South Shields
It's half time during the South Shields show and, so content and happy with the way things are going, I'm starting the diary of the official UK 2000 tour. This time it's just Nigel and myself, our trustee soundman Mac having found employment in Phoenix with Def Leppard, sorry I mean a deaf leopard!! Kidding only, it's a pride of lions who need sorting out..we miss you big man. OK, after a few days rehearsal it was like we'd never parted. Nige fits my music like a glove and it's great to be hacking out the tunes with him again.
First night was the Neptune Theatre in Liverpool, which went great considering it was the first night. A very responsive reaction form the audience put us in good spirit even though there hadn't been a lot of sleep in the previous days. On the way to the gig Nige discovered Tango Crunchies at a service station on the M5. As he handed over the bar of chocolate, the machine refused to accept its code. With all the staff at hand to throw their light on the subject, there wasn't one intelligent one among them to suggest the original crunchie code. Then one dreamed up the idea and the crunchie was in Nige's pocket. The code is 552 for Tango Crunchies and 254 for ordinary ones (for future reference).As we joked on the way up about the name of our soundman to be for the night, to our surprise his name was ……Dave….another Dave. Last year we had a collection of Dave's as assistant sound engineers and the trend looks set to follow. Seriously though it was a good start to the tour. The second night (Wed) found us swaying on the river Clyde in Glasgow on the Renfrew ferry. Hadn't played there before but it turned out great. The Christmas decorations added there own vibe to the show including the Christmas tree danging above me. The Cottier theatre has been my normal residence in Glasgow in recent years but this time was not available as it's undergoing renovations (hopefully a new heating system!) Finally got the new 'Best Of Album' for this gig as stock was held up in Holland and didn't make the Liverpool show. I'm very pleased with the way it looks and there's a nice T Shirt to go along with it. Haven't had those in a while. Another good evening, its fun playing some of the older stuff too.
We retire having participated in the usual cuisine at around 3.00 am. So to tonight, and the North East of England. Cardiff Devils were playing Newcastle tonight, could have nipped into watch! Smaller crowd tonight but still very warm and receptive. Folk have come from as far as Leeds tonight, we couldn't get theatre over there this time and it's nice of them to come so far. Highlight of the day for me though was when Nige bought some sweets at a service station driving down from Glasgow and cut his tongue on a peardrop..classic! Got to watch out for those bad boysMartyn