White Rock Theatre Hastings Wednesday Nov 28th

Before I start today’s ramblings, I’d like to draw your attention to our whizzy new-look website, which has been put together by design guru and band pal Ian Haley. It’s all very splendid, so get yerselves on to www.thebootlegsixties.com and have a gander. Cheers Ian…..much appreciated !!! So……Hastings, then. New ground not just for this show, but for most of the touring party as well. On the way down we manage to exhaust the “ Careful, Harold, you’ll have your eye out with that “ jokes fairly quickly, which is probably just as well….I imagine the house tech lads here have heard just about every permutation. One interesting factoid for you, though…..the White Rock Theatre here in Hastings has 1066 seats. See what they did there ? It’s a cool place, too…despite the fact that it can hold a lot of people, it’s one of those wide and quite shallow buildings, so unlike Aylesbury, which seemed to reach back to the very horizon, this is actually pretty intimate, so we should be OK. Hastings itself seems to be built on several steep hills sloping down to the sea, and oddly, there seems to be one everywhere we need to be. There’s a VERY long, steep slope down to the venue itself, which causes a moment of buttock-clenching fear at the bottom when I put my foot on the brakes and nothing happens for a second apart from a deep sighing sound from under the bonnet, and then we’re labouring up the other side of this incline to get to the load-in doors. The load-in has the geometrical distinction of sloping both up and down AND side to side, with the net result that the centre of gravity of all the gear goes all Spanish, and stuff starts wanting to run away down the hill, crush us beneath it’s wheels or plummet off the side of the goods lift that takes you down to stage level. And whilst the good folks at the White Rock are both friendly and very helpful, there’s a little part of me that can’t help railing at the fact that I need to provide theatre managements with risk assessments so detailed that they even have to take into account potential injury caused by blowing our noses or blinking rapidly, yet here we are on a metal lift with a ten-foot drop on one side with not so much as a gossamer thread to stop us plunging to the floor below. The world of Elf ‘n’ Safety is a strange and twisted one, right enough……There’s yet another new experience for us tonight as well, because for the first time ever we’re actually being introduced onstage by a Real Person, and not the “ voice of God “ intro tape. We’ve been running a ticket competition with the good people of Arrow FM, and as such presenter Simon Osborne ( 10.00am until 2.00pm weekdays on 107.8, or listen online at www.arrowfm.co.uk, people. ….check his show out NOW !! ), has kindly agreed to come along and do a whoop – up intro for us ! Simon’s been a friend of the band for a long time now, and is a totally top bloke. His support for tonight’s show has certainly made a big difference to sales, which had been a bit slow until he and Arrow FM got on board, so arise, Sir Simon Of Osborne ! Your Brothers in Rock salute you ! We also need to say a huge Bootleg Sixties thanks to Shirley Knowles and all the other presenters at Arrow FM for their help too….we’ll be back, folks, and next time it’ll be even bigger !!! Simon really sets the tone for the evening, getting the audience onside right from the off, and the band smoothly slip into gear like a smooth, gear-slipping thing. Everything looks and sounds particularly good tonight, too…the colours of the lights seem brighter and stronger, and the sound is rich and sharp. Damian’s even found a mirror ball to use, although the motor rotates it so fast that protracted viewing of the wee white spots of light as they scoot across the roof and walls of the theatre induces a kind of paralysis, swiftly followed by a loosening of the bowels and, eventually, death. Steve also has a bit of a problem with some lighting tonight. Damian normally fires the moving lights at the drumkit during the solos in Wipeout and Pretty Woman, but tonight the front movers have had to be moved slightly to avoid the curtains as they swish in, and the result is that they now fire straight into his fizzog with retina-scorching intensity. Usually it all just uplights the chrome on the drumkit so everything’s spangly and sparkly, but there’s a full-on strobing effect going on here, and Steve falls into a kind of fugue state as his mind is scrambled by the lancing beams, It’s when he starts to dribble that we realise we might be in trouble, but luckily the solo ends, normal lighting is resumed, and Steve, dazed and confused but still keeping the beat, has made it through, and they’re in to Catch Us If You Can as though nothing had ever happened. Tonight is another one of those shows where the first half, in particular, seems to just fly by, but the up side of this is that they sell stem ginger ice cream here at the interval and it’s, quite frankly, good in a way that really should be made illegal. As the show was an 8pm start we do a swift interval turnaround in order to make sure that we finish and are out of the theatre some time before next Friday, and I must confess to a slight concern as the boys ease into the “ Psychedelic Section “ in the second half. This is because I’ve noticed we have a slightly higher than normal quotient of folks in tonight above a certain age, some of whom are sporting walking sticks and other perambulation aids. Surely the twin – axe – and keyboard assault of Light My Fire is going to have them reaching for the panic button ?? And how about Hole In My Shoe, with it’s bonkers tale of giant albatrosses flying through a crack in the clouds ? We may get a visit from Social Services…..but no, they’re lapping it up, and it’s in this same section that possibly the weirdest thing of the whole tour happens. Just as Jamie starts the opening chords to Eleanor Rigby, a chap who really IS old enough to know better leaps to his feet, runs to the front of stage right and proceeds to do some kind of bizarre frug, oblivious to all around him. He’s totally in a world of his own, and it makes you wonder what colour the sky is in that world.. Now, Eleanor Rigby may be many things, but a dancefloor filler isn’t one of them. One can only assume that it either has some intensely personal resonance for him which necessitates this skewed display of enthusiasm, or he’s got, as our Antipodean cousins like to say “ A couple of ‘roos loose in the top meadow “. The fact that he sits back down afterwards and doesn’t get up or dance again for the rest of the show does tend to lean towards the second option, but I don’t wish to be uncharitable, as tonight really is a very good show with a lovely crowd, so let’s just assume he got a little fatigued. Walk Alone ( again, the right choice for the crowd ) brings proceedings to a close, and then it’s into the breakdown. The prospect of the three-hour drive home isn’t really very appealing, but we’ve just got to get on with it. All is going fine until we’re JUST about out of Hastings, and then a snorting great ASDA artic pulls out from a side road, right in front of me. Immediately my Pissedoffometer swings into the red. Not only has this mental midget consigned me to a crawl for the whole run all the way to the M25, THERE WAS NOT A SINGLE CAR BEHIND ME FOR MILES !!! All he had to do was look, wait a bit, let me go, then follow, but no. As I’m driving along staring at the back of his bloody truck I’m aware of my right thumb twitching on the steering wheel, and it takes a while to realise that once again I think I’m playing Call Of Duty and am about to unleash the full might of the weaponry of my Apache attack helicopter on this dork. It’s with a sense of genuine regret that I realise I can’t after all, despatch him to a fiery demise by the side of the A21, so I grit my teeth and drop back. There’s nowhere safe to overtake, and thus for the next half an hour I’m confronted with the back of this white truck and it’s green “ Why Pay More ?” slogan. I’ll tell you why I’ll pay more, Mr ASDA, because your careless, thoughtless prannet of a driver has ensured that I will never again enter one of your supermarkets. Unless it’s to raze it to the ground, of course. From now on it’s top – class all the way for me. Hello Aldi and Lidl….

