Blog: Tour Diary 3: Bristol

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I was up EARLY on day 3 of the tour, as B&Bs tend to want you checked out a lot sooner than Hotels. On the plus side, they do also give you the second "B" of the B&B, which in this case was a MASSIVE, also DELICIOUS, veggie breakfast. I WADDLED downhill to the station, full of GRUB, and ended up getting an earlier train that expected. I then (after getting SLIGHTLY but not irretrievably lost) found my hotel in Bristol a bit nearer to the station a bit quicker than I thought, so ended up in the lobby of the Ibis asking to check-in at 11:45am. "Check-in isn't until noon" said the lady, a little sharply. "Oh, " I replied, looking equally Slightly Stern, "I can wait then!" I think we both then felt a little self-conscious, and there was much apologising and jolliness on both sides as she searched and found me a room that was ready a bit early. PHEW!

After some loafing about I headed down the road (getting slightly lost again - Bristol is BIG, also slightly confusing) to the Showcase Cinema, where I watched "Godzilla". About 90 minutes into it I realised that i was BORED - this surprised me, as GIANT MONSTERS FIGHTING is something I am usually very happy to watch, but somehow they had made it DULL. They did that thing where you only see glimpses of the MONSTERS, which is fine except that the people they concentrated on instead were RUBBISH. It was a bit like "Man Of Steel" in a way, as they presented you with the US Army and expected you to applaud them just for being the US Army. The lead character was IN NO WAY A MAVERICK, and it felt like you were meant to cheer for blind obedience, also a bunch of big necked men shouting "SIR! YES SIR!" a lot. I did not enjoy it.

What i DID enjoy however was a stroll in the sunshine through Bristol to Millenium Square where I met Gav. We had a beer in the sun outside an Indian Restaurant (Kingfisher is an EXCELLENT holiday beer!) and then walked to The Grain Barge, which reminded me a LOT of Charters in Peterborough. This was a good thing!

We soundchecked, got fed AGAIN, had a free beer AGAIN and then greeted various CHUMS as they rolled up. As with all previous gigs I worried beforehand about how it would go, but it went LOVELY. Gav kicked off, FINALLY doing "Sweet Bedford" after me asking for it every gig, and announcing the arrival of Grace, who'd DASHED back from playing at a wedding in Gloucester, by saying "Here's Grace Petrie, who's come here straight from a wedding." It sounded like he'd said "her wedding", and she was CONGRATULATED by several people!

Then it was ME, and I did THIS:

The Peterborough All-Saints Wide Game Team (group B)

Can We Be Friends?

That Guy

The Perfect Love Song

20 Things To Do Before You're 30

(You Make Me Feel) Soft Rock

It Only Works Because You're here

Boom Shake The Room

Different songs AGANE here, including the debut of That Guy which went down DEAD well. One of the many lovely things about this tour has been doing NEW songs and having them go down WELL. I'm really rather looking forward to doing the album! Also, people did the "la la la la" bit in the middle of Boom Shake The Room and it was so delightful I had to stop and get them to do it again!

Then Grace went on and once again was MARVELLOUS, winning over the whole room - there was talk of rotating the running order as the tour went along, but I think both Gav and I favour Grace closing, neither of us really like the idea of following her!

Then, after some more BEER and CHAT and HUGS, that was that - stage one of the tour was OVER. I returned to the Ibis VERY happy with how it had gone so far and looking forward to the rest of it. Next stop BATH on the 23rd, do come if you can!.
posted 21/5/2014 by MJ Hibbett

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