Ps. oh and why do bands like um Lacuna coil, the gathering, katatonia (well they toured for the first time in 5 years, which was great) and other bands not come over to england?
You'll find that if a band bothers playing the UK it's either right at the start or right at the end of a tour. This is because the sleeper buses are usually hired from the UK, so since the bands are flying to the UK anyway, they may as well play a couple of shows.
Other tours happen on the continent and not the UK either because their bus isn't British, or they can't be bothered to make it across the water. It costs a lot to bring a bus over the channel with about 20 guys on board.
Also, the UK venues pay about 1/2 of what a band could make in, say, Holland or Germany and attendences outside of London are, at best, poor.
It's all down to economics at the end of the day. It's not helped by promoters with bad reps in the past. Paul who used to be in Cradle Of Filth / Blood Divine runs a promotion company called Distortion now and they seem to be well run and properly managed. Hopefully he'll bring a bit of cred back to the UK scene. The only problem with his shows is that, since he also manages Akercocke, they're more than likely to appear on the bill...
Lee