Waterside Theatre Aylesbury Monday Nov 26th

Another new one for us today, in more ways than one. We haven’t played Aylesbury before, and the Waterside is a brand new theatre. As we set out for deepest Buckinghamshire a scary thought suddenly strikes us…..Hang on, it’s called the WATERside, and half the bloody country is submerged by floods. It’s a fairly safe bet that somewhere called the Waterside is going to be beside water, wouldn’t you say, Faithful Blogreader ? That being the case, and given the fact that swathes of Milton Keynes have been turned into something from The Undersea World Of Jacques Cousteau, could it be that our show may be in danger of a little moistness ?? It’s with a degree of trepidation that we nose our way into the streets of Aylesbury, but when we finally see the Waterside we realise our fears are groundless. The place is MASSIVE, looking like a great big ocean liner marooned on some suburban road. It’s going to take a bit more than some casual flooding to shut THIS place down, I can tell you. It’s all proper as well, with a big old loading dock and everything, but when we get inside it’s breathtaking. Not only is it huge, but it’s got the most amazing architecture…every fascia on every wall and balcony looks as if it’s made of wooden blocks of differing colours, and it has the odd effect of being both ultra-modern and somehow like the inside of a tropical forest at the same time. It’s also oddly reminiscent of a giant Jenga game, and Tomps idly muses on the potential effect of removing the bottom block…..The place is vast, though, with a stage the size of some of the venues we’ve played, and it’s so high even Felix Baumgartner would think twice about going up to the lighting grid. When the gear is all out onstage we occupy about a hundredth of the room available to us, and stage left is so far away from my spot at stage right that it has it’s own postcode and weather system. Time to face facts and be pragmatic….this venue is way too big for where we are at in our stage of development right now, but they’d wanted the show, and as the place is owned by entertainment Grand Poobah the Ambassador Theatre Group, it won’t do us any harm to lay down a few markers. We’ve also had the word that some other movers and shakers from the industry may be in the crowd tonight to run the rule over the show, and whilst we’d much prefer to have people see us at a more intimate ( and well-populated ! ) venue, we’ve got nothing to fear from anyone or anywhere. The word’s come through that Steve and Phil may be late getting here as Steve’s car has had to go to the doctors for a radiatorectomy, so we push the soundcheck back. Whenever we have a big stage we can get the show set up in record time, so we end up about an hour and half ahead of ourselves, and once again the incipient fatigue, never far away, creeps up again. I’m not the oldest on the crew, but I AM fifty-five, with a skeleton full of arthritis and two knackered knees, and the day when I start sitting on a flight case with my slippers and some Werther’s Original mints, telling the younger lads what to do looms ever closer. At the minute I’m just struggling with the drives, the late nights and the being involved in the physical build and de-rig, and I don’t seem to be able to catch up on my rest…..with the tour bus we don’t have this, even if we’re driving the vans after a show, because we can pretty much go and crash out in our bunks for a while when we need to and recharge our batteries, but there’s no such option this time. I decide the best plan is to have a quick “power nap”, so I tuck myself away on the stage just in front of our control position, and within seconds I’m off. I’m only going to need fifteen minutes or so….which is all I get. I’m vaguely aware of a voice calling “ bar coming in “ through my dream, but then suddenly I’m being attached by a huge black boa constrictor which is trying to wrap me in it’s coils and squeeze the life out of me……with a start I wake up to find the black constrictor is actually the cable running off the end of a lighting bar, and it’s all over me, because the “ bar coming in “ was the one right above where I was lying, and it’s now poised six inches above my head. I mean, what are the chances ? This stage is about half a mile deep and I only take up about….what, two feet when I’m lying on my side, yet the one bloody bar that has to come down does so right on my nut. Sleepy time over, then….We’ve actually done about the same number of people here as we did last night, but in the wide open spaces of the Waterside’s seating they’re, quite frankly, a bit lost. They’re not going to be intimidated, though, and they set out from the very first number to make their presence felt as loudly and enthusiastically as they can. There’s a really interesting mix of ages in tonight, including three young girls of no more than sixteen who go mental down the front during the “ party “ section and the encore, and that’s always really good to see. There’s no doubt that the music of the Sixties is going to live on for ever, because this was Ground Zero for pretty much everything that came since, right up to the present day, but the more younger people we can start attracting to the show the better. Because the stage is so big, it’s as though the band inherently know that they have to magnify their gestures and movements to fill the void, and this gives them an almost visceral impact at times, especially on the big guitar numbers like Pinball Wizard and You Really Got Me. I’ve said before that the guys would make a fantastic, heads-down, foot-on-the-monitors, twirly-drumsticks, leather-strides-and-bullet-belts rock band, and this is never more apparent than when they’re rampaging through Spirit In The Sky at the end of the set. It’s totally uninhibited and yet still fully disciplined, and take it from me, THAT’S a hard one to nail down properly. Best band of their kind in the world, Sir Elton ? No doubt whatsoever. That’s another town and another theatre well and truly in the bag, chaps. The size of the place works to our advantage again on the way out , and soon enough we’re back in the car and heading home. We have begun to feel a little esurient, and in order to satisfy our hunger pangs, decide that we will patronise Ronald McDonald’s fine emporium of burger-related comestibles. We don’t really need the sat nav for this, as I can actually smell it from about nineteen miles away, but Pug and I decide we’ll set it up anyway. The ensuing inability of two able, supposedly intelligent human beings to carry out the simple task of attaching the bloody thing to the windscreen is the stuff of slapstick movies, however, so we eventually give up and go analogue ( also known as roadsigns, folks ). Our cravings will have to wait, though…..due to a combination of floods and ( unannounced, of course ) roadworks, we end up taking a diversion. This involves a narrow track through woods that Hollywood horror film directors would have rejected as being “ unrealistically creepy”, and the three of us in the car make a pact that if she DOES break down for any reason, we’re staying RIGHT here with the doors locked, and no-one’s going to do that mental “ I’ll go and see if I can get help “ thing that some hapless youth always does in a horror movie, and which inevitably ends in dismemberment by something hairy and with enormous teeth. Eventually we reach civilization again, to find that luckily our scare hasn’t taken the edge off our appetites…..though if Carol is reading this, I had a bottle of water and a very small portion of fruit, honest……

West Cliff Theatre Clacton,Sunday Nov 25th

The big danger today, as we’ve found before on the day after a REALLY stonking gig, is that it can sometimes be a case of “after the Lord Mayor’s show “. The adrenaline rush and euphoria of the night before have evaporated, and you’re maybe faced with the prospect of a long drive, or simply a theatre you know is hard to work in. For the band, they might be going from having hundreds of baying fans going bananas to a handful of folks who’ve never seen them before, and THAT’S hard to deal with too.Getting your spirits and enthusiasm back up under those circumstances isn’t always easy, and there’s a definite element of this today. We’re travelling around 140 miles to the show today, and to be honest we’re all getting so tired that it’s the drive back afterwards that’s bothering us more. Still, at least the sun’s shining, which makes a VERY pleasant change after the last few days, and as we’re going to be at the seaside we just know that there’ll be fish and chips on the menu tonight. There’s nothing like a good old infusion of lard to brighten up your evening ! We’ve never been to Clacton before, so we really don’t know what to expect. Sometimes these out – of – season seaside resorts can be as dead as a priest’s sex life, as we found in Hunstanton what feels like a hundred years ago, but other times they can be brilliant, like the Bridlington show when half the crowd turned up in Sixties gear and we had a total ball. Sales for tonight had been slow but they’ve picked up this week, so we’re cautiously optimistic. This is what I call the “ grunt work “ of touring…..you’re going into a new area, you don’t really know how the show’s going to do, and you’ve no idea what sort of response you’re going to get, but you have to do these gigs and put the hard yards in if you’re going to develop and grow to the point where you can pick and choose where you’d like to play in the future. As it happens the drive down is OK, and pretty uneventful apart from our shock at seeing whole vistas of water where big chunks of the Cambridgeshire and Suffolk countryside used to be. We had a bijou diversionette ourselves this morning caused by a flood, but nothing to write home about, and we actually pull up outside the gig fifteen minutes early. Nick’s already there, of