Bromsgrove The Artrix Saturday April 7th

Another short hop today, so we make good use of the showers and the local facilities for breakfast before heading off from Market Drayton. I’m travelling with John upfront in the bus this morning, so I say I’ll pay for the diesel on my card as it’s going to be billed back to us anyway. I blithely jump out of the cab and watch as John hauls on his rubber gauntlets and whacks the pump nozzle in the Bogey’s tank. We’re chatting about this and that when I suddenly realise a fair amount of time has elapsed , and still the Bogey is slurping away. I risk a glance at the pump…..and nearly pass out. Over six hundred pounds’ worth of diesel has gone into the Bogey’s tanks, and she’s STILL not finished ! The pump finally clicks off.....Satan’s Trousers, it’s £ 702 !!! Passing a trembling hand over my suddenly feverish brow I walk unsteadily to the cashier to pay for it, half expecting my card to burst into flames or something at any minute. That’s four hundred and seventy-three litres of fuel, fact fans, and at the Bogey’s cruising rate of 10 mpg this isn’t going to be the last card-curdling fill-up of the tour. I get back aboard and decide I need a little lie down to recover…that was, frankly, terrifying. I fall into an uneasst slumber where I dream I’m being pursued by the Bogey who is yelling “ I’m thirsty ! I’m thirsty ! “ while a demonic David Cameron is standing at a fuel pump sayig “ Come and buy ! Come and buy ! All major credit cards, your soul and your firstborn children accepted !! “ It’s a relief when we get to the gig and I can start to think of something other than the robber barons…….The Artrix at Bromsgrove is one of the country’s new breed of theatre, and that’s a good thing, because it means decent access and facilities. We played here on the mini-tour in August two years ago and it was fine, so we’re not expecting any landmines today, So it turns out…the gear is up and line-checked by 3.10pm so there’s time for some work or play depending on your fancy, and then soundcheck is completed quickly and efficiently too. We can’t get used to this unexpected free time….we keep thinking we’ve forgotten something, but no, all is covered and ready to go. Why are the days so much easier, then ? Answers on a post card to the usual address, please ! At this point I’d like to deviate a little from the regular narrative to point out that during this free time today I tried to get onto the Bootleg Sixties Facebook page to update it and add some pictures. However, I realised I have no bloody idea what the user name or password are from when I first set it up, so I REALLY have no clue whatsoever as to how to get onto it. At some point I WILL do something about this, but right now I just want to say to everyone who has commented on the FB page, “ Thanks very much…normal service will be resumed as soon as possible !!” It’s another noisy crowd tonight….the advance sales had been a bit limp but it appears we’ve had a walk-up tonight as it looks pretty decent out there. Pug makes the observation that they look like the oldest crowd we’ve had on this tour, but there’s no indication of this as the lights go down and the show kicks off to loud cheers and whistles. They may be an old crowd, but they certainly know what to do !! There’s a couple on one of the side balconies who are on their feet from the first note, and stay standing for the whole show. Now THAT’S dedication !! We find out later that a fair proportion of the people here tonight saw us last time, which is an added bonus. We’re still down on audience numbers from last time, though, and that’s a problem. We’re once again back to the dilemma of what to do. We know that the economy’s been in the dumper for thee past two years, and that business across the theatre world is down, but where does that leave us ? Do we just drop the show and give up altogether ? Do we persevere even though we’re making nothing out of it ? If we DO persevere, how many years do we give it ? Five ? Ten ? Fifteen ? The problem is that we’re just SO close to the show, the people, the content and the concept that to give it up seems unthinkable. We’ll carry on as we are for now and see how things look for the winter tour this year ( dates for that tour will soon be appearing on the website, by the way……). The problem with establishing any new perennial touring show is that it DOES take a while to get into the public consciousness. Three years is the absolute minimum for this to happen, but five is more the norm. As long as the show’s good enough and popular enough, you really should be OK from then on. We see the main competition as things like That’ll Be The Day and Rockin’ On Heaven’s Door which now tour annually and sell out everywhere, but That’ll Be The day is in something like it’s twenty – sixth year, with Rockin’ On Heaven’s Door it’s twelfth or thirteenth. We’re very much the new kids on the block, and we’re not alone in the genre, either…Flying Music’s annual Solid Silver Sixties and the Sixties Gold tours peddle the original artists, whilst odd new shows like Mods Vs Rockers keep cropping up, the posters for the latter displaying an alarming similarity to ours, right down to a quote from Elton John. We just have to make sure ours is the brightest and the best, and we’re also trying to do that without any cash backing from an outside investor or theatrical impresario. There’s no doubt we’re having to do this the hard way…..we just have to hope our work and the many sacrifices we’ve made pays off in the end.When we see a reaction like tonight’s…..a stamping, cheering crowd, a standing ovation and a theatre management who are fulsome in their praise, it just makes us want to fight harder to get to the breakthrough point. We KNOW this is a great show, and that’s not false modesty, it’s a fact. What we need is for one of us to win the Lottery or Roman Abramovich to tire of football and decide he wants to invest his money in theatre instead . I mean, it’s BOUND to happen….!!!