personal unpleasantness to deal with when I get back, and the tour has cushioned me from the real world, but now it’s knocking on the door again and I’ve got to deal with it. I have to shake this melancholy, though, because it’s not fair on everyone else, and anyway, we’ve got an end of tour party scheduled for later on, with cakes and jelly and pop and everything. We’ve still got a show to finish, though, so I swallow my unhappiness and the three of us at stage right bellow along with the last two numbers. Again, we’d toyed with the idea of doing Spirit In The Sky but we’re really just reserving that for flat-out mental nights; this has been a huge success but there aren’t people hanging from the rafters or anything, so it’s curtain down, gear off, and into the de-rig. Before we start tearing down the kit I have a brief chat with a couple of regular fans who tell me, in one of the most touching testimonials that I’ll ever hear, that the show “ puts them on a high for days afterwards “. If we can reach people in that way then that’s good enough for me. I see Marilyn and Debbie even more briefly ( Marilyn tonight having ditched her normal jeans and Bootleg’s tour t-shirt combo for a nifty little 60’s number with kinky boots ! ) but then I really DO have to get to work. The crew here are brutally efficient, and whilst they’re standing outside with all our gear going “ What’s next to go in the van ? “ we’re still onstage trying to coil cables into the right piles, as the kit’s all going to different places tomorrow. We manage to catch up with them and avoid any dramas like leaving a key flight case behind, and then it’s a handshake goodbye and we pile on to the bus. Arthur’s done us proud….there’s champers, beer, wine, nibbles and even party bags, and the twelve of us squeeze into the back lounge of the bus and just have a couple of hours of what our Irish brethren call “ the craic “. I’m suddenly aware that this is exactly why we opted for the bus in the first place….there are no outsiders, no relatives, no family, no guests….it’s just the twelve of us, the people who did all this. Living on the bus has made us closer as a unit, and stronger too, and I’m more convinced than ever tonight that with the nucleus of this group there’s no limit to where we can take this show. Even Sunderland. I finally creep off to bed at about half past two, knowing that I’ll probably not see anyone in the morning before I leave with Arthur to take the kit back to Northamptonshire, but unlike last year at Croydon where everyone just melted off into the night after a forty – date tour, we’ve drawn a proper line under this one tonight. Now all we have to do is get back, add the figures up and see if it’s good news, bad news, or a hosepipe up the exhaust in the garage …………….

Porthcawl Grand Pavilion Sat April 2nd

The plan was to head back to Wetherspoons at 8.00am for breakfast today, but a terrible night’s sleep means that I’m glued to my bunk, and that’s the case pretty much all the way to Porthcawl. I feel as if I’ve been drugged, and just cannot seem to stir myself, at least until I get in the shower. As I slough off the carapace of crud that has enveloped me for the past thirty-odd hours, I feel invigorated and finally ready to face the day. Yet another seaside town, and today it’s blessed with bright sunshine and even a soupcon of warmth from the old currant bun, though there’s a wind which finds it’s way into your every cranny ( I said cranny ) if you’re standing in the wrong place. Despite my dulcet gorblimeyguvnor tomes, I actually hail from the north – east, and it’s thus that I fully appreciate the kindred spirits we see on the Esplanade today. In Newcastle we used to say that you could always tell when winter was on it’s way as the girls started to leave their coats at home when they went out for a night on the lash, and it’s exactly the same here….I’m leaning on the seawall talking to Arthur and Steve with the sleeves of my fleece pulled over my poor little paws to stop them from freezing, when some young thing in a vest tip and shorts enthusiastically suggests to her mates that they “ buy some cans of Coke and go and drink them on the beach “. Not only is the very sight of her in this scanty clothing enough to give me hypothermia, but I’m sure I saw a polar bear on the beach earlier on…..Porthcawl is actually quite a cool little place, at least at this end of town…the “ real “ beach is back around the headland with the funfair, Kiss Me Quick hats and daytripping families from Cardiff and Newport, all shaven heads, straining rugby shirts and casual domestic violence. The only time the pleasant Spring ambience is broken comes when a load of wannabe Hells Angels on Harleys thunder along the front, their intimidating exterior somewhat mollified by the realisation that, on closer inspection, more than a few of them are of pensionable age. ( Slight linguistic diversion….what would be the collective noun for a group of bikers ? A leather ? A shitload ? An unwashed ? A wheelie ? ). Inside the venue everything is calm efficiency, except that acoustically it has all the warmth and sonic beauty of a municipal swimming baths. It’s an odd, domed, hexagonal room, and when you clap your hands under the dome it sounds as if it’s right above your head….but move a few feet back and it’s shifted way to the right. It’s thus a longer soundcheck than normal as Arthur summons all his skill and experience to make this work. We’ve used the venue’s own PA system which, whilst adequate, isn’t really helping maters much, and for a very brief while we toy with the idea of putting our own PA in, but as there’s only an hour to doors we realise this just isn’t going to be feasible. Arthur wears the expression of a man who knows he’s going to be on turd-polishing duty tonight, but if anyone can get this place to sound good, he can. The longer soundcheck means that we have to eat almost on the hoof tonight; Nick and I manage to get into recommended local chippy Beale’s seconds before it’s inundated with the aforementioned daytrippers, whose children all seem to bear such farcical names as Turrock, Cheyenne, and Cody. We get back and the crew convene at stage left to wolf down our dinner. It’s the penultimate show of the tour tonight, but there’s another reason for celebration too, as it’s Junior’s 31st birthday. None of us could believe this as he looks about 15, but it’s true. He’s growing a Tour Beard which at least adds a couple of years to his boyish visage, but which, coupled with his flowing locks, also makes him look disconcertingly like Jesus. VERY useful on those road crew prayer meeting sessions we have each morning, mind…….We’ve marked the occasion with one of those jolly little helium balloons which we’ve moored to his monitor desk, and during the course of the show I look across the stage several times to wonder who the strange moon-faced individual standing next to Junior is, until I finally make out “ Happy Birthday “ plastered across it’s mush. D’OH ! The show tonight is, to be totally honest, a bit below par…..nothing you could put your finger on and say “ THAT was wrong “ or “ HE cocked up “ but somehow it just doesn’t gel like previous nights. There’d been a bit of a discussion at soundcheck about harmony vocal lines and so some of them had changed, and maybe THAT’S what it was, but as ever, the only people who ever notice these things are the band and crew….as far as Joe and Josephine Punter are concerned they’re seeing a fantastic show, and they react accordingly. As with Blackwood, the singing on the last two songs is stunning, and the domed roof actually seems to amplify it, so it all gets a bit Cardiff Arms Park ( and yes, I KNOW it’s not there anymore, but
“ Millennium Stadium” is just SO naff ). South Wales has been great for us, and we make a mental note to ensure we come back next time around. After the show it’s our first long overnight drive for a few days….John will leave at 2.00am – ish and aim to get to the final show of the tour at Buxton around 7.00am, but for Arthur, Nick, Rodders and myself it’s into the vans and up the road to Bromsgrove. It’s not too far but feels much further as the long climb out of Wales involves more water – replenishing stops than we’d normally make, so it’s not until about 2.40am that we finally pull into a brand new Travelodge which is cunningly concealed behind a pub and a nondescript housing estate in one of the more nondescript parts of the nondescript little town that is Bromsgrove. In fact, it’s so new that Doris the SatNav doesn’t even acknowledge it’s existence, and would blithely have guided us hither and yon had not Eagle –Eyed Nick spotted the sign as we roared past. I gratefully slump into bed, and as I close my eyes I start to think about tomorrow being the last show, how quickly the tour seems to have gone and so on. I sleepily make a mental note that I must also remember to….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Blackwood Miner's Institute Fri April 1st

