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.....

Telford Oakengates Theatre Sat March 12th

As it’s relatively short run from Derby to Telford we’ve opted to leave the bus outside the Assembly Rooms and leave at 8.00am this morning; that lets everyone have a night in the bus where it’s not moving, and we’ve got daylight if we have a problem with the van again. One again the theatre have been very helpful and have left us a power cable out for the bus, plus the lovely Heather from the venue lets us in early to do the whole shower thing, so it’s a squeaky clean bunch of Booties crew who convene for the load-in. It’s a new one to us, is the Oakengates, but it’s a cool little theatre and the tech lads, Euan and Rob, are not only helpful but a good laugh too, which always helps the day along. As I’ve got a boatload of admin to do I’ve gone in early, and the lads kindly let me skip the first part of the load – in to finish off. For some strange reason this takes longer than expected and I finish JUST as the last piece of gear rolls onto the stage….! As soon as we start to set up I’m reminded of a little army of worker ants….everyone knows exactly what they’re doing and so we scurry around the stage, antennae wiggling. Everything is going fine until someone drops a sugarlump on the floor and we have an uncontrollable urge to swarm all over it…..It’s another quick build today, and that can only mean one thing…fish and chip break !! Arthur heads out and returns with the biggest portions of chips I’ve ever seen…I mean, whole fields of spuds must have given their lives to feed us today, and I’ve also got what appears to be two fish, which means something almost unheard of happens…I have to (gulp!) leave some. For a cove raised on the sanctity of clearing your plate at meals, this is tantamount to sacrilege, but I really DID feel like a bursting sofa by the end of it. By showtime I’ve managed to prise myself into an upright position and waddle over to my position at Missile Command, and I’m hoping that the band haven’t partaken themselves, or else this is going to be a somewhat static performance tonight ! Luckily they haven’t, and so they kick off with their customary vim and vigour. When we do these places for the first time you really can’t tell what sort of response you’re likely to get, but the show has sold quite healthily and the applause we get is substantial and prolonged. There’s plenty of life in these folks, and as the set progresses it quickly shapes up into one of the better gigs we’ve done….the band are on form and all the “ crowd pleasers “ do just what it says on the tin. The acoustic section goes down very well too, and we’re cruising by the interval. The second half kicks off much as the first and we relax into our roles until suddenly Jamie has a senior moment during Itchycoo Park and goes into the chorus instead of the second verse. The band recover really, really well, but Jamie’s been thrown and as a result his vocal virtually disappears from the mix, prompting Arthur to warn us on the comms that maybe his voice has gone. As we’re about to go into the Hole In My Shoe / Strawberry Fields / Whiter Shade Of Pale section there’s a quick flurry of conversation as we try to work out how to jump the visuals forward if Jamie has to duck out of these, and as s result a miss a cue, but then Jamie comes over to the piano and we see him give a thumbs up to Junior. There’s a collective intake of breath as he sings his first vocal….and it’s fine. We realise that what must have happened is that when he realised his mistake he must have backed right off the microphone and that’s why we weren’t hearing anything. It’s been a false alarm but what it DID show was how well trained we all are now…the band got through the hiccup with barely a missed note and we’d worked out a Plan B for the visuals within a matter of seconds. This only comes from practise and experience, and we’ve now got both in spades. The rest of the show is a total triumph, and Telford becomes another venue to add to the “ we’ll come here again “ list. As it’s a shortish run to St Helens we’ve decided again to stay here tonight, courtesy of those nice Oakengates people, and do the drive tomorrow morning. That can only mean one thing…après gig !!! There are two pubs within staggering distance of the venue which stay open late, and so we quickly load out then head into town for a restorative libation or two. The first sight of the town as we leave the theatre isn’t a prepossessing one….all the shops have shuttered fronts which are somehow eerily reminiscent of Beirut, but by the time we’ve made our way to the pub it’s looking a lot more homely. In a nearby club a Guns’n’Roses tribute band is playing, and we toy with the idea of going along, but when you’ve listened to music all day that’s the last thing you want, to be honest, so we all file into the bar, only to be greeted by the teeth – rattling, brain numbing volume of the TV which seems to be tuned to a channel specialising in dance music that’s not dissimilar to a pneumatic drill at full throttle. Grabbing a drink we head out to the comparative peace of the beer garden, where the six of us sit around a table and immediately begin checking our phones. Big John has been in the pub too and comes out to find us all staring at our screens. “ What the hell are youse lot doing ? “ he asks, and Tomps replies “ We’re just texting each other “ which would be even funnier if I hadn’t seen one of my daughters and her friends doing JUST that in the past. We know the band are somewhere in town as well ( maybe at the Guns’n’Roses thing picking up tips on throwing shapes ) but they’re nowhere to be seen tonight, so we crew monkeys and Big John settle down to an hour or so of banter, very little of which would be repeatable in a reputable family publication such as this…suffice to say the conversation touched on such things as the best swearwords I ever heard, incipient senility and a joke which ended “ and then the vicar said “ That’s not even my dog……… ! “

