So the concert last night was fantastic (bet you guessed I was going to say that *LOL*) but it really was. Unfortunately things didn’t quite go to plan. I found my hotel but couldn’t find any sign of the car park. As Nottingham is a one way town it meant driving right round again for the second attempt. At this point my petrol light has come on and I’ve found that the garage marked on my sat nav has been knocked down, with no sign of any other garages in the area. Unable to keep driving aimlessly I park in the hugely expensive NCP car park and make my way on foot to the hotel, which is one of those ramshackle bad end of town jobs. Having established how to get to their car park I go back to release my car from the NCP at the extortionate price of £2.80 for 13 minutes parking. Soon I’m back in the hotel with its musty smell, peeling wallpaper and slightly too spongy carpets. I’m allocated the room the furthest away from the entrance – on the third floor (with no lifts) and a real hike once at the top of the stairs. The only bonus is that it’s right next door to the fire escape so I’m okay if there’s a fire. Although the hotel was a bit grim the room itself was clean and tidy with fresh bed linen and a rock hard bed, but then the downside to my cheap room – no ensuite. The toilet is right down the end of a very long corridor and the bathroom is next to it. Thank god I’m only here for one night.
Then I find that the new memory card that I bought for my camera on the way up is the wrong one, even though I showed the salesman my camera. I am not happy as I’d wanted to record ‘Fingerprints’ and the card I currently have is nowhere near big enough. I have to admit now that I deleted all the pictures I’d taken on 25th April for Shimelle’s course to free up some space, but alas it wasn’t anywhere near enough – I managed to get only the first verse (*sigh* am I ever going to get a decent copy of this song? Why on earth don’t they release it?)
By now it’s gone 7.30pm and I still need to get some food before I go to the concert but there’s plenty of time multimap has said it’s a 15 minute walk to the Rescue Rooms from my hotel and I’ve got the map and the directions. The problem is that Nottingham isn’t very well signed and so I have trouble working out which way I should be going. I ask the receptionist who’s clearly never been to Nottingham before as she doesn’t recognise any of the roads around the hotel at all and can’t tell me whether to go left or right out of the door. Eventually she tells me to go left (she’s wrong). So finally I head off in the right direction only to discover that they’re not keen on street signs. By some fluke I manage to find Maid Marion Way after about fifteen minutes of walking and set off up the huge hill to find the roundabout. I find that too, after another twenty odd minutes and then try to find the next road (according to the map I’m almost there). It’s not there and no-one I ask has ever heard of it (or the Rescue Rooms … I find out later that it used to be called something else and everyone knows it by its old name). Eventually a nice doorman at one of the Casino’s takes pity on me and tries, without much success, to decipher the map and instructions I’ve got, but he too is stumped. Eventually after more aimless wandering I finally manage to find a cash point and someone who can point me in the right direction. I’ve still not had any food but there’s no time as it’s now almost 9pm and I’m still not there yet.
By fluke I spot Rock City, the bigger sister of the Rescue Rooms so I know I must be in the right area. I am, sort of. I’ve found the back where the tour coach is. Luckily I find someone to ask and they direct me back round the corner where I finally reach my destination just in time to hear Ferraby Lionheart’s last song. From the applause he’s receiving they obviously really liked him. I get a drink and head over to the desk to (finally) buy his CD and have a chat with him about the concert and the tour in general. He seems like a genuinely nice guy and tells me that he’s really enjoyed touring with IAK and has loved the UK.
The venue is a small one, not much larger than the Half Moon and I head (of course) for the front. The stage looks rather crowded with all their equipment and when they come onstage almost 15 minutes early Johnny comments on the way that his guitar cables are completely messed up. Everything goes pretty smoothly, with the usual jokes and heckles until ‘Life in a Day’ when Johnny’s guitar stops working. He disappears off to the side of the stage to try and sort it, but it doesn’t work. When a second guitar doesn’t work either he proceeds to strut the stage like some old time rock god, highly appreciated by the crowd.
When the rest of the band disappear for their cigarette break (poor Pete used to smoke 20 cigarettes during a concert so the smoking ban has hit him badly) John creates mayhem trying to get his guitars to work. He decides to plug them directly into the amp and there’s a cheer as the guitar works once more, but the wires are still tangled and as he heads back towards the mike he ends up pulling over the amp, almost wrecking his other guitars in the process. Norman nips back onstage to help him get the amp back up and eventually Johnny gives up and moves the mike nearer to the amp. The last few songs go without a hitch and suddenly it’s all over again.
After saying I wasn’t going to do it, I did buy the official release of ‘Moolah Rouge’ with the DVD as it gave me the chance to get it signed by Johnny. We had a brief chat during which I was surprised and pleased to find that he recognised me – probably from Half Moon, and discussed the concert at Koko, with the conclusion that while it was a fantastic concert he’d enjoyed this one more.
As luck would have it I’d got chatting to a couple of women who were standing next to me during the concert (alas my memory for names is rubbish) but it turned out that they were good friends with Colin and Norman McLeod, the brothers helping IAK on their tour and owners of the Moolah Rouge Studio. Soon I had been introduced to them too and had quite an interesting discussion on the tour, the amazingly huge glitter ball at Koko, Colin’s Theramin that Norman had played during the concert and other such fascinating topics. They asked me if I was going to the final gig at the Manchester Academy on Saturday night but I told them I had to work and it was too far to go (aren’t I a good girl). They did try to convince me and even suggested that the band wouldn’t be going onstage till 10pm, but I wasn’t swayed (yay me for being so strong!)
As much as I was having fun chatting to them and Ferraby who’d made a reappearance I knew I had to go as I still had to find my way back to the hotel and I wasn’t sure what walking back would be like at that time of night. Amazingly I managed to find the hotel pretty quickly as I now had some idea of the route and it actually did only take about 20 minutes. Of course by the time I’d got back to the hotel my mind was turning over the idea of going to Manchester, working out that I could just about make it, especially if I manage to get them to let me finish work at the pub at 3pm.
Of course I won’t really go – 1 long trip in a week is more than enough, especially as a bad cold that I had earlier in the week has now increased to leave me with a sore throat, hardly any voice, blocked sinuses and a strange noise in my right ear. No I won’t go … although I really, really want to!
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