No 13: Sheffield Leadmill 18th March 2004

I set off after work to drive to Sheffield, its only 40 miles or so from Nottingham - Lizzy was driving down from Newcastle for the evening, which was a considerably longer journey. The traffic was pretty awful - then I saw Lizzy's car driving past me so I knew I was going the right way. I headed for the station car park as recommended and Lizzy and I arrived within a couple of minutes of each other - its wonderful when a plan comes together!

After parking up, we did a bit of a reccy and found the Leadmill - there were passes waiting for us at the stage door so in we went, to find the whole band (exc Arthur natch) and crew tucking into sandwiches and coffee. They were pleased to see us, asked us to help ourselves food, so we did. Bent and Troels were worn out and Bent in particular wasn't very happy - it transpires that they had driven from Florence (yes the one in Italy) to Wrexham and then on to Sheffield over the course of the last couple of days, so no surprise that they were tired. We found a handy DJ booth to park the video stuff in and left for the nearby pub where we'd arranged to meet John E who was travelling up from London.

After a couple of drinks (not a lot as we both had long drives at the end of the evening) we were back to the venue, and into the DJ booth which was up quite a few steps and afforded a great view of the stage. Scottish Keith arrived so we had a chat with him.The Yards were support, very good they were too. Then Arthur and the video camera arrived, I hastily set up, and they were on. Another good show - we got the impression that everybody was really tired by now, six weeks or so into a very gruelling tour, but it didn't show in the performance.

Afterwards Lizzy and I went backstage and had a chat with the crew - Bent, Kose and Troels - they weren't happy because they had to stay in Sheffield for a few days with Arthur, while the band were staying with friends in York - the next gig was in three days time in Manchester and they'd much rather go there but had been told there were no hotel rooms to be had. I said I'd look the next day on the internet to see if I could find anything for them and ring Bent if I could - unfortunately it was true, absolutely no hotel rooms to be had in Manchester City Centre for love nor money. So the guys stayed in Sheffield - presumably Arthur went off to stay with his pals, the Head brothers of Shack fame, in Liverpool for the next couple of days.

At the end of the evening we went back to our cars, I returned John E's bag to him that I'd been storing in my boot - Mike and the gang going to York were parked near us so we all said our goodbyes in the carpark. Our next gig was to be Shepherd's Bush Empire on 2nd April, when the orchestra would be rejoining the tour.