Derby Assembly Rooms Fri March 11th

The bus arrived at about 5.15am this morning, but as the load in isn’t until 1 o’clock everyone catches up on their sleep. The Assembly Rooms is a familiar old friend to Arthur, Rodders and myself through our days doing the Bloodstock Festival here
for several years. Despite it’s name the festival was nothing to do with horse breeding or racing; instead it was two days of dodgy metal bands, often German, with singers that sounded like they’d either got an intimate part of their anatomy stuck in a mangle or else that they were trying to vomit up the soles of their own feet. It was a vista of denim. leather, unwashed hair and acne, and we loved it, every last nut-shrivelling, eardrum-buggering, horns-ablaze, Teutonic posturing moment of it. Sadly the festival no longer comes here, having been hijacked by corporate hyenas in Germany, and the whole seat of the pants, could collapse at any minute thrill of the thing has been replaced by a homogenised, sanitized, just-add-water bog standard festival. Oh, the same bands play, of course, but now they all have separate dressing rooms instead of a semi-communal backstage area, and the gear is moved on and off stage by unsmiling, efficient Aryan robots instead of being manhandled through the backstage kitchens of the Assembly Rooms by some untrained but very willing Derbyshire oiks. On the face of it the new regime sounds infinitely preferable, but Bloodstock at Derby was real, and a bit chaotic, and a bit frustrating, and bloody hard work, and a lot of fun. Sadly I don’t think we’ll see it’s like again, as music, like so much else, is increasingly sponsored, branded, and neutered within an inch of it’s life until it finally disappears into the voracious maw of the corporate beast. Bloodstock’s founder could be something of a clot at times, and he gave us some classic moments like the occasion he realised on the morning of the show that he hadn’t ordered a safety barrier to keep the seething hordes of metalheads from inundating the stage, but he was a genuine, flesh and blood person, essentially a fan who decided he’d like to stage his own event, rather than some faceless number-cruncher in an anodyne office somewhere talking of gross potentials, per capita merchandise spends and magnifying the marginals. I spit on them all and hope they get electrocuted by their bloody calculators. RANT ALERT----HE’S NOT FINSHED YET !!!! I mean, what have T Mobile, Nat West or sodding Volkswagen got to do with music ? And I don’t want to go to the Labatt’s Ice Export Double Filtered Special Wonderbrew Apollo…it’s the bloody Hammy Odeon, you soulless, bloodsucking numpties !!! RANT OVER-----ALL CLEAR. So….Derby Assembly Rooms, then. They’ve got a nice PA system of their own here, so Arthur decides he’ll use that, which means less poo to bring in from the vans, and we get all the kit on one load of the lift. It’s an impressive edifice, is this lift…it’s actually the whole width of the stage and takes you up either to floor level or else it can be added as a forestage to the main structure, but what .it DOES mean is that those happy, hernia-inducing moments of hoiking flight cases up steps and so on are a thing of the past. We do a nice fast build again while the band make use of the showers ( quick footnote…the shower pressure is so strong and the needles of water so sharp that it felt like I was being pinned to the wall by an unrelenting wave of tiny demons wielding little pitchforks….it gets the dirt off but it also removes at least two layers of skin ). One of the things we always love about working here is the crew….unfortunately head tech Nigel is on holiday but Chrissie from the tech crew is like a little mascot to us….when we first met her she was about three years old and doing a kind of work experience thing, but now she’s all grown up and dominant and masterful and things ( or is that just me…?) and it’s a real pleasure to work with her again. It’s another fast build as a result and by four o’clock we’re sitting in the Green Room chomping fish and chips as befits our status as rufty-tufty rock pigs. Soundcheck is a bit of a narky affair as there are little squeaks, whistles and bleats coming out of the monitors that Junior( oh, that’s the name we decided on for Young Chris, by the way ) is manfully trying to eradicate, and there’s a bit of snappishness around that luckily I know by now will be totally forgotten about after about two minutes on the bus tonight. As ever, by the time showtime comes around everyone’s up for it and ready to go. You can usually tell from the audience reaction to the opening sequence whether or not it’s going to be a good night, and by that measure all the signs are in our favour….they laugh at Pinky and Perky and Batman, cheer the Beatles, and clap along to Ready Steady Go, so by the time Den’s “ Good evening everbody ! “ booms out of the darkness, it’s game on. I know I’ve already mentioned that it’s the rock numbers that seem to be getting the best response on this tour, but it’s true…when the lads kick in with the intro to You Really Got Me, people actually scream, they go wild at the end of the Light My Fire wig-out, and they even cheer my pyrotechnics ( I thangyoo, I thangyoo ) at the start of Pinball Wizard. It’s not a geographical thing, either…it seems to be happening everywhere we play. That’s not to say they don’t bellow along with gusto to Daydream Believer or Sunny Afternoon, of course, but it’s as though the rockier songs act as some sort of temporary conduit back to the rebellious days of their youth, and it’s almost as though we have a different audience for those particular numbers.Weird, but in a good way ! After the show we have another chinwag with occasional Bootlegger and all round good buddy Ben Dorrington, who has come along with his lovely lady Kirsty to be an actual audient tonight, giving him an advantage over most of the crew and all of the band….apart from Arthur, none of us have actually seen the show from the front still, so Ben joins a select little group of people who have been on both sides of the curtain, so to speak, and whose opinions we actually care about. The good news is that he, too thinks the show is better and slicker and tells everyone so, and that’s pretty gratifying coming from a respected fellow pro. I slip him his brown envelope full of cash, and’ job done, he and Kirsty melt away into the night……!