It’s only our second ever visit to South Wales, the first being a cracking little show at Newport Riverfront on the last tour. Tonight ( and it IS April Fool’s Day, so we were a tad dubious about this when our agent sent the date through ) we’re at a venue which glories in the name of Blackwood Miner’s Institute. It may well once have echoed to the bombast and rhetoric of the pitmen’s union, but these days it’s a cool little theatre, and it’s even hosted such biggies as Stereophonics quite recently. We may not quite have reached their dizzy heights sales-wise yet, but we’ve done pretty close to sell-out business tonight, and if last time’s experience was anything to go by we’re in for a good night. There’s a great deal of clichéd garbage talked about “ The Valleys “ and Wales being the Land Of Song and all that malarkey, but Blackwood really IS in “The Valleys “, although these valleys are so far up the mountains that you half expect to see a species of dinosaur hitherto thought extinct striding up the main street. The venue is also on a hill more suited to goats than ageing, overweight road monkeys such as myself, so by the time we’ve got the gear in I’m already cream – crackered. It’s all a bit tight inside and there’s a fair amount of flightcase Tetris going on just so we can get everything onstage, but as ever we get it nailed , if a little later than usual. The main topic of conversation regarding the venue is that for some inexplicable reason known only to the architect who built the place, it has no backstage toilet, and by extension, no backstage shower. No doubt he was a hardy miner who felt that washing was some kind of girly fussiness, and that getting rid of the coaldust weakened your back or something, but for our sorry band of bus-encrusted travellers this is bad news with a capital Smelly. There IS a washbasin which allows us to lower our undercarriages into a bowl of icy mountain stream water, but the bloodcurdling screams which emanate from the little room where the sink sits are enough to chill even the bravest heart, so for most of us discretion is the better part of valour, and we decide to wait until tomorrow. Rather typically, the fact that there’s no shower coincides with this being the hottest, stickiest venue on the whole tour, but them’s the breaks, as they say...You always know when you’re in for a good evening when the audience clap and cheer as they see the shadowy figures of the band making their way onstage during the intro footage, and tonight is one of those nights. Although they don’t cavort as early or as freely as the Dumfries crowd, this lot are loud loud LOUD and make their appreciation crystal clear. Tonight’s megacheer number is Suspicious Minds, and it’s a REAL megacheer….they clearly LOVE The King here, and when the photo of him comes up on the screens you’d have thought he WAS in the building , as opposed to still being dead. From here on in it all goes a bit banzai, and the place turns into a sea of waving hands, bellowing voices and sweat, adding yet another layer of funk to our already grimy bods. It COULD be shaping up as another Spirit In The Sky night, but the band want to keep their powder dry ( it’s the only thing that is, mind ) and so they close with the normal one-two combination of Daydream Believer and Walk Alone. The singing we hear back from the crowd is totally brilliant, and all that Welsh choir cliché nonsense suddenly doesn’t seem so daft after all. A fabulous night, then, and it isn’t over yet….a fairly elderly lady and her young female companion are still in the front row after everyone has left. She’s remained behind to politely ask if the band would play at her birthday party. She can pay them the princely sum of £ 400 but, and here’s the clincher,
“ she’ll also do a spread of sandwiches “. Sadly the date coincides with a hair-washing night for the band, so they have to regretfully decline. The response of the people here tonight has been fabulous, though….after the show we all repair to the local Wetherspoons for a restorative libation, and there’s a constant stream of folks coming by saying how much they loved the gig, when are we coming back, it’s the best thing they’ve ever had there and so on. Lovely, lovely compliments, and it just reinforces what we all believe here….that we’ve got a show which can go all the way. For now we’ve just got our sights on knocking That’ll Be The day off it’s perch, but after that, who knows ? I head back to the bus and resolve to dig out my jackboots and that map of the Sudentenland, Poland, and the Low Countries……………

Exmouth Pavilion Thurs March 31st

And so we come to Exmouth. A little background is called for here before we go any further. This show had been selling very slowly, but as they’d had three months run at it we were confident that they’d turn it around and that the show would do OK. Wrong. Three days before the show it had sold a mighty fifty-two tickets, by far the lowest sales we’ve ever had. Apropos of nothing else, On every level it makes sense NOT to do the gig….firstly, we’ll lose a shedload of cash, secondly the VENUE will lose a shedload of cash, and thirdly it’ll be pretty horrible for the band. However, when we suggest this to the management of the venue they not only said they wanted to keep the date in, they also threatened to invoke a cancellation penalty if we didn’t play. This makes it financially impossible for us to cancel or postpone the date, so here we are. The bright young thing at the box office breathlessly tells me that sales have now gone up to a whopping fifty – four, and I have to go and have lie down to deal with the excitement. At east the view’s pretty….we’re right on the beach at the quiet end of town, and it’s all very picturesque and Devonian. Big John tells me that a German submarine once came up the mouth of the River Exe right here, and I wait patiently for the punchline, as John’s ALWAYS got a punchline, but no, that’s it….it’s just a micro-history lesson. .Seeing as I’m the master of largely useless trivia, I file this away for future reference... I’m sure I’ll be able to make someone’s eyes glaze over somewhere. Back inside, Dom and Ali, the two venue staff, couldn’t be friendlier, either, but even they are a tad embarrassed by the “ cabaret style “ seating and how sparse it looks in this fairly big hall. One saving grace is that Chris’s brother Anton is coming tonight, AND it’s his birthday, so he’s bringing twelve guests which will swell the numbers somewhat. We’d actually asked him if he could invite the entire population of the town where he lives, but failing that, twelve extra bodies will help nicely. The other thing that drives us mental about these shows that don’t do well is that invariably when you speak to some of the locals they say things like “ Oh, I’d have bought tickets if I’d known it was on…I didn’t see any adverts ! “. We also hear that the theatre’s foyer and little café has been closed for a while for refurbishment, and this was a popular rendezvous point, so we’ve missed out on people seeing the ads in there too. As we’ve already said, if folks just didn’t want to see this show we’d understand, because we’d be playing to no-one every night, so it HAS to come down to the local promoters. Anyway, I won’t go down that particular ranting route again, as that way lies madness…..The band’s attitude to tonight has been really good…once they realised we were stuck with it they just get ready to deliver the best show they can, and there’s no petulant snits or anyone locking themselves in dressing rooms in floods of artistic angsty tears. This, of course, is just as it should be….when folks have paid good money to buy a ticket to see you, they expect to get the best show possible whether there’s eight or eight thousand out there, but I must admit I have worked with bands who pulled the most amazing strops over things like the toilet paper in the dressing room loo being the wrong colour or the alignment of the stage messing with their feng shui . In such situations one is tempted to find a large, ungreased pole and shove it where it’ll REALLY mess up their feng shui, but fortunately we have no such issues with our chaps, and so, despite the fact that by the time the house lights go down there are open wastes between the isolated knots of audience members, they still lay into Please Please me as if they were at Wembley. There’s that initial wincing moment at the end of the song where you can actually hear individual voices and hands clapping, but Den just goes into his “welcome” link as normal, and from then on it’s all good. In fact, the open spaces work to our advantage, prompting people to get up and dance long before the band normally ask them to. This unscheduled bopfest also yields possibly one of he strangest sights I’ve ever seen. There’s a chap down at the front in an electric wheelchair, and next to him is his wife or partner. She’s holding what appears to be a kind of remote control for the chair, and as she grooves along she’s making this fellow’s chair “ dance “ too. A lot of fun for her I’m sure, but the poor chap’s gripping the arms of his chariot with in white-knuckled terror and hanging on for dear life. Eventually she hears his screams above the racket of the band and wheels him out of the firing line. Weird. There might not be many people here tonight but they’re making a proper row by the end of Daydream Believer, and it’s a genuine encore call that the band respond to. In the end it’s worked out OK ( apart from the nut-scrunching financial loss, of course ) and we’ve scored hundreds of Brownie points with the folks down here, but we could do without many more like this, to be honest. At the end of a night like this there is, of course, only one thing for professional musicians and road crew to do…..PUB FRENZY !!!!

