LIGHTS OUT FOR DARKER SKIES - PART TWO

Towards the end of August 2006, British Sea Power set out on a tour that would see them play 18 gigs in 21 days. A number of fans planned to go to most - or in some cases all - of the gigs. This is how I documented it at the time, excavated from my old Myspace blog - I have deliberately copied and pasted the whole thing without editing (from the HTML view so as to preserve as much of the formatting and pictures as possible) so apologies for any typos, links that no longer work or random gremlins... welcome to 2006! May make more sense if you read Part One first. May not.

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Yes, I'm alive...

Which is more than can be said for my home internet connection. Came home Tuesday to discover it and the phone both dead, and BT quite stunningly unhelpful. It might be back by this coming Thursday - if we're lucky.

Anyway the past few weeks has seen me travel thousands of miles (probably), acquainted me with pretty much every set of roadworks on the British motorway system, and - sadly and annoyingly - seen one probably fatal casualty. Don't worry, it wasn't a person, although it had been a loyal and long-serving companion without whose help I and quite a few other people wouldn't have been able to get to all manner of gigs. Yes, sometime around midnight on Tuesday 12th September 2006 on the M6 somewhere just past Keele Services, my nine year old Ford Ka breathed its last. It was actually the second car casualty of the tour amongst the regular fans - repairs in Cornwall allowed Mark (see last blog) to get his vehicle and family back home to North Shields, but a few days later in Manchester it, too, decided it wasn't going any further. Mark had to give up on the rest of the dates; I considered it but in the end with no small amount of help from Riot and others I made it as far as, well, The End Of The Road to end the tour as I started it, drinking ill-advisedly strong booze being served out of a bus in a field with Andy and Cerys.

I ended the last entry here with the line "That Pimms Bus already seems a really, really long time ago" - it had been what, four days? Now it seems a lifetime ago. That was summer, now it's quite definitely autumn. There's the chill in the air, and what I always used to call "a Chameleons sky" - bright, but with a dark brooding edge; trees have not quite yet started to turn gold but are filling up with red berries. It's always been a time of transition - in younger days there was always a new school or college year or in student days a new house, and of course in 2003 a new favourite band. I have probably missed less than ten of their UK performances since then... three years down the line I've had to start seriously considering whether I'm too old for all this. Maybe I'm just tired. Maybe the car was trying to tell me something. I wanted to do loads of this tour because it was all fantastic small venues, places as you'll see with real character, and of course a set packed with new songs which may not be released until 2007 or in some cases at all but which to me are as much a part of the band's repertoire as the "hits"; I can't see me taking a week off when the next album comes out to visit a selection of indistinguishable Carling Academy 2's. I'll still do a few I should think; the local ones, and London and/or Brighton where there are the biggest turnouts of the old-time regulars, but I can't see me ever driving back from Oxford on a work night. I've "coached" enough youngsters in the art of long-haul away-tripping to ensure rucksacks will be being stashed behind merchandise tables for many years to come. This travelogue is dedicated to Tristan, good friend half my age and number one graduate of the Cath school of gig-going excess, you probably can't imagine what you'll be doing when you're twice the age you are now, but if you're still doing this, pass on the spirit to the next generation for me.

"Say goodbye to summer / The party's over, the world's begun"
- The Weather Prophets "Ostrich Bed" 1988

So after a much-needed night in recuperating after my what-on-earth-was-I-thinking decision to go to a gig in Exeter on a work night, the tour enters its local-ish phase on Thursday 31st August. York Fibbers is a venue steeped in history for Chameleons fans, as the band played a few legendary gigs there. Recently assimilated into the Barfly organisation it's thankfully been allowed to keep its name and character. It's also the first big get-together of regulars on the tour; many haven't been before and are shocked by how tiny the stage is.

Actress Hands (above) fill it completely; British Sea Power are physically smaller but it's still quite a squeeze. But what we get is one of the most intense, raw, red hot performances ever. Perhaps mindful of the audience demands in Exeter, they start with "Remember Me" straight into "Scottish Wildlife Experience" and almost blow the roof off before unleashing the tide of new songs. These, too, go down a storm; many of the regulars know some of them to an extent from previous live outings or sneaky recordings thereof (no, don't ask me, I've not got any myself) but the fast, energetic nature of most of them coupled with the natural enthusiasm I've seen in every single crowd for every single band I've ever watched at this venue carries them to new levels.