Aldershot Princes Hall Thurs March 10th

As it turned out, Big John woke up early and so the two vehicles actually left at 4.30am. They got down in good time, though, so even Nick managed to crash back out, and everyone got a decent night’s sleep, which is just as well, because at about 10.30am I’m woken by a commotion outside the bus. I can see Big John and Nick standing there watching something, and when I step outside it turns out to be a fairly hefty chap squaring up to two WPCs outside the magistrate’s courts next to the theatre. Within a matter of minutes it’s turned into something straight out of Police Camera Action as another couple of policeman arrive, and suddenly matey is shouting and yelling and bobbing and weaving like a boxer.The boys in blue obviously decide that discretion is the better part of valour and in next to no time another couple of officers arrive along with a squad car which screams up to the bus, lights flashing and siren howling, to help subdue Rambo. I curse under my breath, thinking that everyone will have been woken up by the police car, so I go up the stairs to check on my slumbering babes. Far from finding them blinking and mewling in their bunks as their beauty sleep is disturbed, however, they are all crammed into the back lounge, where they’ve got a birds eye view of the proceedings, which are taking place on a mezzanine floor about level with the bus windows, They’ve got cameras and mobiles out and are snapping away like rabid paparazzi. Vultures….! This is another old friend of a theatre, and as before tonight’s show is being promoted by diamond geezer Mr John Martin. He texts me to ask when we’ll be at the venue and what time we’d like our breakfast bringing down, so I reply “ we’re here, and now, please !”. He’s as good as his word, and in next to no time appears with piles of sandwiches, sausage rolls and biscuits.
Now, I happen to know that her Majesty Queen Elizabeth is a big fan of the show and follows these blogs assiduously, so to her I say “ Your Maj, forget all these sports people, musicians, entertainers, politicians and various other nonentities when you’re putting your Honours List together, and let’s see plain Mr John Martin become Sir John, knighted for his services to rock’n’roll in general and needy crew members in particular ! Rarely can there have been a more deserving case for the old sword touching the shoulder. Arise, Sir John , say all of us in Bootiesworld ! The local chaps here are top notch too, especially Darren, who directs me to the best place from which to intercept the ice-cream lady at the interval. Here’s a man who really knows how the wheels turn in this business ! Any of the shows Sir John has done for us in the past have always been belters, so we know we’re in for a good night. A lot of the folks here go and see the band wherever they play and are diehard Overtures fans, so it’s no surprise that we have folks choogling away in the side aisles within a number of two or the band going onstage. The only slightly disconcerting thing is an occasional noise which comes over the comms headphones and appears to be someone in the crowd either vomiting, or making a jolly good stab at doing so. Remembering that last year there was an incident where an unfortunate punter parked their tiger over about six rows of fellow groovers in most spectacular and olfactorily unpleasant manner, we wonder if this same person has returned, and that the sight of the band playing onstage provokes some kind of Pavlovian response involving copious amounts of sick. The answer is more straightforward; it’s a chap with some mental issues and apparently he makes these involuntary sounds when he’s excited, which doubtless comes as a major relief to the people sitting around him who recall the sights ( and smells ! ) of last year ! Despite the fact that the band see they have the crowd in their pockets right from the off, there’s no question of just cruising, and they gradually apply the pedal to the metal as the show progresses. Steve’s having one of his “ octopus” nights where he seems to have grown an extra arm or two, and Den’s totally mastered the art of bantering with a partisan crowd between songs without ever losing control of the situation. With Phil, Jamie and Chris rising to the occasion as ever, the whole thing is a slam-dunk, so that by the time Mony Mony carpet-bombs the theatre we know people will be talking about tonight for a long time to come. Our Uber-fans Marilyn and Debbie are here tonight, leading the charge from the front as ever, and speaking to them afterwards they comment that they think it’s one of the best shows they’ve seen the band play, and if anyone knows it’s these girls ! It’s been a total blast, and this almost takes the pain away from an onerous post-gig chore, which is once again van-related. The car doctors have looked at Arthur’s vehicle today and decided that though it’s a bit shagged out it’ll survive in the short term, so as soon as we’ve loaded up, Arthur, Junior and I jump in the nice new hire van after the show and head for Sandy, where the now temporarily repaired Merc is waiting for us. We start to cross-load the kit from the Longmarsh van into the Merc , and it’s while we’re doing this that the lights of a police car swerve into the yard. Ah. This could be a tricky one…” Yes, officer I KNOW it looks like we’re stealing a load of PA from the van, but we’re not, honest…you see this is our van and it’s broken down but now it isn’t and we’re taking it away to Derby and leaving this nice new rental van instead but actually that’s coming with us TOO for now cos it’s going to Bedford and of course the people who own the garage know me and…..oh bugger it, jut put the cuffs on…I don’t even believe it myself “. Fortunately the officer obviously thinks our story is SO implausible that it must be true, so he lets us go and scoots off.. All we have to do now is drop the hire van at Bedford and then there’s just the little matter of the drive to Derby. When we arrive there the bus still hasn’t arrived, so we sit in the van and wait, eyes drooping. We need a volunteer to go and stand on the road to guide John in, and as I’ve got my hat, coat and gloves I get the short straw. The bitingly cold wind whistles round my undercarriage as I wait, and somewhere a church clock strikes 5.00am.….beneath the encroaching hypothermia, a sense of déjà vu starts to creep in…..

