Manchester Apollo

Power Shower Rating - 2 (but only because it was warm and wet)
Breakfast Rating - 8.5

So we arrive at the Sports City Travle Lodge late Saturday evening.
upon entering the building it looked really nice. A new plush entrance, bar and lounge area to the left and restaurant to the right. As we past the welcoming receptionist I commented to Sam on how nice it all looked. Then no sooner had we walked through the doors towards our room was I horrified! The corridors were cold and smelly with dingy old carpets. Then on to our non smoking rooms that by the smell of things had obviously be accommodating chain smokers for years. The room was small and the wall lights were hanging off, still, I did at least manage to sleep.

luv esther goes big...Well technically the actual size of our set didn't change but in the Manchester Apollo it look amazing.

7:45 we arrive to find the trailer (missing the tractor) in the middle of the road! Oh well no time to worry about that yet, on with the unload. A big shout out to the technicians from The Message for helping us out all day, it was grate to work with you all. After a bit of grunting and grumbling the trailer was empty! Truss flying, the lights were on.

Breakfast. Now there was some debate between us all (here at NGM) about this score, however, as you can see from above we did finally decided on a whopping 8.5...the highest yet!

Not long after the set was up. Take a look at this...

The Apollo seats 2600 and each one had a bum sitting on it...well up until the end when all the guys on stage were given a standing ovation.

After packing it all back into the trailer we headed off back to the smoking rooms they call a Travel Lodge unaware that they had booked our rooms out to some one else. One of our team was waiting with all our bags that she had had to remove for us at the entrance. We were then told that there has been some confusion with the records and we were no longer in the delightfully smoking rooms but had been moved to a double room NOT A TWIN! Well after some heated discussions with the night receptionist about how this all happened and a whole lot of confusion I found my self wrapped up in a double duvet on the floor along side Sven, who was on the double bed with only a sheet and towel to keep him warm. We discovered the when they say double bed they actually mean a slightly bigger than a normal single, and there was no way I was sleeping that close to another man! Forgetting of course we had just finished a gig and stank to high heaven. Well there was a meeting in the morning with the manager and we got some sort of refund, but how hard is it to book a room for two nights? They managed it for one!

Over all The Manchester Apollo went really well (forgetting the Travel Lodge), and we all look forward to working with the guys from Space and all the Techys from The Message again.

Three final thanks, Mick Spratt a legend always.
Carl Roach and team for all your help through out the day.
Swish for helping us with the trailer - a paddle when we were up the creak.

Bedford

Power Shower Rating - 9
Breakfast Rating - 6 (Croissants)

Another day, another venue. And perhaps more to the point another venue with an interesting Load In. Once Nick had shoe-horned his truck into the alleyway down the side of the venue we managed to start unloading...this involved a flight of stairs and a turn through a doorway into the venue itself.

It felt like quite a long setup and things didn't exactly go smoothly, but as always the crew pushed through and were ready to go with at least an hour before "doors". Just time for a lovely portion of Lasagne and salad and another glass of coca cola...what would I do without it. Another "almost Faultless" show, followed by a de-rig then back to the hotel...after bump starting the van which has developed an annoying habit of running out of battery energy everytime you think about something other than it. Then back to the hotel for a well deserved night of sleep.

Clitheroe

Power Shower Rating - 6 (Text House)
Breakfast Rating - 3 (Do It Yourself)

Well it was certainly a bit different. If you have ever tried to fit a stretch limo into your garage at home which is to be honest a little small for your average hatchback, you will have some idea of the task that was ahead of us for this gig.

To say the setup for this one took a little longer than normal would be a slight mis-justice, in fact it was a mammoth 18 hour task that involved removing doors, destroying steps and a lot of sweating and even a small quantity of blood. There were a few "hair raising" moments like getting our truss cross beams resting on the in house truss - probably best I don't tell you how we did it, just rest happily in the knowledge we did it and the building is still standing.

It was a bit different not to have to rip the whole show out after the show, instead for a rare treat the crew were allowed into the nearest watering hole for a well deserved glass of Ice Cold Coca Cola. After some fun it was off to Sue's Chinese Chippy for a late night snack before heading back to Text House for some sleep. I say some we didn't have to get to the venue until 2pm the next day a very different affair from the normal 8am. So a very relaxed day and another flawless (sort of) show.

All that remained was to get all the stuff crow barred back out before Nick turned up with his truck and we put all the stuff back to bed for another weekend. A totally shattered crew made a LONG journey back south. The most notable moment when Ben Peters baffled the entire crew for around 40mins with his chosen character in "Who Am I?" - John the Baptist for those of you who care.

Well That was quite a rant, see you soon.

Southampton Guildhall

Power Shower Rating: 5 (Premier Travel Inn)
Breakfast Rating: 8 (Subway)

It all started at 8am on Sunday morning (after a brief 4hour snooze in a hotel somewhere near Southampton), we turned up at the Guildhall mostly awake and almost ready for another day of carrying and building and general beavering around. It was a relief to see a proper power supply after Littlehamptons excitment. It was a pretty uneventful day all in all, despite a lack of sleep the truss and set went up in a reasonable time and there was even time for me to take a quick shower before having tea and getting ready to run the show. The load out was fairly quick and only a flat battery on the crew van stood between us and the 2hour trip to our beds. We finally crawled in around 3am. All in all a fun weekend.

See you soon.