06/03/2006: "Tour Diary - Days Six to Eight"

music: the shins

Birmingham - Sunflower Lounge
With The Blackflash and System Trap

Setlist:
Yesterday's Technologies
When The Tape Stops
Super Bonus
Contains Mild Peril
To The Power of Love
Teenwolf
The New TV Song
Zombie Bride

For some reason, this gig made me more nervous than I've ever been at a gig before, and I don't understand why. It all disappeared as soon as we hit the stage though. There was a good crowd, and a bizarrely eclectic lineup - The Blackflash play dirty sort of BRMC-style rock and roll, and System Trap were some kind of out-of-place kind of Pearl Jam-esque hard rock thing that seemed to leave most of the crowd a bit baffled. Nice venue, but the nearby parking cost £10! Ten pounds. Outrage!

GIG RATING: 7/10

Newcastle - Tanner's Arms
With Pillow

Setlist:
Finding Emo
To The Power of Love
Straight Out of the Crompton
Contains Mild Peril
Catwatching
Teenwolf
My Portable Friend
Trance Anthem
Zombie Bride

This was the gig where "technical difficulties" kicked in. I guess we'd have been lucky to get through the whole tour without ANY problems. Nathan's bass was utterly out of tune for the first song, so he stopped playing. He tried to retune it for the second song but we had to have two goes at the intro anyway. Argh! Also I kicked a drink over, and my distortion pedals set themselves to a volume of ZERO despite being fine in soundcheck. Bizarre! After we got through these assorted WOES, it was a good gig - not particularly busy, but better than LEEDS. The other band were really good post-rock stuff with female vocals, very nice. We've been invited back in November, if any Northerners fancy seeing us play BETTER.

GIG RATING: 5.5/10

Hull - Ringside
with NOBODY as this gig DIDN'T HAPPEN

Setlist:
NONE as this gig DIDN'T HAPPEN

We only found out that this gig had been cancelled when we turned up at the venue. Great! Thanks, Hull! Luckily the day wasn't a COMPLETE waste of time, as we went to Whitby on the way down from Newcastle and played football on the beach, and lost money on the slot machines. The sun was shining and it was lovely and warm.
After we discovered the gig wasn't happening, me and Pod went and investigated the Humber Bridge and had a burger king. It would have been a great day if it weren't for HULL!

GIG RATING: 0/10
BEACH RATING: 10/10

There are many photos, but I need to SORT and RESIZE and I can't be bothered, so they'll probably appear as a "retrospective" in a couple of days time. No gig tonight, but at least Manchester told us it was cancelled in advance rather than just letting us turn up!

The last date: LONDON on SUNDAY!