course ( we’re convinced he drives everywhere the night before and sleeps in the van ) and it has to be said that first impressions of the venue aren’t too good……it’s a typical little old seaside theatre, with it’s best days probably left behind back when music hall was at it’s height. When we get inside, this quaintness is even more marked, and the curving roof makes it look a little like playing inside an upturning rowing boat. It’s also as cold as Jack Frost’s deep freeze, but the crew ( all six of them !!! ) are really helpful and welcoming, and soon it all starts to take shape again. I was expecting today to be a real slog, with everything taking ages, but we actually get set up in pretty short order which, of course, means more time for hunting out the best fish and chips !!! There’s only one “moving bar” in the theatre, so the projectors have to hang on this, and it turns out that the bar comes up and down on a hand - winch system, which is incredibly slow. As the bar is being brought in, the stagehand on the winch does the proper health and safety thing and calls out “ Heads up onstage…bar coming in “, and we all look up, but see nothing. Eventually we spot the bar inching it’s way earthwards, and being the mickey-taking old Hectors that we are, we immediately drop into “ Chariots Of Fire” slo – mo mode, and pretend to be trying to escape the gradually descending bar. I’m sure the house crew have seen and heard it all before, but they have the good grace to laugh at our antics, and it kind of sets the tone for the atmosphere of the day. They’re lovely folks here…all but one of them volunteers…and nothing’s too much trouble for them. They even make us tea and coffee !! That’s TWO shows on this tour now !!! We’re still not sure what the show itself will bring, though, and despite the fact that the theatre looks small from the outside, it’s actually a fair old size when you get in there, so a small crowd is going to be a bit lost. Here’s hoping……Nick gets the nod to be the forager for the night, and heads out into the dark to hunt for fish and chips. A lot of the band have gone for this option as well, so we’re getting in more than we normally order, and the local fishy-shop dude tells Nick that our order has just about tripled his turnover for the day, as it’s so quiet in town. This doesn’t really bode well for selling more tickets on the door tonight….I’ve got another problem as showtime approaches. As the doors open and we take our positions to prepare for the gig, the combination of a full tum and the fatigue of the past few days really starts to get a grip, and it’s all I can do to stay awake. I have probably the least stressful of the technical jobs on the show, but it does require a lot of concentration, and the computer screen and set list are starting to swim before my eyes. What I really need is be to hooked up to an intravenous Red Bull supply, but as we don’t have one I have to make do with several grammes of cocaine, a dozen amphetamine sulphate pills, two bottles of Jack Daniels, a box of Benzedrine and a fistful of Ecstasy tablets. Seems to do the job, and I perk up a wee bit. The first pleasant surprise of the night is that there are actually more bodies in than we’d anticipated, and not only that, they’re enthusiastic, responsive and knowledgeable; the first time we ask them to join in is only the third number, Hippy Hippy Shake, but they’re right in there with us, and they don’t let go all night. After a slightly slow start the band pick up on the vibe from the crowd, and you can see by their faces that this is turning out to be a really good gig. The audience are going for it on the “ party “ section to such an extent that we’re sure Den will call a rocker as the encore, but they bellow along to Daydream Believer so lustily that he makes exactly the right choice with Walk Alone. This is the justification of what I was saying at the beginning about “ grunt work “…..we’ve come along and rocked the socks off these good people, and now another door in another corner of Britain is open to us next time we go out on tour. The fact that the folks in the theatre itself have made it such a pleasant stay for us is an added bonus, and it’s all turned out to be a bit of a corker one way and another. Just the drive home to negotiate now, so everyone scatters to the four winds. Pug, Tomps and I climb into my car, and I mentally cross my fingers. I’m sure that when VW designed the Passat they didn’t envisage it having the arse hoofed out of it up and down the UK’s roads by a bunch of hairy road pigs, especially with a boot full of bags, food, gear, domestic fowls, tools, empty CD cases and several flagons of cider, but my game old bird has done just that for 230,000 miles now, However, just like her owner, she’s starting to show every one of those miles, and has recently needed regular top-ups of water as well as making the occasional noise that sounds like one of the Transformers having vigorous sex with a lathe. For some reason the nearside headlight also has a habit of switching itself off for no apparent reason, and as the other light’s not that great to start with, it makes driving in the dark quite interesting. I’m used to it, but I don’t think Pug’s that comfortable because I can see that one arm is braced against the door, the other has got my leg in a vice – like death grip, he’s smoking six cigarettes at once and he’s got both eyes closed. SUCH a girl……….

Wavendon Stables Saturday Nov 24th

Normally these blogtastic musings follow some sort of chronological path, meandering through the day from sparrow’s fart to the early hours of the next morning. Today, however, I’m going at this arse about face, for the simple reason that tonight we did possibly the best Bootleg Sixties show we’ve ever done, and my little synapses are still firing with joy at the very recollection of it. We’ve done sold out shows before, of course, but there was something about this one that set it apart. Partly it’s the venue, where the stage thrusts out into the auditorium and the audience are almost in the round, so they’re right on top of the band. Partly it’s the audience themselves, who were so up for tonight it isn’t true, partly it was because we made the place look and sound brilliant with all the screens and lights and that kind of malarkey, partly it was because the band were bang on top of their game, but MAINLY it was a combination of all of those factors, coming together to create something truly special, and if that sounds clichéd it’s simply because I can’t explain it any other way. It’s also not the longest blog I’ve ever done, because I’ve simply run out of superlatives for tonight. We’ve played at The Stables before and pretty much sold out last time too, but this one went “ clean “ incredibly quickly, and they even ended up selling standing room. It’s the first time we’ve had an oversold show, and what became really clear was that these people were here tonight because they wanted to be, not out of idle curiosity. The Belgrade Theatre may have had a bigger audience, but this is quite an intimate venue, and the noise the crowd make is astonishing. The other thing that I felt tonight, and please don’t think I’ve turned into some fey, poetic, hello clouds, hello sky kind of numpty, is that there was a real feeling of love coming back off the crowd. Yes, yes, I know, it sounds all pink and fluffy and Feng Shui, but there really WAS…..love for the band, the music, the pictures, the memories, the whole experience. Tonight was the vindication of everything that we’re aiming for with this show, the reason we put all the work and the money in. We all delivered a fantastic show, and I say that with total pride and honesty. We even had some technical gremlins, literally right at the start before the band had even started playing, and STILL it didn’t make a difference. There was extra pressure on tonight too….we had some guests in from Holland who are looking to take the show out there, and thus we needed everything to be just so. Sometimes that kind of pressure can really hobble you, but tonight we took everything in our stride, so if there’s no big fat tour forthcoming from these folks I’m going to go over there and set fire to their clogs. So many other great things happened tonight…..our very good friends Mike and Jean Ketley finally got to see the show ( and loved it !), I met long-time fan Rosemary for the first time, we had Junior on the team for the day, the lads got me some McDonalds Chicken Selects for tea ( truly splendid they are too ) and the lovely Carol, of whom more later, came back after a few days away, so all the portents were excellent. It’s not as though it’s an easy place to work, either…..the deep but very narrow stage meant that we couldn’t project all the images onto our normal backdrop, so we had to hire in and hang a couple of screens on the sides, Tomps and I couldn’t sit side by side and hold hands throughout the show as he had to operate from right up in the nosebleed-inducing lighting gantry, we couldn’t run the full pyro show for fear of immolating the front row, and there’s so little space at the side of the stage that Pug and I were literally behind the band. Add to this the fact that biblical amounts of rain were trying to turn Wavendon into an island state, and you had the potential for it all to be a total ‘mare. Not this time, though. Tonight was an absolute triumph…I’d even go so far as to say a landmark. THIS is where we want to be, and once you’ve had this kind of a night it’s hard to settle for anything less. I keep having to remind myself that we're only three years old as a touring project, and that it may take another two or even three to get us to the point where we can command audiences like this regularly. It WILL happen, though....THE WORLD MUST BE MADE TO LOVE US AND WORSHIP AT THE ALTAR OF OUR MAGNIFICENT FABULOUSNESS !!!!! Or something.