By the time Yan launches himself onto the crowd at the end, his clothes are completely soaked through, and band's and crowd's faces alike show it's been another legendary one. When the "low-key" (and pretty much unadvertised) tour of 200 capacity venues was announced this is what we'd hoped for; a step back from the big stages back to the raw, in-your-face sweatboxes where many of us first saw them (Night & Day in my case).

They also have some rather stunning new merchandise...

Yep...soap. Four individual bars each with the aroma and packaging designed by a band member. It is no surprise to us that Noble's ("Soup Soap", based on Provencale herbs) is the fastest selling; Woody's is pleasant but a little unremarkable, and the idea that Yan and Hamilton, adorable as they are, might even be acquainted with the concept of soap is possibly a stretch too far for most people. In actual fact Noble's is so popular I go home a bar short, as Jo Shopkeeper knows as well as I do that at whatever gig the next load of supplies becomes available I'll be fairly certain to be there. I get home about 1.30am and am still buzzing so much I can't go to bed for a bit. I'm already down to one meal a day. Yeah, the tour adrenaline's kicked in big style.

The next night however it has a bit of a lull. We've all been quite excited about the band playing on a sea-fort; this however is not just another ridiculous BSP wheeze but a new club night, Nautical, run by some people from Merseyside who are quite clearly crackers. Yeah, let's start an indie club with a difference... the difference being that we'll have it, um, offshore. Here, in fact.

Friday 1st September is their third event. At dinner time (yes, I'm still going to work every day at this point) I have a look online for any reviews of the first two and find one of twattily-named local band The Seal Cub Clubbing Club, whom I'm afraid to say will feature much later in their own right when some gross lapse of taste on someone's part sees them support BSP during the third week of the tour (the fact that their manager used to be BSP's tour manager may be related to this). The reviewer I found rather liked them though, despite (and this is, as they say, a very big "despite") "the torrential rain". What?! Yes, the gigs are held in the open centre of the fort, along with whatever nature can chuck at it, which being the North West Coast can be a great bloody lot. Down the M62 the skies are greying. No, stay dry, please.

Walking up from the car park to the fort, a car pulls alongside us, occupied by over-tanned and over-straightened Footballers Wives types and banging out some gruesome lowest-common-denominator house. One of the girls sticks her head out the window and screeches in a real fingernails-on-the-blackboard voice "Eych, what's on here tonight then?" "iLiKETRAiNS and British Sea Power" I respond factually, only later realising what a non-sequitur this sentence would sound like to someone like that... she does, it has to be said, look at me slightly oddly, before asking "Is it like hard-house and dancefloor?" Now I don't know about you but I'd be hard pushed to think of a less hard-house-and-dancefloor band than iLiKETRAiNS. "No, it's proper music, with guitars and drums and songs, you know..." which heralds a stream of abuse in return. Well I think it's abuse; I'll never know as it was delivered at breakneck speed, heavily Scoused and at the sort of pitch that sets dogs off. For all I know she could have been delivering a critical comparison of the two bands' debut albums, but I really doubt it.

Oh dear...

Thankfully it stays dry. It's bloody cold though, with the wind whipping off the sea, and opening band Tiny Dancers (above) do little to warm things up. They appear to have come as 70s football hooligans and have decorated the stage with the contents of one of those slightly scary Gifts & Fancy Goods shops you get in the middle of any city's Curry Mile, you know, a stuffed tiger and a light-up moving waterfall picture, which writing this a couple of days later is pretty much all I can remember about them. Although I do recall that even within minutes of their set finishing I couldn't remember any of their songs anyway. generic, I think, and a bit dull.

iLiKETRAiNS (above) have joined the tour for five nights which rather threw my original plans of missing a few in the middle week; it was a close call, apparently; Ashley is sporting a massive bandage around one finger which he "almost sliced off" earlier that day, but thanfully it's not one of the more important ones for cornet playing. No visuals tonight though. Maybe it's his projector finger. They play much the same set as they did supporting Forward Russia the week before; that comprising most of the mini-album plus "Before The Curtains Close II" and the new one "Spencer Perceval", and whilst later a couple of BSP fans will describe their sound as one-dimensional (and I suppose it is, a bit, but it's a dimension I do very much like) they sound fantastic to me, their chilling minor chords perfect against the backdrop of wind-battered flags and open sky. There are a few of their own hardcore here, we think, or at least there's a bunch of people down the front who see fit to shout "Leeds!" repeatedly between songs. A little like our own away-trippers' (now almost extinct) "Manchester-la-la-la" of a few years back, people from Leeds watching bands from Leeds always seem to feel the need to tell you about it...