Weymouth Pavilion Wed March 30th

An early start for everyone today as we have to meet the bus and drive down to Weymouth, which is a long old poke. It’s good to see Big John again after what seems like ages, and all the pick-ups go to plan and are on time. The traffic’s light, the roads are clear, and John only has to do a 30 minute tachograph break, so we’re all puzzled when we realise we’re still sixty miles away from the venue at the time we should be loading in ! Once you’re off the M27 the roads DO get narrower and much, much slower, but this is weird…there’s no way we should be this far behind schedule. Arthur and Nick, having driven down in the vans, are already there, and a little disgruntled when they hear our news. There’s not much we can do about it, though….John’s going as quick as he can, so all the four of us can do is look disconsolately out of the bus windows at the rain as we wind our way through the Dorset countryside. The guys will use the local crew to help them load in, so at least the kit will be in the building when we get there, but it’s not a nice sensation to be stuck here with time slipping by, and we’re all twitching. We finally hit Weymouth, and it becomes clear that they’re trying to move it somewhere further down the coast, as every road seems to be dug up. We crawl with agonising slowness through this poo until we finally pull up at the venue just before 3pm, nearly two hours late. As we’d hoped, Arthur and Nick have got everything inside, and the team swings into action. It’s a testimony to how well we’ve got things nailed now that we’re up and ready for soundcheck at the normal time, and apart from a couple of glitsches and malfunctioning cables, we’ve even got time for a fish and chip session. Now, I may dash the latter statement off in a matter of seconds, but you need to be aware that the procurement of said piscine comestibles involved a trek of transcontinental proportions for me and Tomps. Wednesday evening is clearly early closing day for all the chip shops in Weymouth, and by the time we’ve covered what seems like ten fruitless miles I realise that I can’t go on any further. I collapse in a snowdrift at the side of the road, and Tomps struggles back to see what the problem is. “ I’m done for “ I tell him. “Leave me here, you go on…I’m only holding you up “ . He’s a real hero though, is our Tomps, and he hoists me over his shoulder as though I were as light as a feather, instead of actually nineteen and a half stone. Eventually the lights of The Marlborough Fish & Chip Emporium glimmer through the mist…we’ve made it, and after a restorative double cod and chips with mushy peas and a can of Vimto I’m fit enough to return to the theatre. It was a close run thing, though, let me tell you…..SO…on to the show. The Pavilion is one of those venues that never seem to do desperately well, but as soon as the council or anyone makes any noise about closing it down, then the local population are up in arms and the petitions start to fly until the action is stopped dead in it’s tracks…but then the petitioners don’t bother to come to any of the shows, and the whole process starts again ! A shame, because a full house in here would be brilliant. Even so, we’ve nearly tripled the audience from the last time we played….and just as with last time, things start slowly, with polite rather than rapturous applause and the jokes getting titters rather than laughs. In short, it looks and feels like hard work, but the boys doggedly stick to their guns and you can actually feel the audience starting to thaw. Strangely enough it’s Do You Wanna Dance in the acoustic medley that seems to do the trick tonight ( obviously a Cliff stronghold, then ) and the second half is much more of a done deal, though from where I’m sitting onstage things still sound quite muted, and I’m expecting only a handful of folks to be dancing in the “ party “ section. I’m genuinely surprised, then, to hear Arthur saying “ they’re really going for it “ on the comms. I peer round the curtain and not only is everyone on their feet, but loads of them are right up against the front of the stage too. Safe, staid Weymouth has become Rock City Central for the night, and another town is crushed beneath the mighty boot of the all – conquering Bootleg Sixties show. Or something. Tonight’s Shadows moment has the best response yet, as Nick, Tomps and myself, all fairly well equipped in the midriff department, lift out shirts, grab our bellies and treat Phil to a full – on “ truffle shuffle “ which elicits a big grin from our guitarist. Ten out of ten to him for not just hurling at the sight of three overweight men jiggling their considerable ballast at him. Fortunately we were out of the audience’s sight, otherwise we’d no doubt have been arrested for contravening some kind of health and safety rule.As we’re going to be staying here tonight and driving on to Exmouth in the morning, and as Den’s got some friends in town, almost everyone heads out into town after the show, but Arthur and I decide against it, and I must admit to crashing out at a very girly early hour. I thus miss the drama when Arthur realises that as the house crew left the Pavilion they must have switched the power off, including the power to the bus, which means that the batteries are rapidly draining and if something isn’t done about it PDQ we’re not going to be able to leave in the morning. John had taken a swift trip to town but Arthur reaches him and he gets back just in time He manages to get the bus started, but has to run the engine all night which makes for an uncomfortable ( and
costly ! ) few hours. The band, needless to say, have hooked up with Den’s friends and some local musicians and have, it’s fair to say, imbibed well of grape and grain, so when they finally crash back in at some ungodly hour they’re oblivious to all that’s gone on, and proceed to talk to each other very loudly for ages in the classic style of the terminally pissed. What with this, the engine, and a classic case of Old Geezer’s Bladder, the night passes slowly and fitfully, so it’s a very gritty-eyed and haggard Tony who finally falls asleep about half an hour before he’s due to get up……

