Days 11, 12, 13 & 14 - Wakefield (Snooty Fox), Mansfield (Intake Club), Birmingham (Scruffy Murphys) and our London outing.
On Tuesday we spent the day in Wakefield. There isnât a huge amount to do in Wakefieldso we sort of loitered around some shops for the day. I managed to find an amazing smoothie bar and had the yummiest fruit smoothie in the entire universe! (Cherry, yoghurt, honey, watermelon & orange!) Jack bought girls socks to drum in and Sam signed up for a casino just so that he could use their bathroom.
We got to the venue (The Snooty Fox) and were instantly pretty impressed. Itâs a nice sized venue with a cool looking stage, so we were really looking forward to the evening! Unfortunately, this was another venue that wouldnât let us use our own sound engineer, which made the show a bit of a tough one for us. The reason we brought Chris out on tour was because we know he is the best person to do our sound. He knows us like no-one else and we can sort any sound issues out through signalling rather than having to interrupt the set.
Still, we made the best of the experience. The show was live streamed (another reason we wanted Chris on board for the show!) and the reaction online and in the room was fantastic!
On Wednesday we made our way over to Mansfield. We had a lot of time to kill so we tried to go and see a film, but there was nothing on apart from Street Dance 2 (which none of us wanted to watch) so we had to find alternative entertainment. We tried to play bingo but the lady in there initially didnât believe that we were over 18âŚ.and then said that the session was full (I donât think it was though! I think she just didnât like us!)
Eventually we found a bowling alley and spent the afternoon there. I lostâŚ..twice. The children in the lane next to us kept getting annoyed with me for using the lightest bowling balls (because they wanted to use them and somehow our turns always seemed to coincide.) They are the only ones I can lift safely though after my operation last year, so I just had to deal with the death glares haha!
The intake club in Mansfield is a wonderful venue run by lovely people. We were excited to go back there with the new lineup! The stage in that place is HUGE and it was an absolute joy to have some room to move around! Every photo I have seen so far from the night has been really blurryâŚ.which says a lot about the amount we made use of the space!
The reaction was lovely, aside from the scene kid who kept yelling âparamoreâ at us during/after the set. The Black Iris drummer (Alex) threw a drink on him though which soon shut him up ;)
We hung out at the venue for a few hours after the show. The staff got most of the tour party extremely drunk and we played with a punch bag machine and had a rather unsuccessful pool tournament.
Driving away from the venue and seeing Johno from Black Iris hanging out of the side door pretending to be a pirate was one of the evenings highlights! We later found out that he kept this up for nearly the whole drive back to the hotel (a good hour and a half!) and was later joined by Alex who kept trying to clean passing lorries with a broom!
Black Iris are definitely more rock & roll than us. We watched Zombieland and then went to sleep.
On Thursday we were in Birmingham. We went to Pizza Hut with the Black Iris boys and then had a bit of a shop around the Bullring shopping centre. It was very busy there and I spent nearly an hour looking for another smoothie barâŚ.only to find that there wasnât one there anymore (sadface!) I did buy a nice grey dungarees though so the trip wasnât a total failure!
Scruffy Murphyâs was the venue for tonights show. Another of my favourite venues to play! Itâs got a teeny tiny stage (which felt even smaller after last nights freedom in Mansfield!) but the sound is always great in there and it has a really nice vibe!
There were no locals on the show which was a bit of a shame because there were no new people in the room for us to convert. Our ever faithful Birmingham following was there in force though! It was weird to ask on stage âWho in here has seen us play before?â and seeing every single hand in the room go up!
We were very sad to leave Birmingham because we knew that there was only one show left of the tour!
We got back to Orestea HQ and managed to get about 2 and a half hours sleep in before having to leave to return the hire van to London. We all had Skindred tickets for the evening so me and Sam decided to spend the day wandering around London aimlessly. By the time it got to the gig we were very sleepy. I think we both drifted off during one of the support bands sets! (we were seated by the wayâŚ.I donât think I could have slept in the standing area haha!)
Skindred were amazing. They are one of my favourite bands and it was so great to see them at such a huge venue! They were born to do shows like this!
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnd today. Today we have no show and no planned outings â so we are all resting up for tomorrows show in Basingstoke! I canât wait to play there again! Basingstoke has always been really good to us which is why we normally end tours with them! I think I am going to need considerably more sleep before tomorrow though because I am still broken from our crazy 2 week schedule!
Thank you to everyone who has come out to see us on tour so far. It means the world to us and we have loved every single show!
- Lisa
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