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| NEWS ARCHIVE 2007 | |
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TOUR DIARY PART ONE
Day one:
I find myself once again sitting in our splitter bus heading up the motorway in what has turned out to be a very sunny start to march. As most will know by now this tour was almost not happening after the untimely departure of Roger and Matt from the ranks. A week or so before this first show day, I was in London auditioning two new guys who had taken the bait and stepped up to the challenge and I can tell you now; as I prepared to enter the rehearsal room in Bermondsey I was expecting the worst. I had made a pact with myself that if the new blokes exhibited any less than 50% ability to pull off the job, then I was going to cancel the tour and suffer the fall out, because I simply was not going to step onto a stage at this point in my re-introduction and have a sub standard band behind me. I had spent so long with Matt and Roge that the quality was never an issue, the gigs were always at a level that I was happy with. The good news was that they were more than capable and in fact had it all going on. I can tell you that I breathed a huge silent sigh of relief! Yeah sure, we needed to work hard and I think I shocked them when I changed all the arrangements on day one, but they never baulked, instead they got down to the work and came up smelling of the proverbial roses. I will say at this point that I hold no ill will towards Roge and Matt; they were, are and always will be my brothers. They were there at the start and have constantly supported my erratic nature and been there every time. But just like some many things, situations and people change and move on. This is very serious for me, I genuinely believe I have an audience out there that I can entertain for the next 20years but I have to get the foundations right and that takes a certain kind of drive that needs to come from all concerned. Anyway, I am rambling aren't I? What is important is that we are here, driving to the first show on this very emotional tour.
We arrived
at the gig after circumnavigating
There is no
real stage, no dressing room and no, well room really! But I really liked
it; it reminded me of a place we used to play in
It is always hard to describe the feelings before a show, especially in these circumstances, but I genuinely felt calm and focused; we had a tough call, the first band had gone on and sounded incredible and I had to follow them with a convincing performance that would be the bench mark for the rest of the tour. As we hit the stage I can distinctly remember a close friend of mine telling me ' do the show like a rehearsal, don't perform, just play!' as it turns out, he was right, the way to tackle tough calls like this is to knuckle down to the job of getting it right. I think we played for 80 minutes which is around 15 mins less than we had rehearsed it so I guess our reaction to this first gig was to do it at break neck speed!!! The top and tale of it was that the gig was not a disaster by any means, it certainly wasn't the best I have ever done but we didn't embarrass ourselves and perhaps more importantly we had broken that precious duck! The after show comments were also very cool with nobody mentioning the change of line up or the 'lack' of Angels songs in the set so two of the questions I wanted answering were quickly appearing. The audience were digging the new stuff and focusing on the future rather than a nostalgia trip into the past which is exactly what I had hoped for. A big thanks to all that attended and I have to mention the Chinese food we had at the restaurant above the venue…do yourself a favour, if you find yourself in Edinburgh and need some good food, seek out Henry's cellar, have a drink and watch a good band and then go eat upstairs and tell em Toby sent ya!
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2007