Bishops Stortford Rhodes Centre Thursday Nov 22nd

It’s a peculiar national trait of the British that we talk about the weather all the time. Johnny Foreigner claims that this is because our lives are so dull we have nothing better to discuss, or because we are so repressed in social situations that we resort to meteorological mundanity in order to avoid doing anything like talking about our feelings. To these unfortunates who didn’t win God’s Lottery and therefore weren’t born British, I say “ Pish and tosh, sir, and furthermore, up your nose with a rubber hose “. The reason we talk about the weather is because we’ve got so bloody MUCH of it. As I write there are major floods in many parts of the country, hurricane – force gales lashing the south and midlands, snow in Scotland, clear blue skies in East Anglia and for all I know, a tropical heatwave in Liverpool. We’ve got it ALL, but mostly we’ve got water, water everywhere. We’ve had tour plans scuppered by the weather before, so I’m keeping a wary and worried eye on the Met Office forecasts. Everyone’s driving from their respective homes today, and a couple of the lads have fair distances to traverse, so I’m hoping no aquatic mishaps occur to derail today’s proceedings. For Tomps, Pug and I the run down to Bishops Stortford is relatively uneventful, apart from spotting an old bearded bloke on the hard shoulder of the M11 loading what appeared to be a pair of giraffes into some kind of wooden boat thing. Noah idea who he was…….Today’s venue is the Rhodes Centre in Bishops Stortford, a town famous largely for being near to Stansted airport. I’d never heard of the venue before, but Den reliably informs me that it has a rich musical history, and that pretty much everyone except The Beatles has played there since the 60s. Even Stevie Wonder has been, and apparently there are some great photos of his concert there. I haven’t actually seen them, but then again, neither has he…Inside it looks less like a venerable concert hall and for all the world like a slightly smaller version of the Theatre On The Hill in Marlborough where we played on the last two tours. To be honest, the modernisation that's been done has left it feeling a wee bit soulless, but Geraldine and Kevin, the house crew make us welcome AND supply us with tea and coffee….. ARE YOU LISTENING, OTHER VENUES ? IT COSTS BUGGER ALL TO LAY ON YET IT MAKES A BIG, BIG DIFFERENCE TO US !!!! Only slightly weird element about today is that there’s a great big wake going on in the adjoining bar, so there are hundreds of black-clad people milling about. I’m not sure who the deceased was, but judging by the amount of bulging muscle, cauliflower ears and broken noses on show, there’s a fair chance he / she was involved with something of a pugilistic nature. It’s a BIT of a bugger of a get –in, but we’re up and running in reasonable time. As we need to have a production meeting about Saturday’s show at Wavendon, which presents us with a few technical problems, we’re keen to get soundcheck over with sharpish, and the band are all on parade in good time. They launch into the first couple of numbers, and just as things are gathering momentum, the fire alarm shrieks into life. It’s no drill, folks….we have to evacuate the building, and suddenly we’re milling about cheek by jowl with the mourners outside. Where it’s freezing. And starting to rain. Minutes tick by. The fire brigade arrives in a blaze of blues and twos, and in they rush. More minutes pass. Then another minute. Then another. Then another minute, which was actually longer than the last minute, but shorter than the minute before that. Then another minute, longer than both the previous minutes, but not as wide. We’re running out of soundcheck and production meeting time, not to mention the fact that I now can’t feel my extremities, but just as I think I’m going to have to ask the bar staff to put me in the microwave to thaw me out, the doors re-open and we’re all beckoned back in. As we go into the hall we see a couple of the lads talking to two yellow – clad firemen. Turns out that we were the problem ( oops….). To be fair, we had no idea. Damian had asked the venue when the smoke alarm isolators would be ready for use, and had been told “ now “ about an hour and a half ago, The hazer has been steadily pumping out smoke since then, and despite the fact that the main room isolators are on, the ones in the kitchen area, it transpires, aren’t. and due to the vagaries of the way the building is ventilated, a draught has sucked our haze smoke into the kitchen area where it’s set off merry Hell. Luckily the management here are good, reasonable people and they know that we’d acted under their staff’s instructions and had done our job properly, so the Fickle Finger Of Fate doesn’t end up pointing in our direction. We belt through about ten more minutes of soundcheck then we’ve got to call it a day, but let’s be honest…if the lads don’t know what they’re doing by now then they never will. It’s a late start tonight so I get the chance to have a chat with an old pal, her husband and their friend before the show goes up, and it’s great to see them again. Jim and Irene are here again too…..that’s already ( I think ) four shows so far !!! We’ll be giving them the keys to Bishops Stortford next for their dedication to the cause. I wouldn’t say Bishops Stortford is small, but the keys to the town are actually under the front door mat next to the milk bottle holder…Unlike last night, this is more of a partisan crowd, and in this intimate venue the noise they make is truly impressive. No “polite response “ stuff tonight…..they’re right behind the band straight out of the traps. The first half seems to pass by in a flash, and there have been plenty of highlights. Yet AGAIN though, it’s Light My Fire in the second half that elicits the first wave of mayhem, and this crowd are SO obviously up for it that at the end of the set Den once again jettisons the singalong of “ Walk Alone “ in favour of the carpet-bombing of Spirit In The Sky, to the lasting joy of the crew ( all secret metalheads, every one of us !! ). With a final crash it’s all over, the band are taking their bows, the crowd are STILL going mental, and I’m wondering where I put my waterproof clothes. This has been a great show on every level, and the crowd have lapped it up. I briefly spot my friends on the way out and they’re fulsome in their praise , as are the house management, who proclaim this the best show they’ve had in for years. It’s frustrating, but it’s all part of building the show. Three to five years is the minimum time it usually takes any new project to get established. We’re nearly there…But back to the weather. The water is back ( it never really went away ) and now we’re faced with the prospect of loading out in a total deluge. It’s so bad it’s as if there’s a sadistic git standing on the venue roof and directing a cold, high powered hose at us, but no, it’s just the rain. Despite, or perhaps because of this, the gear gets loaded quicker than normal and we all climb, dripping, into our respective vehicles. I’ll draw a veil over the Nasty Next Hour, complete with overheating cars, terrible visibility on the M25, high winds and rain, ALWAYS rain. Suffice to say that by the time we get into the car we’re soaked right through to our hoggers, and all the heater seems to be doing is to fill the car with the smell of wet dog as our clothes steam in the warmth. I feel stiff and achy and I’m shivering as though I’ve been in the deep freeze for a bit, so there’s only one cure as soon as I get home…..hooooooooot baaaaaaaaath. A mug of Ovaltine may also have been involved, and my Satisfactionometer is so far off the scale by the time I get into bed that I scarcely think about the fact that I got so excited about the prospect of a bath a malty drink before bedtime. All that was missing was the Saga magazine for me to riffle through as I steeped in the tub. Old fogey ? Me ? How dare you, Sirrah ?! I'll have you know I'm both cool AND trendy ! I even wear not one but TWO earrings....! Oh yes, I'm young at heart, me. Now, if only this bloody arthritis would stop hurting....

