Woken by the sun somewhere around 9am .. not bad for a night in the van. Music was coming out of the Frankie & Bennie's so we just had to check out the "Full English" whilst making use of the facilities. After a leisurely breakfast it was back to the van for some people watching and general chin wagging with Jay.. gradually most of the party made it out to the sun shine .. and maybe some breakfast. For the rest it woudl be late lunch.Just after midday we had everyone on board the respective vehicles and off up the motorway towards Leeds and then York. Totally uneventful, apart from following the van at the start with a lazy sat nav, resulted in going the wrong direction.. soon sorted and we took the lead until, we pulled into Morrisons just 400m from the venue, as we would find out later. Lunch was much the same as the previous day.. and followed some hanging around in the sun, until we had exhausted our 2 hours free parking.
Blindly following the "idiot box" we first had a problem where the sign said "only Buses and Taxis" before we read the bit teat exempted Sundays, then we went straight past the venue and dived into the tight narrow streets of the "shambles" before finding a way back ... the entrance was around the back, but - no parking - so having spied the venue it was then back to a suitable car park near Morrisons to wait for the loading time to arrive.
Much jollity later about Protein shakes, the time had come to load in. there was a great ramp around the back that lead directly to the front of the stage., but to access the loading bay was down a narrow cul-de-sac with no turning point. Even worse the nearest parking was on the roof up a ramp that only just fitted the van with the wing mirrors folded back. interesting drive up, but coming down in the dark would be even more testing.
The venue was the largest we would play this tour, with a stage at the end of a long room with a bar off it and lounge areas scattered around. The only question was around the wire mesh barrier in front of the stage and bit of broken glass in the pit! the floor was again tacky at best.We managed to find a good slot for the merch stall slightly behind and to side of the stage, but also covering the entrance to the dressing room.
During sound check, KT and I went off for some food ... Pizza would be the nearest we could find and definitely sustained us through the show.
No real hitches during the show, timing again was a tight but ready for this I ran around and got Noterminus on stage as early as possible.. so they were all tuned up and line checked ahead of the start time. They still went over, but not as dramatically and Sankara made up the time to finish on curfew.
Packing up was simple by now and we were very quickly ready for loading .. Getting the van down was all luck, and good judgement, all I can say is the extra cost of the electrical wing mirrors proved its worth here like no other time.
Once everything was loaded, KT and I said our goodbyes for this half of the tour and headed South. We would carry Vinden down to the services at Nottingham, where the equipment van would head off to the South West and we would continue South. At the services Vinden transferred to ready prepared "nest" in amongst the kit in the back of the van.
Another round of goodbyes and we continued down the M1. I was going to drop KT at Bedford ready for the first day of work placement the next day. However as it came to it, I ended up crashing on the sofa of her Travel lodge room at 4am rather than continuing.
The next day I dropped her off at the industrial unit she would be working in and continued home (via the office) ready for a good long sleep.
So completed the first section of the tour. Time to recharge the batteries (literally and metaphorically) before it all starts again on Friday, this time in London.
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