It is really, ridiculously late when British Sea Power take to the stage and unfortunately the sound is dreadful. I'm actually unaware at this point that they currently have one of the best sound engineers in the business, but anyway, he's struggling here; a low rumble like a plane taking off is emanating from the right-hand speakers in front of us and the band clearly can't hear their monitors. Hamilton, usually a man who can hold a tune pretty well, delivers a version of "How Will I Ever Find My Way Home" without finding a single correct note, the new stuff sounds flat and samey, and despite a fine "Spirit Of St Louis" this gig's never going to be in my top 100. A shame really; as if ever a band were suited to this venue it's them, but it just never quite comes together.

Saturday 2nd September.
Sometime during the week news comes through that Kath, the landlady of one of my favourite Manchester city centre pubs The Castle, has passed away after a short illness. The older members of our union at work remember branch meetings held in the back room of the pub in the 1970s, a fug of smoke hanging permanently beneath the yellowed wallpaper, cracked seats, but a decent well-poured pint and the friendliest of welcomes. I doubt it had changed much since then. Whilst many of the city's old pubs have been glitzed up with chrome and plate glass, The Castle still stands brown-tiled and murky up the rough end of Oldham Street, its door frequently locked to keep out troublemakers and snooping official types alike. But a brisk knock would gain you entry to a world where licensing hours were somewhat flexible, drinks cheap and you might end up discussing anything with anyone.
The good news is that Kath's son Damien promises business as usual for the foreseeable future. RIP to a true Manchester character.

So, on this particular weekend it's not really the ideal venue for a mass pre-gig piss-up, so the visiting BSP regulars are directed to the equally unreconstructed of slightly less characterful Crown & Anchor - and warned just how hot the Roadhouse can get on a sold-out night. It's actually relatively quiet when we get in there though, although fills up during iLiKETRAiNS' absolutely stunning set. "Spencer Perceval" seems to go on for hours here, building up to a great crashing climax and after the set their merchandise table is awash with newly converted fans snapping up the mini-album and DVD singles. I'll just say here that if you like this band and haven't seen the "Before The Curtains Close" videos, you can still buy the DVD single off the band's website and should do so. It's.... disturbing.

Injured but not out: Ashley

I'm very, very excited about seeing British Sea Power in the Roadhouse. I never thought it would happen. The last couple of years they've done the Ritz as well as Academy 2 and 3 a couple of times each, and back when they were still sufficiently unknown to be playing venues this size by necessity as opposed to choice it was Night & Day and Lateroom. The second Yan bounds onstage - wearing a T-shirt bearing the hand-scrawled legend "Manchestester Nowt 2 Answer 4" and a cloak made out of a white bed-sheet the scene is set for a fantastic gig.

Dear Britannia Hotel, I know where your missing bedding went...

And they deliver, end to end. I don't recall the set-list (though it was much the same as most of the ones on this tour) or much in the way of individuial moments - I'd had to work that day to get a day off in the week and had made up for this by being spectacularly drunk, but that's what happens when your favourite band come to your hometown on a Saturday night, but I'll never forget the red-hot spirit of it. The band seem revitalised, and look to be really enjoying themselves; but I do remember making a mental note that it really isn't a good idea to stand this close to an air-raid siren.

Aterwards things get predictably messy. The band are billed to DJ, but have forgotten most of their CDs and largely can't be arsed, so it's left to guitarist Noble and regular fan Smoggy to entertain the crowd with such vinyl delights as... The Final Countdown, and, er, Merry Christmas Everyone by Shakin Stevens. For some reason Yan gives me a punnet of strawberries. And some whisky. In case you hadn't guessed, this is not a sensible combination. Sincerest apologies to whoever cleans the toilets at the Roadhouse....