Basildon Towngate Theatre Wednesday Nov 21st

The day dawns, cold, grey, wet and miserable as the troops gather to reconvene, and this really is one of those times when the prospect of hauling gear in and out of trucks and venues in the pouring rain seems marginally less appealing than root canal surgery without anaesthetic. The only plus factors today are that a) we’re not travelling all that far and b) Basildon Towngate is a really nice venue. That all still seems like ( literally ) cold comfort as we splash and splosh our way through the teeming downpour, and when we finally pull up outside the theatre after a couple of hours there’s a marked reluctance to actually leave the warmth of the cab and “ assume the position “. This, Faithful Blogreader, is where harsh reality and the perceived glamour of the music business collide head – on, and guess who comes out best ?! Yep. However, we’re nothing if not dedicated professionals ( snort ) so we just grit our teeth, gird our loins, bite the bullet and several other expressions denoting the fact that we’d really rather be tucked up warm in bed, and get on with it. Fortunately, the load – in here is fast and easy, and once we’re inside and the doors are shut, we enter the bizarre twilight world of the road crew. I’ve not really talked about this before, but it’s a strange aspect of our everyday lives. Just as the casinos of Las Vegas have no outside windows and no clocks in the games rooms, thus ensuring that the gamblers lose track of exactly how much time they’ve spent trying to plunge themselves into debt and penury, so it is with us when we go into a theatre to build a show. The only time that has any meaning is the magic hour of five o’clock, when the band will mooch onstage for soundcheck. Otherwise the day is spent in the half – dark, cut off from normal life and with your entire focus on placing that piece of kit, plugging in that cable, focusing that light. Unless you’re the one who has drawn the short straw to do the food run, or you’ve popped out of the stage door for a quick smoke, you don’t see the outside world again until the van is pulling out at the end of the night. No matter where you’re playing, your world shrinks to the stage, the wings, the mixing position and the dressing rooms. It has the effect of homogenising each day, and on a long tour this can become a bit difficult to deal with. You can always tell “ career road crew “ as they’ve got this slightly faraway look in their eyes, caused by too long spent in darkened theatres and tour buses. Or it might be down to huge amounts of drugs, of course. No such worries with our clean team, mind you…..the most rock’n’roll it gets with us is an extra helping of hot sauce on our kebabs. But enough of this blather….back to today’s business. There’s been quite a bit of palaver about this show. We were originally scheduled to play here on the tour in spring, but after the show had been on sale for a while the theatre realised they’d actually double-booked the date, and as the show it clashed with had been confirmed before ours, it took precedence, and we had to move back to now. What we DIDN’T know was that while our agent was putting this tour together, he was doing the usual thing of asking each venue for a few options of available dates so he could try and get the routing to make some sort of geographical sense ( doesn’t always work, of course….our tour routing frequently takes on a pattern so random that it looks like the venues were chosen by a gibbon throwing darts blindfolded at a map of the UK ). One of the two dates they had free was November 8th, so, again, as is usual practise, this was put on hold, until our agent finally plumped for today’s date as it fitted in better with the rest of the dates he’s negotiated. It was really only as this current tour was starting that we realised the theatre had, far from just putting November 8th on hold, actually advertised our show and put it on sale for that night ! The only way we found out was that we started getting miffed messages from fans who’d bought tickets for the 8th and rocked up to the Towngate, expecting a night of Sixties mayhem, only to find that they had tickets for “ The best ventriloquist in most of Basildon, Marvello and his puppet Snouty The Dolphin “ .( actually I may have made that up…..whatever, it definitely wasn’t us on that night ). All of this does give us a slightly queasy feeling about tonight….this will be the THIRD advertised date for our show. Will people still come, or will they be so cheesed off at all the chopping and changing malarkey that they stay home and decide to sort out their sock drawers instead ? In the end, the turnout is actually healthy, but I can’t help feeling we’ll still have lost SOME people along the way….and not only was this not our fault, we weren’t even aware of the problem !!!! We’re reasonable chaps, but someone really does need to be shot at dawn for this, or at least be beaten to within an inch of their lives. I’ll have a word with the local council….The show itself is a gig of two halves, Gary. Although we’ve been here before and gone down brilliantly, the reaction to the first half is definitely appreciative, but somewhat muted. The band aren’t doing anything differently… if anything they’re playing better tonight that they did at the last gig….but there’s no real vibe coming back from the auditorium, and everyone remarks on it at the interval. The venue management must have put something in the half-time drinks, though, because after that it changes totally. I know I’ve mentioned this before but it often seems to be Light My Fire that’s the tipping point. You’d think that the smacked-out maunderings of a hippy drug monkey coupled with the sheer length of the song and the keyboard and guitar histrionics that it features would have the audience reaching for the smelling salts, but every night, almost without fail, they’re a – whoopin’ and a – hollerin’. So it is tonight, and from here on in it’s in the bag. It’s actually quite a remarkable thing to be onstage and to see and feel the palpable change in an audience reaction….at the risk of sounding clichéd , it really IS the magic of rock’n’roll music. It’s been another great success tonight, and the euphoria lasts right up until the EXACT moment that the loading bay doors are opened, revealing a black, stormy, wet Essex night. I feel a sharp pain in my buttocks and whirl around. Yes, it’s reality biting me on the arse again…….

Winter Tour 2012, First Week

Hereford Courtyard Sunday November 11th ……and suddenly the tour’s not just upon us, it’s clambering all over our eiderdowns and sticking a foot in our goolies. Hard to believe that it’s been nearly seven months since our happy band last climbed aboard the Flying Bogey to criss – cross the highways and byways of this Sceptr’d Isle.. Sooooo much has happened in that time, yet as the gear comes out of the vans and into the Courtyard Theatre in Hereford, it feels like the last gig was just a couple of days ago. Most obvious change this time around is the absence of the aforementioned Flying Bogey. Turns out there was a problem with her knurled grunion rod or overhead underhang or some such mechanical jiggery – pokery, but the net result is that there’s no Big John and no nice warm bunk waiting for us at the end of the loadout. As such we’re going to be at the mercy of the evil Dr Travelodge and his vile minions, and we’ll all be driving ourselves too. I can hardly wait. There’s a new face on the team as well….Rodders has had the proverbial offer he couldn’t refuse and so is gallivanting around the country with Joan Armourplating. As such we’re welcoming back Damian Goddard, who did lights on the mini – tour with us a couple of lifetimes back. We’re also going to be without Nick for the first nine or so gigs; he’s got some commitments at home that he can’t get out of, and as such Chris “Junior “ Stocker will be stepping in to cover backline for that period. Otherwise it’s the usual suspects…..Chris Skornia’s back on keyboards for the tour as new bug Alex Richards has the sheer effrontery to actually have a Proper Job which prevents him coming out on these longer jaunts, and then there’ll be Arthur, Tomps, Pug and, of course, your humble scribe. I must also apologise for the tardiness in getting this blog malarkey rolling; normally I write on the bus after the show or in the morning following it, but as we’re self – driving, I just simply haven’t had the time, and so I’m doing a kind of précis of the first six shows. Hopefully normal service will be resumed shortly…..I also wanted to clarify why we’re back out on tour. It’s because we owe a cartel of Colombian drug barons an enormous amount of money for all the cocaine we’ve bought, and they’ve threatened us with a fate worse than death if we don’t cough up ( although I must say I can’t actually imagine a fate worse than death….). Seriously though, it’s partly because we’ve been running into issues with Easter in the spring tours, when some theatres simply won’t book shows over that weekend. As long as we stay clear of panto season, an autumn / winter period should hopefully be better, but as we couldn’t leave it eighteen months from last spring’s tour until NEXT winter, we’ve stuck in this mini-jaunt to bring us in line again so than we can tour annually. Capice ? Excellent !!Hereford turns out to be an interesting night in all sorts of ways. Firstly, and most gratifyingly, it’s sold well, so there’s no shaking off the tour rustiness in front of two men and a dog in some rural barn…..any mistakes will be writ large ‘pon the stage. No pressure, then….Damian’s probably got the hardest task initially; we’d got to the point with Rodders where some kind of rock’n’roll ESP was at work, but Damian’s coming in virtually from scratch, which means setting up all the