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Bournemouth O2 Academy
Thin Lizzy / FM / The Treatment
29 November 2012
FM Tour Diary: Bournemouth O2 Academy - 29 November 2012
Ok it's tour time again. This time we're out with the legendary Thin Lizzy. Now whoever planned the routing was on some strong mind-bending substances or has just bought shares in the major petroleum companies. Let's have a look… We start in Bournemouth on the south coast then head to Southend on the east coast, followed by Exeter back on the south coast with a trip up to Norwich - east coast again - and a trip to Bristol thrown in for good measure. Then up to the north-east and Middlesbrough. Ending with the more sensible Liverpool, Nottingham and Birmingham. Our days off will be spent in Tunstall finishing off the Deluxe Edition of the new album. Busy, busy, busy.
We meet at my gaff in Ealing, pick up Merv from his and speed down the M3 towards
Bournemouth. Well actually when I say speed that's not strictly true as our tour
minibus appears to be governed to 62 mph. We do occasionally hit 63 mph downhill
with a tail wind. We rock up at the venue in good time and the crew unload the gear.
Lizzy are sound-checking and sounding good. The gig is a labyrinth of stairs and
corridors but we finally manage to locate our dressing room. Lizzy finish their soundcheck,
our backline goes up and it's our turn. All goes without a hitch and it's a happy
camp. It's a three-band bill and joining us and Lizzy are The Treatment, they opened
for us in Cardiff and are a great young band.
We're on at 8.20pm tonight. I head off with John for a bite to eat. John is our soundman for the first three shows before Richard joins us for Norwich. We haven't seen John since the early '90s when he worked with us and it's great to see him again and have him back on the team. The witching time of 8.20 is fast approaching so we get into our stage clothing and head side-stage.
It's nice and busy in the gig, the lights go down, the intro tape strikes up... Here we go again. Straight into "I Belong To The Night" and literally with the second beat the stick in my right hand breaks right at the butt end leaving nothing to use until a suitable time to get another which is rather annoying. Not to worry… just a little glitch. Unfortunately this isn't to be the only one as the power keeps going down on Steve and Jim's guitars and the problem isn't fully ironed out until midway through second song "Don't Stop". Ah well, these things are sent to try us but we carry on regardless, seasoned pros that we are :-)
The rest of the show is trouble-free but it took us a while to get back into our stride. The show ends and it's back to the dressing room for the after-show autopsy. It's decided the guitar amps must never be on the same electrical feed but we're still upbeat and looking forward to putting things right tomorrow.
We head out front to the merchandise stand to meet some fans and we see lots of familiar
faces as well as some new. As these aren't our shows we can't do official Meet and
Greets but this seemed to work pretty well. Show over, it's back into the minibus
and we head to Camberley where we're staying tonight, it's about 80 miles away. We
arrive just after 1.00am and I bypass the bar like a good boy and hit the sack…
Bournemouth O2 Academy photo courtesy of PJ
