Here's a more detailed review PQ's week on the road.
We had a couple of rehearsals for the tour on the Bank Holiday weekend, both without our "stand in" guitarist Phil McGrath, which went really well. We booked an additional rehearsal for the morning of the Underworld gig especially for Phil but he never turned up for that either and as a result we were forced into undertaking the shows with just the one guitarist.
We headed to the Underworld around 4pm on the Monday and met up with the Mercury Rain guys and the Intense mob. All the bands got on really well and set the pattern for the week really. There was a good turn out for a bank holiday and we sold a fair bit of merchandise that night too. MR and Intense played great sets to an enthusiastic crowd and then it was our turn to take to the stage. The set flew by to an amazing reaction from the crowd and it was over before we knew it. Nick Cave was spotted in the crowd and it was also nice to see the DragonForce guys in the crowd along with our old mate Charlie Farrell. We had to be out of there by 11pm and then Gav, Simon (our merch man) and myself proceeded to get lost in London for an hour, eventually arriving back in Southampton at 1:30am still buzzing from the evenings events.
After a full English breakfast, the 3 of us headed up to Bristol and met up with the rest of the band at the Travel Inn. Jon and Rich from Mercury Rain very kindly came to the hotel and we followed them to the venue for that nights show. We opened proceedings on this occasion and despite a small crowd and numerous sound related issues, we played the same set as the previous night to a small but keen crowd. Everyone who was there seemed to enjoy themselves too. Intense followed with another impressive set and then it was left to local guys Mercury Rain to conclude the nights entertainment. Thanks to Jon from MR for organising this show for us all. Great to catch up with some old friends of mine too who I hadn't seen for 6 years or so. Seemed like only a month had passed.
On the road early on Wednesday morning for the trek to Bradford. Took ages! Loads of traffic on the M6 and a couple of accidents too. I think we arrived at about 3:15 after setting out at 10. 5 minutes after checking into the hotel, a couple of wankers broke into our car and stole the vast majority of our t-shirts and our lighters and guitar picks. So if anyone offers you a PQ shirt around the Bradford area.....give a good kicking for us.
After a meal, we headed to the Market Tavern and met up with MR and FourwayKill (another great bunch of guys who we got on famously with....hey Rob!). Again a small turn out but the crowd made a lot of noise to make up for the lack of numbers. MR opened proceedings and were followed by FourwayKill. Both bands played a blinder and then PQ closed out the evening with possibily our best show of the week up until this point. We dropped Immortal Plains from the set for this show as we wanted to work out exactly how many songs would be in the set for Bloodstock. We spent an hour chatting away with the fans afterwards and eventually hit the hay around 3am.
Thursday saw us make the short hop to Derby and yet another Travel Inn. The Italian guys were finding it very freaky that the rooms looked identical. We eventually found the Vic Inn at around 6pm I think and met up with Soliloquy guys who were supporting us and had made all the arrangements for the show. It was cool to see some people had come early to see this show before Bloodstock got underway the following day. Soliloquy played a great set to a very enthusiastic crowd and then we hit the stage around 10:15 to rattle through our Bloodstock set. The crowd gave us a wonderful reception and I think this suprassed the performance at Bradford the previous evening. Gav's drumming was getting better and better each night and tonight was awesome. Great work from all the other guys too. After chatting away for an hour afterwards, we wearily made our way back to the hotel to prepare for the biggest show of the week and our lives the following day.
We arrived at the Assembly rooms around 2:30pm and loaded our gear in and were shown to our dressing room (!) where we were supplied with our passes, drinks rider etc and met up with Vince, Lee, Rog and the rest of the crew. We soundchecked around 4:30pm - 5 i think and it didn't go particularly well. Couldn't hear vocals or keyboards, and we returned to the dressing room a little bit apprehensive about what might happen later.
Fifth man down completed their set at about 6:45 which left us 15 mins to prepare for the big one.