Smoggy and Noble - make the Queens of Noize look like talented DJs

I do however get to introduce Yan and Hamilton to my dear friend Bob (above), with whom I attended my first ever British Sea Power gig and partly on his recommendation as well, and amazingly (if you know Bob) he doesn't scare them to death... later, backstage, I have another surprise. I hadn't really noticed who was doing the sound this tour; many of the crew who'd become almost like a great dysfucntional family back in 2003-4 have moved on, and I find myself face to face with Shan Hira. A sort of unsung Manchester legend, drummer with The Stockholm Monsters and co-owner/engineer of the legendary Suite 16 Studios in Rochdale - if you know anything about Manchester music I shouldn't have to tell you this. If you don't, check the link at the bottom. Anyway Shan was the sound engineer on that legendarily debauched 2002 Chameleons tour of America, and we spend a while recalling what we can of some of those nights. Strange that you've ended up here too, I say, but they really are the only band around today who've got what the Chameleons had in terms of spirit and passion and energy and talent. Yeah, he says, I know. We have a few more whiskys. The band aren't playing anywhere on Sunday which is perhaps as well for all concerned. Strawberries are bad for you, believe me...

JUST SAY NO!

I was going to take some time away mid-tour. On Monday 4th September I was meant to be going to watch Royal Treatment Plant at the Roadhouse, a promisingly noisy bunch who sent me a demo sometime ago for MM which was really rather good. I didn't, of course. Listen to them if you get a minute though: http://www.myspace.com/royaltreatmentplant

As soon as iLiKETRAiNS were announced as support for these five dates I knew I'd picked the wrong bit to not go to, so after a bit of asking round for spare tickets before remembering that iLT's PR owes me one after the Night & Day let-down of a couple of weeks ago, I find myself shooting off over the hills to the M1. Not sure I can face going back in the Roadhouse just yet anyway. Leicester's one-way system is legendary, and two previous visits to the city by car have left me tearing my hair out and screaming "yes but exactly what the fuck is the North / South / East / West Zone?!", so I have printed full instructions and a map or two; this time I can beat it. Off the ring road I'm doing well, the venue's about three streets away and then... bollocks. One wrong turn and I'm not where I should be; never mind, just nip round here and... and then it's got me. Sucked in.

There are three fundamental reasons why Leicester's one-way system should be ourtlawed under the Geneva Convention:

(1) unlike every other major city and indeed small town I have ever visited, there are precisely zero signs pointing the way of the City Centre.

(2) Every direction on every roundabout appears to point to Market Harborough. Why? What the fuck's there that's so fantastic?

And finally (3) The system of traffic lights and feeder lanes ensures that if you do ever work out vaguely where you are, you are immediately swept half a mile in some random direction like a malevolent tidal current until you are lost again.

I think I've actually left and re-entered Leicester about four times by the time I find myself on a grim looking council estate asking a young mum at a bus stop for directions back to the city centre, and amazingly I find myself back on my map. Which has all the one-way streets wrong. I swing onto another rough looking estate. Something that looks a lot like a drug deal is going on in a doorway. There's a dodgy white van at the end of the road with a hard-looking olive-skinned man passing boxes to a skinny blond kid... Shan... Hamilton... thank fuck, I've made it! Not really sure I want to leave my car here though. Of course with hindsight I wish someone had stolen the fucker, and I'd have £1200 insurance towards my next one rather than a lump of useless metal that's going to start pissing my neighbours off soon. Meet up with some mates in a pub that makes our beloved Castle look like a City slickers' wine-bar and has vibrating cock-rings in vending machines, try a couple of corner shops in the quest to get one mate some much-needed feminine sanitary products but none of them sell them (we suspect there may be, shall we say, fundamentalist religious reasons for this, and don't pursue it) and escape back to the venue.

Aside from being in a fairly grim part of a really horrible town, The Musician is a fantastic place. Muralled walls, decent sound, tiny tiny stage. Very hot. iLT's set is excellent. British Sea Power's is even better. I really can not quite believe how on-form they are on this tour. "Lights Out For Darker Skies", the two-parter from which the tour takes its name, is fast becoming a favourite; the bit at the start of the secoond half where it all fades to quiet and Yan whispers "...and we were lit by kerosene..." just makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. It's beautiful. "Atom" is another good one - half way through it suddenly sounds like "In Answer" by the Chameleons. I put this to Shan at some point and he agrees. Now I've always erred slightly on the side of Hamilton musically; I'd guess if I listed my 20 favourite BSP songs there would be a higher proportion of the younger Wilkinson's work in there than his overall share of their repertoire, but I think Yan seems to have the edge this time round. Hamilton's "Mary" and "A Trip Out" are great pop songs, but we've yet to hear a new masterpiece from the lad, another "Blackout" or "True Adventures". Anyway it's a stunning gig, one of the best of the tour. A couple of days later I tell Yan this and he replies (ever the charmer) "You're fucking mental." (Thanks little'un, you're completely sane yourself of course.) Apparently it was full of mistakes. Who cares? It was raw.

