*** FRIDAY – WOLVERHAMPTON WULFRUN HALL – attendance approx 800
Fekkin hell! that place was huge. Arrival at the venue saw us guided to OUR dressing room (complete with star on the door and Deadline sign). Awestruck was just one word that described it!.
Our gig went great! – sold a few EP’s because the album STILL hadn’t arrived. How crap.
Unfortunately, I had to stay sober because I had to drive up to Holyhead… we had to catch the 9am ferry to Dublin.
*** SATURDAY – BELFAST EMPIRE – attendance approx 450 (SOLD OUT)
Saturday Morning I grabbed some sleep on the van… had some serious sleep issues now and the constant snoring didn’t help. We waited for customs to open and then drove inside and waited for boarding. Nice coffee for a ferry port. Toilets were manky though and the sight of all 5 in the tour party simultaneously heading for the traps was quite amusing if slightly bizarre.
Ferry crossing was rough. I chundered… twice… Oops…
Dublin to Belfast drive was the most tedious ever. Not only are the republic’s road systems rather outdated, but Irish drivers have a bizarre concept of what GIVE WAY and RED LIGHTS mean… er… they ignore them.
We did manage a Guinness in a small bar in Dublin although to be honest it was a bit like the Slaughtered Lamb in American Werewolf in London. An accident on the A1 finished the journey off to a tee.
Jeff Scott Soto’s fucktard bassist decided to thoroughly fekk my amp over by over-gaining it. One speaker proper popped, the other ended up with radial rings running round it.
We did a good gig and sold the last of the EP’s. Looks like my Sunday is going to be spent burning more…
*** SUNDAY – Day off!
First day off… but most of it was spent travelling back from Ireland. That minibus really is the slowest thing ever. Burnt CD’s into the night. Monday morning will involve fetching a printer because the old one seems to insist that USB ports no longer exist… crap eh?
*** MONDAY – Stiffed by Rock City – attendance 550 (SOLD OUT)
This SHOULD have been Rock City… this WAS the shitehole RIG.
Rock City had decided (as they usually do) that even though we had been contracted on an upgrade over 400 tickets, they would sell the main room (this night, they sold it to Keane) leaving us stuck in the shit hole that is the rig with it’s low ceiling, crap PA, piss poor lights, lack of visibility, total lack of dressing rooms etc.
Meanwhile Keane had been given HALF OUR VENUE TO EAT IN (and thus totally disallowing us from soundchecking until 7pm) – and they had put our doors back by 2 hours. It’s not Keane’s fault… I know it’s boring gaze at the floor music… but it is the fault of the Rock City gig promoter (who not only has the most magnificent skullet hairdo, but has the organisational skills of a cliff fancying lemming).
Generally… if you book a venue you contract at least a few things:-
Get in / Soundchecks / Doors / PA Quality / Lights / Backstage Areas / Curfew
then at least you can sue their arses off if they fail to deliver. It appears he only did the first and got so screwed over by them.
We spent another night at home after the gig (getting in very late) and whilst we did an acceptable gig… only about 30 people could actually see it, and the mix was so awful that people were walking out.
*** TUESDAY – Newcastle – attendance 400 (SOLD OUT)
Way Aye Man! – It’s a visit to land of the Tyne Bridge… Angel of the North… and Newkie Brown!. Cool eh?
I had to go via Wakefield (Eminence speakers) to mend the bass rig.
Apart from the fact that the dressing room is a kitchen and the stage is microscopic, Trillians is great. The sound engineer knows what he’s doing… and to say this was the smallest PA of the tour, why did it sound the best?!
We had finally been assured that the album will be with us tomorrow so were on a high also. After Monday’s depressing rot-hole it seemed very good.
However… Newcastle’s crowd preferred Teer to us – it happens that way… and as a result we did bugger all merchandise. Someone posted on Melodicrock.com that we seem to be a big stage band. I think that might be true. Perhaps the tour fortunes have turned?
*** WEDNESDAY – day off
Bloody hell was it needed. Lack of sleep is starting to show now. Stayed in bed until noon!
*** THURSDAY – Sheffield – Attendance 460ish
THE CD IS HERE!!! – Great news! – and it looks tozzin’
Our hometown gig, and whilst we didn’t think we played too well… we must have impressed someone because our merchandise went like a rabbit on viagra!… bloody quick!
The gig made a shed load for the CRS (when I texted Martin the profits at about half eleven he thought I’d made a typing mistake!).
*** FRIDAY – Camden – Attendance 550 (SOLD OUT)
Another day… another town. To be honest, all this travelling was getting a bit normal now. We were all on a real high… we’d blown Sheffield away and wanted to do the same in London – supposedly the hardest crowd on the tour.
Get in at Camden is awful… a flight of steps. Plus it’s a red route outside so you can only unload for about 20 minutes before you have to vacate the loading bay.
The gig?
Well it was probably the most amazing gig we have ever done! – Period.
If you missed it… you really did miss us at our best. The crowd were wound up beyond belief (thanks to a stonking set by Teer) and they were hand clapping, singing along etc… all the way! – we sold EP’s by the bucketload and we sold albums by an even bigger bucketload.
Camden was great!
*** JB’s – Dudley – Attendance bloody loads
The last gig of the tour… and probably the worst sound! – it really did sound quite horrid. We did well… and sold CD’s and EP’s… but unfortunately, something left me a little dissapointed with this gig.
Shame really that the tour couldn’t have finished on the same high that Camden left me on.
Oh well… back to work now.