Live/Wire - The AC/DC Tribute Show - Diary

Live/Wire - Diary - The General's Diary #5

Newcastle Academy, Tamworth Assembly Rooms & The Riga - 7, 8 & 9 Feb 2008.

The weekend begins with Beano making his way to El Bastardos (The Generals gaff!) On the way he stops at Beef Janks’ abode to pick up two new amps for TinK & The Geordie. After a relatively short stop for a chat, (3 weeks) he arrives a little late at El Bastardos!
The pair bung Beano’s gear into Thunderbird 1, which includes a Q.P.R. quilt, & set off!!
They both manage to talk bollocks all the way to Newcastle!
On arrival, they meet up with the rest of the lads, minus a certain Geordie, talk bollocks some more & then load in!
The load in is a lengthy & tedious affair! The venue itself is upstairs! Normally a lift would be used to move all the gear up, but guess what??.....YEP!....F*cked!!! So the boys, aided by the soundman, hump the lot up SEVEN (yes I counted the bastards!!) SEVEN flights of stairs!!!!
The Geordie arrives in the nick of time……..& just misses the load in!! He comes straight from work & is in a bit of an arsey mood for which he continuously apologizes!! But it doesn’t take him long to become the fun loving, silly bugger that we’re all used to!!
Sound check sees JonBon going out front to listen to the drums. He soon has a huge grin on his face, signalling to The General that the sound system is kicking out huge chunks of booming death!!!

Newcastle Academy The gig itself is a total blast!! A packed house full of crazy Geordies!! They start going completely mad even before we play a single note!
It’s an important gig for The Geordie himself as it’s the first one with us in his home town! He puts on a terrific display!
An absolutely brilliant gig!! Thanks to everyone who came!!

The load out is a lot simpler! The very thought of carrying the gear down the SEVEN flights of stairs after two & a half hours blasting away, is somewhat unattractive to sat the least!! So, two guys take all the gear downstairs for us, for a previously agreed financial arrangement!!! Bargain!!

The lads all pile round to The Geordie’s gaff for the night!! It is then discovered that Beano has left his ‘Brian’ hat at the venue!!! He minces about for a short while & then after calling himself a “facking stupid, facking kant!” for the ninth time, he retires to the kitchen to join everyone who’s bellies are now rumbling vigorously!!
Kimmy has made a delicious curry, which is demolished very quickly! The General kindly obliges in finishing off Beano’s, Kimmy’s, TinK’s & The Geordie’s curries!! Shakey, somewhat selfishly, eats all of his!!
Beano then produces a huge bottle of Jack Daniels!!! This seems to be demolished equally as quickly as the curry & the lads then proceed to talk even more bollocks before swanning off to bed!
The Geordie shows everyone where they’ll be crashing. The General’s sleeping device for the night is a large, double camp bed, made out of re-enforced concrete!!! It is however very comfortable!!

The next day, the guys make the quite lengthy drive from ‘The Toon’ to Tamworth!

Beano goes to retrieve his hat from the Academy!

Tamworth Assembly Rooms All the gear is loaded in. JonBon then decides to park Bertha right up to the back of Thunderbird 1. TinK waves him back to the point of almost touching, shouts “WOAH!” which is promptly ignored by JonBon & the two vehicles thump together!!
Sound check goes smoothly. Then The General rushes back stage, hastily sets up his camping stove & makes his breakfast!!!

The gig as always at Tamworth Assembly Rooms is brilliant!! – A lot of kids there – singing along to every single word!! - always great to see!! Thanks everyone!!

After both vans are loaded, JonBon tells The General that he will be following him to the Travelodge & not to speed off!
…….Maybe I should explain at this point that Thunderbird 1 is a mega fast, modern van with a huge engine & massive turbo-charger that sucks children & small animals in to it if they stand too close!! – With a top speed God knows what, it flies effortlessly!! – Bertha, however, is an old, huge & heavy, non – turbo-charged, leaking, slow, rusty piece of stone age engineering, with a heater that doesn’t work - also deafeningly loud! Boasting a top speed of about 11 mph!!!......
As you can imagine, the journey to the Travelodge takes about a month!! The General asks his passenger, TinK to wake him up when he gets to the next white line!!!!!

As ever at the digs, The General has to cook for people! The camping stove is brought out once again & tins of chilli, beans & sausages & macaroni cheese are devoured hastily, in between swags of Jim Beam & Tesco ‘Turps’!!

At noon the next day, the lads decide to raid the Morrisons canteen in Lutterworth!
If you’ve ever been to a supermarket canteen, you will know the score – you get your tray & line up along the long slidey shelf thing & put various cakes, bread & drinks on the tray & slide along towards the till! Well, Beano gets as far as the tea pots and decides to take one from the bottom of a stack of about five trays full!!! The lot goes!! Crashing, banging & clattering all over the place!!!!! All the people going through the tills & in the canteen turn & glare at the rather sheepish looking Beano, who’s standing there, frozen, looking like a football player who’s just scored an own goal in the FA cup final at Wembley!!! One disgruntled worker then appears from round the back & starts putting them back, whilst murmuring expletives under his breath!! Beano’s continued apologies fall on deaf ears & the rest of the lads continue sniggering, unabated!!!! – You really should have been there!!

They eventually converge on Southend & The Riga!!

After load in, there’s is a bit of poncing about with ‘what’s going where’ but eventually is sorted!

The place is packed for the show & quite a few of forumers turn up!! – Rockmusicrocks, KC/DC, Headbanger, SnoozyBoozy, Ricky, High Voltage, Lozzy & “The Coven” (Belinda & Jane)!! – Sorry if I missed anyone! – Great to see all of you there! Thankyou!
The gig is banging & we all have a great time!!!

After the show, JonBon goes home, Beano & TinK go to ‘Thunderstruck’(Beano’s gaff!) & The Geordie, Shakey & The General head back to the Travelodge.
Half way there, The General loses the plot completely & asks where they are going!!!!!! Shakey, somewhat bemused says “Harlow Travelodge…??........where we were last night….??.......the one that YOU’VE got the key for……….?????!!!!!!!!!!”……. “…….oh yeah….!!” says The General, checking his pocket!!!

……Well it WAS a long weekend…..!!!!!!!!

Cheers!