cues and scene changes again. He’s not helped in this by the absence of the moving lights we used last time out; we’re actually getting some for the Coventry show but for the first gig it’s the house lights only, and he also has to listen to me bleating on with all the various cues and directions. Lovely. In the foyer before the show we’re amazed to see Jim and Irene, who have trekked over hill and dale to the Courtyard Theatre to help us raise the curtain on this tour, and it really DOES make a difference to see friendly faces in the audience, especially so far from home. Well played, you two !! This is essentially the same show we toured in the Spring, with, ( I think ) just one change to the set, so that helps as well. Mind you, the fact that the new set lists we’re all working off have the wrong running order on doesn’t really make life easier….! As ever, though, experience prevails, and we kick things off in fine style…in fact, it’s as though we’d never been away. Nothing falls over, no-one forgets their words or fluffs a chord, and all in all it’s a strong start to the tour. The load – out’s a bit slow as there’s no Nick to call out the “pack” for his vehicle, so it all ends up being a bit of a bugger’s muddle, but this pales into insignificance when it becomes clear that Den’s lost his car keys. This is Bad News, as we’re not exactly just a few miles from home here, and the car’s needed to ferry Den and Phil around. After much intense searching, the only thing that can be surmised is that they were somehow lost when the band headed to a local watering – hole for some nosebag earlier today. We mooch off to the Travelodge with it’s overall lack of bedding, warmth and general cheer, and our heads are full of contingency travel plans all the way there. It’s been a good first day in general, but this doesn’t bode well….. Coventry Belgrade Monday November 12th The day dawns misty, wet and miserable, but this all changes when Den’s keys turn up in the pub from yesterday. Cue huge sighs of relief all round, and a suggestion from one of two of the party members that we actually superglue them to Den’s hand to avoid further such incidents. Pug and I are picking up some moving lights from our old mucker Ian Robson at TechPS in Milton Keynes today, but as we set out it soon becomes clear that someone has moved MK further east in the night, as our two – hour journey through the bucketing rain inexorably stretches into three, and suddenly we’re struggling to make the 1.00pm load – in time at Coventry. We manage to roll up only twenty minutes late, only to find the loading bay blocked by a posh red car. This, it transpires, belongs to the Creative Director of the theatre, who is clearly not so bloody creative that he can actually read a schedule and see when there’s a show due to be coming in to his theatre. As the minutes tick by and tempers start to fray, thoughts of tow – ropes and using vans as bulldozers begin to flit across our minds, but just before any vehicular unpleasantness can be perpetrated the offending luvvie returns and clears the way. Now, we LOVE the Belgrade, and they seem to love us right back. This is our fourth time here, and it’s a beautiful place with excellent facilities. In the ideal world we’d like to be coming here further into the tour when we’ve got all the lights and stuff firing on all cylinders, but it is what it is, as they say, so here we are. Damian has a massive struggle with the moving lights, which steadfastly refuse to have any truck with either him OR his lighting desk, and much cursing ensues, punctuated by a loud thrashing noise and what would appear to be bits of lights tinkling to the floor. The slightly later show start time they have here gives him the chance to invoke the Lighting Gods, and thus by burning incense and chanting, at curtain up we’ve got a full, if occasionally recalcitrant, lighting rig. No such worries for the band tonight….buoyed by the fact that there are six hundred people in front of them going banzai, they set the controls to “ Stun “ and duly deliver. On this form they truly are unstoppable, and even if it’s not their slickest performance they still beat the shreddies off anyone else on the planet playing this kind of music…and yes, I DO include the original artists who are still plying their trade. As Sir Elton says, they ARE the best. End of. Only slight disappointment from a crew angle tonight is the choice of “ Walk Alone “ as the encore….though we can appreciate it’s merits as an arms – aloft singalong, the band have better fare in their locker, and we’d like to see them raze the place to the ground with some raw power. No such gripes from the crowd though, which includes Jim and Irene yet again ( you folks are stars ! ) as well as the Baroness Of Brazen Bopping, our pal Marilyn Reynolds. Marilyn also solved our “ Forgotten Programmes “ dilemma by picking them up and bring them here ( nice one, Maz !!! ) and we’ve also seen the lovely Dawn Gerrard, so it’s been almost a full house of the Uber-Fans. As we’re relatively close to our respective bases ( except for Damian, who resides in the Grand Duchy Of Ipswich ) we’re all heading back home tonight, and that does take the edge off the cold and relentless rain which manages to permeate everything on the load-out. There’s still a bit of farting around with the gear in the other van, but by employing our Zen-like powers of concentration ( and a fair amount of brute force and ignorance ) we get out in reasonable time. Under normal circumstances we’d all be out of here in an hour, but it’s still not too shabby, and I’m looking forward to being home and ( literally ) dry in about 50 minutes, when a Good Samaritan act backfires and derails my plans. I’ve stopped in a garage to get some fuel ( they’re terribly good for that, you know ) and just as I’m paying I’m approached by a harassed and oil – covered chap. He’s got a flat tyre and it turns out that the wheelbrace supplied with his Frog – built car is as much use as tits on a bull, so he’s asking everyone who comes into the garage if he can borrow theirs. Partly because it’s pissing with rain and partly because lots of people are just selfish bastards, he clearly isn’t getting far, and he asks me more in hope than expectation, especially as I’m driving a chuffing great van and he’s in this Gallic crap-heap. Sometimes there IS a god, though, and amazingly, the wheelbrace fits….but that’s as far as it goes. This chap isn’t small by any standards, but after several rain – soaked minutes of hernia – inducing effort, none of the wheelnuts will budge. I then remember that there are extension handles in the van for the wheelbrace, so I duly bring them over, fitted them on, and suggesT to this poor chap that I give it a try. Now, as those of you who have seen me will know, I’m not exactly suffering from anorexia. I’m a big lad. “ Well covered. “ A stranger to salad. Changing a wheel should be a mere bagatelle. However, when my full 18 and a bit stones are precariously balanced on this wheelbrace handle and the bloody wheelnuts STILL won’t move, I begin to realise with sinking heart that I am encountering the Good Deed Dilemma. Do I say I’ve done my best and leave the poor chap stranded, or do I stay involved and risk being here until the start of the next Ice Age ? Christian charity or a warm bath and bed ?? Luckily the decision is made by a scream of tortured metal, as a wheelnut finally gives way beneath my porcine assault. Slowly the wheelbrace lowers me to the floor, and just as I’m thinking “ I can’t do THAT again…” the next one comes out in sympathy, and so my new – found friend takes over, and with his effusive thanks ringing in my ears I drip my way to the van. Note to self…..if anyone ever approaches me in a garage late at night again, pretend to be Polish. Or deaf. Camberley Theatre Tuesday November 13th By one of those bizarre coincidences, the chap from the garage last night was from Camberley, so I’m keeping a wary eye out as I drive up the hill into the town…..! Camberley Theatre is a dinky little place that we’ve never played before, but it’s very much our kind of gig, apart from the load – in, which involves a kind of tightrope – walk along a metal ramp with a good six – foot drop on either side. It always makes me chortle when I’m asked to supply Risk Assessments for our show, which is as safe as houses, and yet here’s the “official” way into the theatre and it’s riskier than anything WE’RE doing. Mental. The house crew are good lads, though, and they help us bang everything up in good time. Damian’s still having a ‘mare with the moving lights….amazingly, they still operate on floppy disks, and each light has a “ Personality Disk” which enables the lighting desk to tell it what to do. These, however, seem to have “ Multiple Personality Disorder “ disks instead, as they’re still stubbornly refusing to do what Damian’s instructing them. By the time he’s got these sorted he’s up against it time-wise, and the rest of the lights are behind schedule, so we have to do something we NEVER do, which is hold the doors back. This does put everyone on edge a bit, but the crowd are responsive and the place is nice and intimate, so things slot back into the groove pretty quickly. We’ve got a bunch of VIP guests in tonight as well, and we’re hoping to take the show into other areas with their help, so everyone’s on their game, and the first half literally flies by…Tomps even asks me if we cut it down as it seems to have gone so fast. We need to try and catch up on the time a bit, so our interval ice – cream hunt is curtailed to facilitate getting everyone back onstage as quickly as possible. I’d heard wild tales of honey – flavoured ice cream being available, but in the end I settle for plain vanilla in the name of expediency, and must confess to a degree of disgruntlement