Harlow Playhouse Wed March 9th

We wake up bright and early ready to put our megaplan into action. Arthur hotfoots it up to Sandy in the knackered Merc to have it looked at again, and he’s going to head back later this morning in a rented van. The Millfield lads have done us one last favour by letting us leave the kit from the Merc here so that the poorly van can travel up to the garage unencumbered by our pile of poo. Unfortunately we have to take it outside the theatre quite early to clear their stage, so once again I find myself standing in the bitter North London cold babysitting a load of PA gear with Nick, and I begin to wonder if I’ve somehow offended the Sun Gods and am being punished for my transgressions. It’s so cold that as we wait a brass monkey comes up to us and asks us if we’ve got a soldering iron….At about midday Arthur pulls up in the shiny new Longmarsh rental van and we quickly load up the kit then huddle over the heater to try and thaw out our frozen bones. It’s a short hop to Harlow and our teeth have just about stopped chattering as we pull into the backstage yard where the bus is parked up and the lads are unloading the other van. This is our third time here, and it’s a really good place to work in….a nice big stage, plenty of wing space, and the closest we get to a “local” gig. They have tended in the past to have a bit of a draconian attitude to all matter health and safety related, rootling around in the back of amplifiers, mains distro racks and the like, but this time all is co-operation and smoothness. Head technician Peter even repairs a couple of bits and bobs for us during the build, and by half past two everything’s in place, making it about our fastest set - up of the tour so far…then the computer has a cow again and refuses to start. Tomps has developed a really good way of dealing with this….he knows that I get all panicky when I hear about things going wrong, so if I go anywhere near him when there’s a problem he just stands in front of the computer and says something like “ Move along…nothing to see here “ I’m quite happy to do so, because the next time I look he’s always managed to fix it as if by magic. He casts his spell once again here, and by six o’clock we’re all done and dusted, giving us a chance to check out the fleshpots of Harlow. Five minutes later, our curiosity satisfied, we head back to the theatre to chill out.. When we did this show last year I remember thinking that it felt like we made a jump up somehow, that the whole thing had moved onto a different level. There’s no Damascene conversion moment tonight, because every night on this tour so far has already just confirmed what I felt back then…this is ready for bigger things, and these dates are the next step in cementing our position in the UK touring calendar. The choice of material is bang on, the clever use of medleys has allowed us to bring in all or part of twenty-four new songs, the links are tighter, the new production elements add more quality to the proceedings, and overall everything’s just slicker and better. The band are always a pretty mighty proposition under any circumstances, but sprinkle on all the fairy dust that the production team bring to the party and you’ve got something special. Watching the band level a full house tonight is almost a privilege, and being an actual part of it certainly is. I’ve already said that everyone clicked straight into the groove right from the off on this tour, and tonight is another example…there’s an almost magisterial element to the band’s performance which crucially never strays into the territory of arrogance or, even worse, complacency. To use that horrific X Factor terminology, they “own” the stage every night, and when the stage is as big as this one that’s a very potent brew. When they’re fully in their pomp on things like Pinball and the closing medley section yu can see what a truly great band they’d be playing ANY kind of music; man for man they’re as good as any, and better than many, of the so-called “ stars “ on the circuit today. Gentlemen, I salute you !! After the show there’s time to meet friends and for one lucky member of the tour party, to renew an old acquaintance, and everyone is full of how great tonight has been, how much better than last year etc etc etc. This is the primal force, the lifeblood that keeps us going and makes everything worthwhile. No matter how long you’ve been doing this for, how jaded your palate and how cynical your attitude, nothing can beat the feeling you get when you know you’re part of something really, really good, and you’re there right at the start of it. Over the years I’ve been involved with the breakthrough years of bands like Culture Club, Eurythmics and Frankie Goes To Hollywood, and they were all a brilliant adrenaline rush, but it’s definitely different when the show is yours; we can actually see what all the time, money and hard work we’ve all put in is about, and looking out at the faces of the audience as they’re clamouring for more at the end of the show is totally priceless. As we leave, the house crew seems genuinely impressed by what they’ve seen, and when they ask us to come back again they really mean it, and the atmosphere on the bus is humming. Only one man sits in detached silence, grimly clutching a mug of tea. That man is Nick Liddard, and he knows that he’s on rota to be driving the van to Aldershot later, following the bus. The projected departure time is 6.00am, so he’s reckoning on a few hours kip. It’s not to be, however……

