Stu
had phoned us on the Wednesday night to say that Death Pedals might
be screwed for transport as he had found oil in the water filter. He
said that he was going to take it to the garage in the morning to see
if it was safe to drive. We would be on standby; If their van was
fucked, we were going to have to leave early to pick three of them up
and the other one would have to get the train. So me, Phil, and Gareth
woke up early on the Thursday and waited for Stu to call.
Their
van was fine.
21.2.13
Liverpool – The Caledonia
We
left our house in Kingston Upon Thames at around 12:00 on the
Thursday and headed north. Gareth had been recently given a load of
cassette tapes from his friend, Christian - a high ranking lad in the
union of mint mushes*. Out of all the great albums in the collection,
we had somehow managed to convince ourselves that the Mansun record
was going to be good. So, after Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan
Partridge finished, we put on the Mansun record. In 1998 four blokes
were stuck for ideas for their next album. So what they did was
record the top twenty singles chart, chop it into segments, then play
it back randomly and rip it off. We actually sat through the whole of
it, waiting for Being a Girl, which happened to be the last song. We
rated it afterwards and Gareth gave it 4 out of 10, Phil gave it 3,
and I gave it .25.
The .25 was to reflect Being a Girl, or at least, the good 1 minute
04 seconds of Being a Girl [The single edit]. Mansun sound like every
crap band ever; At times they were The Mars Volta, then they'd be
Lost Prophets, Faith No More, Charlotte Church, and The Scissor
Sisters etc. It was so awful that I suggested that when we stopped we should put it under the wheels of the van and run it over. Gareth didn't
look so keen, which is when he distracted me by bringing up the
rating system. We continued our journey up the M40 and washed our
ears out with a Minor Threat record, a The Doors song on Kerrang!
radio as we passed through Birmingham, a Super Luxury single, and
Hole's Live Through This.
Death
Pedals were running late and we headed to pick up our good friend and
tonight's promoter, Jon. We drank a cup of tea, then headed to
collect a PA system, then to the venue via another rehearsal studio
to pick up Jon's amplifier. Death Pedals arrived shortly after we had
set up in the venue. Jon and Sam [Eyes] went off to watch the
wrestling at Drop the Dumbbells but we opted to stay and eat some
food and re-skin/re-string our instruments.
Eyes
returned from the wrestling at 21:15, bringing the crowd with them.
They took to the stage straight away and were absolutely mint. Death
Pedals went on second, and after the first song were completely
knackered. They were still incredibly good, and I might not have even
noticed had Wayne not told the crowd that he thought he was having a
heart attack. We hadn't done much band stuff since since recording
our album over Christmas and were equally lacking match fitness.
Again, it wasn't a problem and it didn't hinder our performance, it
just meant that we had to breath harder between songs. It was a lot
of fun, and when it was suggested that we play another song after we
had finished, I jumped at the chance and insisted we do two.
We
stuck about for a bit after the show speaking to people we'd met
from previous times we had played in Liverpool. We consumed a fair few
beers (I was on the Off Kilter Porter), arranged for our gear to be
left in the venue over night, then headed to Jon's after stocking up
on Ale and breakfast at the twenty four hour Asda. Jon went to bed
when we got back, but the rest of us stayed up talking about perfect
10 out of 10 records.
Phil
and I had been given the bedroom upstairs because we snore.
Tactically, I went early to get the bed. I was tired and would have
gone straight to sleep, but Luther, Jon's kitten, kept pouncing on my
face and trying to attack my hands.
*mushes
- Rhymes with bushes
not
hushes.
22.2.13
Bradford – The Polish Club
I
spent most of the night with my face inches away from Luther. Even
when I turned around he would follow my face. I think he liked the
feeling of my warm breath. By about 07:00 Luther had fully woken up
and resumed jumping on my face and wrestling with my hands. At one
point he even chased them down my sleeping bag. I realised that Phil
had shut the door on his way in, locking Luther in the room. I
climbed off the bed, still in my sleeping bag, did a tricky manoeuvre
over Phil, and opened the door.
After
a few hours of uninterrupted sleep I woke to the smell of bacon.
Gareth and Jon had started cooking the breakfast in the kitchen and
Luther was in the sitting room trying to attack the hands of Death
Pedals. We ate the breakfast, Wayne and I did the washing up, Alex
tidied the sitting room, then we climbed into the van and headed to
the Caledonia to collect our equipment. We had a brief walk around
Liverpool first, which consisted of grabbing a coffee and visiting
Primark. As we loaded our gear from the venue to the van we got asked
by the bar lady where we were heading next. She gasped at the
prospect of visiting Bradford and we humoured her. We have been
to Bradford quite a few times and weren't in the slightest bit
concerned. I wondered if she was aware of Liverpool's reputation
amongst similar, misinformed individuals? I also wondered if she was
just a massive racist wally.
