GIG REVIEW

6th April 2006 - The Danebury Hotel, Andover, Hampshire

Well that's the post-Malta gig out of the way! To be honest, I think it was always going to be a bit of come-down, wherever it was that we played. Well, maybe not entirely - if we'd have followed Malta up with maybe Mathew Street Festival or another gig abroad it might not have been such a come-down but there you. At least it's out of the way now. Having said that, it wasn't too bad a gig - it just wasn't Malta.

The journey down was quite pleasant and it was great to be back on the road actually - we hadn't really been on the road since middle of February. It was mainly sunny and the roads weren't too bad. We'd expected the M1 to be quite tiresome as we hit it in the mid-afternoon but it turned out ok. Probably because the kids are off and therefore the parents are too. We jumped off the M1 near Coventry and did the bulk of the remaining journey on the A-roads (A46, M40, A34 and A343). The A343 was quite picturesque as it went through the Wessex Downs - makes a change from the greyness of the motorways.

Brings a whole new meaning to 'moving house'

Yep, Gail eating

We arrived in Andover just short of 19:00 after a 5 hour drive and found the venue straight away courtesy of my navigating. It looked quite nice on the outside and had a big banner out the front declaring "The UK's No.1 Tribute to Coldplay" were playing that night. All looked well. The venue itself was pretty decent inside, the room not too big but big enough and we can't fault the promotion of the event, from the banner outside to the ton of flyers scattered throughout the venue. We setup and soundchecked within an hour and half or so and then sloped off to feed ourselves. Jimbo and I grabbed a pizza each from Dominos - what a rip-off! Not a patch on Pizza Hut pizzas either. Don't think I'll be going there again. The bloke at the counter misheard my name too meaning I had to answer to the name of "Burt" when my pizza was ready . Everyone else grabbed stuff from a kebab shop and we all piled in the van to demolish it all. Suitably sated we went for a drink or two in a pub a few doors down from the Danebury. We got a couple of drinks in each and watched the goals and interviews and stuff from the Middlesbrough vs Basle game. 3-0 down on aggregate and they scored the required 4 goals! Nice one Middlesbrough - well done!

We got back to The Danebury about 10ish and went on stage shortly after. The gig itself was not too bad. We've played better but we've played worse. The crowd was quite good but it was on of those crowds where some of them weren't necessarily big Coldplay fans and weren't necessarily there to see us. The singles went down the best, Yellow, Scientist, In My Place, Fix You etc. There were a handful of people there though that really got into the X&Y stuff, White Shadows and Low going down particularly well, and we did get a decent shout for an encore. The encore's actually were the best received part of the set - Talk, In My Place and Fix You. In reality it was probably a better gig than we thought it was at the time - I think our heads were still in Malta and it was a bit of a comedown. There were quite a few people that did really enjoy the show actually - one bloke gave us £20 to get some drinks in, which was really cool of him, and there were some that came and chatted to us after the gig.

We got packed up on the road about half one. We didn't bother with any food coz we'd had some before the gig. That surprised me a bit coz I thought at least Gail would've got something! It was a long drive home - it took us around 6 hours. A couple of things worth noting about the journey home: - 1) We stopped off to take a leek in this laybe on the A43 and I managed to fall over the kerb, going down in a heap and hurting both wrists, my ankle and my knee. I only mention it coz I know the rest of the band will enjoy reading about it and remembering it, especially Jamie, who couldn't stop laughing at the time! It really hammered too. Getting old. 2) We stopped off for coffee three or four times and at one stop we were a bit hungry so we were gonna get some crisps or something but they were only these packs of really fancy crisps (supposedly hand-cooked or something) at about 70/80p a pack. Shane spotted some Quavers so we were like "let's have some of them, they'll only be about 50p or something". One of the women working there overheard us though and said not to bother coz they were £1.50. We didn't believe her but she told us to read the sign and lo and behold, they were. It was a kids section and if you were over a certain age then every item cost £1.50. So £1.50 for a pack of Quavers has got to be the biggest rip-off yet in a service station. Incredible! Anyway, we got home about 7:30 am, saw the sunrise and were completely knackered. All in all, it wasn't a bad gig at all and probably better than we thought, but it was worth the journey and we'd probably go back. Many thanks to the crowd and even more so to the venue, who promoted the gig so well.

• Return journey to Andover : 440
• Total miles travelled : 7,240

22nd April 2006