Friday 25th September 1999

Wolverhampton - Outta Limit

After our breakfast we hung around in the sitting room waiting for roadie Harry to get his hair straight. Then we went off in search of a pub where we could persuade them to let us watch the qualifying for this Sunday's Grand Prix. The friendly barman gave us the remote control and some coffee, what a nice place Hartlepool is ;-)

For those of you that are in the Grand Prix it was very exciting. For those of you who aren't it was a load of cars going around in circles.

After that it was a short trip to a local roadside breakfast place for those amongst us who slept past 10 o'clock. Then we hit the road to Wolverhampton.

It was a fairly uneventful drive, luckily the traffic was much easier today. We even arrived in Wolves an hour early and had to wait for someone to come and open up the venue. Outta Limit used to be a pub and has been running as a venue for less than a year. Luckily the bar was still there though and we had as much beer as we could drink....wow! But I didn't drink too much as I overdid it yesterday.

After a walk around town past the many full to the brim disco pubs we were a bit disappointed to find a not too full venue when we returned. Still there was about 60 people in and as far as I'm concerned that's easily enough for a gig.

First band for the night was my old friends Leisure, you may remember them from when they supported Carter a few times. They played a rip roaring punk rock set despite the fact that the drummer had just had a major operation on his arm. There was some very strange dancing going on in front of the band and I put it down to the fact that they were drunk and not that they were from Lichfield ;-)

Next on were Rackethead Kev, a local US influenced powerpunkpop outfit. They certainly made a racket, but it was a great one. We were even treated to a fine moonie from the guitarist.

By the time that we came on stage my ears were exhausted and I guess that that must have been the same for a few others as about 30 of the audience left during the second song. That was a little disheartening considering that it was quite a small crowd to start with, but, what the fuck, that's the way the rock 'n' roll cookie crumbles.

I thought that we played very lack lustre and felt a bit cheated by our whole set. Maybe it was just that last night's gig was so good, but it just felt a bit flat and I couldn't get my front-man head into gear.

It's such a shame because the venue and the people who run it are fantastic. We were made very welcome and they were very cool about the lack of punters on the night, saying that that's the way it goes sometimes.

After the gig, quite a lot of folk came up to me and the band and said that we were great, one even went as far to say that we were better than Carter, so I guess that it couldn't have been that bad.

Oh well, hopefully we will be better the next time we play Wolverhampton. Thanks to everyone that came along, it really was nice to see you. Thanks also to Leisure and Rackethead Kev for great sets.

Over and Out,

fruity xxx