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Yo Dudes
So this whole touring solid malarkey is taking a break for a week and a half to allow us to re-charge our batteries. The last gig supporting editors was last night and now we're all back home wondering what to do with ourselves.... except for tom whose gone hiking in the highlands.
Bristol was the first regional editors show we did and once again we'd managed to be late. A third band- Kubicheck!- had been added to the bill so we forfeited our sound check and let them go ahead. There were a few additions to the touring crew, given that they were taking the same pa system to every venue. We didn't quite get the chance to get to know them that night, everything was rushed and a bit frantic. Eamon had forgotten to bring his cappo on stage and the rest of us were a little dismayed when he suddenly bounded off stage mid set to fetch it. I thought he's gone to puke. Nice to see alex from clayhill there although i couldn't find him after the gig as it was such a squeeze, sorry mate.. i tried. Nice to see stroudie ben too who gave us all packs of columbian ciggarettes that probably gave me this awful cough. That night there were men and women screaming violently at each other in the corridors of bristol travelodge. Someone threatened to call the police and they quitened down after about an hour.
Southampton next and we arrived in good time. It was a big old hall with a steinway in the dressing room and automatic doors back stage. The audience were useless, we gave and got nothing in return. It was a mildly crushing experience. Apparently upon eamon giving the editors boys a shout out and tom and alex dropping into a couple of bars of 'Munich' for a laugh, someone in the crowd turned to their fellow gig-goer and said "Oh! Is this them already?". Knowing that made it all seem ok again.
It was off to Norwich the next day and i had a good feeling about it. Waynne put his foot down and got us there pretty damn quick. I don't think id been in that part of the country all that much so it was nice to have a look, very flat isn't it? Lots of cedars too. The gig itself was in the university of east anglia union. There wasn't much to do between duties so i practiced my juggling. I'm getting pretty good, perhaps my dreams of becoming a clown could be realised soon. The show was really good for us, a very enthusiastic crowd and quite a few fans of our own were present and singing along.
It was raining in Manchester. There was nothing particularly memorbable about the gig but we a had a good old booze up afterwards in big hands. There were lots of rounds being bought. I managed to spit a cork into some girls beer, she wasn't happy but she gave me the beer on the promise that id buy her another one if i saw her again, and i will. It was the last night for Kubicheck! who headed off to support Futureheads on a secret club gig around the uk. Good luck to them!
Ah, a day off in Glasgow, what sweet bliss. Following a much needed night off we were excited for Barrowlands. Id not played there before but had heard so much. It was bloody freezing in there and our dressing room had the distinct feeling that a murder had taken place in it. Gig was a funny one for us, bit iffy sound on stage but apparently it was a goodun. I'll happily stand corrected to some of the reports on this very forum. It was just nice to play in scotland again.
Leaving Glasgow was as painfull as always but we know we'll be back soon, possibly playing some other places than tut's too! Dundee anyone? Back down to the newcastle accademy it was. We'd had a good time there with belle and sebastian. The acoustics are pretty spot on in there so we were encouraging waynne to crank it, not that he needed any encouraging. Eamon got the name of the record shop where we'd done an instore that afternoon wrong, i'll apologise on his behalf as it was a very good record shop and everyone involved was very nice. So that's RPM records Bridgegate (i think), Newcastle upon Tyne.. biggup. Good gig for us though, loud and ballsy. Russell from editors made us aware of a surprise they'd been planning for us the next day. OUr minds BoGgLeD!!!
So we hit the midlands for our final show with editors in the same venue that we'd started our tour with B&S. One big euro tour circle of lurve. It was an ealry gig as there was a club night afterwards so the whole thing went quite quickly. The surprise still hadn't been revealed by the time we were due onstage. We were having a real blinder of a gig and we could see the end in sights when suddenly the lights went pink. "Thats funny" i thought, they'd been blue for our set the whole tour, why would they change now? It was all revealed once we stared NY PIe when 3 members of editors and radio and television's edith bowman came onstage in pantomime horse and cow costumes led by there guitar technician rich. It was certainly a surpirse and i didn't quite know what to do at first. There was this disbelief and then i got the joke and couldn't stop laughing, completely missing loads of notes with distraction. It didn't matter... it was fucking funny and i cant wait to see the photos, what a cheeky bunch! There was much boozing and revelry afterwards and the corridors were busy with guests. We stayed as long as we could and then we made our way back down to brighton. We had no-where to leave our stuff so matt eaton of the hanbury arms and brakes guest singing took us in for the night and gave us guinness.