THE LAST THREE

Swansea.

First we had the morning after, urgh! The breakfast at the Premier Inn just about hit the blood stream as I started to drive back but I didn't get that much sleep. Fortunately the drive to Leicester is less than 30 minutes.

My mum had stayed over to look after our daughter and for some strange reason I had said that I would cook Sunday lunch. Once home I had about 2 1/2 hours to do the lunch and get ready for the drive to Swansea. I think the food did the trick as I started to feel much better.

The drive to Swansea was hideously long but we arrived on time, the venue, Sin City was a real dump and a vert apt name, The first thing I noticed was the smell and how sticky the floors were. The Goo sound guys had set my gear up so we had a quick sound check. Paul and Andy the promoters were there and were quite apologetic about how few people were going to be there.

We went on at 8pm and I actually got a few boos only because they thought we were Kajagoogoo as we walked on. They soon warmed to us though, especially after Sarah announced it's quality not quantity that counts, that got a few laughs.

We shared a dressing room with the Kaja guys so had a few laughs at the shapes Steve was throwing, obviously his tartan trousers were giving him punk legs. Brian the manager is quite a serious guy but the guys were managing to get him smiling as they were pretending to be Diva's. Nick asked him to take the set list down but as he reached for it Nick said "oh dear I've dropped it" when he bent down Nick lifted his kilt so poor old Brian got to witness the same as me from the previous night.

We left pretty early after the show and decided to get some food, we drove around Swansea centre for half an hour looking for somewhere suitable. We had both imagined eating nice fish 'n' chips at the seaside but it appears Swansea isn't really that sort of place.

Music kept me awake on the drive back, Sarah discovered some new music Rex The Dogs album - 'The Rex the Dog Show' so this was blasted through my cars system.

London

As already well hinted at, this was a skin of your teeth moment.

I'm pretty good with check lists and I was already to go, I'd texted Sarah and said pick you up at 3pm, she replied make it 3.30. So I'd got myself ready to go for 3pm and sat on the sofa and decided to check my emails with a bit of time to spare. At 3.20 I set off to get Sarah. An hour and twenty minutes later we were at Watford when for some reason it dawned on me my laptop was still at home. Looking at the clock it was 4.50pm, I did a quick turn around at the next junction and started to head back to Leicester. We called Brian the manager to tell him our dilemma, he didn't sound too pleased but that was because all of the the Goo gear was stuck in a broken down van on the other side of London. I called Zoë to see if she could grab my laptop and meet us on route, we managed to meet her at junction 20, only one junction away from Leicester but it still saved us a precious 30 minutes.

The drive back to London was frantic and we made it to the venue at 7.45pm (we were on at 8.00pm) The Kajagoogoo guys gave us a cheers and we were helped in Wout / Ben and the promoter Paul. The stage set-up was even more buttock clenching as my Apex keyboard stand decided to jam so that meant stick a few bits on the floor. I don't think a pre-gig drive and set-up has ever gone so badly.

Sarah's first glimpse of the stage and venue was when she walked on, but still the set went OK and we got a good reception. A big thanks to Ben for selling the merchandise, we did quite well.

There was a small party afterwards for guests and we met a couple of friends of Limahl who really liked the set, they worked for Gaydar radio and will be playing some of our tracks.

Southampton

Everything was checked at least ten times before we set off today, never making that mistake again.

We arrived on time for 5pm and had a quick look around the venue. We decided to stay and get ready at the venue rather than heading back to the hotel. Again we shared a dressing room with the Kaja guys which was good being the last night.

Tonight had to be the night that my remote starting of the set didn't work, it had worked perfectly for every other show but decided to fail on the last night, in-fact it was actually the master volume that had been turned down which was odd. Sarah put this down to a spooky experience as her mobile had also lost it's charge!

Sarah was pretty nervous as her dad was in attendance tonight, the first time he'd ever seen her perform. But the set went well and as always it was over far too soon.

After the Goo set we had a good old drink and chat with the guys and they invited us to play with them in December. We've also had offers from Nick and Steve to play guitar and bass on our next album so you never know we may have those guys on stage with us in the future.

I had been quite sceptical as to how much I would enjoy the tour but I have to say I had a great time. What was also good was meeting lots of new people that gave us some great feedback and comments and more importantly bought out CDs.

Roll on Bedsitland.