Upon returning we had a butchers at 'Flight 666', which I had not seen yet. Highly enjoyable, with McBrain Jnr. shouting out the names of just about everybody in it! In no time at all it was 5:00pm and time to roll out to Maidenstone. Arrival at the venue...Flaming Henry's provided us with a nice gig upon our last visit 2 years ago (check out the diary from that weekend on our forum...somewhere!). The only thing we weren't looking forward to was the upstairs load-in / downstairs load-out. Gritting our teeth we lugged the gear up the stone steps and through the upstairs kitchen towards the concert hall. The public address system looked a little sad, and had apparently been left on all night much to the dismay of the sound-man. As the rest of us wouldn't be mic-ed up, the naff system was causing Mr Dugginson much fluster. It does massively suck knowing that no-one will be able to hear your remarkable talents as a musician. One speaker stack seemed to be working, the other not. The red mist was rising, so I quickly set up and retired to the dressing room not wanting to be Bruce's next victim!!!
The gig itself was well played by all members, but to a teeny tiny audience. This was the cause of some consternation amongst us Hi-on chaps, as the gig had been rescheduled twice because the venue had apparently not received our posters and thusly couldn't advertise. We arrived to find that they had received our posters, put up a few of their own and assumed people would just turn up. This was a crying shame as the gig last time had been well attended and received rapturously. Such is life, it seems. My personal diary from the evening sums it up thusly: "Good gig, no audience, shit P.A.". Not a lot more to say, really!
Post-mortem...We sat around drinking for roughly three weeks before finally giving into our fate and lugging all the gear back downstairs. Not anyone's idea of fun, but at least the load-out wasn't upstairs. That would be killer. Nicko went home with his mother and Mr. Harris bid us farewell at the base of the stairs. Swifty, Duggan and I buggered off back to mine and enjoyed a Pink Floyd DVD with some beer before turning in for the night. ...and so the weekend concludes.That's it from us until September, which sees us doing a mini-tour of Yorkshire. Looking forward to some nice views and some even nicer beer! Til then, up the Irons! Dave "Uncle Manic " Hurry.
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