The intro music hit and we could hear the buzz in the crowd. Simon told us afterwards that people were rushing in to the arena. Gav walked out, followed by Andrea and Steve. Then it was my turn and I raised my arms as i took my place behind the keyboard. The crowd responded in fine style and then we kicked into "Wings of Forever". Alessio came running out screaming "Good Evening Bloodstock" and the crowd went mad! We continued through Glory Tonight, Power Quest, Edge of Time, Temple of Fire and closed with Far Away. As we moved forward to take a bow, the crowd began chanting the name of the band and we shook hands with as many people as could before leaving the stage. What an awesome experience and the crowd were unbelievable! Thanks guys. Vince and guys from our label came backstage and said they thought we put on a great show
Once we had changed and come back to earth we headed to the merchandise area as we had 45 minute before our signing session. We spent much of that time signing stuff for the fans and chatting about the show. We thought that there wouldn't be many at the signing session after this...how wrong we were! Amazingly, the official signing session lasted another 45 minutes and after that we hung out and took some photos with the fans who had wanted their pics taken with us.
An absolutely unforgettable experience and thanks to everyone who watched and enjoyed our set and took the time to come and seek us out afterwards.
On Saturday we had a photo shoot in the morning for upcoming articles to promote the new album, after which we headed back to the festival to see our mates Mercury Rain open the main stage and then followed that with some Dragonforce, Saracen, Masterplan, Edguy and Nightwish. Thanks again to everyone who chatted with us on the Saturday as well. It was fantastic to meet you all....both people form this forum and people who had just discovered the band on the Friday.
Got chatting with Bob Catley and Tobias Sammet. We then all headed to the aftershow party and eventually hit the sack at 5am.
Having said our goodbyes, Simon and myself headed for Southampton whil the rest of the guys plus Shayne and Nadia (who travelled to every show this week...thank guys!) headed for London. The memories of the whole week/weekend will stay with us for a long time I reckon. Thanks to everyone who came to see us over the week, especially those who came to 2 shows. You people are what makes the whole thing so cool and i hope we will see you all again in 2004 when we hit the road in support of new album Neverworld.
Thanks to
Alessio, Andrea, Steve and Gav. Guys.....a pleasure!
Simon.....merch man, driver and all round top bloke.
Shayne and Nadia.....thanks for everything...nails....champagne...fags..munchies and looking after Sy.
Wooks.....great to meet you man and thanks for all the photos you took.
MR, Intense, FourwayKill, Soliloquy.....thanks for everything guys over the course of the week. True friends!
Vince and the Bloodstock team for giving us the chance.
I'll end with a quote from Gav as we left the supermarket at 2am one night
"THANK YOU TESCO'S.....and GOODNIGHT!"
We had a couple of rehearsals for the tour on the Bank Holiday weekend, both without our "stand in" guitarist Phil McGrath, which went really well. We booked an additional rehearsal for the morning of the Underworld gig especially for Phil but he never turned up for that either and as a result we were forced into undertaking the shows with just the one guitarist.
We headed to the Underworld around 4pm on the Monday and met up with the Mercury Rain guys and the Intense mob. All the bands got on really well and set the pattern for the week really. There was a good turn out for a bank holiday and we sold a fair bit of merchandise that night too. MR and Intense played great sets to an enthusiastic crowd and then it was our turn to take to the stage. The set flew by to an amazing reaction from the crowd and it was over before we knew it. Nick Cave was spotted in the crowd and it was also nice to see the DragonForce guys in the crowd along with our old mate Charlie Farrell. We had to be out of there by 11pm and then Gav, Simon (our merch man) and myself proceeded to get lost in London for an hour, eventually arriving back in Southampton at 1:30am still buzzing from the evenings events.
After a full English breakfast, the 3 of us headed up to Bristol and met up with the rest of the band at the Travel Inn. Jon and Rich from Mercury Rain very kindly came to the hotel and we followed them to the venue for that nights show. We opened proceedings on this occasion and despite a small crowd and numerous sound related issues, we played the same set as the previous night to a small but keen crowd. Everyone who was there seemed to enjoy themselves too. Intense followed with another impressive set and then it was left to local guys Mercury Rain to conclude the nights entertainment. Thanks to Jon from MR for organising this show for us all. Great to catch up with some old friends of mine too who I hadn't seen for 6 years or so. Seemed like only a month had passed.
On the road early on Wednesday morning for the trek to Bradford. Took ages! Loads of traffic on the M6 and a couple of accidents too. I think we arrived at about 3:15 after setting out at 10. 5 minutes after checking into the hotel, a couple of wankers broke into our car and stole the vast majority of our t-shirts and our lighters and guitar picks. So if anyone offers you a PQ shirt around the Bradford area.....give a good kicking for us.
