Day 10 - Sheffield Leadmill:

The weather is miserable. It's grey. It's Cold. It's wet. much like a 
dolphin! It's also close to mothers day, so I must seek out an internet 
connection to try and order something nice. All goes to plan, and I 
manage to fulfil my goal. Gold star me thinks.

I'm feeling very smelly after load in, so attempt to get a shower, only 
to be informed by our tour manager that we'll be staying in Sheffield 
for two days, so we have a swanky hotel. Nice! We make our way over to 
shower in a bit of luxury. And luxury it is......I don't say this to try 
and show off, it was just a bloody nice hotel. I'm more accustomed to 
things like the Comfort Inn, so I welcomed staying in this proverbial 
palace. I had the longest shower of my life. I don't think I moved for 
about 30 mins, just stood there enjoying the heat and the power. A lot 
of the showers in venues are lacking a bit of TLC and hot water, and 
often power, so this was awesome. Simple things in life. I finally walk 
back to venue and typically it had to rain and be a force 29 gale! So I 
had two power showers in one day....lucky me!

My jaw hit the floor, as did my heart when I entered the venue. Luke Toms 
was just moving his gear off the stage at the end of his set, and he had 
evidently played to about 15 people. I felt very bad that the crowd was 
so insubstantial for him, and started to worry if it would fill up at all!! 

We prepare to take the stage, knowing that the crowd isn't very big. We 
are kind of mentally preparing to get out there and do it, no matter how 
many or few people are there. Our intro music begins........an 
atmospheric little number, hopefully getting the attention of whatever 
size crowd can here it, all is going well.....until it unexpectedly cuts 
out. Oh bugger, we start thinking it's going to be 'one of those' type 
of gigs. We tentatively take the stage, to find quite a sizeable crowd, 
who appear to be a fairly noisy bunch too.......things are looking up. 
We start the gig, and give it everything, and the crowd respond really 
well. Before we know it the gig is over, and we are left feeling great 
that the whole event turned out to be a success. Time for a party I think. 
A few industry friends we've met along the way join us after the gig and 
we toddle off to the hotel where we talk and drink into the very early 
hours of the morning. Day off tomorrow....bring it on!!!!!!!



Day 11 - Day Off, Sheffield:

Breakfast was included with the room. I missed it. I think my eyes were 
somehow fused shut during the night. I also think some kind of sick 
fairy defecated in my mouth, as upon awakening my tongue felt like a 
welcome mat. Manchester United are playing Bolton today, and as they are 
the greatest team on the planet, I can't miss it. But I do, well, the 
first half at least! Some shoddy directions from Noddy our guitar tech, 
resulted in us stonking around the town hall looking for a pub, when it 
was actually the city hall that we needed. We arrive at the pub, near 
the end of the first half, and typically man u are 3-0 up. ARSE!!!! 
Anyway, it's St Patrick's day so Guinness must be had! Full time 4-1 GET 
IN!!!!!!! After the game we move on to another pub, eat some grub and 
watch some egg chasing....Ireland had a great victory.

A few more drinks then back to the hotel where we have to fix some of 
our more precious technical gear of ours that has been causing a bit of 
concern. It's a monotonous, laborious task, much like staring at a peanut. 
Yep, that good.

After spending what seemed like an eternity messing around with our gear, 
we decide to head pizza express-ward. Without intending to, we end up 
polishing off multiple bottles of wine, and getting quite merry.....we 
were celebrating our sound engineer Johns birthday. After the meal, the 
majority of our group are feeling very much like going to a pumping club, 
to me, that idea was like someone suggesting I take up a job at at 
Allied Carpets. I decline. In the end, all of the crew went out to the 
club and got messy, where as all of us 'good boys' stayed in and got a 
relatively early night............you just can't get the staff these 
days :-) 



www.lewisslade.com/thirteensenses