Blog: TOUR REPORT: Nottingham

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Nottingham was BLOODY BRILLIANT. When I FINALLY arrived (see previous discussion, "Public Transport, Sunday: Mugs Game, A") i found the Forest Tavern/Maze to be the PLATONIC IDEAL of a GRATE venue. The gig bit was clean and warm (i.e. didn't smell of dampness, urine, beer, fags and bleach), with a GRATE sound system and a LOVELY soundman, and there was a spacious and HANDY backstage area. Best of all though, the front bar was a FANTASTIC little pub that I could merrily spend several evenings in, with DELICIOUS beer. It was GRATE!

I got a bit nervous beforehand - trying to talk to young Duncan who came last time, i was AFEARED that someone I knew from YEARS ago, who used to live nearby, and really DIDN'T want to see again, might come in. I tell you, being Short Sighted is a BUGGER in dimly lit rooms when you are thus afeared... anyway, soon it was time to go on, and it was GRATE.

Maybe it was seeing Otway, maybe it was feeling GOOD about the dancing stuff, or maybe it was just having done loads of GIGS just lately, but I felt really HAPPY just to be on stage. THUS there was a LOT of talking by me between songs, and people seemed to LIKE it! Everything went down really well, and I was having ENORMOUS fun, even when I COMPLETELY forgot the main chorus words of "insert title here" (and sang "put in the name of your pub here" instead as Emergency Replacement) and repeated the second chorus of "Payday" by mistake. "Easily Impressed" was FAB, and at the end I got all excited and did "Boom Shake The Room" too - for a change i told people what it was going to be before I began singing it, and to my DELIGHT there was a sudden HUBBUB of people going "Eh? but how will he achieve this feat?" SMASHING.

As it had gone so well I decided to try a NEW METHOD of selling CDs - rather than hiding backstage for a bit, then lurking at the bar hoping to be asked, I almost immediately STRODE out into the room waving CDs at people saying "Who wants to buy a CD then?" AMAZINGLY I sold 7 copies in about 4 minutes this way - FANTASTIC! I'll DEFINITELY be doing that again!

My dear old pal Chris had come over with his lovely girlfriend, and rather than have to STAGE WHISPER at each other for the whole night while Gordon Ballboy was on, we made our excuses and went into the Lovely Pub bit, which was sort of a shame as he was ACE from what we saw, but we got OVER this and had a good old time with the nice beer and the nice pub. Too soon it was time for me head off to the station for my SECOND Bizarre Train of the day (the 23:23 from Nottingham to Leicester, HOURS after the usual last train there), to Mr Whitaker's house for tea and a kip.

Then this morning I got on the wrong train, and it ended up taking me about four hours to get back to London and to work again. At the moment NOT being on a train is freaking me out a bit...

posted 3/11/2003 by MJ Hibbett

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