After a meal, we headed to the Market Tavern and met up with MR and FourwayKill (another great bunch of guys who we got on famously with....hey Rob!). Again a small turn out but the crowd made a lot of noise to make up for the lack of numbers. MR opened proceedings and were followed by FourwayKill. Both bands played a blinder and then PQ closed out the evening with possibily our best show of the week up until this point. We dropped Immortal Plains from the set for this show as we wanted to work out exactly how many songs would be in the set for Bloodstock. We spent an hour chatting away with the fans afterwards and eventually hit the hay around 3am.
Thursday saw us make the short hop to Derby and yet another Travel Inn. The Italian guys were finding it very freaky that the rooms looked identical. We eventually found the Vic Inn at around 6pm I think and met up with Soliloquy guys who were supporting us and had made all the arrangements for the show. It was cool to see some people had come early to see this show before Bloodstock got underway the following day. Soliloquy played a great set to a very enthusiastic crowd and then we hit the stage around 10:15 to rattle through our Bloodstock set. The crowd gave us a wonderful reception and I think this suprassed the performance at Bradford the previous evening. Gav's drumming was getting better and better each night and tonight was awesome. Great work from all the other guys too. After chatting away for an hour afterwards, we wearily made our way back to the hotel to prepare for the biggest show of the week and our lives the following day.
We arrived at the Assembly rooms around 2:30pm and loaded our gear in and were shown to our dressing room (!) where we were supplied with our passes, drinks rider etc and met up with Vince, Lee, Rog and the rest of the crew. We soundchecked around 4:30pm - 5 i think and it didn't go particularly well. Couldn't hear vocals or keyboards, and we returned to the dressing room a little bit apprehensive about what might happen later.
Fifth man down completed their set at about 6:45 which left us 15 mins to prepare for the big one.
The intro music hit and we could hear the buzz in the crowd. Simon told us afterwards that people were rushing in to the arena. Gav walked out, followed by Andrea and Steve. Then it was my turn and I raised my arms as i took my place behind the keyboard. The crowd responded in fine style and then we kicked into "Wings of Forever". Alessio came running out screaming "Good Evening Bloodstock" and the crowd went mad! We continued through Glory Tonight, Power Quest, Edge of Time, Temple of Fire and closed with Far Away. As we moved forward to take a bow, the crowd began chanting the name of the band and we shook hands with as many people as could before leaving the stage. What an awesome experience and the crowd were unbelievable! Thanks guys. Vince and guys from our label came backstage and said they thought we put on a great show
Once we had changed and come back to earth we headed to the merchandise area as we had 45 minute before our signing session. We spent much of that time signing stuff for the fans and chatting about the show. We thought that there wouldn't be many at the signing session after this...how wrong we were! Amazingly, the official signing session lasted another 45 minutes and after that we hung out and took some photos with the fans who had wanted their pics taken with us.
An absolutely unforgettable experience and thanks to everyone who watched and enjoyed our set and took the time to come and seek us out afterwards.
On Saturday we had a photo shoot in the morning for upcoming articles to promote the new album, after which we headed back to the festival to see our mates Mercury Rain open the main stage and then followed that with some Dragonforce, Saracen, Masterplan, Edguy and Nightwish. Thanks again to everyone who chatted with us on the Saturday as well. It was fantastic to meet you all....both people form this forum and people who had just discovered the band on the Friday.
Got chatting with Bob Catley and Tobias Sammet. We then all headed to the aftershow party and eventually hit the sack at 5am.
Having said our goodbyes, Simon and myself headed for Southampton whil the rest of the guys plus Shayne and Nadia (who travelled to every show this week...thank guys!) headed for London. The memories of the whole week/weekend will stay with us for a long time I reckon. Thanks to everyone who came to see us over the week, especially those who came to 2 shows. You people are what makes the whole thing so cool and i hope we will see you all again in 2004 when we hit the road in support of new album Neverworld.
Thanks to
Alessio, Andrea, Steve and Gav. Guys.....a pleasure!
Simon.....merch man, driver and all round top bloke.
Shayne and Nadia.....thanks for everything...nails....champagne...fags..munchies and looking after Sy.
Wooks.....great to meet you man and thanks for all the photos you took.
MR, Intense, FourwayKill, Soliloquy.....thanks for everything guys over the course of the week. True friends!
Vince and the Bloodstock team for giving us the chance.
I'll end with a quote from Gav as we left the supermarket at 2am one night
"THANK YOU TESCO'S.....and GOODNIGHT!"
