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Blog: A Trip To Watford

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I met with Mr S Hewitt at Euston on Saturday, ready to head out to WATFORD for the penultimate Dinosaur Planet show at Cha Cha Cha in Watford. We actually met at The Euston Tap... so got to Watford a bit later than planned!

The venue is just like a lovely old cafe in a PARK, because it IS a lovely old cafe in a park, fancy danned up a bit, but still recognisable. We got given food/drink vouchers so how some DELICIOUS Veg Curry, and I even experimented with WINE - yes, i know, DEAD sophisticated!

There were LOADS of people there, and once again I had a chat to some pals from LONG ago in the shape of Mr & Mrs Paul Sweetland, Paul being of similar vintage to Geordie Mark from in Leicester. It's nice bumping into old pals again like this, especially when they're LOVELY, and is in fact one of the main GRATE things about going On The Road. A tour date without old frends magically appearing is, to be honest, a tour date not living up to its full potential.

The GIG BIT itself went OK, tho we were a little thrown by people at the back talking - it was one of the biggest rooms we've played in so were having to up our volume a bit anyway, but I don't think they realised we could actually hear THEM as loud as we could hear ourselves, and it felt a bit rude to ask them to stop, as they WERE right at the back. Maybe when we get on the Moon Horse we'll invest in some of the HEAD MICROPHONES which Steve was on about - demonstrating, i must say, a SURPRISING knowledge of the world of West End Musical Theatre which i am sure will come in very handy when we make our SURELY INEVITABLE transfer there.

Afterwards there was CAKE and BEER and CHAT until one we were given a LIFT to the station - there's a sort of COLLECTIVE of people who run the night, which probably explains the niceness of the venue, the fact we got paid AND got fed AND watered, and that we got taken back to the station. It was like gigging on THE CONTINENT!

Things then got a bit less CHARMING, as we awaited our train. No station is at its best at midnight, just before the last train on a Saturday, and Watford was no different - tho i was amazed to find not just the odd smoker, BREAKING THE LAW, but pretty much EVERYBODY at it. Maybe it was a sponsored smoke? Our minds were taken off this by the sight of a LORRY on RAILS - it was BRILLIANT! It was a LORRY, but with its wheels raised and TRAIN WHEELS lowered so it could zoom along. It also had a big RAISED CAGE thing on the back, in which stood a bunch of guys, just chilling out in their hi-vis jackets, ready to rock.

Five minutes later ANOTHER one went by! It was AMAZING!

We got back to London DEAD late to find the Victoria Line running. TFL had advised me to go all the way to Walthamstow and get a BUS home... advice which i followed, only to find, after HALF AN HOUR WAITING, that my particular bus had MYSTERIOUSLY DISAPPEARED, forcing me to eventual give up and angrily STOMP over to a taxi rank and pay LOADS to do something i could have easily done thirty minutes beforehand! It certainly reminded me why i tend to stay over, rather than try and get back home from distant gigs, these days - Watford didn't seem far enough away, but i think it may now become the BENCHMARK: The Watford B&B Requirement Test!

posted 21/2/2011 by MJ Hibbett

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Comments:

I told him/you about the head mics about a year ago. So nerrr.
posted 25/2/2011 by Tim Eveleigh

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