Whitley Bay and Glasgow 16th-20th April 2010

Friday 16th April ……Night time travelling up to Leicester as we wouldn't make it to Whitley in one go on saturday! We met Billy our dep sax and we played games in the minibus. This evenings game was the someone shouts name of a band and the first one to sing a song by said artist/s win and chooses the next band name etc...When you have many hours to kill it's surprising how you can make these games go on and on! Patch wanted to play the shut the fudge up game, he’s such a happy traveller!

Saturday 17th April
Next morning after a costa stop the vans headed towards Newcastle and Whitley bay. Went under the Tyne bridge which took 2 whole minutes!!! I made a highly boring video which may feature on my next 2nd video!

Nicknames
Fredi is sometimes called Heidi or Henri by the boys, not sure why but she quite likes the names, and Billy our dep sax called us Poppy and Henri, (think he was told too). I’m always mistakenly called Poppy, not Molly or Holly, but I quite like Poppy, I said I also like Poppit, think it’s a cute word, even though it’s not really a name as such. Chris told me he could call me Poopit if I wanted.. hmm, not sure about that! Poopi has since stuck!

New songs tonight so we were cramming on the bus… 'not now john, we’ve gotta get on!'

Went past an immense power station,


A lovely sunny day when we arrived in Whitley bay.

English Riviera of the north apparently. Fancy pants venue which has had a big refurb recently.

The Playhouse!

Not sure why there were the odd red chairs in the auditorium tho. Ejector seats to make sure the audience is pleasant?


Went for a jaunt down to the seaside, took some pics..

Whitley Beach

War memorial

Arcades

This reminded me of the delights of Paignton, Devon! (where I lived before I moved to Exeter.).

This disused place intrigued me, what was it?

Two boys stopped me and asked me for a tab, which with the strong accent I didn’t understand! It meant a cigarette, we eventually got there and I said no, I don’t smoke. They were about 13!!! Oh deary me

Got back from my trip and Fredi was still studying away in the dressing room. Doing some drama coursework!




Getting ready was a bit of a disaster this evening. Thought I had plenty of time and then the eye lashes weren’t going on properly and the whole lot had to come on and I got really frustrated, so I asked Fredi to do my make up tomorrow evening..

Show was good fun, although our feet were frozen ( we have a fan blowing smoke behind us and it was pretty chilly!!). Different set as we have now introduced 3 new songs which will take some getting used to! Loved singing not now john.
Wilma and Peter who came and chatted after the show said he promoted/booked pink floyd for a few gigs after their first album came out. It was a sell out and Factoid!... He said they were paid £150!!!
He also donated a few things to the pink floyd book that our manager wrote.

Heres the new merchandising t shirts etc..

Stayed not far from venue. Some very noisy random boys in room opposite having a party! I was so tired I didn’t care.

Sunday 18th April
6 hours sleep and we were off again to Glasgow.
Venue seemed smaller than I remembered but it is a still a biggy! Kept the same dressing rooms as last year.

Boys got the nicest one with annex part..


Fredi got on with some more work and I went for a shop in the town centre. They have a super undercover mall thing underneath the entrance to concert hall

After a nose around, I went into prêt a manger where my eyes were bigger than my belly and I came out with more than I went in for!

Later…
Back stage while setting up all the gear, the fire alarm went off and we all had to go outside the stage door and it had started raining pah .. then we hear these sirens and three fire engines turned up, we were getting a few looks from the passers by, it all looked quite dramatic. The alarm stopped, we ‘hurray’d and we were allowed back in.

During sound check, I asked Paul Galley to take some pics..
This was a nice one of whole band.




This is the ''Which ones pink' moment, where all the pink lights go to Patch. (He is very manly the rest of the time!)



The band before we went on



Us on stage during the show



After the show


Ryan and Loren two kids we met! Savannah is in this too, not looking at camera, she is Steve L's granddaughter. She's ace!


My first video, I bought a new ipod cos of all the travelling and the limited capacity of my old one! Found it had a video camera!! bargain! so I made this video, my first attempt at editing, I think it's quite good! It was filmed in the back corridor of the concert hall glasgow.