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METROPOLIS TOUR
Buckley Tivoli
8 October 2010
FM Tour Diary: Buckley Tivoli - 8 October 2010
So we’re back at The Tivoli in Buckley! I’m looking forward to it very much, we had some great times there. Wow I never thought we’d see the day.
Richard and I wake around 10.00am, get ready and head into Chester in search of Costa Coffee. It really is a lovely town with some gorgeous architecture. We find one in Smiths of all places, settle down and while away a bit of time with some idle chat. We both have kids and most of the conversation revolves around them. We head back to the hotel and I get a call from Adrian that we’re meeting in reception at 3.10pm. Richard heads off to Buckley around 1.00pm.
We meet as arranged get in the car and head off to The Tivoli. We pull up outside
The Tiv and it’s exactly the same, now I’m not sure if this is a good or a bad thing.
We park up and head inside - again nothing has really changed we’re in a Buckley
time warp. The gear is nearly ready but we have a digital out-front mixing desk which
is being temperamental. Richard is his usual calm self and lets the PA guy try and
get things sorted but after an hour announces “I’m going to have to take charge”
which he does and everything is soon working properly. Star man is our Richard.
After soundcheck I go and have a shower at the venue. The Tiv has many great attributes but a decent shower is unfortunately not one of them. I go from being boiled alive one second to full scale hypothermia the next...
The lights go down the intro tape bursts into life, will Jim’s guitar work? The answer to the question is a big fat yes and we’re up and running. At Manchester we had a fantastic monitor guy, unfortunately tonight in Buckley we have the complete opposite end of the spectrum. We have the equivalent of an untrained chimp. As we kick into Wildside all the monitors are switched off, muted. Monitors help us hear things on stage so Steve is singing away but not hearing a note.. Bubbles finally un-mutes them and we immediately wish he’d mute them again, they sound bloody awful, whistling and squealing. Bloody hell this is hard work. Merv and Jim take it in turns to go and try and sort them out. Finally they get them sounding reasonable but our primate friend on the monitor desk starts fiddling and we go back to square one.
Although the sound onstage is atrocious the crowd are fantastic, as usual, and help pull us through. We’ve added “Other Side of Midnight” to the set for tonight’s show and the other guys attempt the “walk” in the breakdown, not bad lads for a first attempt. We finish and leave the stage, Jim decides to offer our friend on the monitors some career advice “Don’t give up your f***ing day job you tw*t”. Very true sage-like words JK. Monitors aside it’s three out of three. We get ready for the Meet and Greet and as there is no real curfew we can have a good chat with people tonight, cool. Only Adrian, Merv and myself are staying over tonight so we collect up the remaining rider and head back to the hotel in Chester, have a couple of beers and hit the sack.
Three more shows under our belts all with great attendances. Once again thanks everyone for your continued love, appreciation and support. We’re having a blast and loving it too, here’s to many more nights of the same (apart from the Tivoli monitors and A&E).
Love, light and peace,
Pete x
Buckley live photos courtesy of Jeff Price
Tivoli photo by Steve Church