Yan's armband is in commemoration of crocodile hunter Steve Irwin whose death had been announced that day. It was given to him by fans - Noble was less kind, at one point announcing "Steve Irwin? About fucking time!"

On the way home we spend half an hour attempting to leave Leicester, as all the signs still point to Market Harborough and not a single one to the nearby M1. I can feel a letter to Leicester City Council coming on...


Part 2B - Squaddietown To Dreaming Spires

Tuesday 5th September. Nick and I have been looking forward to Aldershot. One of the first dates to go on sale, before it was apparent there was a full tour going on, we just liked the idea of going to a gig somewhere we'd never been before, and I always quite like gigs in "arts centres" such as, closer to home, Bury Met - where occasional and decidedly random rock/pop events are interspersed with childrens' theatre, comedy nights and members of the Waterson-Carthy folk clan (Trust me on this, check any brochure from any such place and thery'll be in there somewhere.) We'd also been told the venue was an old school. And guess what? It was.

We'd wondered if any squaddies were going to turn up, wondering if the band's oft-cited (if completely untrue) "fondness for military uniforms" would have creaed some (possibly the wrong sort of) interest, but it seemd like a very Arts Centre-ish sort of crowd in actual fact - noticeably older than your average gig crowd (the cluster of 40somethings in the BSP regulars were by no means the upper end of this audience. In the pub earlier one friendly grey-haired fan was telling us how he had been on holiday in Czechoslowakia when the Russian tanks rolled in in 1968 (makes "the bath taps were broken in my hotel room" look like a bit of a crap holiday gripe, that) and later watching the band Cerys and I were forced to curtail our dancing somewhat to avoid crashing into the bubble-haired septuagenarian lady next to us.

Unfortunately yet again one of the gigs we'd earmarked as being a potential highlight turned out to be a bit damp. iLT (above) played their standard set and it was nice to see Ash's finger sufficiently mended that the projector made a comeback - in fact looking round the school hall not dissimilar to that of my 70s-80s primary-school days the thing probably thought it had come home.

By the time British Sea Power came onstage it was just far too hot and airless, and there was no getting away from the school-ish feel of the place. So it was a fairly quiet, uninspiring crowd, and a set which was solid and dependable but somewhat lacking the spark of the last couple of nights. Having said that, Noble managed to find plenty of things to climb up, ensuring the interested parties who come to whatever's on at places like this had something to remember.

There was also really nowhere at all to go afterwards, and walking back to our hotel attempting to avoid the underpass we'd used on the way out (the posters asking for information on a recent serious sexual assault there not being what you want to see at midnight) we found the town almost completely deserted. And somehow ended up in the grounds of a spooky old house, with a full moon shining from behind dark trees and an owl hooting. We did not, however, go up to the door to ask for directions, so rest assured this isn't about to turn into an extremely low-grade horror movie plot - no, we eventually found an overground route back to the hotel and went to bed. Sorry about that, but there's nine dates left to go and I'm not ready to die just yet.

I really was in two minds about Oxford. I'm not especially keen on the place and BSP's last gig there (at the Brookes University in November 2005) was one of the worst I've ever seen them, and it is a bloody long way to drive home afterwards. On the other hand it's iLiKETRAiNS' last show of the tour, it is on the way home, we're told it won't be a late one, and it'll be the only date attended by one of my favourite posters on the band's forum whom I'd like to catch up with. So we head off into Oxford where the weather has suddenly become unfeasibly hot, Nick gets on a train back to Manchester, and I buy an A to Z and replenish some of my missing vitamins with a particularly revolting but supposedly revitalising fruit smoothie. Don't get me wrong, Oxford is a beautiful place. Some of the old architecture is absolutely stunning, and it's scattered with lush areas of gorgeous green space... but trying to find one that ordinary riff-raff can actually sit in and chill for a couple of hours is a bit of a challenge. I give up, and after a long queue for a space in what appears to be the city's only cybercafe (I suppose the colleges are all Wi-Fi'd up these days) I find a pub beer-garden. That's more my level.