Edmonton Millfield Theatre, Mon & Tues March 7th & 8th

…….so we’re limping the damaged van back from Marlborough to London where we’re hoping to get it looked at. Me and Arthur are nervously watching the temperature gauge and Nick’s riding shotgun behind us in case something falls off or we blow up, but to our surprise we get all the way from Marlborough to High Wycombe with no real trouble. We drop Arthur off and I head for Edmonton, where we’ll be parking the bus and van outside the venue tonight. Alas, the van clearly doesn’t like me, as within about two miles of the M25 the temperature suddenly shoots up into the red. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever done that “ broken down in the early hours on a deserted road “ thing, but it’s not to be recommended. Time to make a choice….carry on round the M25 and risk seized engines and certain death from boiled – over radiators, or head down the A40 into London and try and crawl to a garage where the van can cool down and have a soothing bucket of water or two. I take the A40 path, and it’s the right one….I just make it to a garage where the van gasps and wheezes like a constipated warthog for a while before allowing me to unscrew the radiator cap without disappearing in a cloud of scalding steam. In goes a bit more water, and off we go again. Clearly the van had given it’s all on the first part of the journey, because before I’ve even got as far round the North Circular as Finchley it’s going all thermo-nuclear on me again. I spot a garage and pull in, but quickly notice the big black mentalist in the hoodie that’s stalking around the forecourt shouting and waving at imaginary dragons or something. Rather fearing that he may indulge in a spot of light murder if I get out of the van, I swiftly head out again. Luckily there’s another garage just down the road, where the van crawls panting into a far corner, and I let it cool down fully whilst staring out at the darkened windows of Finchley for what seems like and hour and a half, but was, in fact, only ninety minutes.
I slake the beast’s thirst with about forty gallons of H20, and once again set off for Edmonton, now thankfully only a few miles distant. As we’ve got a day off after Marlborough the Millfield folks had very kindly agreed to let us come in a day early and use their facilities, so the plan had been to park the bus and van outside the theatre as and then go in early tomorrow, but when I get there the road seems to have been turned into some kind of display showroom for things that stop you doing other things….there are bollards, double yellows, a “ use this and you die “ red route, towing and clamping signs and the road itself actually seems to have been narrowed, too…all that’s missing is an armed guard with a Rocket Propelled Grenade launcher. I find a side road that’s neither mined, fenced off or otherwise protected by weaponry, and park up to wait for John. It’s quiet. Very quiet, sort of “ only person in the world “ kind of quiet. It’s very, very.very cold, too. I put on my coat, hat and gloves, and looking like Nanook of The North step out into Silver Street to look for the bus and give John the good news about No Parking World. It’s now 4.30am, and within about two minutes the fatigue is kicking in and I’m cold, miserable and wondering if that shelf – stacking job at Kettering Asda’s is still open, but luckily John comes round the corner just at that moment, and even more luckily we manage to get the bus tucked in behind the van, so I crawl, whimpering, into my little bunk and am asleep within seconds. When I wake up we’re inside the theatre grounds, John’s got the bus connected to the venue’s electricity, and we’re good to go. We still have to resolve the van issue, however, so today’s task, should we choose to accept it, is to take it to it’s “home” garage in Sandy to have it looked at. We duly jump in and head north to drop it off, then get picked up and taken home to Geddington for a night, where we have home cooking and, of course, the washing machine.. Next morning we jump a train back down to Sandy where, we hear, the van is apparently behaving itself. However, before we’re even on the A1M it’s starting to heat up again, and by the time we reach Potters Bar it’s in the red and we have to stop. This is Bad News. We’ve got some bottles of water on board for just such an eventuality, so at least we manage to get back to the theatre, but we need a Plan B, and quickly. In the meantime there’s the small matter of a sold-out show to do tonight, so we have to focus on that. Millfield is a great little theatre, and we had one of the best shows of the tour here last year, so expectations are high. Once again, though, the vagaries of this bizarre business of ours come to the fore. There’s nothing wrong with the show as such, and the audience reaction is as good as ever, but for those of us who see it every night we can tell that the band’s performance is slightly flat. It’s nothing you can put your finger on, just a lack of sparkle. Den’s had a headache constantly for the past four days or so, and is far from well, but it’s not just that. In fact, after the show someone makes the comment that the show suffered from “ day off syndrome”, where everyone just drops out of the groove for a bit, but it’s something we have to look out for….this has been going SO well that we don’t want any derailment now. In the auditorium, however, it’s business as usual as far as the crowd and theatre staff are concerned…they’re loud, partisan and totally up for it, and despite our internal misgivings about the night, it’s another winner ( in fact, within a matter of days the theatre will contact our agent with an offer for us to do TWO nights there in 2012.). As the house lights come up the audience file out in to the night, all happy, warm and fuzzy, doubtless looking forward to a nightcap and a soft, comfortable bed, but we’ve still got work to do….tomorrow we have to head to Harlow, and the van needs to go back the garage again, so we sit on the bus with the model cars on the table and try to work it out. It’s all a bit “ So if you drive to HERE in this van, and we meet you HERE in the other… “ but we think we’ve got a plan, though it involves staying here another night. Once more the Millfield boys come to our rescue and agree to let the bus stay here all powered up once more, so we make the cocoa, put on our jim-jams, dressing gowns and slippers, put the cat out and turn in for night…….

