Tour 2000

We woke up to Tim Allen cooking us a large fried breakfast, because he had apparently not realized I was joking when I told him I expected a full breakfast complete with homemade croissants. Oops. Was just the thing we needed though. We headed off to Nottingham in the pouring rain, with Jez, Lori and I crammed into the backseat so tightly that my arms and legs were numb about 5 minutes after leaving. The drive to Nottingham was pretty fast, but then we spent two hours driving in circles trying to find the venue, and then trying to find parking. What a shitty city. What a crappy day. By the time came for the gig, all I wanted to do was go sleep in the backseat of the car.

Rock city itself is a complete shithole. It makes the Roadhouse in Manchester look like the Albert Hall. Ugh. It’s too bad the storms had only damaged the roof and didn’t knock the whole place down. It was hot, crowded, filthy, and the sound was about as appallingly bad as any venue could possibly be. Even the band commented on it, with Saul calling the place a “toilet.” Furthermore, the stage was about knee-high, so I don’t reckon anybody beyond the first 4 or 5 rows could actually see anything. To top it all off, it seems someone had taken my photo pass so after a bit of scurrying around I was presented with a neon orange sticker with “Photo” handwritten on it and the name of the girl at the box office. In any case, I think the set list was:

We’ll Work It Out
Stand Stand Stand
Seniorita
Saving Grace
Say Something
Born of Frustration
Sometimes
Johnny Yen
Someone’s Got It In For Me
English Beefcake
Pleased To Meet You
She’s A Star
How Was It For You
Top of the World
Laid
Ring the Bells

Tim went into the crowd during “She’s A Star”. The set seemed shorter than other nights and the band were off the stage by 10:45pm. Lucky for us really as we were all exhausted. After getting rid of most of the rest of the fanzines we piled back into Su’s car for the uncomfortable ride back to London. (Justhipper)