Wimborne Tivoli Sat March 26th

Shades of last year’s tour this morning as Tomps comes to my house at silly o’clock to pick up me and Rodders. Although we didn’t get in TOO late from Dunstable it’s still a nasty shock to the system to have to get up early knowing you’ve got a three hour drive followed by a working day followed by the drive back again, and it just brings home even more the sense of having a tour bus. At least we don’t have a show to get up for tomorrow as we’re about to have ANOTHER break. This was the three days we’d originally scheduled when the tour was first put together and we had twelve shows back to back, but in the light of the cancellations it now means we’ll have only played two shows in eight days, which isn’t great. Still, last night was fine, and there’s nothing to suggest tonight will be any different. Wimborne Minster is a very pretty little town in Dorset, and the Tivoli was one of the better shows of the last tour. It’s an odd little place….from the outside it just looks like a big old warehouse or something with a pitched, corrugated asbestos-style roof, but inside it’s all quirky seat-colours, bizarre friezes on the walls and little nooks and crannies everywhere. The stage is quite deep but not especially wide, so the band will be holding hands up there tonight as we’ll have to squash them together a bit. I must admit that Steve not having a drum riser has made a big difference…on some of the bigger stages it CAN look a bit weird but aesthetically it’s generally better, and we’ve got much more room to manoeuvre. The house tech here, Phil, is a really good lad, and we’re made to feel like old friends coming back to visit a favourite place, so there’s a very good mood about the place despite the drive we’ve had to do. This mood lasts right up to soundcheck, where things start to get narky. There are some problems with sound levels, we have to re-patch the stage box, one of the keyboards keeps buzzing which takes a while to sort out, and it’s all just a bit edgy. No real specific reason why….could be that everyone’s getting tired, could be that the moon is in the wrong phase, could be anything, but it’s just a bit of a downer, and the end of soundcheck gives us a welcome hour to go off and do our own things for a while. Arthur, Tomps, Junior and I revisit last year’s pre-show routine by getting in some very nice Chinese and scoffing it in the big Green Room upstairs, while the other crew and band members head to various parts of the town and venue for food, drink, or just a head-clear. By showtime everyone’s back and ready to go, and we’ve got Steve’s wife, the lovely Jill, here to document the proceedings with her trusty camera. The lights go down, the spoken intro rolls, the video montage starts…..and then stops. Dead. As a dodo. Darkness and silence onstage. A few embarrassed titters come from the audience, as they know something’s gone very, very wrong. Den rises to the occasion and leads the band onstage, gives a great little welcoming speech and then kicks into Please Please Me. Meanwhile, it’s mayhem at stage right. The show computer that carries all the moving images and audio has totally died and frozen, so we’re just running with the slides for now. We NEED the moving stuff, though, especially in the second half, so this has to be fixed. Tomps tries a few things with no success and the next thing I know the computer’s out of the rack and he’s performing open – heart surgery on it next to me. Onstage the lads are gamely going for it but they’re clearly discomfited and one ending gets messed up….it’s as though they can’t concentrate because they’re waiting for something else to go wrong. We’ve missed one video insert already, but then I see the computer screen light up out of the corner of my eye, and Tomps tells me we’re back on line. HUGE sigh of relief Apparently the RAM had worked itself loose, and when the connection finally failed everything came to a standstill. The interval seems to come after only about five minutes as we’re been running on adrenaline, but we’ve got away with it, and there’s a definite sense of making up for the start as the lads go back on for the second half. In fact, they make up for it in spades…..it’s one of the most dynamic performances of the tour, and the audience, never shy to start with, pick up on this and start to raise the roof. A rabid Light My Fire elicits major whooping and cheering despite Jamie’s best efforts to, bring it to an premature end while Pinball Wizard is as unbridled and wild as ever played by The Who themselves. By the end of Daydream Believer it’s full on mayhem, and Arthur makes the suggestion on the comms that this may be a perfect Spirit In The Sky moment. Den concurs, and we are treated to five of the most exciting minutes of the entire time I’ve known the band. They absolutely MURDER the song, and at the end Phil even strides forward, unleashes his inner Guitar God and shamelessly throws shapes on the forestage while firing off an incendiary solo. It’s moments like these when I truly think that on this form the guys could live with any band on the planet, and it’s a pleasure and a privilege to be here seeing this. After this megalithic slab of rock I half expect Walk Alone to be a bit of an anticlimax, but it’s anything but…..in fact it looks an inspired song selection, and we get some community singing to rival Dumfries in it’s volume and unabashed joyousness. Simply magnificent, and the best turnaround of fortunes in a show I’ve ever seen. It even takes the edge off the long drive home ( not that I was actually driving ! ) but each time I go to nod off I hear THAT guitar riff and my feet start tapping. Altogether now….”When I die and they lay me to rest, gonna go to the place that’s the best…...."

Dunstable The Grove Fri March 25th

So we’ve had a five – day break, and I’m wondering how much ring-rust will have accumulated in that time, considering that the show was slightly below par after just ONE day off earlier in the tour. At least the Grove Theatre is as good a place as any to try and pick things up again; we’ve played here twice before and it’s a great theatre with a flat-push load in right onto the stage,. a stack of wing space, and best of all, a sparkly new D & B PA system. Sales here had been slow initially but have picked up a lot in the last week, so we know we’ll have a good crowd, and the fact that Junior gives me a list of about twenty – two names for the guest list means that the numbers will be swollen even more ! Tomps has come up with the wizard wheeze of having his camera film us doing the set – up using time lapse photography, so we’re looking forward to seeing the playback of THAT ! As usual, everything flies in quickly, and pleasingly, there’s no sign of the layoff at all as everything goes up quickly and efficiently. We have the time to chop off the manky bits of the white gauze for the “drop” in the acoustic section, and Nick and I also manage to finally get around to making the new running board for our own PA system ( been on the “ to do “ list since Morecambe ! ) , plus we’ve got a couple of spiffy new bits of kit which also help to make the show easier to set up. The band start to arrive for soundcheck; Steve’s first, followed by Chris with his ( hopefully ! ) repaired keyboard. and then Jamie, blinking in the early ( well, 4.40pm ) light, and looking bereft without his Magic Bunk.. Soundcheck has an unusual cast today as the band run through Leon Russell’s Delta Lady; they’ve been asked to do a private show for someone who is a real Leon Russell fan, and so they feel they need to add this to the repertoire.It’s a bit lumpy the first time through, but these boys are GOOD and they’ve got it nailed after a couple of turnarounds. We also need to double-check what’s in and out of the show tonight….the last one was for Dumfries, so we need to move a bunch of the visual stuff out and other stuff back in ( well, I say “we” but actually I mean “Tomps” as my knowledge of these things renders me about as redundant as Motorhead’s reserve triangle player.) After soundcheck Steve, as ever, potters about the stage picking up any bits of loose gaffa or LX tape. This strange but endearing habit has earned him the soubriquet “ Great Uncle Bulgaria “, though I have to say, we’ve got the cleanest stage west of the Rockies. There’s another small matter to be decided on tonight. When the band segue into FBI from Apache, they do a little Shadows synchronised routine.This involves them all turning to their right, so they’re looking straight at Tomps, Nick and I in the wings, and then to the left, where they’re looking at Junior. After a couple of nights we decided it’d be a good idea to try and provide some kind of distraction at this point. Initially this was aimed at Phil, but as it’s gone on we’ve become aware of Den and Jamie peering around Phil’s back to see what we’re doing each night, so now it’s a whole band thing. So far we’ve done things like given ourselves extravagant facial hair made out of white gaffa, we’ve turned around too so as to mirror their movements, we’ve had noses made out of paper cups and worn them with rabbit ears, we’ve pretended to be swimming, we’ve even hidden. Tonight Tomps has managed to find a load of oversize glasses that ape Phil’s Hank Marvin look, so at the appropriate time we whip them on just as the band turn to face us. Unlike Phil’s glasses, these have lenses, and they create almost a 3D impression, so that when Phil turns round I squeak and jump back as he seems to be standing right in front of me. OK, OK, I KNOW it sounds childish, but it’s the kind of odd thing you do on tour, and it helps keep us sane. Showtime finally comes around, and the band click seamlessly back into gear as if they’d never been away. On a big stage like this with a good lighting rig and a big PA system they really come into their own. My partner Kay has come to the show tonight, and as she sits in the wings and watches the show unfold she asks me how we manage to see the same thing night after night and not get bored. I remember asking Arthur the same question when he was mixing something at our recording studio years back, and he told me that he got to a point in the mix where he didn’t listen to the playback as actual music as such; he was listening to it literally as a piece of sound, to work out the levels, balances and tones. It’s a bit the same with the show….. although we’re always aware of what’s going on, the quality of the playing, the audience reaction and so on, we do tend to see it as “ this is the one where we bring in that piece of footage “ or “ the moving lights have the gobo effect on them here “ “ or “ I’ve got ten slides to fit in to this one “ or “ this is the solo acoustic number so I’ll mute all the other channels on the mixing desk “. Because of this concentration, the first set can be sometimes be over in what seems like ten minutes, and that’s very much the case here tonight. The crowd have been right behind us from the start, with Junior’s family and friends among the most vocal, and the band have responded to this, so my potential worries about maybe needing to blow cobwebs away have proved groundless. In an earlier blog I talked abut how on big stages and with the full facilities you can see the future of this show, and tonight is very much one of these nights. It’s not just about spreading out, it’s about using the space properly. It’s about being able to do little theatrical flourishes like the gauze drop in the acoustic section. It’s about having enough lights in the rig so that even the basic colour washes are rich and deep, and the moving lights are the icing on the cake as opposed to having to carry the other lighting. It’s about having a PA system which allows Arthur to weave HIS spells and bring out all the subtleties and nuances that the music needs. It’s about the images on the screens being huge and striking. It’s about the smaller gestures becoming grander, such as putting six pyros across the front of the stage instead of just four. Individually these are really all just “ tweaks “, but when you can put them all together as we have tonight there’s a very different take on this show, and suddenly the City Halls, Apollo’s and ( whisper it quietly….) even West Ends don’t seem so far away. Back when dinosaurs strode the Earth I used to be an agent, and one of the criteria we always applied when looking at any new band or artists we were looking to sign was “ Will they be able to project beyond this pub / club ? Can I see them playing Wembley ?” With THIS band and to some extend THIS show, we’ve already got part of the answer, as they totally rocked the 02 Arena when they opened for Elton John a couple of New Year's Eves back. There’s no point in going into this business if all you want is to be satisfied with scratching around the circuit year after year as many artists and shows seem to do. We’re doing this because we want it to be the best show of it’s kind in the country, and then beyond that. We WANT to be in the City Halls. We WANT to be in the West End, We know it’s a long and potentially costly process, and we also know that in this weird world of showbusiness it might not ever happen, but as I look out at another standing, cheering crowd as the show ends I also know that we’re doing as much as WE can to make it so…..we’ve got the right people, the right pitch, and the right attitude to get there. Are you with us, brothers and sisters…..?!