Marlborough Theatre On The Hill Sun March 6th

Another venue where we’ve been re-booked from last time, and another venue where there’s been a late jump in ticket sales. When we played here before we were only the second act to play this brand-new facility, and we had to deal with some teething troubles, such as the fact that they didn’t actually have any three-phase power in the theatre so we had to hire in a big old cable and run the mains in from another part of the building. This time they DO have the three-phase power in the theatre…but they don’t have any of the adapters to step it down to single phase power, which is what we actually need. As it’s a Sunday, there’s no chance of going to one of the supply houses to get one, so Arthur has to dig out the calculator and work out if we can run the whole show off 13amp sockets if we spread the load around enough. The answer is yes, but just, and there’s a moment reminiscent of the scene from Apollo 13 where Gary Sinise is attempting to see how many support systems the crippled spaceship can run. One by one we flick switches, hold our breath….and eventually everything’s working. The whole thing could be totally derailed by an injudiciously switched – on kettle, however, so we set armed guards on the kitchen and make the band wash in cold water in case the hot showers trip the fuses. In fact, as the theatre is actually in a school, the cold showers bring back happy memories of days being thrashed by sadistic games masters, double Latin and nights in the dorm with Fotherington-Smallpiece Minor…but that’s a whole other blog. The small stage and low stage roof make this an intimate place to play, but it’s also a bugger to get a decent onstage sound as the noise rackets around everywhere and the only answer is to turn down, which really goes against the grain. Ironically the sound in the main auditorium is great, but up here it’s a different issue. There’s also the matter of the big gap between the stage and the first row of seats; but as the audience know what to expect this time round we’re hoping that this doesn’t cause us any problems. Kate and Mike from the venue are doing a sterling job, providing us with all the backup we need as well as copious amounts of tea and cakes, and despite the worry about the hair-trigger power situation we’re looking forward to tonight’s show. Last time here we had a smallish crowd but they totally went for it, and we had an unscheduled appearance of Spirit In The Sky as an encore too, so there’s definitely an air of anticipation about tonight. From the first number everything seems to go well, but as the first set progresses we the feeling we’re getting is more of warm appreciation than the looney – tunes abandon of the previous visit. There’s nothing wrong with this, of course, and there are loads more people here than before, but it’s just a bit….restrained, somehow. Things do seem to pick up in the second half, but then a really weird thing happens. What we normally do in the Sixties party sequence is get almost to the end before Steve gives them the hard word about getting up and dancing. Tonight, though, Den points out the big space on the dancefloor before Green Onions and suggests everyone uses it. Sure enough there’s a rush to the front where some serious frugging starts to take place, but a lot of the other folks stay in their seats, and when Steve does his “ get up “ bit only a few more actually do; it’s as though there are two audiences, one who want to dance their collective nadgers off and one who just want to sit and watch. It’s all fine but as I say, compared to the last visit it’s very different. The demand for an encore is totally genuine, though, and sure enough the band oblige once again with Spirit In The Sky, which has Tomps and I indulging our inner air-guitarist. It’s as kick-arse as ever ( sorry, can’t do “ kick ass “…it’s just SOOOO American ), and suddenly we’re seeing glimpses of 2010, but then the lads are bowing and coming offstage and it’s all over…..there’s been no Walk Alone, and we’re left having to scramble to jump through the slides and cue up the closing VT insert. Turns out that Den’s voice was starting to go, and as Walk Alone is at the top end of his range he felt it made sense to cut it. It’s not made a difference to the audience, though…they’ve loved it, and the feedback we’re getting is even better than last time. Everyone’s happy as we start to load out into a bitterly cold night, but our spirits are soon dampened when it becomes apparent that Nick’s van is ALSO in trouble, and won’t start. When I finally look back over this farrago that I call a career, I’ll see some fabulous highlights, some great gigs, some amazing people and some willing farm animals. I can, however, state with absolute certainty that way, way down the pantheon of memories will be the recollection of trying to bump start a Sprinter van down a hill outside a school on a freezing cold Wiltshire night. We finally get both the poorly vehicles going, and set out for London. What could possibly go wrong…..?

