Cardiff

Ben and I manage to make the breakfast curfew and enjoy a very decent full English veggie blow out. Mike and Jeff are late and get egg on toast after considerable grovelling. We return to The Robin to collect the gear and are on the M5 southwards in no time. Jeff is driving. Bonehead calls Owen Morris [the OASIS Producer] on the off chance he’s up for it, or mad for it, or whatever for definitely maybe and that's it, and lo and behold he is. We meet up with him in a Monmouth pub an hour later where the band catch up and I listen in; it’s hard not to at that volume. Owen is possibly the most gifted storyteller this side of Abergavenny. He's also very loud. Later that evening Miles reprimands him for making mobile calls during his set and I banish him to the naughty seat during ours. I expect his mother once described him as a handful and she’d be right. We arrive in Cardiff mid afternoon, Owen is staying at The Hilton and we’re some leagues under the accommodating sea. The Barfly smells like a nursing home, looks well and truly trashed and in time honoured tradition there is no rider, no food and no dressing room. On the positive side there is a sound engineer who knows the room all too well. We sound check effortlessly and leave for Pizza Express who serve the most amazing olives, huge black and green salt encrusted mini plums that Bonehead likens to dog food. Olives egh, don't you just love em or loathe em. Back at the finally found after endless searching M Lodge Hotel Ben and I watch TV and make recovery plans. At the venue we catch Miles and Erica's last two songs, both delivered with characteristic gusto. Ericas playing is truly something else. I get talking to her later about classical training, her love of roast dinners and Doncaster as a place to grow up in. She also has perfect pitch and demonstrtes a spontaneous A at the drop of a packet of Bombay mix. The gig is good, really enjoyable despite the tell tale shadows of a half empty venue. Reactions are great, Owen comperes us to The Attractions and we briefly discuss working together, though I feel this was more heated moment that actual possibility, we’ll see. I get the feeling that working with Owen might well tax my limited capacity for all things rock n roll. Like I said…I doubt it but we’ll see. After show we congregate just down the road in the Hilton Bar where Owen runs up a tab [with a little help from assembled liggers and loafers] of truly astronomic proportions. Ben and I retire early and sleep like babies, the others return at some point but as luck would have it I’ve locked the door. And that was that, VP