We headed off to Birmingham on December 1st and arrived at the Asylum around 3pm where we met Jon's wife Wendy who had brought Amelia (their newly born daughter) to see Jon.
A great venue and we had some real fun kicking the tour off. It was a cold night and the crowd was not large by any means...but everyone who came out seemed to have a great time. It was really cool to meet the Hanging Doll guys as well who played a great set. It was cool to meet up with some old friends as well, including Linda and Barry from Newcastle.
We stayed the night at a travel lodge on the M5 before heading to Wakefield on December 2nd.
Arriving mid afternoon, we quickly found the Strafford Arms and loaded our gear in. This was the first time the venue had put live music on on a Tuesday so the promoter was little unsure what the turn out would be.
As it turned out, the place was packed and everyone seemed to know the words to all the songs which was incredible! Dreamcatcher and Hamerex also played that night and delivered awesome performances! There was even a mini moshpit going on...which threatened the on stage monitors at various points during the show!
We hung around for quite a while after the show catching up with old friends and making a lot of new ones as well. Luckily the hotel was just 2 minutes around the corner....so we didn't have far to stumble! lol!
December 3rd saw us head down to London for the show at the Purple Turtle where we were joined by Neonfly and Lethal Fixx. It's great little venue and again we really had fun here. Awesome crowd once more, particularly for London as it can be very difficult to "get the crowd going" in the capital. By now the Andrea/Bill twin guitar partnership was really ripping things up...particularly in the extended solo duel intro to Magic Never Dies and the twin harmony parts in Hold on to Love.
After the show we headed to our hotel at Heston on the M4 where luckily we were going to be based for 2 nights.
December 4th saw us make the short trip to St. Albans for the show at The Horn with Metalloid. On arrival we had a traditional pub dinner before the Metalloid guys arrived. These guys were great fun.....and Pete always puts on a great show. It wasn't the biggest turn out of the week, but it was cool to get out to somewhere we had never played before as this was part of the exercise of the tour...take it to the people!
By this point Andrea and Alessio were both struggling with flu symptoms and we headed off to Colchester on December 5th wondering if everyone was going to be fit enough to perform..........
A great venue and we had some real fun kicking the tour off. It was a cold night and the crowd was not large by any means...but everyone who came out seemed to have a great time. It was really cool to meet the Hanging Doll guys as well who played a great set. It was cool to meet up with some old friends as well, including Linda and Barry from Newcastle.
We stayed the night at a travel lodge on the M5 before heading to Wakefield on December 2nd.
Arriving mid afternoon, we quickly found the Strafford Arms and loaded our gear in. This was the first time the venue had put live music on on a Tuesday so the promoter was little unsure what the turn out would be.
As it turned out, the place was packed and everyone seemed to know the words to all the songs which was incredible! Dreamcatcher and Hamerex also played that night and delivered awesome performances! There was even a mini moshpit going on...which threatened the on stage monitors at various points during the show!
We hung around for quite a while after the show catching up with old friends and making a lot of new ones as well. Luckily the hotel was just 2 minutes around the corner....so we didn't have far to stumble! lol!
December 3rd saw us head down to London for the show at the Purple Turtle where we were joined by Neonfly and Lethal Fixx. It's great little venue and again we really had fun here. Awesome crowd once more, particularly for London as it can be very difficult to "get the crowd going" in the capital. By now the Andrea/Bill twin guitar partnership was really ripping things up...particularly in the extended solo duel intro to Magic Never Dies and the twin harmony parts in Hold on to Love.
After the show we headed to our hotel at Heston on the M4 where luckily we were going to be based for 2 nights.
December 4th saw us make the short trip to St. Albans for the show at The Horn with Metalloid. On arrival we had a traditional pub dinner before the Metalloid guys arrived. These guys were great fun.....and Pete always puts on a great show. It wasn't the biggest turn out of the week, but it was cool to get out to somewhere we had never played before as this was part of the exercise of the tour...take it to the people!
By this point Andrea and Alessio were both struggling with flu symptoms and we headed off to Colchester on December 5th wondering if everyone was going to be fit enough to perform..........