about this for the entire second half, such is my shallow and materialistic nature. Despite the lighting issues, the show’s a belter, and if we haven’t swayed the VIPs by the end of this then there’s no justice in the world. We even manage to get all the gear out and loaded into the vans without plummeting to our deaths from the ramp, which is nice. The band are all back off home tonight but as we’re heading to Welsh Wales and the delights of Carmarthen tomorrow, the crew are travelling a mere twenty – odd miles after the show tonight and staying at renowned local beauty spot, Reading Services on the M4. Simples, yes ? Wrong. First thing we find is the road to the M4 being closed about five miles out of Camberley, so we dutifully follow the diversion signs….which take us right back into Camberley and past the place we’ve just left. HOW BLOODY HARD WOULD IT BE TO HAVE A SIGN IN CAMBERLEY CENTRE SAYING THAT THIS MAJOR ROAD WAS CLOSED ??!!! YOU TOTAL, HI-VIS VEST -WEARING BASTARDS !!!!To compound the jollity of the evening, the sat nav address of the services is, rather helpfully, for the EASTbound carriageway, but you only realise this as you’re sailing past the exit to the westbound services, where, of course, you want to be. It thus takes over an hour to travel the twenty – one miles to this godforsaken place….but at least we’re here, right ? Wrong. Again. As I pull in, I see the crew coming OUT of the hotel ( and I use the word loosely ) with all their baggage. It appears that the evil Dr Travelodge has decided that the way to REALLY improve quality and customer service is to start implementing an overbooking policy. In essence this means that they have 100 rooms, but will actually sell 103, in the hope that someone simply won’t turn up. I mean, I know that they’ll have paid their money in advance and made all of their travel arrangements, but someone’s BOUND to say “ Ah, sod it….I’ll just not bother going after all. Perhaps the good Dr Travelodge will forward my room prepayment to a worthy cause rather than lining his avaricious pockets with it….” Sadly it appears that tonight everyone had decided that they actually wanted to use the hotel room they’d paid for, with the result that only ONE of our pre-paid rooms is available. Their solution ? Drive further along the M4 to Chieveley Services and take rooms there, and as extra compensation for this frankly illegal misappropriation of our money they’ll provide us with a FREE BREAKFAST ! O be still, my beating heart….Luckily, Tomps, Damian, Pug and Junior are reasonable human beings, and rather than berate the tearful receptionist who has been lumbered with this problem by the greedy, faceless gits who pay her minimum wage, they gamely get back in the car and head west. Arthur and I make our way to a room which Dr Travelodge would probably describe as “ tired “. I call it “ totally bloody exhausted “ or perhaps even “ criminal “, but by now we could sleep on a clothesline, and so, ignoring the threadbare sheets, the lumpy mattresses, the stained wall and the chomp of tiny beasts, we fall into an exhausted sleep, pausing only to make a mental note to burn the place down in the morning…… Carmarthen Lyric Theatre Wednesday November 14th Good sense prevails this morning, and the matches remain firmly in my pocket, but be warned, Dr Travelodge…you are now firmly in my sights, mate….The run into Wales really isn’t at all bad, apart from the Dick Turpin-esque highway robbery that is the toll on the Severn Crossing, and we all roll into the pretty little town of Carmarthen half an hour ahead of get-in time. The Lyric’s a splendid old gaff, although the load – in really does belong to a time when touring companies brought their scenery and costumes along in a horse and cart. There’s room for the two vans…just….one behind the other, and with minimal paint – loss and wing mirror damage we manage to get parked up and unloaded. The final stage of the journey is via a goods lift so antiquated it’s got Roman graffiti on it and squeals like an MP having his expenses sheets examined, but it does the job. This is one of those lovely stages where we can spread out and that really speeds things up. Aided by the sterling efforts of Mick, Johnny and Ffen from the house crew, we’re way ahead of the game today, and it really DOES feel like we’re back in the groove. The band are driving all the way here from home, so we’re hoping they don’t run into any traffic as it’s at least a four and a half hour poke for some of them. Luckily no-one has any serious problems, and as the boys have been on the road such a long time they’re happy to do a pretty brief soundcheck, giving them a bit of chillout time. This suits the crew as well, because it means we can fully devote our efforts to the rather toothsome kebabs that we’ve managed to pick up from just around the corner. We’re normally such healthy chaps, too…..The crowd’s not huge tonight but they’re definitely in good voice, and there’s a really nice vibe to the whole show (man). Den makes the most of the Welsh proclivity for singing, and is rewarded with a robust chorus from the audience on Daydream Believer and Walk Alone, proving that when that song works it REALLY works. For some reason we always seem to do well in south and west Wales…it’s just in the north that we struggle. Definitely got to put THAT right…..Tomorrow’s yet another long run, right up to Chesterfield, so the band are staying here tonight, whilst we’re pushing on to Strensham Services on the M5, two hours or so up the road. For the first time I REALLY miss the tour bus; we’re pretty knackered from yesterday and a long drive up here today, and it’d be great to just climb aboard after a shower tonight, grab a beer, have a quick post mortem on the show then hit the hay and wake up outside tomorrow’s gig. The other thing we’re missing is the sense of camaraderie that we enjoy on the bus; four of the crew lads are travelling together in the car but Arthur and I have got a van each and, of course, the band are split between two cars, so a lot of the time we’re only seeing the band to talk to when they arrive for soundcheck and at the end of the night as they leave. We’re a strong unit so this isn’t actually causing any problems, but it just isn’t the same….the bonding experience of us all being on the bus together isn’t something to lose lightly, and it’s carried us through some tough times in the past. Can’t be helped, though…..we’ve just got to get on with it. To be honest, we’re have been stuffed here if we HAD been in the bus….we might have just managed to get it into the loading bay, but then there’d have been no room for the vans, so we’d have had to do the gig acappella !! The band pootle off to their hotel ( sorry lads, another Travelodge….) and the rest of us climb into our vehicles. Damian’s worried about fuel as the car’s telling him it needs a drink toute suite, and with blind optimism I tell him it’ll be fine…we’re bound to pass a garage soon. We do. Two, actually, both darker than a tabloid editor’s heart, and then we’re waaaaaaaay out on the dual carriageway in the wet and windy wilds of west Wales ( I DO love alliteration, don’t you ?) and heading into the great unknown. There’s not a light to be seen for miles, and above the sound of the van’s engine I can almost hear Damian’s sphincter squeaking as the miles go by and the fuel tank gets emptier. I’m just starting to think about telling him to stop so I can head on and see if I can find some fuel when all of a sudden I spot lights ahead. It’s a services….Saved !! AND they have strawberry milk !!!! Suitably refuelled, we push on for the M5, now a mere hour and a half away. Piece of cake…..What we haven’t taken into account, of course, is that a bloody great bank of fog has parked it’s pea-soupy arse over most of south Wales while we weren’t looking. At times the visibility is down to just a few metres, and it’s just NOT what we need at the end of a long day. It’s so bad that one of the vehicles can’t even see Strensham Services on the M5, misses it totally and has to double back, but one by one we eventually struggle in, eyes out on stalks from peering through the murk. At least we’re in a Day’s Inn tonight, which seems like the Ritz after the vapidity of the Travelodges. The idea of grabbing a beer crosses my mind for about three nanoseconds, and then I’m gone, man, solid gone……. Chesterfield Winding Wheel Theatre Thursday November 15th I feel a new man this morning. He wasn’t very happy about it, though, so he got up and left……..After a most splendid night’s sleep I’m ravenous, and send for a couple of cows to be brought to my room, but room service say they’re fresh out of them, so we all head into the main services. Let me tell you, Faithful Blogreader, should you find yourself in the proximity of a food outlet called SoHo at any motorway services, I most strongly recommend getting your laughing gear around a culinary wonder called the Full SoHo. Luscious bacon, two fat, herby sausages, beans, freshly cooked eggs, two doorstops of toast dripping with butter and best of all, a wee pot of their home-made spicy tomato salsa, all for a most reasonable £ 6.99. Add a flagon of tea and you’ve got a breakfast fit for a king, or at least for a hairy-arsed road crew. Thus fuelled, the trip up the M5, M42 and M1 seems to scoot by, and in no time I’m marvelling at Chesterfield’s famous twisted church spire whilst trying not to run into the car in front of me. I’m actually driving past the Winding Wheel before I spot it; it’s timbered gables make it look more like Ye Olde Pubbe than a theatre, but luckily Tomps fires me through some directions just before I’m about to turn around and make another fruitless pass. I eventually find my way into the backstage area. This boasts a ramp of impressive length and steepness, and my calves