Twin Atlantic Tour Diary: Nottingham

The Twin Atlantic tour rolls into Nottingham as drummer Craig Kneale updates his road blog for Rock Sound.

Posted Friday, 12 February 2010 by Victoria Durham in

Blog

Going away is always tough. Knowing that you won’t see home comforts for X number of days isn’t easy, as we grow up through our whole childhood with them around us. You get so accustomed to them being there. So when you’re awoken very early on a cold Monday morning in February and know you have to leave to go away in a big metal van again, it does slightly feel that you’re going back to prison after you’ve been let loose for a few days. We’d been away a month and I personally hadn’t missed my bed, but being allowed in it for just two nights made it seem like that leaving it now would surely kill me, like it contained in it’s sheets the nutrients to keep my frail body functioning. Which is nonsense of course, although Scientists should work on something like that for old people. They could call it “The Sheets o’ Life” - they’d sell millions of them.

So we were on the road again, headed for Nottingham to continue our headline tour. We’ve played Nottingham quite a few times and it’s always a good show, apparently it’s the gun crime capital of the UK though? I’ve never seen any guns there, and believe me I looked pretty hard. Maybe one of us would get lucky and get popped in the kneecap tonight? One can only wish. About 30 seconds outside Glasgow I fell asleep in a classic Kneale position, head at approximately 110° from my shoulders. I’m like some sort of sleep magician. One day my head will probably just fall off during slumber because of the stress i’m putting on it.

We were playing at Rock City, so called as Nottingham is in fact the home of rock music. History tells us that the Sheriff of Nottingham was the first person to write a guitar solo, and also was the first musician to wear leather trousers - i’m pretty sure it’s mentioned in the sequel to Robin Hood: Stealin’ Licks for The Poor. It was a straight to video release but you can probably get it on YouTube. Arriving at the venue we were greeted by about five tour buses in the loading area making our van look very weak and also making our load in pretty horrific as we tried to squeeze guitar cabs and flight cases through tiny gaps. But enough whinging, we got everything in eventually. And inside it was fecking freezing, so there you go - without realizing i’ve whinged again. I’ve turned into a serial whinger.

That’s what being at home with all those comforts does to you, it turns you into the sort of person that I don’t like. I might just decorate my room like the inside of a Travelodge, complete with adjoining shower and get my mum to bring me fresh white towels and a little tiny soap everyday when i’m at home so it feels like i’m always away. And get someone to knock on my door at midday and tell me I have to checkout.

The gig itself was really good, we’ve played the Rock City basement a couple of times and it’s always a fun show. I remember the first time we played here I get genuinely lost and stuck in some sort of breeze block room, but now we’re like old pros - roaming the basement corridors like we own the place. Which we do, I recently bought this place for five billion Euros. I got big plans for the place. I’ve been doing merch up until we play on most of these shows, which i’ve quite enjoyed really - it feels like i’m running my own little shop. It also gave me a good view to watch Canterbury rock ‘da house, they really are fantastic - every song is an anthem. And they’re bringing bandanas back into music - a fashion style that should have been brought back years ago. Well done Canterburys.

Our show also went very well, we played well and it’s the biggest crowd we’ve played too in Nottingham. But I must admit that it was tough getting into it after the two big Glasgow shows at the weekend, and we all tried very hard to try and block that from our minds. The gap in fanbase when we cross to south of the border is quite large and it is sometimes tricky to not wonder how you make that change. Which is crazy, we’re playing to over 150 people in a city that’s over 5 hours from where we live which is amazing! And we’re so appreciative to everyone that does come along and support us when we are still a largely unknown band.

After the show we again navigated another treacherous load out and then saw a man set up a line of cocaine on his dashboard with all of us watching him. We nicknamed him ‘The Boldest Man in Nottingham’, you might catch him in the town center urinating on a Police Station door or trying sell drugs to kids in busy shops with the aid of a megaphone. After looking him directly in the eyes and realising that he must be truly mental we drove back to our hotel which was inside a service station, so our room window looked out onto the inside of the forecourt. A truly breathtaking view to fall asleep too. I had really inspiring dreams about WHSmith and Moto M&S.

P.S. No pictures today because the Sheriff of Nottingham has banned the use of Digital SLR cameras in Nottingham as he deemed them ‘dangerous memory stealing devices’. And he knows all about people stealing from him.