October 28th: Nottingham Rescue Rooms
Rescue Rooms is part of the same complex as Rock City, so there are lots of familiar faces around today. There’s also some sort of one day festival on in Rock City. Lots of what would have been the big hair metal bands from the 80’s. A few foreign bands, Spanish and German, lots of names I recognised, but for the life of me now I cant recall.
Anyway, we’re next door … away from all the middle aged men in pressed T-shirts and brand new M&S jeans.
BBC Nottingham
Just before the show I wander off to find a supermarket, stock up on stuff for breakfast at the farm tomorrow. Supermarkets on Saturday early evenings are a bad idea, total chaos. I can feel my blood starting to boil trying to deal with a shop full of ingorant people, all fighting to get up and down the aisles. I’m waiting for a rather annoying woman to get her trolley out of the way when someone runs right into the back of me … and I snap! This woman starts shouting at me to get out of the way, so I start shouting back at her. It must have been quite an intimidating sight, because it didn’t take long for the Tesco’s security guys to appear and pull me off to one side.
After about five minutes, when I’d calmed down, they let me go. Wandering off up the street with my shopping, swearing to myself.
Cheesy Metal 
The drinking. Oh, the drinking.
We’re on a day off tomorrow, so there’s drinking again tonite. Most of the guys stay in the Rescue Rooms, it’s a bit more indie. Myself and Martin head next door into metal world for some cheesy music. I spend a lot of my night talking to the security guys, who for a large part are Hells Angels. I always have a good time with them, they know me well enough now.
It’s hard to tell in Rock City who’s dressed up for Halloween and who’s just wearing their normal going out gear. Either way there are some real monsters.
A good night had by all, I round everyone up from the various bars and we head for the farm.
October 29th: Day Off
Nothing happened today, nothing at all. We just sat around and vegged out … nice!
October 30th: London Astoria
The Astoria used to be a really good venue, but over the years it’s got a bit tatty on the inside, and the local council have made life hell on the outside.
Load in at the Astoria
Not only is there no parking for the bus, but they don’t even give you time to unload before you get a ticket. You literally have to pull up out front, throw everything off into the street, and the bus pulls away again instantly. All the gear has to get pushed round to the back of the venue and loaded in there.
Being London, today is going to be hell for me for one reason. The guest list. Everyone wants to come to the show. Press, management, record company, and assorted freeloaders. Although I said well in advance that I was only going to deal with the band’s personal guests, it never quite works out like that, so when I end up with a list of nearly 200 names it’s time to get the big black pen out and start crossing people off.
Working out who really needs to be there, and sorting out who the record company have bought tickets for, but still put on the guest list, we get the number down to about 90, which is acceptable.
Then we have to work out who gets what passes. Everyone seems to think they should have VIP passes which gives them acess to a seated area in the balcony, but it only holds 40 people, so it’s a bit of a bunfight to sort out who’s getting in.
In the end I just give up and let the record company sort it out. All of the people on my original list from the band get sorted, the rest I really don’t care about.
Is shouting for Mr Alert any less scary than shouting FIRE!?
We’ve got a film crew from Redemption TV in tonite, so keep an eye out for us on Sky if you’ve nothing better to do.
The end of the night is pretty much a reverse of the start of the day, load everything up, get it out to the front of the building, and wait for the bus to come round. We have to throw everything in and get moving before the pollice come round and move us on. We’re literally putting the last box on the trailer as they show up. I smile sweetly at them and close the trailer door. 30 seconds later we’re moving … thank fuck. I really hate doing gigs in London.
October 31st: Oxford Zodiac
Back in Oxford again, back at the Zodiac. It’s sort of a hometown gig for the band, so after the first show sold out another was added. I don’t mind, I quite like the Zodiac. There’s a laundry just down the street, and the fantastic Red Star noodle bar right across the road.
Funny part of the day was Fortune Drive going onstage dressed as The Young Knives. I nearly wet myself. Even their sound man got dressed up.
Tonight Matthew, we’re going to be … The Young Knives
The’re a little chaos today because after this show, we’re heading into Europe to do some shows. Because we’re doing it on a smaller scale, we need less people and less equipment, so we change from our big bus and trailer into a smaller bus. It’s going to be a lot more comfortable as there are only going to be six of us. We’ll have lot more room.
We’ve got another film crew in today, this time for the record company. Not sure what they’re going to use it for, but I don’t really care as long as they stay out of my way.
At the end of the night we say our goodbyes to Fortune Drive and The Grates, to Lee and Dave, the two crew guys we’re not taking with us, and to Chris, our other bus driver. It’s been a good three weeks, fun had all around.
On the bus the band go to bed quite early, leaving Me, Alex and Martin to start demolishing a bottle of Vodka … which we do in fine style. I give up and go to bed at about 6.30am, leaving the boys to finish off. We’ve got a long drive to Berlin, luckily with a day off to do it in. Still, with the Vodka finished off, it’s going to be hangover hell tomorrow.
