30th March 2008 - The Outback, Douglas, Isle of Man

We couldn't be arsed to make another fry-up in the morning despite having the materials, we were all too hung over. So we went for a kick about on the footy courts at the Laxey football ground. It was right next to a river so naturally the ball ended up in the river a few times, but fortunately we salvaged it every time.

Afterwards we went out for a drive around the island instead. I won't bore with details, so I'll summarise and provide some pictures instead. Basically, we went up the east coast and back down on the TT course through the mountains, stopping off for a couple of hours for a ramble up the side of a waterfall, across the top and back down the other side. The weather thus far had been pretty horrible, gale force winds, biting cold and copious amounts of rain. Today was a complete turn around. The temperature must've been at least 10 degrees higher and we had blazing sunshine all day. Special mention for the sheep that Shane scared the shit out of. We'd just crawled round an uphill hairpin bend and stood on the side of the road is this sheep. So Shane rolls down the window and says "Excuse me mate", the sheep shat itself and promptly disappeared off the side of the road, possibly plunging to its death down the hill. Shane the sheep murderer!

We went back to Laxey, picked up the gear and headed over to Douglas, arriving at the venue around 4pm, just in time for the second half of the Liverpool v Everton game. Shame we missed the first half but at least we got to see the second half. Good result too :) With the game finished we got on with setting the gear up in the little space we had. Once again, Jamie did the mixing for us, a great help. Sound check done, we milled around, had a few drinks, chatted to various people etc until time came for us to go on stage. As with the night before, Mark did a few numbers to warm the crowd up, but this time with a lady whose name I regretfully forget, but she had a fantastic voice and we really enjoyed the set. They played a particular favourite song of mine, Songbird by Fleetwood Mac, so a big thumbs up there!

We took to the stage around half 9 again, the crowd cheering and whistling before we've even played a note! With this being the third gig on the bounce, we were very relaxed and well on form and, as with the preceding two gigs, the crowd responded from the word go, making for a pretty electric gig. Plenty of singing, dancing, cheering all the way throughout the gig. We also got double encores again, the usual suspects first, followed by a repeat of Yellow and Clocks. Once again, that wasn't enough to satisfy the crowd so we had a jam session once again, initially the same as the night before (Oasis, Verve, Snow Patrol duet with Mark etc) followed by Jamie and a couple of his mates playing a few Hendrix tunes, initially with me on drums for Hey Joe and then Mark getting up to play the drums - left handed on a right handed set up :D About an hour's worth of jamming later, we all rejoined the stage as a band and rounded off the night with an extended version of Everything's Not Lost, sending everyone off into the night on a high.

With the gig over, and the crowd having left, we retired to the bar with Mark, Jamie, some of their friends, and the bar staff, who declared "Let's get the band pissed!" and proceeded to server an array of shots - I strongly recommened Apple Jacks - Apple Sour + Jack Daniels, a superb mix. Thanks to Asa at this point actually coz he had to forgo the booze up so that he could drive. Anyway, a lot of shots and beer later, we started jamming again, with various of the bar staff doing some singing, rapping etc, and the us playing a drunken version of Clocks, all the pub lights switch off and just our laser providing lighting. Guess you had to be there but it was pretty awesome.

So come 4am, everyone leathered, we decided it was wise to call it a night and proceeded to tear down the gear and, with help from everyone there, get it loaded into the van. We got back to the cottage for around 5:30am and with us having to be up at 6:30am to head off for the ferry, Jimbo and Asa decided to stay up to tidy up and pack while Shane and I got a sliver of sleep. So an hour later, we were up, still partly drunk and the beginnings of a hang over creeping in, and heading off to the ferry. It was a long old journey home, with us going via Heysham again. We left the cottage at around 7am and didn't arrive back in Grimsby until 5pm - a 12 hour journey. It would've been an hour quicker if we hadn't have had to re-route a little and go via the Humber Bridge due to the M180 being closed from junction 1 to junction 2 - a motorway closure on the outward journey and again on the homeward journey :( I topped off an excellent weekend with tea at my parents :)

This was a superb weekend and most of thanks go to Mark Armstrong of TalisMann promotions for the sheer amount of time and effort he put in promoting the gigs. It really showed as we had a sell-out of 200 people on the first night, sell-out of 60 on the second night and 180 on the final night. Every gig was absolutely fantastic and every crowd was awesome. I can't really put it into words to be honest. In addition to the promotion Mark put in, he worked tirelessly while we were over there to ensure we had everything we needed, running around to get us stuff and to meet us at every venue and all sorts. He's also the most generous agent we've had the pleasure to work with and went above and beyond the call of duty, a real pleasure to work with. Also thanks to the sound guys, lighting guy and all the staff at the Centenary Centre in Peel for the work they put it and also being a pleasure to work with. Thanks to Jamie too for mixing for us at Laxey and Douglas, top job! And also to Rory for the lighting job at the Outback - fantastic reading of the music and providing appropriate lighting - top work with the strobe in particular. And finally thanks to everyone else we met while over there, we were left with an extremely positive view of Isle of Man and it's people. It was one of the best weekends we've ever had and it was a pleasure to work with such professional people and to play to such appreciative and responsive audiences. And of course, cheers to Coldplay once again - Viva La Coldplay!!!

Wayne, 7th April 2008

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