Dumfries DG One Leisure Complex Sat March 30th

Our first, and unfortunately only visit to Scotland. The original plan had been to go on to Dundee, Inverness, Stirling and Kilmarnock after tonight, but ticket sales have been so appalling that we’ve been left with no option other than to cancel; we don’t have the financial reserves to keep the tour out on the road for four or five days with no income, and as Middlesbrough has been similarly awful, that’s been canned too, and so we’ve now got a five-day hiatus coming up. Good news for the band and crew, who get to go home and see their friends and families, but not such good news for the four partners and the tour accounts. What is SO annoying about this is that here in Dumfries we’ve done really well, and they’ve sold more tickets than the five cancelled shows put together. Leading up to the show the other venues all seemed to be looking to us to cough up money for ads and posters, but THEY are the promoters, not us….we’ve already sent them a load of posters and flyers at our expense, and it’s their job to sell the shows, not ours….we help where we can, and have done some local paper ads here and there right through the tour…but the main burden is on the venue as the promoter. When tonight’s venue sent me an A4 sheet packed with the media work they’d already done and what they still planned to do, I really wanted to send it to all the other venues and say “ THIS is how you promote a show, you numpties “. What’s the point of us spending a year in preparation for a tour, then putting our financial security on the line to pay for it, THEN working our nuts off for the duration of the tour itself only for some council – run venue whose employees pick up their salary at the end of every month whether people come through the door or not to go “ Oh, shall we spend some money on advertising this show ? No ? OK then “ which is what seems to happen. We KNOW there are reasons…..we’ve seen how the recession is really biting now, and Dundee’s a very depressed town ( I’m saying nothing….) and the Scottish dates lost a huge amount of their pre-Christmas business to the terrible weather in December, but the bottom line is….so did Dumfries, and yet we’ve got 300 people here tonight, because PEOPLE KNOW WE’RE COMING. To use a line from the film Field Of Dreams, “ Build it and they will come “. DON’T promote the show and you end up with a situation like this. It’s slack, it’s lazy, and it’s wrong. If we were stiffing everywhere on the tour then you say “ OK, it’s us…no-one wants to see this show “ but that’s NOT the case. It’s beyond bloody frustrating, and it’s something we’ll have to think about very carefully on future tours. This is the second time that Middlesbrough, for example, have had the show, and the second time they’ve failed to sell tickets for it. See a pattern there ? I do. When you ask for an explanation you get vague “ Yeah, it’s really weird..…things we thought would do well just aren’t selling “. Well, that’s maybe because you’re not advertising them properly you TOSSERS !!!! Anyway, on to some people who DO know how to promote a gig….the DG One is a spanking new leisure complex which hosts all manner of events. Rodders was here last year with Scots megastars Runrig, and soon it’ll play host to the globe-buggering entertainment extravaganza that is the Roary The Racing Car Show, but tonight it’s ours. It’s a big place but it doesn’t feel soulless like some sports halls, and the facilities are really good. We even get a whole changing room to ourselves, though this turns out to be something of a mixed blessing. I go in early to have a shower and am the very first person to use the place since last night. I’m feeling quite skanky as I make my way into the first shower cubicle, but a good hot sluicing will sort THAT out. It’s got one of those water – saving things where you have to keep pressing a button to maintain the flow, so in I go, close the door, and duly press the button, at which point a spray of scrotum-shrivellingly cold water pins me to the door. I scream like a girl but there’s no alternative…either I bite the bullet and wait for it to warm up or I stay mucky. To my gasping, whimpering relief it only takes one more icy blast before it gets hot, and from then on all is wonderful. Nightmare. Everything goes together well and quickly today, though Rodders struggles a bit with focusing the lights as they’re miles in the air and can only be reached by a megaladder, so he has to wait until we’ve totally finished onstage before he can start his tomfoolery, and as a result misses his heart attack on a plate, aka Scotch pie and chips. As the rest of us chomp away and feel our arteries hardening, we reflect that maybe he got the best part of the deal after all….We’ve had to make some judicious changes to the visuals today…for obvious reasons out go the England World Cup footage and the Bobby Moore ad, in comes superb video footage of Dumfries in the Sixties and some Scotttish TV programme idents, but to Arthur’s disappointment we can’t find the Barr’s Irn Bru ad he’d asked us to look for. Still, we’ve managed to sufficiently de-Anglicize things, and Tomps has done a great job of re-editing everything on the fly. We’re really not sure what to expect as the lights go down, but as the band crash into Please Please Me, we see…what’s that ? It can’t be ….it is ! People are dancing in front of the stage from the very first song ! A bit of chat from Den, then it’s into Don’t Throw Your Love Away, and….they’re still dancing ! By Hippy Hippy Shake there are loads of people down there, and while they politely sit and watch the visual inserts, up they get again as soon as the next song starts. I wonder what’ll happen as Den takes the stage alone for The Times They Are A-Changing, but it’s brilliant…..everyone sings along and it gets one of the loudest cheers of the night. We are, it is safe to say, home and dry here.. There’s an interesting moment on Pinball Wizard tonight; I’ve had to move the pyros back from the edge of the stage because of the dancers, and they’re now close to the “black tat” we use to hide the cables. As the stage right pyro goes off, some of the fallout drops onto the black tat, igniting this supposedly flame-retardant material, and soon a merry little blaze is dancing along the front of the stage. Quick as a flash Nick runs on and starts stamping the flames out, and I’m mortified with embarrassment….until I see that the audience think it’s part of the act ! It’s THAT kind of night, and the band totally cruise home in style. Another booking here, please !! As we’ve got this unscheduled break now, everyone’s keen to get home….Rodders is heading back to Cornwall, so he and Nick jump in the van, and off they go. Phil’s off back to Sweden, and Arthur’s flying home too, so we drive to Liverpool airport to drop him off for a six am flight, and I do the rest of the journey on me tod. Tonight was totally great in so many ways,….in fact, the general view is that it’s been the best show of the tour so far. We feel that nothing can dampen our spirits…. Until the van turns onto the motorway and up comes the first sign….Preston 80 miles. And to think we used to reckon Preston was the end of the world. O joy unconfined. Just the seven-hour drive to look forward too, then…..

