Aldershot Princes Hall Thursday April 19th

We had a day off yesterday, and the good folk of the Princes Theatre in Aldershot kindly agreed to let us park the bus up and use their facilities. All of the band except Phil have gone home again, and of course Junior has sadly left us to go back to his “ proper job”, so it’s only six of us on the bus. Big John immediately set out to lay waste to the female population of the town while the rest of us enjoyed more genteel pursuits, such as watching DVDs, eating incessantly, drinking beer, sleeping, farting (Nick) and tour accounts (me). The day hadn’t started especially well….Rodders and I had arrived at 4.25am to find major building developments going on around the venue, as well as a totally new and confusing car park. Being the good citizen that I am, I neatly parked the van and left a note in the window saying we were playing at Princes Hall and were waiting for them to open so we could pick up a permit. I also left a footnote with my mobile saying contact me in an emergency, never for one moment thinking someone actually would….I mean, the bloody car park was huge and totally deserted. I had, however, reckoned without the pettifogging, parsimonious small-mindedness of the local council officials. At 8.45 am my mobile wakes me from an exhausted sleep, and some pillock tells me that I’ve parked in the wrong place, and if I’m at Princes Hall I need to park on the RED bays, as the other bays belong to the council and magistrate’s courts. I trust I’m not stretching the bounds of your credulity when I tell you that I felt like I’d been Superglued to my bunk, so tired was I. However, like a good little soldier I dragged my carcass upright, threw on some clothes ( don’t know whose they were ) and staggered, blinking, into the grey, rainy morning. I walked to the car park, hoping I wasn’t blocking someone in, hence the call…only to find it was still almost totally bloody deserted, with the van sitting forlornly but unobtrusively in one corner. Faithful Blogreader, it is at this point that my inner caveman came to the fore, and I started bellowing abuse at the blank windows of the court offices, hoping to coax my tormentor into plain sight, whereupon I could extract his liver through his earhole and make him eat his own foot. No such luck…the only response was from two policemen who were just coming off duty, and, clearly wanting to avoid extra paperwork this late in their shift, let the madman rant on as they warily sidled into the police station and clocked off. Eventually the rage subsided, and just as I was contemplating ram-raiding the council offices in the van just for the hell of it, I spotted Steven, one of the house techs from the Princes Hall, turning up for work. Within minutes he’d sorted me out a vehicle pass, and my first thought was “back to bed”……but I’m up now, aren’t I ? I’m awake, and it’d be pointless trying to sleep. Instead I decided to have a shower, which, though welcome, was an experience in itself. So caked with limescale was the showerhead that the water actually came out at right angles, and I only managed to get wet by standing next to the cubicle door and letting the water catch me as it ricocheted off it. It was hot, though, and I felt a zillion times better when I came out. I actually tried to put off doing what I had to do for a while, and just wanted to chill out with the other lads, but in the end the demands of duty were not to be denied, and I set to it. I don’t know about anyone else, but there’s something about pages full of numbers and figures that is innately depressing, and to add to the downer factor we’ve still only been paid by FOUR of the theatres we’ve played, so I’m desperately trying to spread around what little cash we have had in. This, of course, is firefighting, and that means you’re always going to make SOMEONE unhappy, but there’s nothing else I can do….to use the catchphrase of last year’s tour, it is what it is. So frustrating and misery-inducing was this whole process that I got a bit overwhelmed and finally gave up. The gloom was lifted for a bit when Pug, Tomps, Nick and I sat and watched a DVD, but I got into my bunk feeling decidedly dejected. However, my default setting is normally fairly bright, so this morning, after a decent sleep, I decide it’s time to take off the Trousers Of Despair and pull on the Shorts Of Optimism. Arthur’s rejoining the tour today, and he’s flying in to Gatwick from Berlin, so I pick him up from North Camp railway station and take him to Tescos for a Full English breakfast fix…..as he’s been in the Grand Duchy of Foreigny for a couple of weeks he’s sick of morning repasts consisting solely of ham, eggs and bread rolls…and then we head to the load-in. We’re in full effect these days, even being a man down since Junior left, and we’re all set and ready to go by 2.45 pm again. There’s brief talk of a change in the setlist for tonight, but I in the end the band decide to keep things as they are, the only slight tweak being the reintroduction of The Hollies I’m Alive as a segue into Just One Look. Aldershot is always a corker; it’s the one show we do which is promoted by an outside source, in this case the inimitable Mr John Martin, toppest of top blokes, and it seems that he sells tickets to people based purely on the degree of rabid fandom they display. There are never any neutrals at the show here…..it IS something of a case of preaching to the converted , but hey…there’s nothing wrong with that. Our diehards are right there in the front row too….there’s Marilyn, enjoying her birthday today in the best possible way, and Debbie, and Dawn and Jim and Linda. It’s great to look out and see these faces, especially when you see they’re genuinely enjoying the show still. Guys, we couldn’t do this without you and people like you. Apart from some dimmer channel weirdness on the house lights and a few misfiring pyrotechnics, the production itself is as close to faultless as it gets. Den’s a bit more relaxed talking to this audience, and the band are just totally in the groove. To be honest, tonight’s a bit of a done deal right from the off….they’d have to play like total spaniels to go down badly here…so the sense of triumph isn’t quite as strong as it was at Bedford, where the audience was made up of a lot of people seeing the show for the first time, but it’s still brilliant…the sheer volume of the crowd response alone gives me goosebumps. With an audience like this there can only be one encore, and Spirit In The Sky is simply blistering…..at times it’s almost hard rock, with Phil stepping out over the monitor line and ripping solos from his Strat, and it’s totally glorious. Afterwards we say our goodbyes to our friends, and as Dawn leaves she calls out “ See you next year!” It’s only after she’s gone that I realise I can’t remember if I’ve told her that we’re planning a short winter tour this year as well, so Dawn…watch this space…we’ll be back in November 2012 ! With all the friends and fans around and after such a triumphant show we’re expecting to find the bus deserted and the band being borne around the pubs of Aldershot on litters of peacock feathers and unicorn hair by adoring acolytes, but to our surprise as we clamber aboard we find them sipping tea and eating cake in a most unrockstar-ey manner. “We’re a bit tired “ they plead, so we leave them to their Earl Grey and decide that we’ve had enough of healthy stuff…there’s only one thing for it….KEBAAAAAAAB !!! Luckily for us, Mustafa’s Salmonella To Go is still open, and looks suitably unprepossessing, so in we troop. Luckily there are no regiments of drunken squaddies in here tonight or the whole exercise could well have a different outcome. We DO get one window-licker who sings to himself in a high, keening voice the entire time he’s in the place, but we’re otherwise undisturbed as we set about out mystery meat with vigour. I’m about halfway through when my teeth crunch into something metallic. I fish it out and am slightly puzzled that it appears to be a disc of metal of some sort bearing the word “ Tiddles “. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about though…..Sated by our unsavoury repast, we stroll back through the freezing rain to The Bogey to find that the band really MUST have been tired…there’s not a soul to be seen. I have a wry chuckle at the irony of it all….so many people have a misconception of what life on the road and specifically on a tour bus is all about. They think it’s all sex and drugs and rock and roll. Well, we DO have the rock and roll, but the sex is only in our fevered imaginations and the drugs are never stronger than Weston’s cider and Ibuprofen ( mind you, some of the cider Tomps and Rodders drink is so strong it could be classified as an offensive weapon ). In fact, we get much more excited when someone finds a beer tucked away at the back of the fridge or if there’s an unopened packet of crisps in the food cupboards. We may well be a motley crew, but we CERTAINLY aren’t Motley Crue.....!