Worthing Assembly Hall Sat March 5th

Anyone who read last year’s tour blog may recall that I’ve got a personal reason for not liking this particular venue, and I must admit that the prospect of another visit here doesn’t really improve my usual jolly, sunny disposition. In fact, if it wasn’t for Ray, the splendid chap who is the technical manager for the hall, I’d be inclined to reach for the can of lighter fuel and matches and raze the place to the ground. That would probably take the shine off their day a bit, though, so I grit my teeth and get on with it. After two previous visits to the venue and slow advance sales this time it was looking as though we were destined never to do well here, but something odd has been going on recently. Ticket sales have taken a pretty hefty jump in just the last week, and all of a sudden we’ve doubled the audience we had last time. I’d actually been wondering if I could do a
“ rentacrowd” thing on some of the slower-selling shows, and had come up with the wizard wheeze of targeting the immigrant Polish community and billing the evening as a seminar on how to cheat the welfare system and the NHS; unfortunately they all already know, so it’d have been a total bust. There’s something else slightly odd about tonight, which is that it’s not only a big old stage, it’s split – level, too. What we’ve been trying to do up to now is keep the band close and on one level, as it makes for a more intimate and much less cluttered layout…we’ve even taken Steve off the drum riser we used last time out, and everyone’s preferring it. Here, however, the split is in such a place ( oo-err, missus…) that we have to have Steve, Chris and the second keyboard on the upper level. One thing that IS nice about it is that it gives you a little glimpse of what this could look like when we’re playing the big stages all the time, when this has become the most successful show of it’s kind in the world, when our every move is documented by a slavering media, when women of loose morals and looser clothing throw themselves at us at every turn, when heads of state, kings and queens fawn for our attention and ALL WILL HONOUR, LOVE AND FEAR US IN EQUAL MEASURE……err, so anyway, Worthing Assembly Hall….despite it being a bitterly cold night the audience is lively and warm, and despite the size of the hall this flows back to the stage and the band pick up on it. I’ve already mentioned how there was no ring-rustiness when the tour started, and everything clicked into place as though we’d been touring all the time. One of the side effects of this that I’m really enjoying is how relaxed the band are onstage, and this also communicates itself to the crowd. I’ve often felt that if a band looks like it’s enjoying itself onstage then the audience will pick up on this and a whole synergy takes place which is somehow mystical and cosmic and otherworldly and almost godlike in it’s intensity …..sorry, it’s been a long day…. There are some great new highlights appearing in the show such as the two acoustic medleys, Jamie’s reading of Whiter Shade and Phil’s Hank Marvin turn, and of course we’ve still got the big production numbers like Pinball Wizard and Hole In My Shoe / Strawberry Fields from last time, and it really does seem as though we’ve hit on a winning combination judging by the audience reactions. Tonight is no exception, and we have to pinch ourselves to remember that this is Worthing, bastion of the genteel, reserved and incontinent. There are people dancing in the side aisles long before we get to the Sixties party section, and when Steve finally exhorts the audience to get to it’s feet in Mony Mony there’s no second bidding needed, even the extremely old lady in the front row who looks like she doesn’t know where she is and has probably been getting flashbacks to the Blitz from our pyrotechnics. We’ve never had a reception like this here before, and so this one has got to go down as a major success for us. Den has family here tonight and they’re fulsome in their praise, as is the gaggle of fans who do the whole posing for photos with the band thing. In fact, despite all my initial misgivings, it’s been a really good day. We’re staying here overnight tonight too, so the plan is for everyone to pile into town after the show for beers and an infusion of lard from Ali’s All-Night Kebab & Botulism Emporium. Just as I leave the venue, however, there’s a little twitch, and I feel my hand close on the box of matches and can of lighter fuel in my pocket……