Bridlington Spa Theatre Fri March 19th

Luckily, nothing else did go wrong, but because of the delay and the problems with having to fill the Merc’s engine with water every 200 yards or so, it’s gone three am before Nick and I hit Le Craphole Du Jour, also known as the Grantham South Travelodge. The nicotine-grizzled troll on reception seems hell-bent on stopping us getting to our beds, presenting us with a litany of questions, forms and bizarre touch-screen computer malarkey, but we finally manage it and I’m asleep before Nick’s even had a chance to realise it, with the result that he engages in a thirty- minute conversation with me and thinks I’m just being a bit quiet or standoffish. A stentorian snore finally tells him the truth of the matter, and he crashes too. The next morning is fine and bright but WAAAAAY too early as we head out to the two recalcitrant vehicles, and cross our fingers. Nick’s starts right away, and with just a pause to fill the radiator with the contents of a small reservoir, so does mine, and we’re off to the east coast of Yorkshire. The band and the rest of the crew are snugly parked against the venue right on the prom, and it’s such a beautiful day that they are actually woken up by the heat of the morning sun warming the bus. They run onto the sand, gambolling like children, and rush headlong into the sea as it gently breaks upon the golden beach. In the clear azure sky above seagulls wheel and swoop, their distinctive cries echoing across the strand, as below them the tour party splash, dive, and swim in the clear waters.( This, by the way, it’s what’s called poetic license…the reality is that Tomps and Junior thought about having a paddle, realised they’d lose at least one foot to frostbite, and went back to bed.)Funnily enough, when we were here last year it was also a beautiful day, with a similarly murderously cold wind, but if you can get out of the wind it’s actually pretty damn lovely…after the load-in Nick and I realise there’s a kind of sheltered terrace along one side of the hall, and it’s an absolute sun trap. The benches there are all occupied by old folks, their wrinkled faces turned towards the heat like superannuated sunflowers, and we join this strangely peaceful little community for a while, talking in hushed tones as if we were in church, so anxious are we not to disturb the tranquillity of these elderly sun-worshippers. Suddenly one of them farts loudly, and with what sounds horribly like a follow-through, so we scuttle back inside. This being the seaside, there’s only one choice for crew grub…fish and chips, and we know the best plaice in town. Ha ! Plaice ! Fish !! See what I did there ? Oh, never mind…..Busy Bee’s is one of those quintessentially English fish and chip shops that cook all the fish as it’s ordered and you order it by weight. Having seen the size of the portions it would appear the choices were “ Big, Bigger and Moby Dick “ but it’s totally gorgeous, and coupled with a pot of mushy peas and a can of Vimto a chap could easily believe he’d died and gone to heaven here. We invade Den’s dressing room and chow down in a silence broken only by the odd moan of ecstasy. There’s some trepidation about the projectors tonight, but despite the Ribena mark they behave reasonably well….the chaps had a look today and realised the mark is due to a burn, so there’s going to have to be some serious repair work done when the tour’s over, but at least it looks as if we’ll be able to get through the last dates. The flickering’s not so bad tonight, but one light has flickered out altogether….we hear the sad news that The Shadows’ Jet Harris has passed away, and as a mark of respect decide to dispense with the Hank Marvin suit and visual jokes tonight. Tomps finds a really good picture of the man and adds it to the slide show so we can pay proper tribute to him at the end of the Shadows medley. As with Samson’s hair, however, the Hank suit clearly gives Phil his Shadows – playing powers, because tonight, for the first time, and without the suit, he goes wrong, and the band have a mini-flap for a couple of seconds until they pull it round again. Could have been the ghost of ol’ Jet just funning with us, of course….Last time we were here we played in the Great Hall with the seats in a cabaret style, and had a belting night, with loads of people turning up in 60’s clobber. In tonight’s room there is a conventional theatre setting ( and very nice it is too ) but the 60’s kit is still in force, and one particular group of ladies have really gone to town. There’s a lovely, warm feeling to tonight, right up until the point two women at the front get thrown out for being pissed and abusive, but hey, you can’t have everything. After the show we try to track the group of ladies down as they’d wanted a picture with the band and we wanted to put it on the website to encourage more people to do the dressing – up thing, but as is the case with venue stewards everywhere, they hustle everyone out…. one minute you’re in the gig applauding the band, the next you’re standing in a cold street by an exit wondering where your coat is and why your wig’s on back to front. Shame. Tonight it’s Arthur and Rodders doing the van stint, so they’re off to Scotch Corner to stay overnight before pushing on to Dumfries. I’m really tired and get to bed as soon as is socially acceptable ( i.e. after we’ve ripped the piss out of Phil about the Shadows cock-up for about an hour ) but these are not good roads, and it’s like driving over a ploughed field. Luckily Big John must think so too as he eventually pulls in for a few hours to give himself ( and us !) a welcome little break, and I manage to grab a nap. We’ll need our wits about us when we get to the border and the notoriously tough and nasty Scottish Passport Control…

Stevenage Gordon Craig Theatre Thurs March 17th

As you may recall if you read the blogs from last time, on every tour there’s one show where the Gods Of Rock rise, gather up their spandex robes, adjust their rhinestone halos and say “ Have some of THAT, O lesser mortal “. Today is that show. Even though it’s now over I’m still shaking. I apologise in advance if the usual narrative style ends up being more of a catalogue of disasters, but believe me, that’s how it went. I’m not even sure I can remember them all, but here goes…..Well, to start with, all was fine….we had a bit of brekkie at Tescos and then back to the venue for a nice shower, and all seemed deep and crisp and even. The gear got loaded in, the projectors went up in the air….and then we noticed one of them had a big purple spot at the bottom of the screen. This can be down to many things, from burned – out lamps to suicidal raspberries throwing themselves in front of the bulb, but the one thing it ISN’T is good….especially when a lot of the material on the screen is white or light - coloured. It looks like someone’s lobbed a bottle of Ribena at it.Arthur and Tomps have a look but there’s nothing apparent and nothing they can do….and then it starts to flicker, quite badly. Again, there’s little we can do, so we apply some gentle impact therapy and hoist the projectors back into the air…at which point one of the others starts to flicker and break up too. Now, as the visuals are such an important part of the show, you can appreciate why this heralds an attack of what Manchester United’s manager calls “ squeaky bum time “. The problem is, there really ISN’T anything we can do…we have no spares, no specialist knowledge, and, this late in the day ( and your ) no recourse to a repairman….we just have to get on with it. By soundcheck we’ve got the projectors switched off to save lamp life in case that’s the issue, but this is soon forgotten as the soundcheck starts to degenerate into a frustrating maelstrom of whistles, pops and feedback squeals onstage. Then one of the DI boxes
( through which the acoustic guitars go) breaks down, almost unbelievably followed shortly after by the bass guitar DI. There’s very little that can go wrong with these things, though we’ve got a spare…but now two have died. The house come to the rescue and loan us one but it’s a short-term solution, and we’ve got no chance of getting back to the unit where our others are stored. Bugger. Just after that another channel goes down on one of the stage boxes, and we’re wondering if there’s a ghost or gremlin in here tonight. We finally get through the soundcheck with no bloodletting and cross our fingers that the projectors will make it through the show….this is another local gig and so there are many friends and family in, which means we want things to be perfect. What we DON’T want is for Den to walk to the microphone on the opening number, get his foot caught in his jack lead and rip it out of his bass guitar before he’s even sung a note…but that’s what happens. He recovers well but it’s an inauspicious start….and as I fire in the first of the animated slides, they freeze, for the first time in a long time, and definitely for the first time on this tour. I can only step through to the next one, which looks horrible and jerky. Several slides in, and it freezes again. This is a nightmare, as the whole Kennedy / Dylan solo that Den does is backed by animated slides. Tomps tells me to look away as he always does, sticks up a holding slide onto the screens and mid-show closes everything down and reboots it, which is pretty drastic and basic at the same time, but seems to do the trick. The purple spot on the projector seems to be getting bigger ( it isn’t ) and the flickering seems to be getting worse ( it is ) but somehow we get through until the end of the show without further mishap, although the lads made some changes to the running order which caught us out a bit. Was it a good show ? I honestly have no idea, as I was so on edge waiting for something else to go tits up. They could have played “ My Old Man’s A Dustman “ tonight and I probably wouldn’t have noticed. We know there’s nothing we can do with the projectors…..we just have to limp them through to the end of the tour…and I must be totally honest and say I just want today to be over so that we can get to Bridlington and come at it all again fresh tomorrow. The load – out is the fastest we’ve done on the tour, thanks to Kate the stage manager and her electric cattle prod ( not very PC or union-friendly but BLOODY effective ) and this is a good thing….Nick and I are driving the vans up to Grantham tonight and then doing the rest of the trek to Brid tomorrow morning, so we’re anxious to get away….but the Rock Gods have not finished with us yet. Oh no. Nick jumps into his shiny new van to drive it into the loading bay and….nothing happens. At all. It’s completely dead, but this is no simple flat battery jobbie…when he puts the keys in the ignition the headlights come on before he’s even turned the ignition switch on..,,,and when he DOES turn it on, they go off. There’s some kind of short, and only one thing to do…call the AA. We figure that if they can at least get him going we’ll drive straight to Bridlington tonight and sleep in the vans, a prospect that fills me with a warm fuzzy glow. Or not. He rings the AA and they predictably tell him they’ll try and have a patrolman out some time before the next Ice Age, but to our amazement and joy he turns up within half an hour. With very little teeth – sucking, head – shaking and “ that’s need to go the garage mate” – ing, he waves his hands over Nick’s engine, intones an incantation under his breath, sticks a jump lead onto the engine casing and with a roar it starts. At this point he starts to try and explain to Nick and Big John that there’s a problem with the overhead underhang or the knurled grunion rod or something, but frankly I don’t care…we’re moving again, so let’s just GET THERE and we can talk about it afterwards ! It’s gone 1.30am by the time we finally roll out, but we’re moving. PLEASE don’t let anything else happen…….

