The first show of the tour for us was to be the Rescue Rooms in Nottingham on Valentines Day, 2004. Lizzy, Chris and their daughter Ellie, together with Scottish Keith, were all coming down from the North East to stay at our house before going to the gig on Saturday night. Gill and Colin were coming up from Essex and we had arranged to meet up with them in the Bell again.
Now Mike has a friend and neighbour in LA, the New Guy (TNG) who had been filming various US gigs for Arthur's personal use. TNG, and by association Arthur, was keen for as many of the UK shows to be filmed as possible. Lizzy, who is much more of a technophile than me, had been asked if she could get involved in this, so she was bringing her video camera along to the show in an official capacity. I put our tripod in the back of the car and we set off - the place where I work is very near the Rescue Rooms so we parked there and then strolled down to the Bell and met up with Gill and Colin.
Gig time approached and we headed for the Rescue Rooms - the first person we saw was Mike, talking on his mobile phone outside in the courtyard. We had a quick chat and he told us that Bent, the tour manager was looking for Lizzy re the videoing - she was on the guest list!
Lizzy has written a great diary about the gig so rather than repeat everything that happened that extraordinary night, I've put a link to it. All I can say is - we weren't expecting to be using Arthur's video camera, we were completely stunned when it arrived - and when you opened the bag it did smell of roses... Taking the camera back after the gig, I did the old "Can I have an autograph for my friend" trick again - this time for my old pal Paul, a long time Love fan, who happened to be there with his wife Pam that evening.
After the obligatory kebab with Mike from the Antalya on Upper Parliament Street - we were all back to the band's hotel, the Strathdon, for a few drinks. It was here that were to meet the crew properly for the first time - all Danes, these were people who were to become great pals over the next few weeks and months. First off there was Bent, the tour manager, who'd seen it all, done it all - and got the t-shirt. Then there was Kose, the (partially deaf) sound guy - more about him later. Then there was the lovely Troels - now Troels is about 6 foot 4 inches tall, a sort of a coffee colour, and has waist length dreadlocks - and, we later learned, an identical twin brother! We spent some time chatting with them, although at this juncture Troels was sticking to his native Danish and Bent was translating - we later discovered that Troels had a pretty good grasp of English.
After a few beers, Lizzy and I decided that, despite previous decisions not to, we had to go to Northampton the next evening... this would involve Lizzy driving all the way back from Nottingham to Newcastle on Sunday to take her family back home, then back to Nottingham, and then driving on to Northampton. Bent would arrange for us to have press passes. It was to be the start of our brilliant careers as rock legend videoers (is that a proper word??)
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