The
Polish Club is a social club run by Polish people. I had imagined a Polish community and Polish culture, but the inside was decked out like any other social club with its uninspiring
repeat patterns, decorative wooded wall panels, pool table, and
function room. The only things Polish were two members of staff, a few beers,
and some Polish Vodka. I'm certain that the Cardinal Wolsey public
house in Hampton has more Polish things than that!
After
loading in and setting up we headed out to a curry house. Andy
[promoter, That Fucking Tank, Nope] was unwell and was unable to make
us food. He apologised, but we fully understood. We were told to head
to the Kashmir as it was the best and it was cheap. It wasn't cheap.
The food was great though and we had a thoroughly good time. Phil got
quizzed by a Free Mason about his hammer tattoo on his neck and had
also thought that somebody was drinking a pint of custard, only to be
told that it was probably mango.
On
our return, The Polish Club had filled with Bradford's 17-19 year old
population. We were about to witness what youth clubs would be like
if they didn't have youth workers. When Death Pedals played only a
few came up from the downstairs bar to watch them. When we played, a
lot more came up, but soon left. We were told that the No Hands
nights weren't usually like that. Shit happens and the only way to
remedy it was to have a really good time. We were seven southern lads
getting heavily inebriated in amongst the the chaos of young people
refining their social skills and learning valuable life lessons. We
saw love, sleaze, bitching and fighting. The Pedals kept on buying in
the Sambuca and eventually the bar ran out. We had a really good
time.
Andy
had given us the back door key to his house, so when everyone was
kicked out, we got our bags from the van and took two cabs back to
Andy's house. Me, Wayne and Gareth got back first, getting the pick
of the mattresses. Apparently, as soon as my head hit the pillow, I
fell asleep.
23.2.13
Newcastle – The Central
We
needed to be back at the Polish Club early to collect our gear as
their function room was needed for a party. My head hurt; Phil's head
hurt; Alex's head hurt; Tom's head hurt; Stu's head hurt; Wayne's
head hurt; and Gareth's face and head hurt. Gareth had received a
whack from Stu the night before. Stu's hand was being controlled by
me. I had also kicked Stu because he had been playing with my hair.
It was comic aggression, it's just a shame that it wasn't funny.
There
are a lot of very strange people in Wetherspoons pubs. The Sir Titus
Salt wasn't far from the Polish Club, so once we'd moved the van away
from the eyes of the dodgy blokes watching us load in our equipment,
we went and stocked up on calories and some of us released the brown
build up from within. Gareth and Stu had the eggs Benedict, and the
rest of us ate the large breakfast.
Wetherspoons
toilets are always of a high standard. While I was admiring the dry
floor, lock on the door and the toilet roll in the dispenser, I
heard a man enter the cubicle next to mine. The guy was talking on
his phone loudly about a friends horrific injury involving a heavy CD
rack. He then continued the conversation whilst taking a dump. I
could even hear him groaning between sentences. Pooing while on the
phone isn't my main concern here; it's the wiping that worries me the
most.
It
had been snowing in Newcastle and the pavement and the tops of the
cars were covered in a blanket of white fluff and the roads were wet
and slushy. We found The Central and were allowed to unload despite
being four hours early. Gareth and Stu racked up some traffic fines
while trying to find a place to park. They searched for half an hour
around the streets of Gateshead for somewhere, and eventually found
some spots right near the venue. We had time to kill, and as the
floor outside was covered in snow, we had to kill all that time at
The Central. We grabbed some food, bought some beers, and watched two
games of rugby football.
Chris
[promoter] had brought along some baguettes, pasta and humus and by
the time we'd finished eating, it was time for the music to start.
Either the crowd all used moisturiser, ate healthily, and got an average of eight hours sleep every night, or they were
a fair few years younger than us. It's great to see young communities
of active music listeners and it gives me hope that we can still be
doing this for many years to come. It was an excellent last night,
Wade, End Reign and Death Pedals smashed it and the crowd were
fantastic.
Chris
gave us the key to his house as he needed to get home to bed and we
wanted to hang about in The Central. We stayed until closing, Death
Pedals arranged to leave their gear at the venue over night but we
packed ours into our van to save the hassle in the morning. We went
and got some food from the nearest fast food outlet which promised
Pizza and Chinese food on the sign outside. On the inside the menu
only had kebabs and pizza. We bought ourselves chips and a kebab and
were slightly surprised to discover that the food didn't come inside
the pita bread. It was a sort of DIY kebab.
Chris'
house wasn't far from the venue. When we got back we pretty much
drank one beer then headed for bed. Phil slept in the van.
24.2.13
Kingston Upon Thames - Home
We
woke up early-ish to give ourselves plenty of time to get breakfast
and make sure that we didn't return home at stupid o'clock. We're
getting older now, so winding down after a weekend of rock is
essential. We grabbed another Wetherspoons breakfast, this time
Gareth bought himself two eggs Benedict all for himself. Then we drove Death Pedals to The
Central to pick up their gear and van, and helped them load up (which
meant loading our van the night before didn't save us any time). We said
our goodbyes, then drove south back to our house in Kingston Upon
Thames, where we arrived just in time to catch Country File.
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