Andover The Lights Friday March 30th

As we leave Telford this morning we see first hand what some government drone described as “ self – inflicted madness “. Firstly we pull into a big Tesco to grab some breakfast, and every one of their squillion pumps is empty. Not that you know that until you drive all the way round the winding little access road, of course….rather than put the cones across the start of the road, they leave them by each pump , and they’ve rather brilliantly scrawled “ NO DEEZUL OR PETRUL “ on a piece of A4 paper and taped it to a cone. You have to be within five yards of it to be able to read the bloody thing, by which time the two little hi-vis wearing numpties inside the garage have started waving their arms and gesturing that they’re closed. I briefly consider driving the van straight through the front of the building and grinding their miniscule brains into strawberry jam, but I can’t be bothered with the paperwork ( or the ensuing life sentence for murder, of course ) so I give them the finger and we drive on. We may JUST have enough fuel to get us to Andover, but the big worry is that we’d then find ourselves stuck in rural Wiltshire. We head out onto the M54 and after a few false leads, we finally luck out with a services that still has fuel for a bargain £ 1.54 a litre. Can I just say here and now that when the revolution comes, these profiteering bastards will be the first ones up against the wall…..Further on in our journey we’re crossing under a road bridge just south of the M4 and I notice stationary traffic right across it. As we go underneath the bridge I glance to my left and see the traffic line stretches for about half a mile, waaaaaaaay down a hill to a little petrol station. It’s insanity, especially as we’re being told there’ll be no strike until after Easter at least. Because of the delay looking for fuel and the fact that the van, toting a heavy load as she is, tends to drop to 30mph at the slightest incline, Arthur and I are an hour late arriving at The Lights. The other van’s already there, though, and the three boys have cracked on with their stuff, so the delay’s not crucial. We love this theatre….it’s only problem is that the stage area is quite cramped, and there’s not a great deal of storage space , but it’s a really great, intimate place, and the fact that we’ve sold out again is the cherry on the top. At dinnertime I discover the second candidate for my revolutionary firing squad…Domino’s Pizza. Four fairly sad-looking and none too large pizzas….that’ll be fifty of your Earth Pounds, please, Mr Muggins…Anyway, enough of my curmudgeonly carpings. As I didn’t talk about last night’s show much, I’ll tell you a little more about tonight’s. We’ve made another addition….a voiceover at the top of the show which replaces the old “ You are requested not to smoke…” gag, and it gets a good laugh, which eases us into the first set. Tonight’s one of those nights where the first half just seems to fly by; the band are rocking and Steve’s really digging into his kit. The acoustic section possibly goes down best, though, and Steve’s new little percussion tree that he uses on Concrete And Clay gives him and Den a bit of comedy prop value. After having printed several more setlists for everyone, it comes as no surprise to hear that the boys are going to change the last number in the first set again…grrrrr…..Before the start of the show we did another tweak of the running order, with the frankly brilliant Eleanor Rigby being moved back further into the set. At the moment it’s the second song of the second set, and to be honest it’s a bit wasted there, so it changes places with the 1966 Medley, and the job’s a good ‘un. Works perfectly, and we’re all pretty much satisfied that this will be the set for the rest of the tour…well, until tomorrow night’s show, at
least ! As Andover is the home of Sixties legends The Troggs, there can only be one choice for the encore, of course, and a blistering Wild Thing pretty much takes the roof off the place. Game, set and match, as they say. There’s a proper scrum of people wanting to meet the lads after the show, which is always a sure sign of a job well done. Having glad-handed their way back to the dressing room, the band head out for a well-earned beer, leaving us to pack up and steal away as if we’d never been here ! Before we close this wee chapter of the tour, a note about our accommodation is in order. Since we realised that the bus wouldn’t be with us for a week or so, we’ve had to sort out hotels at fairly short notice, and this isn’t always simple in the more out of the way places. Tonight’s a case in point…there are really only two hotels in the town and one of them was way beyond our budget. As such we find ourselves in the Danesbury, an old coaching inn right in the High Street. This is totally fine….except that it’s Friday night, and about three feet away from the reception desk is the function room, which is hosting some hellish disco / karaoke hybrid at eyeball-rattling volume. There was no way at all to hear what the receptionist was saying to me, so we came up with a plan. It’s the first time I’ve ever checked into a hotel in Braille….Up in my room the vibration from the sub-bass below was causing the bed to do little bunny-hops across the floor, so I gave up and headed down to the bar, where pretty much everyone else had convened, presumably in an attempt to escape the sonic assault. After a couple of drinks the racket shows no sign of abating, so we asked when it would finish. “ Don’t worry “ said the barman, cheerfully, “it only goes on until 2.00am “……I groan, fish out the earplugs, and head back upstairs……
Today’s Motoring Tip : Before setting out on a long journey, always check your tyres. There should be about four.