Stevenage Gordon Craig Theatre Sunday April 1st

I HAD been hoping for a bit of a better start to the day today, but it was not to be. We go to Sainsburys to grab some breakfast before hitting the road, and all is normal until I sit down. It takes about ten seconds to realise I’m going to throw up, and I just make it to the loo in time. Absolutely no idea what caused it as I haven’t really eaten anything much. Stress ? Possibly, but I feel like crap and have to drag myself outside to get some fresh air. Not the best way to kick off proceedings…..by the time we get to Stevenage the old plumbing has calmed down a bit, but I’m still pretty washed out. Luckily this is one of the easiest get-ins on the tour, and the crew here are great, so I take it a bit easier with the lifting and shifting. In a way I wish all theatres were like this…there’s loads of wing space so you can store all your empty cases near the stage, the acoustics are really nice and as it’s so high, once Rodders has worked his magic, it looks beautiful. For all the stage space, though, it’s still actually pretty intimate, and that’s a winning combination. Nice theatre….we’ll take it, thanks. Have it wrapped and I’ll pick it up tomorrow……The other thing about Stevenage is that on this tour it’s very much the closest thing we have to a “ hometown” gig, so we’re expecting a decent turnout and plenty of friends. More importantly, it also has a chocolate vending machine by the stage door, Apparently. Can’t say I’ve noticed myself. Nick’s daughter Emily has berated him for his diet on the road, and despite the fact that we’ve assured her we do make sure that our intake covers all the major food groups ( McDonalds, Burger King, KFC and Pizza Hut ) she’s supplied him with a Red Cross parcel of healthy goodies to share, like sausage rolls, cocktail sausages, chicken dippers and mini Scotch eggs. I briefly wonder what her concept of unhealthy food would be, but I’m not complaining…my poorly tum hasn’t had anything today, and it needs fuel ! It being a Sunday, our choice of local comestibles is severely limited, so these bijou snackettes are most welcome. Thanks, Em….All is going smoothly and we’re about ten minutes from curtain up. I’m standing in the wings talking to Chris when I’m aware of a popping sound and I realise the LED lights at the back of the stage have gone off. We’ve had a trip-out, and even though I find the offending fuse and flick it back on, we’ve now got no moving lights and no effects pedals for Jamie,… and that’s just what I can see from here. I’ve no idea what else we may have lost, but then Rodders tells me we lost the main mixing desk too, so I call for Arthur and the other crew . This isn’t good, and it’s waaaaay beyond my limited technical capabilities. After five minutes of quite fevered running around and cable – checking, we come to the conclusion ( wrongly, as it turned out ) that it was the extension running Jamie’s effects pedals which had fused the trip by overloading the circuit. With order duly restored, we have to go straight into the show…and just as the curtain’s about to rise Tomps notices that the screens have started to flicker. Risking life, limb and a pretty nasty electric shock he dives into the back of the vision mixer and does his thing. I have to say that as I don’t know what he ACTUALLY did…it’s some sort of AV Bloke alchemy, but whatever it was it works, and stays working for the show. We finally get the show underway, and the crowd are onside right away. Some people, like Marilyn and Debbie, have seen this show probably almost as many times as I have, but it still goes down brilliantly. The lads have tightened up some of the links between songs as well, and this makes a big difference to the slickness of the show. I’m just at the point where I’m starting to relax into it a bit and almost enjoy myself when Steve snatches off his headphones at the end of the Cher number. This is one of three songs the band do with a click track, and hearing the click itself is crucial to Steve being able to keep himself in time. For some reason tonight, though, the click disappears before the end of the track, and it’s lucky that it IS near the end, otherwise it could have been a bit of a ‘mare. I’m wondering why so many bits and pieces are going wrong, and then it hits me…it’s bloody April Fool’s Day, isn’t it ?! Suddenly all becomes clear….. The only other slight mishap we have convinces me that supernatural forces are at work here today. There are no doors open, no obvious draughts and no big extractor fans, but whenever Rodders fires a big belt of smoke onto the stage ( and I’m talking BIG, like “Mount Etna erupting” big ) it billows across the stage, stops dead at Phil’s feet, has a bit of a look around, clearly doesn’t like what it sees, turns tail and envelopes Tomps and I in an impenetrable pea-soup fog. This, you may not be surprised to hear, is far from pleasant. He’s only three feet away from me but he’s totally disappeared into the murk, and being the hypochondriac that I am, I just KNOW I’m going to get an asthma attack if the mist doesn’t clear soon. I must have been sending out telepathic pleas for mercy to Rodders, as he decides the unit’s’s a waste of time, thereby saving us both from death by smoke machine. I’m almost relieved when the encore is played ( a kicking version of All Shook Up, Fact Fans ) as tonight was one of those nights where you just had this sense of impending disaster concerning all things technical. It’s those bloody gremlins again…As it’s a day off for most people tomorrow, the band head for the bar to catch up with friends, knowing a late-ish night isn’t going to hurt for once. On the last tour the house crew here managed to match Newport Riverfront crew’s record get-out time for the show. Arthur had told them it’d be Mars Bars all round if they made it, and you’d have thought he’d offered them gold doubloons, the way they worked. They’re up for the challenge again tonight. They ask what the reward will be, and Arthur tells them it’s Easter eggs this time if they hit the target, so these poor lads work their nuts off, as do our own crew, and the record is duly matched, It’s at this point that I sidle away, however, as I may just have eaten some of the prize Easter eggs. Or all of them, in fact. Well, no-one told me they were meant to be shared ! I’m innocent , I tell you……..