Radlett Centre Wed March 16th

If it’s Wednesday, it must be Radlett…..we played here last year just after the tour finished when we did a one – off charity show for our agent Alan Field, and I remember it as being a bit weird….no Rodders, as he’d gone off on Runrig or Gary Numan, and we had Ellie Leah back in the show to do four or five numbers. It was just near enough and yet far enough away from the tour to be really odd…things kind of clicked into place easily enough as we’d only finished the main tour a couple of weeks before, but then a new tune would come along, or Ellie would come onstage, and it was all a bit unsettling, especially as I’d had to go back to calling the lighting cues to the house, having been so used to Rodders handling all this. A year on and we’ve only seen Ellie once since, at Steve’s wedding, as she’d joined the cast of Sister Act in the West End, but other than that it’s business as usual for us this time round. Big John’s day hasn’t started well….he was slumbering like a baby ( if you can imagine a six foot four, bearded baby ) in his bunk when along came some Great British Workmen who wanted to dig up the road, right where he was parked. Now, normally, if someone asks Big John to move the bus once he’s parked up and asleep, the ensuing fireworks make the current shenanigans in Libya look like a vicarage bonfire night party, but he complies without anyone losing a limb or a head. The respite is temporary, though, as these doughty artisans set to with the old pneumatic drills, making further sleep impossible ( except for Jamie, of course, who is ensconced in his Magic Bunk, which sends it’s occupant into a slumber so deep we can only tell he’s not dead by saying the word “ beer” and watching his nose twitch ). When I arrive at the gig in one of the vans John is stalking around the car park looking for all the world like a grizzly bear in search of fresh prey, but luckily when he sees me he breaks into a smile….I’ll not be on the menu today, then. The only saving grace about all this racket is that we’re just a few miles up the road at Stevenage tomorrow, so John will have plenty of time to catch up on his zeds. The Radlett Centre is another cool little theatre, and the only slightly bizarre thing about it is that the extra row of seats they’ve installed in the front is about six inches away from our PA system….not a problem were we Metallica or similar purveyors of noise, because those fans actually want their heads inside the speakers. I mean, I know some of our fans are getting on a bit, and may be a little hard of hearing, but this is ridiculous !! Fortunately good sense prevails, and they’re moved out of the way, thus avoiding the possibility of death by Bootleg Sixties. Alan’s actually here tonight ( he was going to come to Harlow but realised it clashed with the Champions League match between AC Milan and his beloved Spurs….we’re still smarting from the rejection ) so we have a bit of a catch-up about how the tour is going, plans for the future, and some offers we’ve had for later in the summer. It’s always good to see Alan, and it’s especially interesting this time as he’s also agent and manager for The Searchers, who have been crossing paths with us all over the country. He tells us that THEIR business has been a bit patchy too, and that’s actually a good thing for us to hear…we just have to keep believing that any problems we’re having with attendances are not down to the show being a pile of wombat poo, but are the result of economic factors and other stuff we don’t really understand. We’ve done over half a house here tonight which is pretty respectable for a first “ public “ gig ( the last one was a private show ) but even though the audience are very appreciative everything seems a bit flat after the sturm und drang of Scunthorpe’s mentalists last night, at least until the end, at which point, as we’ve already said, resistance is futile. This is pretty unfair, however, as Scunny was a bit special, and by any other measure tonight would be classed as s really good gig. Go Now makes a welcome return ( though it turns out to be a One Night Only engagement ! ) and everything else is as bang on as ever…..it just doesn’t take off like last night. Afterwards, however, Alan is fulsome in his praise, telling us how much the show has improved since last time and how much slicker it is. He’s been round the block a time or ten so he knows his onions, does Alan, and it’s good to hear his endorsement. The only place where we differ is that he’s very much in favour of us bringing Ellie or another girl singer back into the show right away, whereas we see this as a possible development for the future, along with the dancers, banjo player and fire-eating dwarf ( I’m joking, of course….we’d NEVER have a banjo player ). It’s all very cordial, though, and everyone’s in a pretty good mood afterwards. The band have the option of another night at home so they all scuttle off into the night ( except Phil, who, being based in Sweden, can’t quite make it home and back in time for tomorrow’s show, so like some Flying Dutchman of the motorways, he is doomed to forever travel around Britain in this bus ). Arthur and Nick also head home, leaving just the crew and Phil to make the run up to Stevenage. We get parked and powered up outside the Gordon Craig with no problems just before midnight, and then we remember there’s a 24 hour Tescos just across the car park !! I feel a Doritos hot salsa sauce and cool tortilla chips frenzy coming on, and the other lads keep saying the word “ cider” for some reason, so off we scoot. These all – night supermarkets are SO weird….it seems like the only other normal shoppers are policemen and nurses, because everyone ELSE must be a total stoner judging by the huge bags of crisps, chocolate, biscuits and other munchies – satisfying snacks their baskets are piled high with. I get to the till and plonk down my basket, piled high with crisps, chocolate and biscuits…….oops….