Regular suspects Craig and Kevo have got this thing about pies. I have no idea how this started, but each BSP tour now seems to include a quest for the ultimate pie, and some low-level competitiveness between the two with respect to number of pies consumed on the tour. The pie above was Craig's best from last year's November tour, on the night of the aformentioned Brookes Uni gig, so we have the idea Oxford is a good place for pies, and as Kevo has decided he's just too tired to come out tonight (The only gig, apart from Clapham which clashed with his mate's wedding, that he'll miss all tour) Craig sees an opportunity to get ahead in the pie count, so we head off on a pie quest (despite myself and the other lad present, Callum, being vegetarian). We look up and down the road for a chippy or other suitable vendor, but there are none to be seen... just this rather dubious delicacy...

We don't fancy any bees, so me and Callum settle for pizza. Craig is not to be beaten though. Eventually he turns up back in the beer garden, looking a little demoralised and clasping a paper bag from Tesco. Samosas. Nice, but are they pies? (Readers who wish to comment on this, and any other pie defining anomalies, are most welcome to start a debate on the subject down at the bottom there.) More bizarre is that the woman who sold them to him claimed "not to actually work there". What? Freelance samosa merchants running rife in Oxford Tescos? We have reached that stage of mid-tour insanity, where everything has gone a bit surreal but seems quite normal to us - much later this evening Craig will be apprehended for attempting to climb into a garden centre whilst wearing a builder's hard-hat, a story about which I've never asked for any further detail because I prefer it as it is. On the way out to the venue we find a small carved wooden box, a yellow vest and a "Little Book Of Sagittarius" abandoned on the beer-garden's back doorstep, and then turn the corner to see Riot standing outside the venue resplendent in his lab-coat (complete with "Osterreich" sew-on patch on pocket).

iLiKETRAiNS know it's their last night with us - they've worked out by now that there's quite a few of us doing multiple dates, and realising - as the unknown Killers did back in 2003 - that supporting a band with regular fans is a great way of building your own fanbase. Andy and Cerys weren't even going to do tonight's gig - they've got tickets for a few of the later ones - but after Aldershot they know they have to see iLT one more time. Add to that a smattering of their own hardcore plus the fact that we're in Oxford, an epicentre of the post-rock-indie scene boasting bands such as Youthmovies and Redjetson, and you've got one of the best receptions for a support band I have ever seen. And it's justified.

Every song is stunning - from the creepy "Before The Curtains Close" (there aren't that many more darkly humourous opening lines than "I discharged myself today / That place did nothing for me") through to the majestic, anthemic "Terra Nova". Which is still my official single of the year - the rest of the world's got just three months to catch up now, and I can't see it happening. By the end of the set I'm close to tears.

British Sea Power themselves turn in a fantastically energetic performance despite the temperature in the venue having reached silly levels. This is becoming quite a theme to this tour, and adds gravity to some regulars' concerns about the fact that Yan seems to have had that vintage cycling top on for almost every date. It's a little slow to get going (the gig that is, not the cycling top, which could probably crawl to a launderette quite easily if he let it out of his sight); the crowd are pretty quiet again, but highlights include a particularly good "Wooden Horse" and really passionate "Carrion", as well as the gorgeous "Lights Out For Darker Skies" - still think the lyrics in the first part need some work though. One thing that I am really enjoying on this tour is the way the new songs are sort of hanging in the air and then suddenly one of them will reach out to you and you're there; some of them are more upfront about it than others.

I say goodbye to Dave iLT, and promise to come and see them on their own tour in October. At present I've only got tickets for York (15th October), any others depend really on whether I've got a car by then. At this point however I'm still taking it for granted that I can go to a gig pretty much anywhere I like on a week night so long as I can drive home, and I've had the good sense to leave the car in the park'n'ride so I can find the motorway rather more easily than we did coming out of Leicester. We're home by 2am again, despite the Roadworks Fairy piling every single cone, flashing light and down-to-one-lane 40-limit in the world onto the M40 and M6 to annoy us.

The following night's Leeds, after which I've got a week off work - and not before time. That, plus the descent from mid-tour insanity into all-out end-of-tour debauchery - in part 3. As soon as I've written it. Sunday, maybe? After which normal service will be resumed.

Stockholm Monsters / Shan Hira - http://www.prideofmanchester.com/music/StockholmMonsters-biography.htm

iLiKETRAiNS - http://www.myspace.com/iliketrains

British Sea Power - http://www.myspace.com/britishseapower

Actress Hands - http://www.myspace.com/actresshands

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