Andover The Lights Fri March 4th

Our first visit to this quiet little Hampshire town, and early impressions are good…the theatre is a little lovely room, the dressing rooms are comfortable, there’s a shower, and the crew are very friendly. What could possibly go wrong ? Well, one of the vans, for a start. It’s been running hot for a while but last night it suddenly started to bubble and boil like a demented dragon, and it just about made it to the appointed overnight stopover point. This morning Arthur calls me ( I’m driving the other van ) to tell me that the recalcitrant Mercedes has thrown another temperature-centric wobbly, and is currently steaming in a lay-by somewhere near Uxbridge. This is a Very Bad Thing. All of the PA is on this van, so unless we get this sorted out, tonight is going to be the very definition of and “ Unplugged” show. Luckily Arthur manages to slake the beast’s thirst just enough to let him make it to the gig, but this one is going to run and run, as they say….Another very weird ( and more than a little worrying ) thing happens today. As I was driving from Loughborough last night I was aware of being quite tired, but I must have been worse than I thought. I was listening to Janice Long on Radio 2 and I’m utterly convinced she said she’d had a text from someone who’d been at the Loughboroiu8gh show, and that it was brilliant, after which she played the Stones’ Satisfaction . So chuffed was I that I told Arthur and then texted Den, who was also pretty pleased. Imagine how I felt, then, when I arrived in Andover only to be told by Den that they’d listened to Janice’s show again on the Radio 2 podcast, had heard Satisfaction, but nothing about the Bootlegs before it. Clearly everyone thought I’d lost my mind, and worst of all, so did I…..I was TOTALLY convinced of what I thought I’d heard. Here’s a word of advice, kids….don’t ever get old or tired….it sucks !! Anyway, temporary insanity apart, the rest of the day goes smoothly, even our trip to the bank. The four partners of the company have to sign some documents and as we’re on the road our branch have kindly sent them on to Andover so we can go in, sort them out, then get them sent back through the internal mail. There’s a slight hiccup when one of the local staff tries to tell us we can’t see the person we need to see unless we’ve made an appointment with him, but fortunately she sees the logic when we point out that we couldn’t possibly have done so as we were unaware of his very existence until the moment she uttered his name. Foolish girl. Back at the show everything’s going well, and we hear we’re pretty much on a sellout for tonight. Considering it’s our first time here, this is a great result, and the tiredness and van troubles are consigned to one of the little attic rooms of our minds for a while because tonight, Matthew, we are going to be The Gods Of Sixties Rock ! One slightly disconcerting thing becomes clear as the audience come in, and it’s something that we do notice from time to time. The front rows seem to be made up of, shall we say, more senior members of society, so that when you look out it appears at first as though you’re about to address the Annual General Meeting of Age Concern. We’re not totally sure why this is; perhaps their memories of the Sixties are rooted in the chummy cabaret of the Barron Knights or the twinkling Celtic charm of The Bachelors rather than the sonic assault of The Who, but it’s bit odd for Den when he gets his first glimpse of them. Fortunately the rest of the room is made up of younger and much noisier souls, so that when the lights go down a proper cheer goes up and from the opening chords of Please Please Me we’ve got them. In these little theatres this is a powerful, powerful show….the band is a fearsome proposition at any time, but coupled with the lights and all the visuals the whole thing just blows you away.. It works fine in the big theatres too, but this is where it really smacks you between the eyes. There’s a special sting in the tail tonight too; the lads have decided that there’s no way they can cone to Andover without paying tribute to the town’s most famous sons, The Troggs, so there’s a new one – night – only encore of Wild Thing. Considering that they only played the song for the first time at soundcheck, it takes the roof off the place, and the members of the crew like my good self who are old rockers at heart unanimously decide it has to stay in the set every night. A rousing rendition of Walk Alone neatly wraps things up, and then it’s into the town for a beer for the band and onto the bus with a Chinese for the crew., proving that the class system is still alive and well in the music business !