and lower back start to whine just from looking at it, but luckily there IS another way in that doesn’t involve death, hernias or runaway flight cases. The Winding Wheel is a really cool little place…bit short on wing space ( i.e. there isn’t any ) and just a bit tight, but it’s got loads of character and despite being able to hold over 1000 people still manages to seem intimate. The house crew are really helpful lads, and the fact that one of them is nicknamed Frodo delights my inner Tolkien. We have to be a bit creative with screens, projectors and the like, but this is one of those days where you actually enjoy doing that, enjoy having to put your creative skills to work. The lights are looking especially good today, with nice, rich colours, and the sound is great. Should be a good one, but once again I’m a bit worried about the band as they’re doing the whole run from Carmarthen in one hit. No sooner have I expressed these thoughts than I get a text from Chris Skornia telling me that they’ve been held up and won’t be with us until about 5.30pm. This is half an hour into soundcheck time but it still isn’t too much of a problem….we’re used to dealing with this kind of situation. Let’s just hope they’re not any later than that…..This show had actually been selling really slowly, and we’d been a bit concerned about it, but a late burst has suddenly pulled it right up, and we’re looking forward to it, not least because we’re staying in town tonight and don’t have to drive anywhere !!! Chris, Steve and Jamie actually pull up at 5.00pm, just before Den and Phil, so we’ve got a full complement, and they’re bang on time. What we ARE missing, it soon transpires, is half of the stage clothes. At first we think they’ve just been mislaid somewhere in the Winding Wheel, but a rummage round confirms our worst fears….they’re not here. It’s gone six now, so there’s no way of checking if they’re still in Carmarthen, but a bit of reverse Sherlock – work gives us a good idea where they might be….and it’s many, many miles from here.. Nothing for it tonight….the lads who HAVE got their stage clothes are just going to have to divvy up with the others and see what can be done. To everyone’s surprise, it actually works pretty well, and no-one looks like they’ve just ram-raided a charity shop. In fact, EVERYTHING works well tonight….the sound and lights are great and the band are on stonking form. When it all comes together like this, I sit and watch things almost as a fan, and I think this show is truly irresistible. There’s nothing of it’s kind on the circuit that can live with it, and even when it’s stacked up against things featuring original artists like Solid Silver 60s and Sixties Gold it STILL wins out, because those shows have fairly low production values. We just need the rest of the world to see it now….! We’re out in good time tonight, largely aided by the slope down into the vans which makes the loading quicker, if a great deal more hazardous, and then to our joy we find the hotel is only a few hundred yards away….AND the bar is still open RESULT !! We even get given a pizza ( admittedly cold ) by one of the noisy drunkards we’re sharing the bar with. Den, Steve and Phil join us and for a while it’s like old times, but it’s been a LOOOOONG day for these lads, and, pausing only to borrow my laptop in order to book some Status Quo tickets, they head off to bed, swiftly followed by a rapidly flagging road crew. Still, short-ish drive tomorrow….this is getting almost civilized !!!! Ilkley Kings Hall Friday November 16th An early call to the Lyric in Carmarthen establishes that the missing stage clothes are, in fact, still there. They kindly offer to courier them up to us today, but as this is going to cost nearly £ 300 and we’ve only got one more show to do before a break, we decide that we’ll make do again tonight, and opt for the twenty – odd quid courier to my house on Monday option instead. After a brief stop in Chesterfield’s leading music store to pick up some bits and bobs, we’re out on the road and heading north to the lovely little town of Ilkley. Back in the days when dinosaurs strode the earth I used to come here, as well as nearby Otley, to visit some local university mates, now sadly scattered and, in the case of one of them, sadly deceased. It’s a pretty little place with bags of character, though it’s very odd coming back here again after such a long time. Best just to get the old head down and crack on with the day’s work. The Kings Hall is an ornate and interesting venue, boasting a “rake” on the stage which is almost as steep as the one at Buxton Opera House. “ Rake “ is one of those old theatrical words still in use, and it loosely translates as “ an unfeasibly vertiginous angle to the stage, designed to turn flight cases into deadly runaway weapons “. We’ll be nailing the lads to the floor to stop them toppling down the slope, I think…..The stage is also about four feet high and so we have to hoik everything up onto it from floor level, thus some VERY creative positioning of gear starts taking place….all the heavy stuff seems to be staying on the floor with miles of cable connecting it to the worky bits high above onstage. I think if there was any way to keep the instruments down here on the floor and have the band perform up there it’d be done, but that DOES seem to be just one step beyond the many and varied talents of the crew. Still, it’ll make things a lot easier come load – out time….. I’d actually forgotten just how much they love their hills round these here parts, but I’m reminded in very short order when I go to park the van ( due to an ancient byelaw, Mercedes Sprinters are banned from parking outside the venue in the hours of daylight, unless it’s the third Tuesday in July, a full moon, or you’ve got a wet haddock in your left – hand pocket ). I’d thought I was just going to park Black Beauty ( for it is she ) “ around the corner “ as described by the house crew. Turns out that “ around the corner “ actually means “ making an assault on the lower slopes of Mount Annapurna “ which I must admit I didn’t know had been moved to Yorkshire. It’s only when the altitude sickness kicks in as I lock the van up that I realise I might be in trouble here, but luckily a passing Sherpa lashes my fainting form to a mountain goat and gets me back down to a level where I can breathe normally again. As we’d thought, when the boys arrive and see the stage, a quick re-think is called for. To stand on the rake for the entire set would be murder on the old calf muscles, so they opt to congregate on the two-foot wide piece of level stage right at the front. Steve’s OK as he’s on a purpose-built drum riser, but Chris doesn’t have the same freedom of movement as the others, and finds his keyboards positioned at a jaunty angle halfway up the incline. He asks if he can swing outwards a bit more but we have to explain that this won’t be possible as we have approximately half a ton of concrete stageweights anchored to his keyboard stand in order to prevent him and his gear joining the front row of the audience. I’ve also had to make sure that the pyros are firmly attached to this flat piece of stage…..if I’d put them further back as I normally do, the angle of the rake would have had them resembling a rocket barrage aimed at the audience, and that’s ALWAYS going to take the shine off your day. Showtime eventually comes around, and the first thing that becomes apparent is that from where Tomps and I are sitting, it sounds as thought the audience are miles away and also being pretty muted. At one point I make the comment “ They’re a quiet bunch tonight, aren’t they ? “ only to have Damian tell me on the comms that from where he’s sitting right amongst them, they’re actually pretty lively, and people are even up and dancing ! There’s another little acoustic vagary that nearly trips us up….it sounds as though the snare drum mics are really, really loud, so all manner of level-changing, graphic equalization and plain old unplugging of cables goes on until it becomes clear that it’s actually the room…..move eight feet to the right or left and suddenly everything levels out ! Once that’s established, everything settles down. The band are in cruise control tonight, we’ve got a few day’s break coming up tomorrow and our audience is ready for a party, so it’s just a case of “ gentlemen, start your engines….see you on the other side ! “. The response afterwards from the house crew is one of the best we’ve ever had….Laura, the young tech who’s been with us all day is raving about the show and texting her friends to tell them what they’ve missed, whilst head tech Andy is effusively assuring us that if we come back we’ll DEFINITELY sell out, and we’re basking in the warm glow of their adulation, right up until the doors are opened to take the first bit of gear out. It’s hosing down out there. We’re on Ilkley Moor and we are, indeed, ‘baht ‘at. Not that a hat would be much protection against the monsoon-esque deluge that lashes us each time we venture to poke our noses outside. One of our number has managed to acquire a sou-wester – like coat with hood, so he manfully strides out looking like an advert for “ Fisherman’s Friends “ but there’s no such luck for the rest of us…..we’re just going to get soaked, and then we’ve got a two to three hour drive back. Hello pneumonia !!! The sheer hellishness of it spurs us into high gear, though, and the load-out is the fastest of the tour so far. I’ve also learned that my daughters are at a hotel in Wakefield, and as I’m driving right past there on the way home I call in to have a brief but happy reunion with them, and use the time there profitably by sticking my soaking t-shirt on a radiator ! A few hours and several Red Bulls later I’m pulling up at Chez Henders. So that’s it…first part of the tour…..DONE !