Scunthorpe Plowright Theatre Tues March 15th

A moment, before we discuss today’s show, to run through the events of our day off here yesterday, The people at the Plowright are a fine group of human beings, and Glyn the tech manager had arranged to let us park up the bus, connect to shore power and use their facilities yesterday too, so we were all clean and sparkly and ready to “ do “ sunny Scunny. Somewhere along the way, however, the wires must have got crossed, and so the proposed tour of the museum, library, art gallery and ironworks never materialised. Instead, I saw Nick, Rodders, Tomps and Junior heading off to town at about 11.00am “ to get some breakfast “. I didn’t see them again until much, much later that night, by which time Tomps the master cider – drinker had worked his evil influence on the others, found a Wetherspoons, and a reasonably – sized orchard had been consumed in the name of “ sampling the various brands “. By the time we hook up with them in a posh Indian restaurant that night they’re all as sampled as newts, and Nick in particular is having trouble with speaking English, staying awake and remembering his own name. In fact, he sleeps through pretty much the entire meal, to the great amusement of all his fellow Booties, and I’m left wondering what sort of mess he’s going to be in tomorrow morning…….As it transpires, quite a bad one. His eyes are like two cigarette burns in a nun’s bum and he looks like one of the president’s faces carved into Mount Rushmore….in other words, rocky. Tomps, being a dyed in the wool rugger bugger, is used to taking on board copious amounts of alcohol and then being fairly untouched the next day , and both Junior and Rodders baled out early enough to be relatively unscathed this morning, but Nick is a bit out of practise, and he’s paying the price today. To be fair to him, he still gets the work done…only he does it in total silence, lying down , and with an icepack strapped to his head. I must say that these days I just can’t drink anymore, especially if I’m working, and as I see Nick struggle through the ninth circle of Hell I thank my lucky stars that this is so ! Everything else about today goes well, though….this is a great theatre with plenty of wing space and nice easy access, though it has to be said the dressing rooms are, shall we say, a little tired, in the same way that Gadaffi is a little mental, but they’ll do for us….we’re not proud ! There’s one thing about the Plowright that’s really good, though, and that is that it has a low roof, which traps the audience noise and kind of filters it back onto the stage, so that when they clap or sing along they sound like a football crowd, and this helps create a brilliant atmosphere. There are lots of people here from last time, but there are enough laughs on the jokes and links we’ve used before to let us know that there are plenty of newcomers too, and that’s definitely what we’re after. When the band play on these smaller stages they are very, very powerful, and tonight is a perfect example. There are also lots of little things that have helped tweak the show to make it slicker and better this time around. For example, although Rodders has brought fewer moving lights this time he’s using them in a really effective way, and he also knows the show so well now that he’s picking up all the links and solos with his “specials”. The moving images Tomps does are great and I now know by heart where all the slides need to be fired in. Arthur’s got the sound just so, the lights are bang on, and then there’s the band…….it really is a pretty awesome package, to borrow a word which our colonial cousins across the Atlantic are prone to overusing. Tonight, resistance is futile, and the audience are in the band’s pockets within about three numbers. It all means that they can relax a bit, and at that point all bets really ARE off….there aren’t many bands that could live with the guys on this kind of form. It’s a cracking night all round, and when you see this kind of thing happening and a virtually full house going totally banzai, the whole thing comes together and makes perfect sense.. After the show the band meet and greet, and there are loads of well-wishers wanting to tell them what a fantastic night they’ve had. Happily Nick no longer looks like an extra from Dawn of The Dead, and with the mighty assistance of Matt, the house crew’s human forklift, we’re out and away in no time. I’m actually heading home tonight for some reason which I can’t quite remember, and just at the point where I’m falling asleep at 3.00am I see that the road I need to use to get back is closed. Arse ! The other lads are riding on Radlett in the Tourbus Of Doom, and it’s a couple of gigs on home territory now, so we’ll see if we can’t bring some of that Scunny spirit with us. Although don’t mention spirit ( or any other type of alcohol ) to Nick ever again….

St Helens Theatre Royal Sun March 12th

Another short hop today, so because the nice Oakengates people let us stay here again last night, we have a mini lie - in and mooch off about 11.00am. All is going swimmingly until we actually get to St Helens. The area around the theatre is very Coronation Street-esque, which in itself isn't a problem; what IS a problem is that someone's dropped a pedestrian precinct right in the middle of the road we want to go down, and there's an impenetrable one-way system which renders these serried rows of terraced houses completetly identical. It takes us an hour to find the theatre, and even then we can only reach it by reversing the bus and vans the wrong way down a one-way street, much to the chagrin of an old git washing his clapped - out car in the street. " This is a one-way street you know " he huffs. " We're only going one way", replies Nick, which gives rise to an outburst of indignation that I shan't dignify by repeating here. By now we're an hour late, we're struggling to get the vehicles in, and I've had enough of matey and his puffed - up histrionics. I must admit that I let fly with a stream of the most corrosive epithets, whch culminated in telling him that if they had some blinking decent road signs in this blinking place then we wouldn't need to blinking reverse down his blinking road. Except I may not actually have said blinking. Once at the theatre we quickly make up the time as Mike and Pete the house guys are great. The only real downer with tonight is that we know this is the lowest-selling show oh the whole tour, and I must admit it makes vibing yourself up to do the best possible show a bit of an effort. Everyone digs in, though, and soundcheck is got out of the way without incident. The theatre also has a very narrow proscenium arch which makes siting the musisians so that they don't disappear into the wings a bit of a challenge, but this gets overcome too, and by the time showtime comes around the atmosphere backstage is actually pretty good. I must say here that the band have handled the whole adaptation to tour bus life really well...they're not normally used to arriving at venue until just before soundcheck, or even later in some cases, but on this tour they get there when the rest of us do. That means they've got a lot of time to themselves but they've used it well; some of them explore the town we're in, some read, some just go for a walk. In the case of Jamie, he sleeps. Oh my goodness, how the boy sleeps. In fact, he can be such a sloth I've considered putting a tree trunk along the length of the bus and letting him hang upside down from it. He's the Rip Van Winkle of the Bootleg Sixties show and no mistake, but even THIS is good....the more rest he and Den get, the better we can protect their voices. I must admit than in touring days when my time at the venue wasn't so filled with poo as it is now, I was similarly inclined, and was to be found in my bunk at every available opportunity. There's a lot to be said for rest, mind, especially when you get to my age ! So on to the show, and it's one of those odd ones...the people who are here love it, but there's not many of them in so it's all just so QUIET ! This definitely makes things more difficult for the band, especially on the links, where they're used to more audience response. It's not that people aren't getting the jokes, it's just that their laughter is largely lost in the theatre, but as we've always said, it doesn't matter whether there's 10, 100 or 10,00, people in the audience, they've all paid good money to get in here and see us, and so we have to put on the best show we can. The first half is hard work but goes well enough, and then we get the message back....Den's dressing room has been broken into and he's had his phone and wallet stolen.There's not really much you can do in a twenty-minute interval, but Mike gets right on the case and contacts the okice while I call T Mobile to suspend the phone service. He's insured, so that's a good thing, but if you're anything like me and carry your life in your mobile then you'll appreciate how much of a nightmare this is, even more than the theft of the money. For me the most amazing thing is that he can then go onstage and start the second half with, of all the ironic titles, Feeling Groovy, which he quite clearly isn't. In fact you'd never think anything untoward had happened at all, as he gives it his usual 100%, but after the show he's one pissed - off puppy. The polioe arrive to make a report and give a crime number but despite their politeness you can't help but feel this is something they've seen a grillion times up here, and they know as surely as we do that none of the stolen items will ever be recovered. On top of the low turnout it puts a really bad spin on the evening, so we just move into fifth gear and get out of the theatre and then the town as quickly as we can. I'm carrying a spare mobile with me which I offer to Den, but as it takes a degree in astrophysics to even work out how to make a simple call, he sensibly declines, and opts to sort something out at the T Mobile shop in Scunthorpe tomorrow. This could be another venue to add to the " Stockport FIle " as it's become known.....